In the early hours of November 11 the police raided the house of comrade Jam Saqi in Hyderabad. Jam is one of the most famous names on Pakistani left. He was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) until 1991.
He was imprisoned by various regimes for more than 15 years in his political struggle. The longest term he served was 10 years of rigorous imprisonment under the ruthless 11-year dictatorship of the fundamentalist, Genreal Zia ul Haq. On November 7, 2007 he presided over the mass meeting held to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Russian revolution at Pakistan Steel Mills. In this meeting workers from the steel mills, port qasim, KESC (Karachi Electric Supply Corporation), a machine tool factory, PIA (Pakistan International Airlines) and other departments participated along with many unemployed youth.
This meeting was organized by the PTUDC, of which Jam Saqi is on the national leadership. He is also a revolutionary leader of the left in the PPP. The Steel Mill workers are one of the most militant sections of the Pakistani proletariat. The PTUDC has been mobilizing a campaign to stop the privatization of the Karachi steel mills, the largest industrial unit in Pakistan. The imposition of a state of emergency and enhanced repression was also meant to break the resistance of the workers against privatization and other recipes of the Imperialist institutions. Jam Saqi was a major inspiration for this movement and was playing a vital role in bringing this struggle onto the political arena.
Earlier a strike by the engineers of PIA was one of the main reasons for imposing a state of emergency and use theses brutal measures to attack the workers. Now the movement in the steel mills and other departments is picking up. The attack on Comrade Jam Saqi shows the threat that the state feels from the labor movement in Pakistan.
People who have spoken to Jam say that he has vowed to carry on the struggle and fight to the finish for a socialist victory. He is not in good health due to the repression he has faced all his life but he has said that as the resistance heats up his morale and his body are ready for the fight.
Please send messages of solidarity and support to the PTUDC (info [at] ptudc.org).
You can read an interview with Jam Saqi from earlier in the year here .