This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/07/pakistan-military-blocks-antidrone-convoy

The article has changed 10 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Pakistani military blocks anti-drone convoy from entering tribal region Pakistani military blocks anti-drone convoy from entering tribal region
(35 minutes later)
The Pakistani military has blocked a convoy carrying thousands of Pakistani protesters and a small contingent of US anti-war activists who were trying to enter a tribal region along the border with Afghanistan in a demonstration against US drone strikes. Makeshift roadblocks, security threats and warnings from Pakistan's army forced Imran Khan to abandon his unprecedented attempt to lead a cavalcade of anti-drone protesters deep into the country's restive tribal belt on Sunday.
The group, led by the cricketer turned politician Imran Khan and his political party, was turned back miles from the border of South Waziristan. After an hour of negotiations, Khan announced that the caravan would return to the city of Tank, about nine miles away. There, he delivered a speech to the crowd of about 10,000. Leading a convoy of thousands of supporters, the former cricketer was within striking distance of South Waziristan, where the CIA uses remote-controlled planes in the fight against Islamist militants, when he abruptly turned back.
Khan has harshly criticised the Pakistani government's co-operation with Washington in the fight against Islamist militants. He has been especially outspoken against US drone strikes targeting militants and has argued that Islamabad's alliance with Washington is the main reason Pakistan is facing a homegrown Taliban insurgency. Later Khan said he had been forced into the change of plan because of warnings from the army and the risk of becoming stuck after the military-imposed curfew.
He has suggested that militant activity in Pakistan's tribal areas will dissipate when the US ends the war across the border in Afghanistan. "We want to give a message to America that the more you carry out drone attacks, the more people will hate you," Khan told the crowd. Addressing an impromptu rally of his supporters, he said the convoy had still been a huge success because he had gone to areas that his political rivals "can only look at on maps".
Anti-American sentiment was evident at the gathering, with banners saying "Down with America" and "The friend of America is the traitor of the nation". "We want to give a message to America that the more you carry out drone attacks, the more people will hate you," Khan told the crowd.
Pakistan's tribal regions, such as North and South Waziristan, serve as bases for militant groups such as the Taliban to stage raids across the border into Afghanistan. But after two gruelling days of travel, the U-turn seemed to surprise some, including a senior party official who got out of his car on the heat-baked roadside surrounded by arid scrubland and declared he had no idea what was going on.
The protest convoy of about 150 cars set out on Saturday from the capital, Islamabad, and stopped overnight in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, 250 miles away. The plan for the second and final day was to travel another 70 miles to reach Kotkai, in South Waziristan. But the military stopped the convoy in the town of Kawar. Others expressed anger, saying Khan was more interested in using the event to burnish his popularity before a general election due at some point in the next six months.
Khan said he had wanted to continue the journey to Kotkai, but the army had said it was too late and that going into South Waziristan at night was dangerous. Khan said he had not wanted to put his supporters in danger, so he had turned the rally around to Tank. "I am very disappointed," said Khalil Khan Dawar, an oil industry worker who had travelled all day to get to the edge of the tribal agency. "We had to get to South Waziristan. For him this is not just about drones, it is about popularity and elections."
Umar Younus, a spokesman for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said the army stopped the convoy at a checkpoint and would not allow it to go any further. Some have also questioned the relevance of Kotkai, the town in South Waziristan where Khan hoped to hold his rally, to the drone debate. The vast majority of drone attacks now take place in North Waziristan, and Pakistani army efforts to wrest control from militants have forced many of Kotkai's residents to leave.
Khan said the two-day motorcade had been a success. "We have taken the voice of the people of Waziristan to the world," he said. The abandonment of the much-publicised attempt to reach Kotkai was the second sudden change of plan on the same day. Earlier Khan had appeared to reassure a largely female delegation of the US peace group Code Pink that there would be no attempt to enter the tribal areas and that instead a rally would be held in the town of Tank.
Thousands of supporters had turned out along the route to cheer on the convoy, which stretched about nine miles, including accompanying media. Some of those packed into the vehicles waved flags for Khan's political group and chanted: "We want peace." By midday it was decided to push on regardless, apparently out of a desire not to disappoint the throngs of people who had joined his convoy along the road from the capital, Islamabad. That was despite the all too evident disapproval of authorities who had placed shipping containers across the road at three different points.
Video on Pakistani media showed barricades with hundreds of police in riot gear, a sign of concerns that the motorcade would be attacked or become unruly. The procession of vehicles, including buses crammed with supporters waving the red and green flag of the Khan's political party, ground to a halt as throngs of protesters worked to push the obstacles out of the way, in one instance destroying a small building in the process.
About three dozen Americans from the US-based anti-war group Code Pink joined Khan for the march. They say the US drone strikes have terrorised peaceful tribes living along the border and killed many innocent civilians as well as Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Indignities and discomforts are nothing new to the mostly middle-aged and female activists of Code Pink, some of whom have been arrested while campaigning against US drone strikes. But being trapped on a bus travelling towards Pakistan's tribal badlands proved too much even for the most hardened of campaigners. "We had only one toilet break in nine hours," said Medea Benjamin, leader of the 35-strong team of Americans who had agreed to join Khan on the march.
To add to their miseries, their minders urged them to stay behind the curtains of their bus – emblazoned on its side with huge images of people killed by drone strikes – throughout much of the journey, particularly in many of the areas affected by militant groups.
"It was hard for these people because they are protesters and they wanted to get out there," said Shahzad Akbar, a lawyer who was looking after the group. "But there's no way we are going to let them get out in some of those towns!"
Billed as a protest against drone strikes, which Khan and his supporters claim kill large numbers of innocent civilians as well as flouting Pakistan's sovereignty, the procession had the feel of a political rally on wheels. Many of the vehicles were emblazoned not with anti-drone slogans but with pictures of PTI politicians anxious to be included on the party's official ticket in the upcoming elections.