Pakistan

[blindpig]

10 Killed, +1750 Injured in Protestors-Police Clash in Pakistan


Protestors-Police Clash in Pakistan. May. 11, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@KTNews11

Published 11 May 2023

"...1,393 civilians and 357 law enforcement officers were among the injured parties..."

On Thursday, According to medical and law enforcement authorities, a significant number of casualties, comprising no less than ten fatalities and more than 1,750 injuries, have resulted from the confrontations between demonstrators and law enforcement personnel in Pakistan after the apprehension of the former Prime Minister, Imran Khan.

Various sources from both police and medical centers have informed that the fatalities resulting from the incident in question were exclusively those of civilians.

In addition, the sources disclosed that 1,393 civilians and 357 law enforcement officers were among the injured parties.

The altercation erupted after the mobilization of the workers affiliated with Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, who resorted to public demonstrations due to Khan's detainment.


On Tuesday, Khan was apprehended by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on purported grounds of corruption and corrupt activities.

This occurred while he was attending a hearing for other legal cases that implicated him, at the premises of the Islamabad High Court.

The federal government of the nation has instituted the deployment of the national army within the capital city of Islamabad, as well as in the prominent cities situated within the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/10- ... -0005.html

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Imran Khan’s Arrest Will Bring Pakistan’s Year-Long Crisis Much Closer To Its End Game
MAY 12, 2023

By Andrew Korybko – May 9, 2023



The Establishment crossed the opposition’s red line as part of their latest power play, practically daring people to publicly defy them and thus put their lives on the line, yet a large number of them are doing precisely that out of patriotic fervor since they fear losing their country.

The post-modern coup that removed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan (IK) from office last April as punishment for his multipolar foreign policy catalyzed cascading crises across the economic, judicial, political, and security spheres that have shaken this South Asian state to its core. The US-backed regime that was installed in his place refuses to hold free and fair elections as early as possible since they know they’d lose after the former premier’s PTI party won multiple by-elections over the past year.

During that same time, the post-modern coup regime viciously cracked down on society by abducting dissidents and censoring the media out of desperation to retain power. Far from pressuring the Pakistani people into silence and forcing them to accept what IK calls their imported government, they continued peacefully protesting for the right to exercise their democratic will sooner than later. Only upon resolving Pakistan’s political crisis in that manner, these patriots believe, can the other ones then be tackled.

To their credit, they remained committed to this path despite last November’s assassination attempt against IK that he blamed on The Establishment, the raid on his home in mid-March, and the Interior Minister’s continued death threats against him. Their red line was always that he wasn’t to be arrested on trumped-up charges as part of the post-modern coup regime’s lawfare since this scenario would pose a threat to his life due to The Establishment’s reputation and also likely doom any democratic solution.

That red line was just crossed after dozens of Ranger paramilitary forces stormed an Islamabad courthouse to abduct him on Tuesday in a move that former PTI Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari described “as if (they were) invading an occupied land”. Nationwide protests were organized in response and are still occurring at the time of this analysis’ publication, but the post-modern coup regime might exploit this reaction to justify a conventional military coup in the worst-case scenario.

The Establishment’s latest power play is extremely dangerous since these stakeholders already know very well how polarized society has become over the past year. They could have responsibly exerted influence on their political proxies that replaced IK after last April’s regime change to organize free and fair elections as early as possible in order to serve as a pressure valve. That could have averted the cascading crises that followed and just risked reaching their breaking point on Tuesday.

Some sort of pragmatic working arrangement could still have been brokered between them and the PTI in theory upon the latter returning to power as expected in that case, yet no such outcome appears possible now after The Establishment crossed the opposition’s red line as part of their power play. They’re practically daring people to publicly defy them and thus put their lives on the line, yet a large number of them are doing precisely that out of patriotic fervor since they fear losing their country.

In their minds, a new dark age is rapidly descending upon Pakistan, which might never restore the sovereignty that it’s losing by the day as a result of the cascading crises catalyzed by last April’s regime change. They can’t in good conscience sit back and let this happen without knowing in their hearts that they tried doing something tangible to stop it. This explains why they’re literally risking their lives right now protesting against IK’s abduction and all that it entails for their country’s democratic future.

At present, it appears unlikely that The Establishment will relent by releasing him and pressuring their political proxies to publicly agree on a date for holding free and fair elections sometime in the very near future, but that doesn’t mean that their calculations might not change. In any case, it’s clear that Pakistan’s year-long crisis is reaching its end game since there are really only two mutually exclusive outcomes that are possible: a chance at true democracy or continuing to languish under dictatorship.

https://orinocotribune.com/imran-khans- ... -end-game/

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Imran Khan: “I Will Come Back with a Strong Government”
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 12, 2023
Dure Akram


Former Prime Minister Imran Khan during the interview with Dure Akram

Sometimes, a lot can change in a day. While it was only on Monday that United World spoke with former prime minister Imran Khan at his heavily-guarded residence in Lahore, the 70-year-old has since then been arrested from the capital Islamabad by paramilitary officers. Deadly riots and disorder have become the order of the day to protest the intense exchanges in a courtyard where Mr. Khan–who commands the support of millions–had made an appearance to face corruption charges.

Revolutionaries come in all shapes and forms and while former Prime Minister Imran Khan may not look like one, his energetic brushes with the status quo suggest otherwise.

Panicked murmurs of something along the tune of what transpired in the premises of Islamabad High Court on Tuesday (when he was due to appear in a case of corruption allegations) had been running through the country since the night before.

A day earlier, he had sat down with United World International and talked about the “people who want (him) killed.”

“I have very powerful enemies, and all of them are scared of me coming into power,” a very straightforward Mr. Khan noted it just like it was.

