Hotline Asia Urgent Appeals -- SUA020830(9)

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Update

Summary

Four men and a woman were killed and 18 others were wounded when police and rangers (paramilitrary personnel) fired tear gas and resorted to shooting to disperse tenants of the Okara military farms on Saturday, 24 August 2002.

It is reported that large contingents of the police and rangers besieged villages Nos. 13/4-L and 4/4-L, which house tenants on Okara military farms. The residents had gathered in large numbers to object to the presence of the police and rangers.

The police also arrested 20 to 25 of the farmers and were also conducting raids to carry out more arrests. In order to conceal their highhandedness, the administration is alleged to have filed false cases under the Anti Terrorist Act (ATA) against the poor tenants.

For at least the next 5 days after the arrests and shootings, these villages have been under siege and the villagers are hardly able to have any contact outside.

Please write polite letters to express your concern about the shooting in Okara farms, to prevent similar violence and to ensure a peaceful and just solution to the question of the tenants' land rights. Urge authorities to:

1. immediately stop the police/rangers' action in Okara, and urge the military administration to hold talks with the farmers instead to using threats and coercive power that risk further crackdown;

2. immediately and unconditionally release the arrested tenants, drop the false cases under the ATA against them, and stop further attempts to arrest others;

3. form an independent Inquiry Commission consisting of High Court Judges to investigate the situation and make recommendations for an amicable solution to the problems; and

4. ensure that no lands - a source of subsistence for nearly a hundred years - are taken away from the tenant farmers.

Sample Letter

Background

There are 21 farms in the province of Punjab under the military and agriculture department's control. Tenant farmers have been tilling these state lands for decades and have been reportedly oppressed under their administration.

In 1999, the Pakistan government announced that lands should be allotted to landless tenants. However, under the oppression from the administration, farmers started their struggle for ownership rights. Further, an attempt to alter the tenure arrangement on the military farms in Okara district in January 2002, sparked the tenant uprising which has intensified and spread to the whole province since then.

Recently in June 2002, farmers in Khanewal and Okara districts in Punjab observed a siege for many days with their supply of water and telephone cut off and the filing of allegedly false cases against them by the farm administration. They have also faced harassment and atrocities at different times since January 2002.

The shootings and killings at the military farms of Okara on 24 August 2002 shows that violence against the tenant farmers has not yet stopped as they continue to demand for their land rights and livelihood.

For more background information about the tenant farmers' harassment by law enforcement agencies and struggle for land rights, please read UA020806(8).

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