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Pak traders, govt standoff worsens

The twelve-day-old standoff between the military government in Pakistan and traders has intensified with the former warning of imprisonment for striking traders and the latter threatening they would launch a civil disobedience movement.

Urdu broadcasts of Radio Zahedan and the BBC reported that even as country's Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz reiterated his government 's stand to stick to its decision to distribute tax survey forms and charge general sales tax, traders in Hyderabad in Sindh announced a programme of relay hunger strike.

A day before, traders in Punjab had announced the trading community would launch a civil disobedience movement to force the government to stop ''harassing'' them in the name of tax.

But the military government, which has been repeatedly saying it will not cow down before the traders' strike, has plans to deal with any such situation. Sada-i-Islami Jamhoori Iran said the government would give three-month jail terms to traders who continue with their strike and would arrest those who resist receiving tax survey forms.

To counter this threat, the traders have decided to involve political and religious parties in their agitation. They plan to call an all-party meeting to discuss the present crisis. Traders allege that the government was acting at the behest of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Since religious parties are bitterly opposed to the interference of these bodies in Pakistan's domestic affairs, they support traders and condemn IMF and the World Bank.

UNI

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