Not a believer in holding any punches, he dauntlessly called one of the heads of the local intelligence agency, General Faisal Naseer, allegedly responsible for “not one but two assassination attempts on me.”

“It’s a risk every time I step outside my house”

“It’s a risk every time I step outside my house,” he had prophesied in an eerie manner, “considering their access to all the coercive power and information.”

His heated diatribe against the perpetrators of an assassination attempt on him had, nevertheless, resulted in a rather hard-hitting rebuttal from the public relations wing of the Pakistan Army. In a statement, the director-general had rebuked him for “hurling baseless allegations” against a senior military officer currently serving in the armed forces. Legal action could also be pursued, he warned.

That the president of his party and a staunch ally, ex-chief minister of Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, admitted to pulling the brakes on the registration of the police investigation against the much-talked-about attack on a rally held last year further thickens the plot. Why is the opposition determined to fuel a narrative that reeks of divisiveness when one of their own was not interested in pursuing the complaint, many wonder? Considering the unwillingness of Mr. Khan to put forward any concrete evidence against the accused, some in his inner circle, including a key appointee, Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, have also decided to distance themselves from his allegations.

Visuals making rounds on social media show him composed amid shattered window panes as heavily-armed Rangers step towards him. There are reports of him being dragged across the courtyard. His counsel narrates hits on the injured leg as a sea of uniformed men struck the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), a leading political party.

“All surveys show the PTI is ahead of other parties”

Moving fingers over charcoal prayer beads wrapped carelessly around his left wrist, his beady eyes intent on something far away, Mr. Khan believed in the strength of millions his party pulled. “All the surveys show that the PTI is way ahead of other parties.” His predictions are spot-on, as according to Gallup Pakistan, the ex-premier was overwhelmingly “positively rated” by 61 per cent of Pakistanis. Most of the by-polls held after he was ousted in a no-confidence move last year have been a clean sweep for the PTI. “This is what they are afraid of!” he exclaimed.

The unprecedented cricket icon is no stranger to popularity. Having an illustrious career in international cricket, his historic triumph in the 1992 World Cup rubberstamped him as “the finest cricketer to come from Pakistan.” The charismatic halo continues to this day as people herald him as a true messiah.

But when asked whether, at the height of his fame, he had considered entering politics, he laughed it off. “There is a very clear verse in the Quran. You make one plan and Allah makes another plan. But once I decide to do something, I never fear the consequences.”

“Big mafias have to loose”

“I will do whatever it takes to complete my mission even when it comes at the cost of my life,” he reaffirmed. Known for coining nicknames for his political rivals, he once again mentioned how the “big mafias” had a lot to lose and, therefore, “the stakes were much, much higher.”

At the center of the biggest political storm Pakistan has ever seen, Mr. Khan acknowledged that his life was in danger but continued, “The fear of death should never deter you from your objective, which is the rule of law and justice of Pakistan.”

However, Khan, too, knows that when given a chance, he had failed to fulfill all he had promised during the high-voltage campaign. The justification for their own lackluster performance remains the same as before: weak standing in the executive. Despite a successful election, Imran Khan’s Ministry was formed by forging coalitions with a wide array of partners. “A government needs strength to conduct reforms.”

Strong government needed for reforms

“Pakistan needs reforms in almost every sphere, but most of all in establishing the rule of law”, he maintained.

He called his weak government the biggest obstacle and went on to call out this dependency, as engineered by the Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, General (R) Qamar Javed Bajwa. “General Bajwa made sure we were not strong enough,” he revealed.

“Between controlling the election commission, the accountability watchdog agency (National Accountability Bureau), and media and hammering out alliances with the two political families (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples Party), he ensured we were weak and would not implement any reform.”

Mr. Khan maintains that Mr. Bajwa played a phenomenal role in obstructing all reforms, the most important of which was “bringing rule of law” because of his influence on the accountability watchdog. “He would make sure the powerful crooks were not convicted,” the former Prime Minister claimed.

When asked about his plans for the future, he emphasized:

“Given the current economic crisis, there would be no point in forming a lame duck government, one without a strong majority or that depends on allies.” He even went on to proclaim that had he known the reality back in 2018, he would have never accepted the government and instantly gone for reelection.

Cautiously smirking at the oft-used phenomenon used to describe the power-sharing formula with the military leadership, Mr. Khan noted that he, too, had once believed they all stood on “one page.” Nevertheless, this union was short-lived as cracks soon appeared in the rosy picture.

Rule of law as the begin of a civilized society

Today, he prioritizes establishing the rule of law as “a beginning of a civilized society for prosperity, democracy and freedom, all follow afterwards.”

Determined to not continue with the “might is right” mantra, he regretted how Pakistan has never had the rule of law.

“The reason why Pakistan is becoming a failed state is our law of the jungle,” he remarked when acknowledging how it had always been under the control of military dictators. If not for martial law, the country was said to be at the mercy of “these family mafias (who) think they are above the law” no matter how many “crimes they commit.”

“Old global power structures are changing”

The unthinkable seems to have taken his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) by surprise, whose supporters are intent on shutting down the country. However, given the dozens of cases ranging from corruption to terrorism to sedition registered within a year of being ousted from power in a no-confidence vote, Mr. Khan might have smelled the battle afar off. After all, he has, on countless occasions, slammed his legal troubles as politically motivated only to distract him from his demand for snap elections. In the first part of this interview, he confidently asserted that he would make a comeback, and that too, with a strong majority, to continue making sweeping reforms in almost all spheres of the country.

In a bid to put our wide-ranging conversation in a nutshell, here are some pertinent takeaways on Mr. Khan’s views on the foreign policy of Pakistan and how he would pursue relations with the outside world once he comes to power:

Pakistan should take India’s foreign policy as an example

On relations with the immediate neighborhood and Muslim bloc

“The problem is when you become part of blocs, you alienate all the other people who are not in the block. I have always maintained that India has one of the best foreign policies. Its very dignified policy guarantees respect in the world because of its independence. India was non-aligned during the Cold War and, subsequently, has a relationship with everyone.

