Awami National Party Secretary General Ehsan Wyne said while delivering a lecture at Aiwan-i-Waqt that although corruption was also there during the previous eras, it has gone up now, which should not have happened.
He said Pushtoons and Balochs were calling for separate provinces in Balochistan, and there would be no harm in accepting their demand.
He welcomed Gen Ashfaq Parvaiz Kayanis announcement for the withdrawal of army from Balochistan during the next couple of months. However, he said, Balochistan had faced so many military operations in the past that the people of the province were not ready to take the withdrawal pledges on their face value.
The ANP leader said the army should give an assurance to the people of Balochistan that they would not have to face another military operation in the future. Likewise, he said, they should also be given undertaking that there would be no forced disappearances.
He made a strong plea that the people of the countrys most backward province should be given their due rights. Patriotism is not something that grows somewhere; patriotism is linked to rights.
As for the role being played by the ANP in mitigating sufferings of the people, Wyne said it was urging the PPP to uproot corruption, control inflation, slash administrative expenditure, reduce dependence on IMF and World Bank and take steps to make the country self-reliant.
He said the budgets for the Presidency and the Prime Ministers House should also be reduced substantially.
The ANP leader said although his party was a coalition partner, it was not rubberstamping all decisions of the PPP leadership. In his opinion poor performance of the present setup could in part be attributed to inexperience.
Answering a question about the armys role, he said it should be confined to defending the country. He praised the sacrifices rendered by the army in its ongoing war against terror. Despite that, he said, the army has no right to take any decision on what kind of ties the government should have with the neighbouring countries. This decision was for the civil government to take.
He regretted that the role of the government at present was no more than that of a puppet.
In response to a question about Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khans allegation that Imran Khans sit-in against drone attacks was ISI-sponsored, the ANP secretary general said the PML-N leader had also been part of the forces that have been making alliances in the past. He said Nisar knew well how the (defunct) IJI had been formed, who the ISI wanted to see in power at the time and who it would want to be ruling at present.
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