The Anjuman Muzareen Punjab (AMP) organized a demonstration on 17 April 2009 - the International Peasants Day. It aimed to raise the issue of land ownership rights by reminding the current ruling party, Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League - N, about their election promise to give the Okara lands to them.

Hundreds of peasants, including women, students, political leaders and social activists from various districts of Punjab participated and also demanded to put an end to the fake cases against the AMP leaders. During the demonstration, they threatened to hold a hunger strike in front of the Parliament House and Supreme Court if the government did not fulfill their promise. The peasants also appealed to the international organizations, as well as local human rights organizations and “Left Parties” to support them in this struggle.

ACPP has been following up the land struggle of the peasants in Okara since 2002, including atrocities of the military against farmers and their leaders who were fighting for ownership of lands which they have been cultivating for over 100 years. Many were threatened or even arrested over false charges for refusing to withdraw their demands for land ownership. More information about the struggle can be found in SUA030512(4), UA030505(3) , SUA020830(9) and UA020806(8) , as well as subsequent Updates issued by ACPP.

Source:
Anjuman-e-Muzareen, Punjab Pakistan (AMP)

According to the investigation report of Human Rights Watch, Pakistani paramilitary forces have killed at least four Pakistani tenant farmers, tortured dozens of others and arrested hundreds more in the violent dispute over ownership of land in Okara, Punjab province. Pakistan's interior minister, Faisal Saleh Hayat, who controls the paramilitary forces, denied that his forces had committed any rights abuses.

In the past two years, tens of thousands of tenant farmers in Okara have resisted efforts by the military to weaken their legal rights to their farmland in Pakistan, where many families have worked for generations. As the dispute reached its peak between 5 May and 12 June 2003, Hotline Asia issued SUA030512(4) to request the government to stop harassing the tenants through raids, arrests and laying false charges against them.

Source:
South China Morning Post
Human Rights Watch

Following the harassment and arrests of Okara farm tenants in early May, a tenant from Chak 5/4-L was shot dead and two others injured, when rangers, a security force under direct control of the military, fired into a crowd at an Okara military farm on 11 May 2003. While the Anjuman-e-Muzareen Punjab (Tenants Association or AMP) claims that Muhammad Amir was killed by the rangers' firing, the law enforcement agencies have registered a case against the AMP leadership. The tenants refused to hand over his body to the law enforcers and petitioned the Lahore high court for an impartial post mortem to ascertain the actual cause of his death. On the application of the tenants at Lahore High Court for registration of the case, the court ordered the police to also register the tenant's version in the same First Information Report (FIR).

Since the shooting, the rangers and police have closed down all links to the villages. The telephone lines were cut and the canal water stopped. Access to medical aid has also been denied, resulting in the death of four residents of the Okara military farms.

Almost all the opposition parties including Benazir Butto's Pakistan Peoples Party and Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League have openly supported the cause of the tenants. Most of the newspapers in Pakistan have written editorials against the atrocities. Civil rights organizations have also given active support, with demonstrations held all over the country in favor of the tenants. The Joint Action Committee for Peoples Rights (JAC) Lahore held a protest camp in Lahore on Saturday 24th May. But the authorities are still not willing to listen to the tenants and solve the issue by giving them the land they have been cultivating for over 100 years.

The Foreign Ministry, reportedly approached by leading international Human Rights watchdogs, has asked the law enforcement agencies to provide it with a fact finding report on the uprising of tenants, and what actually led to their killing in clashes with the armed forces at Okara Military Farm.

It has been learnt that the US based Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have expressed their concern and shock over the blatant violations of the tenants rights. According to a UN Press Release (16 May), the special rapporteur on summary executions, Asma Jahangir, has also expressed concern and urged the government of Pakistan to fully investigate the circumstances of the killing and hold an independent inquiry into the ongoing confrontation between rangers and tenants in the Okara farms.

Peasants at Okara district have been under siege by Rangers and police for the past two months in a disagreement about the payment of "contract money" under the new contract system. They refused to pay the money, arguing that the military is not the owner of the land, and that they were forced to sign the "contract agreement" last year, which had changed their status from tenants to leasees.

As all tenants from 19 villages have refused to obey the orders of the military farms management, the rangers and police have reportedly resorted to repressive measures against the tenants and their families, to force them to pay. This resulted in 8 tenants being killed, and hundreds wounded, and arrested. Over 106 false cases have been registered against the leadership of AMP.

The conflict between tenant farmers and the farm management intensified in 2000, when tenants decided to actively fight for the right to land as promised by the Pakistan government since 1999, and against the change of their status from tenants to lessees of land they have been tilling for 100 years. For background information and recent events, please refer to Hotline's support for the tenants struggles at SUA030512(4), UA030505(3), SUA020830(9) and UA020806(8).

Source:
The DAWN
The Nation
UN Press Release (http://www.unog.ch/news2/documents/newsen/hr0303e.htm)
UN Wire
Hotline Pakistan

Almost all of the tenant farmers at the Okara farms have signed the new 7-year contract proposed by the military management since September. But tenant farmers at Khanewal and other farms in Punjab have not signed the contract.

In its 1999 election campaign the Pakistan Government promised to allot land to landless farmers. As the farmers organized themselves in 2000 to fight for the legal ownership rights promised by the government, the violence against them intensified, culminating in brutal repression by government agencies in collaboration with military forces. However, the struggle of the poor farmers in Punjab, who have been tilling the land for a century, has its roots in the oppressive administration and management by the military and agencies appointed by the government since the 1970s.

An attempt to change from a tenure to a contract arrangement sparked the tenant uprising and led to shootings arrests and massive police operations since January 2002. Hotline issued UA020806(8) and SUA020830(9) in August to support the farmers' struggles.

Source:
Hotline Pakistan