Today, it is a part of the QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, UWI) with the United States and yet imported cheap oil from Russia during the Ukraine war. That’s the sort of foreign policy that Pakistan should have.”

“Never thought it was a mistake” to land in Russia on the day of Ukraine operation

On whether his controversial trip to Russia was a mistake

“I never thought (landing into Russia that day, UWI) was a mistake. How were we supposed to know that when I arrived there, Russian forces would be walking into Ukraine? Of course, had I known, I would have delayed the trip. But as it happened, I wasn’t supposed to know. Had President Putin consulted me, I might have delayed my trip.”

On India’s cold reception to Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari during a summit held at Goa

“Firstly, let me tell you that it was very foolish of (Bilawal) to go to India. He achieved nothing there except earning humiliation. Running around like a headless chicken all over the world. I don’t know what he has achieved from spending probably millions of dollars on these aimless trips. When I was the prime minister, every foreign trip was evaluated in light of what Pakistan would gain from that trip. At a time when the country is already bankrupt and we are short of dollars, why would anyone go on a trip where he could achieve nothing?

India refuses to come to Pakistan for the Asia Cup. India has point-blank refused to attend any conference in Pakistan so why was this need for Pakistan to rush to India?

Did he think that he was such a good-looking boy that he would win them over? What did he think he was going to achieve there?

The Indian hostility against him was clear as day. He had made remarks against Modi in, I think, New York and he should have been prepared for them not receiving him very well there.

However, this still does not absolve the Indian foreign minister for the disgraceful manner in which he humiliated Bilawal. This goes against all etiquettes of hospitality. When someone is hosting a conference, you do not treat your guests the way he did. And I thought it was very condemnable. It just reeked of arrogance and misplaced arrogance. He probably felt that Pakistan is very weak and therefore, he would get away with these disgraceful comments.”

“Pleased to see” that Saudi Arabia has taken the initiative

On Pakistan being largely unaware of a phenomenal breakthrough between Saudi Arabia and Iran

“I tried my best to decrease the hostilities between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In fact, Prince Mohammed bin Salman had asked for my help and therefore, I went to Iran and went back to Saudi Arabia. We were proposing an end to the Yemen war.

I also tried my best to address and reduce the hostility between Saudi Arabia and Türkiye.

As a Pakistani, I am so pleased that Saudi Arabia has now taken the initiative and mended fences with Iran and Türkiye. This is one of the best news for the whole region, especially considering the prospects of peace in Yemen. The diplomacy of Prince Mohammed bin Salman should be commended because he is moving in the right direction. Saudi Arabia can actually become a pivot for the whole region. There will be more trade, which would lead to prosperity throughout the region.

Look at the European Union. They have raised their standard of living by trading with each other. And now, look at us, we have a huge problem on our Eastern border we can’t trade with them, but then, we’ve hardly invested in any trade with the rest of our neighbors.



Joint cultural projects of Pakistan and Türkiye against “Westernization”

On pursuing a relationship with Türkiye

“Well, I had a very good relationship with President Erdoğan and we wanted to improve our trade relationship along with working on our cultural relationship. Because of him, I got the telecasting rights to a phenomenal TV drama Ertuğrul. We wished to protect our youth, constantly being bombarded with Western movies that take them away from their culture, are young people. The same is the case with Türkiye where people are getting Westernized and moving away from their own culture. They don’t know about the rich heritage of Türkiye.

We even worked on a collaboration to make joint ventures. One of the proposed films was about this freedom fighter from Pakistan who had fought in Türkiye during the Khilafat movement. We once had a meeting with Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammad where we wanted all three nations to collaborate in developing our own history, the Muslim history, the Islamic history.

But, linkages take time to develop. You establish contact. Then, you set up a structure and people on the ground start collaborating.

“Erdoğan probably will win, his party is well organized”

When asked about the ongoing general polls in Türkiye

“First of all, I have to state that electing the head of state is the sole prerogative of the people of that country. It’s about what they want, what their preferences are.

But I have to say that for me, President Erdoğan is one of the true statesmen of the Muslim world. Because you know, when we were fighting our case for oppression in Kashmir, he was among the only three heads of countries that spoke out. Others would not even utter a word against India. He has always stood up for causes, you know, represents the Muslim world and people have a great respect for him.

I think he will win. His party is very well organized. You can’t beat a grassroots party like that. I saw the incredible reception he got when he went to the hospital. People there love him.”

“Without holding elections, we cannot have political stability”

On the Chinese Foreign Minister’s advice for Pakistan to work on domestic stability

“Any sensible person, whether a Pakistani or someone from outside Pakistan, if asked about the ongoing mess that Pakistan is embroiled in, would suggest holding elections because elections bring political stability. The path to economic stability follows afterwards.

However, these criminals (referring to the coalition government, UWI) are worried about their stolen wealth, the NROs (National Reconciliation Ordinance, which grants amnesty, UWI) and their handlers are worried about losing their power. Otherwise, everyone in Pakistan knows that without holding elections, we cannot have political stability.”

On a general preference to opt for de-dollarization

“Nothing is permanent. The only permanent thing in the world is change. And I see a change taking place because you can see other blocks like China emerging as an economic giant. Because of the Ukraine war, Russia is also moving in much closer to China than ever. So, I think in the future, you will see, the old global power system will shift, as it always has in history.”

Afghanistan is Pakistan’s “life line” to Central Asia, but government doesn’t establish proper relationship due to “fear from the U.S.”

On the implications of Pakistan hosting the world’s second-largest refugee population while all efforts to get Afghan Taliban’s help in the fight against terror outfits continue to go down the drain

“Actually, it should have been the easiest thing to develop a powerful relationship with this new Afghan government. We were the closest to them and we had already been moving in the right direction when the change took place. Unfortunately, our government was gone and this government had other priorities. Imagine the foreign minister has been all over the world but Bilawal has still not visited Afghanistan. One reason is that he might not come back, but let’s not talk about that.

The most important country for us is Afghanistan. We have a two-and-a-half thousand-kilometer border with them. We don’t have to just focus on the refugee problem. Afghanistan is a future lifeline to Central Asia. That’s why we were working on trade deals. We were talking about a railway line from Uzbekistan all the way through Afghanistan to Pakistan, which would completely change the amount of trade with Central Asia.

Why would they not want to develop a proper relationship with Afghanistan? Because of fear of offending America. This is it. However, our future lies in our own hands. We need a good relationship with Iran, with Afghanistan, with Central Asian countries and hopefully, one day, when a sensible government comes to power in India, with India, because regional trade is one of the most important ways to bring prosperity.

It’s amazing that a state is doing all this out of fear of offending the US. He has spent millions of dollars running around all over the world and yet he has not been to Afghanistan.”

Stability in Afghanistan benefits Pakistan

On the human rights situation in Afghanistan

“The problem is that the Western countries have latched on to the argument that women are not empowered in Afghanistan. That’s just one thing. But the fact is they cannot ignore peace in Afghanistan, which has arrived after 40 years. If you ask the people of Afghanistan, they’ll talk about the peace they are finally seeing after 40 years of conflict. But the Western countries don’t realize this. I mean, they’re not bothered that Afghanistan finally has stability.

This matters a lot to Pakistan because if there’s instability in Afghanistan, it would overflow into Pakistan considering our long border. We had three groups operating from Afghanistan into Pakistan, TTP, ISIL and Baloch separatists. Now, we don’t. So at least, for us, it should be the best thing to finally see peace in Afghanistan and a government that responds.

The previous governments were actually helping the insurgency within Pakistan because they were pro-India. So just because the U.S. is upset, we stop thinking about our future. What could explain that?”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... overnment/

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Khan Against the Generals[
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 23, 2023
Tariq Ali


Former Prime Minister Imran Khan during the interview with Dure Akram. Image: United World

For much of the past week, former Pakistani Prime Minster Imran Khan’s house in Lahore has been surrounded by armed police, and the Rangers – a repressive force straddling the police and Army but under civilian control – have been on standby. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has ruled that Khan should not be arrested, but he doubts he will stay out of jail for long. The entire leadership of his party, the PTI, is currently behind bars. A state crackdown is in full swing.

This marks a dramatic escalation of the political war between the PTI and the Army, along with its favoured politicians and the government it manoeuvred into place after removing Khan from office last April. The new administration is essentially a coalition of Pakistan’s dynastic parties led by Bhutto-Zardari and the Sharif family. Since it was installed, Khan has repeatedly accused the US of orchestrating the congressional coup against him – motivated by his refusal to support their interventions in Afghanistan and Ukraine. Large numbers of anti-American protesters have taken to the streets, demanding his reinstatement.

Usually, Pakistani leaders can only be forcibly removed from office once they have lost some degree of popular support. If they haven’t, the choices are limited: exile abroad or judicial murder. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed after a 4-3 vote in the Supreme Court; Nawaz Sharif was whisked off to exile in Saudi Arabia; Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in mysterious circumstances at the start of an election campaign. But Khan? Every opinion poll shows him sweeping the country at the next general election. On 8 May, a nervous Army leadership – by no means unified – and a Sharif government fearing a political wipeout, took the decision to arrest Khan by sending in a team of Rangers while he was in the High Court dealing with an old corruption case. He was immediately dragged off to a squalid prison.

Before long, the Chief Justice ordered his release and reprimanded those who ordered the raid. But what happened on 9 May was dramatic. PTI supporters in their thousands launched frontal assault on the Army, invading cantonments in Lahore and Rawalpindi and destroying a model plane in Mianwali. The residence of the Lahore Corp Commander was firebombed. According to police, the leader of the attack was 34-year-old Khadija Shah: one of the most fashionable clothes designers in Lahore (daughter of a former Finance Minister, and granddaughter of Asif Nawaz, a former Army Chief of Staff) who has become something of an icon for the masses of women participating in the recent demonstrations.

In Mardan, an old town in Pakhtunkhwa province, there was another event that stunned the nation. At a huge public meeting demanding the immediate release of the PTI leader, a mullah took to the platform and described Khan as a ‘paighamber’ – or ‘prophet’. This was blasphemy of the highest order. Every Believer, regardless of sect, accepts the Prophet Muhammed as the final Messenger of God. Was the poor mullah overcome by emotion, or was it a deliberate provocation? We shall never know. The microphone was switched off; the anguished crowd began to chant ‘death, death, death’. The others on the platform seized the mullah and he was hacked to death. Problem solved?

Khan’s criticism of the Army and its constant interference in Pakistani politics (of which he himself took advantage not so long ago) has sparked a serious crisis. Those in uniform have been humiliated. The last taboo has been broken. Even in previously ultra-loyal areas like Panjab province, activists have been marching on the barracks. The Army has responded with mass arrests and announced that political prisoners will be tried in military courts. This draconian move is backed by much of the government, which – stupid and short-sighted as ever – has tried to expel PTI parliamentarians, a decision revoked by the Supreme Court. Sentences for dissenters are likely to be stiff: possibly a few hangings of those without elite connections in the hope of deterring future offenders.

Whatever anyone might think of him, Khan is the first political leader in the country who has publicly denounced the Army and insulted its Generals, going so far as to name the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer who allegedly organised the effort to assassinate him. How will the military respond to this unprecedented challenge? General Zia offered Bhutto exile, which he contemptuously refused, before Supreme Court judges ordered his hanging. Khan, too, may be offered exile or a military trial. The temptation to accept the former will be strong (his two sons already live in London with their mother), but a lot will depend on the advice of his current wife, Bushra Bibi, who masquerades as a spiritual leader of sufi persuasion, but is as proficient as any other politician at taking ‘gifts’ from billionaires. The most notorious of these is like a character from a Mohsin Hamid novel: Riaz Malik, a self-made man who has bribed every major politician and General in the land. This is hardly a secret, and Khan’s own dealings with him are the subject of a High Court trial, currently suspended. This involves the Qadir Trust, of which Imran and Bushra are the key trustees, and which, it is alleged, was set up with Malik’s laundered money: millions of pounds were uncovered by Britain’s National Crime Agency and returned to Pakistan. It was, some say, handed back to Malik, who provided a much larger sum, much of it earmarked for a ‘spiritual’ Sufi university in London and Allah alone knows what else. Did the entire PTI cabinet sign off on this project without being allowed to open ‘the sealed envelope’ containing the details? I honestly don’t know. (How long do we have to wait for a Netflix series?)

The function of a military court, meanwhile, would be to bar Khan from politics forever. The judges would probably refrain from executing him; not for moral reasons, but because it would risk unleashing a civil war of sorts. Khan remains popular among a layer of officers, junior and senior, which combined with his mass support means his opponents must tread carefully. At this stage, the military leadership cannot restore order by falling back on traditional sacralisations of the Army. Its legitimacy crisis runs too deep.

Throughout this century, and half of the previous one, political life in Pakistan has displayed all the characteristics of a permanently diseased organism. Commercial capitalism, foreign aid handouts, state-backed industrial monopolies, illegal import-export deals and money-laundering schemes: together, they have created a continuous crisis. Predators fight for the spoils of power and refuse to accept bureaucratic impositions such as paying tax. Every mainstream politician works hard to cultivate the art of clientelism, gathering around them a following of loyal dependents. The latter can make various offerings to those lower down the ladder, often by skimming public funds off elephantine military budgets. Percentage commissions remain hugely popular within the ruling elite.

Old-style corruption still rules the roost, but the emergence of the internet has made life a lot easier by eliminating paper transactions and allowing the rich to conceal their hidden spoils. Not that too much is hidden these days. People can see what’s going on, and have lost hope in politicians and their cronies. Khan is the exception for three reasons. He is no longer the incumbent; he is enough of a foreign policy maverick to deny the US the total subordination it demands; and he has capitalized on the country’s dire economic conditions. Pakitan is now hopelessly dependent on the IMF, experiencing non-stop inflation, and suffering from a corrupted and useless education system that weaponizes religion to prevent children from learning anything useful (the polar opposite of medieval Islam, which produced countless scholars, astronomers, mathematicians and scientists).

The PTI was complicit in all these failures, but it has the advantage of no longer being in office. At present, two of its factions are preparing for Khan’s departure from frontline politics. One is led by Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who has served in virtually every government over the last few decades and would be the safest bet for the Army; the other by Jehangir Tareen, who was once a marginally more radical figure and retains a strong middle-class power base. Whether the PTI can exist without Khan remains an open question. The Army hopes that things will revert to business-as-usual once they’ve dealt with him, and the governing parties will no doubt open their doors to defectors. It must be stressed that none of Pakistan’s political outfits, let alone its military, aims for even a modest change in social relations. They’re not in the business of creating a new society. When people take to the streets to demand one, their only response is repression.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... -generals/

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Following Failed Kidnapping of Imran Khan, Pakistan’s Regime Desperately Cracks Down on Dissent
MAY 25, 2023


Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan.

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan pledged to build a “Naya Pakistan” – a New Pakistan. He hoped to break with decades of internal misrule and gross corruption and offer a hopeful future for the world’s fifth-most populous country, of nearly 248 million people.

Khan’s vision also meant a New Pakistan that ended its external dependencies and subordinate relationship with Washington, which could only be described as neo-colonial.

Khan’s period in power came at a bad time, especially because of the Covid-19 crisis, and his own rule did at times reflect a lack of political acumen and an inability to implement all of the social welfare policies to which he was genuinely dedicated.

But Khan’s term in power was cut short by a regime change-operation, which entailed the collusion of a 12-party coalition, including the two dominant political family dynasties of the Sharifs (of the party PML-N) and the Bhuttos (of the party PPP), who had played musical chairs in running the country as their personal fiefdoms for more than three decades.

Also involved in the regime-change operation was the Chief of Army Staff (always the most powerful individual in the country), and a few of his followers in the military-intelligence apparatus; along with, of course, the United States, which has despised Khan’s independent thinking on foreign policy since 2001, when he established himself as a harsh critic of Washington’s so-called “War on Terror”.

All of these power centers, especially the US embassy in Islamabad, cajoled members of Khan’s own party into abandoning him, with promises of political power (and personal riches).

The idea was that the job was done, and that Khan and his political party, the PTI – the Movement for Justice – would gradually be eliminated as serious contenders from political life.

But the exact opposite occurred. The color revolution instigated by Washington and these other forces backfired terribly.

Despite the horrible state of the economy and the suffering of the social majorities, even during Khan’s rule, things changed following his ouster in April 2022, and tens of millions of Pakistanis have poured onto the streets.

In these massive, ongoing protests, the Pakistani people have condemned the mafias and crooks (the term often used to describe Pakistan’s civilian politicians), as well as the brutal national-security state that has dragged the country back to the status quo ante of repression, corruption, and massive inequality and impoverishment.

For a whole year now, enormous numbers of Pakistanis have been protesting peacefully and attending rallies held by Imran Khan, whose popularity has continued to soar.

Khan is by far the most popular politician in Pakistan, with at least 61% support – in what was probably a conservative estimate in a survey this March by leading pollster Gallup. (The unelected prime minister who replaced Khan, Shehbaz Sharif, had 65% disapproval.)

The Pakistani government and sections of the top brass of the military did not know what to make of this. Their complete attention for the past year has been dedicated to somehow eliminating Khan.

Ludicrous charges of treason or corruption have constantly been leveled against him.

Most gruesomely, there was an assassination attempt against Khan in November, which almost succeeded.

Military commanders knew that Khan not only had the support of the people, but also of the majority of the military itself, especially among the soldiers, as well as many junior- and mid-rank officers.

These were the same military forces that Khan repeatedly said had sacrificed their lives at the behest of Washington’s so-called “War on Terror.” More than 80,000 Pakistani lives were lost in this war, thousands of whom were military soldiers and officers, who had sometimes been ordered to kill innocent people who had nothing to do with terrorism.

This explained the initial reluctance on the part of the generals to assault Khan and his supporters. But things soon changed.

The “arrest” of Imran Khan

The current, unelected regime cooked up corruption charges against Imran Khan. The former prime minister said he was more than willing to go to court to debunk the accusations and expose the sham. This May, he traveled from Lahore to the Islamabad High Court for the case.

As Khan entered the judicial compound, he was manhandled and abducted by military rangers, who were doing the job jointly at the behest of the intelligence services and Interior Ministry.

Khan was kidnapped, with his whereabouts unknown for three days.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court asserted that this was not a lawful arrest but rather an illegal kidnapping, and that Khan should be set free on bail.

The Chief Justice and the Supreme Court hence also became a target for those who have been trying to eliminate Khan by all means. For them, there is no rule of law; they believe their word is law.

When Khan was abducted and detained, huge numbers of demonstrators spent two full days flooding the major and minor cities and towns of the country in protest.

The Pakistani national-security state primarily relied on the most gruesome and thuggish forces in its intelligence agencies to crack down on these protesters.

In these constant demonstrations, thousands of PTI workers have been jailed, tortured, and imprisoned. Some have even been dragged out of their houses, and their family members have been harassed and detained.

For a year, the protests were peaceful. But this May, there was looting, fires, and some violence. There is video footage demonstrating that hundreds of men in civilian clothing were jumping out of army vehicles, posing as protesters, engaging in this violent behavior.

There is evidence suggesting that agents provocateurs at the service of the state were seeking to discredit Khan, depicting him and his followers as supporters of terrorism, demonizing the PTI as a supposed “terrorist” political party.

The military top brass and the ruthlessly corrupt clowns running the government are so desperate they are now equating Khan’s political party with the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban.

Their objective is obvious: to permanently disqualify the country’s most popular party from participating in elections and the political system itself.

In the brutal crackdown this may, the regime has gone one step forward. The military establishment has said that all protesters involved in violence – basically anyone they want to accuse without any evidence – will not be tried in civil courts, but rather in army courts, where traditional due process rules will not be adhered to.

They are using a law known as the Army Act.

Mainstream Western organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have harshly condemned these Pakistani trials in army courts.

The former wrote:

“Amnesty International has documented a catalogue of human right violations stemming from trying civilians in military courts in Pakistan, including flagrant disregard for due process, lack of transparency, coerced confessions, and executions after grossly unfair trials. Therefore, any indication that the trial of civilians could be held in military courts is incompatible with Pakistan’s obligations under international human rights law.”

“This is purely an intimidation tactic, designed to crack down on dissent by exercising fear of an institution that has never been held to account for its overreach. There are several provisions under ordinary criminal laws that can be used to prosecute vandalism and destruction of public property. The right to a fair trial, guaranteed by Pakistan’s constitution, is severely undermined by this move and cannot be justified. It must be struck down immediately.”

Though late in their response, some on Pakistan’s professional left – despite their contempt and envy of Khan and his popularity – have also criticized the Army Act.

The top brass of the military high command and the most venal elements of their intelligence services, along with their partners-in-crime in the current regime, believe this will finally solve the problem of Imran Khan’s threat to the status quo.

But it is important to note that a major chunk of military officers and even corps commanders were not on board with this draconian move.

The extremist elements implementing this “final solution” to the Khan problem feel that Washington and London’s support is sufficient for them to get away with whatever brutality they wish to inflict on his movement and the PTI at this point.

Washington’s response

When the military briefly kidnapped Khan in May, the US government refused to comment on the act, which amounted to a de facto endorsement.

Since then, the State Department has only issued vague declarations on the need to respect the “rule of law” and “democratic principles” (despite the fact that the regime it is currently backing was not elected).

However, there may be some divisions emerging in the Washington establishment over this whole gruesome affair in Pakistan.

Even notorious neoconservative US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, who helped oversee the war on Afghanistan, has conceded that Pakistan is now a “military dictatorship.”


The US desperately wants a stable Pakistan, from which it could project its power, in a region where Washington has largely been forced to retreat, especially after its humiliating defeat in Afghanistan.

The rapprochement arranged by China between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the normalization of ties between Syria and Saudi Arabia, were another major blow to US hegemony.

Washington’s quislings in Pakistan’s military high command and the political class were principally tasked with providing the US with a blank check: air space for any operation to be conducted in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the restoration of a military base closed by the Pakistanis in 2011, and general obedience to US strategy to undermine and subvert any and all things related to Chinese and Russian prosperity, even if they also mean prosperity for Pakistan.

This US strategy included sabotaging the Chinese-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of Beijing’s larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Washington apparently now believes that Islamabad could be coerced into becoming a sort of “major non-Quad ally,” causing the historic Sino-Pakistan relationship to crumble.

However, the political consciousness of Pakistanis has been completely transformed over the past year, and Washington is starting to have doubts whether its planned agenda can be implemented by a government and national-security state so despised by so many Pakistanis.

A rare chance for the US to regain a foothold in the region

Despite having lost nearly all of its prestige and moral authority in the region, the US government could have the chance to earn the goodwill the Pakistani people, if it actually supported democracy and the rule of law in the country.

US Congresswoman Maxine Water reportedly spoke with Imran Khan about the current regime’s human rights violations, and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed Khan, providing the people of the US a rare opportunity to know the facts, to separate the truth from the propaganda, and to urge their Congressional leaders to persuade the government to align itself with actual justice and the actual rule of law.

They should feel the pulse of the masses of Pakistan and not opt for the short-lived gain from propping up dictators who will pliantly obey the US, against the interests of the common people. Such unwise foreign policy actions always result in blowback, and would only hurt US interests in the long run.

The entire world knows which political party and political leader stands for democracy and fair elections in Pakistan. The world also knows which group does not want elections.

The coalition that ironically calls itself the “Pakistan Democratic Movement” is in reality aimed at preventing democracy from emerging by refusing to hold elections.

They are obsessed with banning, imprisoning, or even assassinating Imran Khan, the most popular and most honest political leader in Pakistan’s history.

Why do they want to remove him? Because they know that Khan and his party will sweep the elections.

This ramshackle group should
s of state repression taking place against his party members and leadership, Imran Khan asked supporters to stand strong during this dark period in Pakistan’s history.

For the moment, he has cautioned the people to avoid confronting a ruthless state that is prepared to try thousands in military courts, while still holding thousands under arrest, subjecting many to the worst forms of torture.

With a population eager for a revolution that would topple all the crooks and mafias in government – and in the Washington-backed military-intelligence senior personnel – it is difficult to see how such festering rage can be permanently subdued.

The regime believes it has succeeded in being restored. But tens of millions of Pakistanis and intelligent observers can see that this is delusional thinking.

The regime has crossed the Rubicon, a “red line” that protesters had drawn to warn the criminals against this ongoing savage assault on Imran Khan and his peaceful supporters.

It is hard to imagine that there will not be a cost to pay for that in a country of 248 million, where the bulk of the population is restive and impatient with what they have witnessed happening both to themselves and to the most popular leader in the nation’s history.

Even more crucially, millions of Pakistanis are now empowered in a way they haven’t been for decades. They know change is possible – and it’s in sight. It’s only a matter of time.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... hind-coup/.

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Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, during an interview in Lahore, Pakistan, on June 2, 2023. Photo: Betsy Joles/Bloomberg via Getty Images

SECRET PAKISTAN CABLE DOCUMENTS U.S. PRESSURE TO REMOVE IMRAN KHAN
“All will be forgiven,” said a U.S. diplomat, if the no-confidence vote against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeds.

Ryan Grim, Murtaza Hussain
August 9 2023, 12:00 p.m.

THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept.

The meeting, between the Pakistani ambassador to the United States and two State Department officials, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, controversy, and speculation in Pakistan over the past year and a half, as supporters of Khan and his military and civilian opponents jockeyed for power. The political struggle escalated on August 5 when Khan was sentenced to three years in prison on corruption charges and taken into custody for the second time since his ouster. Khan’s defenders dismiss the charges as baseless. The sentence also blocks Khan, Pakistan’s most popular politician, from contesting elections expected in Pakistan later this year.

One month after the meeting with U.S. officials documented in the leaked Pakistani government document, a no-confidence vote was held in Parliament, leading to Khan’s removal from power. The vote is believed to have been organized with the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military. Since that time, Khan and his supporters have been engaged in a struggle with the military and its civilian allies, whom Khan claims engineered his removal from power at the request of the U.S.

The text of the Pakistani cable, produced from the meeting by the ambassador and transmitted to Pakistan, has not previously been published. The cable, known internally as a “cypher,” reveals both the carrots and the sticks that the State Department deployed in its push against Khan, promising warmer relations if Khan was removed, and isolation if he was not.

The document, labeled “Secret,” includes an account of the meeting between State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, who at the time was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S.

The document was provided to The Intercept by an anonymous source in the Pakistani military who said that they had no ties to Imran Khan or Khan’s party. The Intercept is publishing the body of the cable below, correcting minor typos in the text because such details can be used to watermark documents and track their dissemination.

The cable reveals both the carrots and the sticks that the State Department deployed in its push against Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The contents of the document obtained by The Intercept are consistent with reporting in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn and elsewhere describing the circumstances of the meeting and details in the cable itself, including in the classification markings omitted from The Intercept’s presentation. The dynamics of the relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. described in the cable were subsequently borne out by events. In the cable, the U.S. objects to Khan’s foreign policy on the Ukraine war. Those positions were quickly reversed after his removal, which was followed, as promised in the meeting, by a warming between the U.S. and Pakistan.

The diplomatic meeting came two weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which launched as Khan was en route to Moscow, a visit that infuriated Washington.

On March 2, just days before the meeting, Lu had been questioned at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing over the neutrality of India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan in the Ukraine conflict. In response to a question from Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., about a recent decision by Pakistan to abstain from a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s role in the conflict, Lu said, “Prime Minister Khan has recently visited Moscow, and so I think we are trying to figure out how to engage specifically with the Prime Minister following that decision.” Van Hollen appeared to be indignant that officials from the State Department were not in communication with Khan about the issue.

The day before the meeting, Khan addressed a rally and responded directly to European calls that Pakistan rally behind Ukraine. “Are we your slaves?” Khan thundered to the crowd. “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us?” he asked. “We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance.”

In the meeting, according to the document, Lu spoke in forthright terms about Washington’s displeasure with Pakistan’s stance in the conflict. The document quotes Lu saying that “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.” Lu added that he had held internal discussions with the U.S. National Security Council and that “it seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy.”

Lu then bluntly raises the issue of a no-confidence vote: “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister,” Lu said, according to the document. “Otherwise,” he continued, “I think it will be tough going ahead.”

Lu warned that if the situation wasn’t resolved, Pakistan would be marginalized by its Western allies. “I cannot tell how this will be seen by Europe but I suspect their reaction will be similar,” Lu said, adding that Khan could face “isolation” by Europe and the U.S. should he remain in office.

Asked about quotes from Lu in the Pakistani cable, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “Nothing in these purported comments shows the United States taking a position on who the leader of Pakistan should be.” Miller said he would not comment on private diplomatic discussions.

The Pakistani ambassador responded by expressing frustration with the lack of engagement from U.S. leadership: “This reluctance had created a perception in Pakistan that we were being ignored or even taken for granted. There was also a feeling that while the U.S. expected Pakistan’s support on all issues that were important to the U.S., it did not reciprocate.”

“There was also a feeling that while the U.S. expected Pakistan’s support on all issues that were important to the U.S., it did not reciprocate.”

The discussion concluded, according to the document, with the Pakistani ambassador expressing his hope that the issue of the Russia-Ukraine war would not “impact our bilateral ties.” Lu told him that the damage was real but not fatal, and with Khan gone, the relationship could go back to normal. “I would argue that it has already created a dent in the relationship from our perspective,” Lu said, again raising the “political situation” in Pakistan. “Let us wait for a few days to see whether the political situation changes, which would mean that we would not have a big disagreement about this issue and the dent would go away very quickly. Otherwise, we will have to confront this issue head on and decide how to manage it.”

The day after the meeting, on March 8, Khan’s opponents in Parliament moved forward with a key procedural step toward the no-confidence vote.

“Khan’s fate wasn’t sealed at the time that this meeting took place, but it was tenuous,” said Arif Rafiq, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan. “What you have here is the Biden administration sending a message to the people that they saw as Pakistan’s real rulers, signaling to them that things will better if he is removed from power.”

The Intercept has made extensive efforts to authenticate the document. Given the security climate in Pakistan, independent confirmation from sources in the Pakistani government was not possible. The Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to a request for comment.

Miller, the State Department spokesperson, said, “We had expressed concern about the visit of then-PM Khan to Moscow on the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and have communicated that opposition both publicly and privately.” He added that “allegations that the United States interfered in internal decisions about the leadership of Pakistan are false. They have always been false, and they continue to be.”


Left/Top: Donald Lu, a diplomat in service and assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, waves toward media personnel upon his arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport on July 14, 2023, in Kathmandu, Nepal. Right/Bottom: Pakistani Foreign Secretary Asad Majeed Khan is seen in Ankara, Turkey, on July 6, 2023. Photos: Photo: Abhishek Maharjan/Sipa via AP Images (left); Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images (right)

American Denials

The State Department has previously and on repeated occasions denied that Lu urged the Pakistani government to oust the prime minister. On April 8, 2022, after Khan alleged there was a cable proving his claim of U.S. interference, State Department spokesperson Jalina Porter was asked about its veracity. “Let me just say very bluntly there is absolutely no truth to these allegations,” Porter said.

In early June 2023, Khan sat for an interview with The Intercept and again repeated the allegation. The State Department at the time referred to previous denials in response to a request for comment.

Khan has not backed off, and the State Department again denied the charge throughout June and July, at least three times in press conferences and again in a speech by a deputy assistant secretary of state for Pakistan, who referred to the claims as “propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation.” On the latest occasion, Miller, the State Department spokesperson, ridiculed the question. “I feel like I need to bring just a sign that I can hold up in response to this question and say that that allegation is not true,” Miller said, laughing and drawing cackles from the press. “I don’t know how many times I can say it. … The United States does not have a position on one political candidate or party versus another in Pakistan or any other country.”

While the drama over the cable has played out in public and in the press, the Pakistani military has launched an unprecedented assault on Pakistani civil society to silence whatever dissent and free expression had previously existed in the country.

In recent months, the military-led government cracked down not just on dissidents but also on suspected leakers inside its own institutions, passing a law last week that authorizes warrantless searches and lengthy jail terms for whistleblowers. Shaken by the public display of support for Khan — expressed in a series of mass protests and riots this May — the military has also enshrined authoritarian powers for itself that drastically reduce civil liberties, criminalize criticism of the military, expand the institution’s already expansive role in the country’s economy, and give military leaders a permanent veto over political and civil affairs.

These sweeping attacks on democracy passed largely unremarked upon by U.S. officials. In late July, the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Michael Kurilla, visited Pakistan, then issued a statement saying his visit had been focused on “strengthening the military-to-military relations,” while making no mention of the political situation in the country. This summer, Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, attempted to add a measure to the National Defense Authorization Act directing the State Department to examine democratic backsliding in Pakistan, but it was denied a vote on the House floor.

In a press briefing on Monday, in response to a question about whether Khan received a fair trial, Miller, the State Department spokesperson, said, “We believe that is an internal matter for Pakistan.”

Political Chaos

Khan’s removal from power after falling out with the Pakistani military, the same institution believed to have engineered his political rise, has thrown the nation of 230 million into political and economic turmoil. Protests against Khan’s dismissal and suppression of his party have swept the country and paralyzed its institutions, while Pakistan’s current leaders struggle to confront an economic crisis triggered in part by the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on global energy prices. The present chaos has resulted in staggering rates of inflation and capital flight from the country.


In addition to the worsening situation for ordinary citizens, a regime of extreme censorship has also been put in place at the direction of the Pakistani military, with news outlets effectively barred from even mentioning Khan’s name, as The Intercept previously reported. Thousands of members of civil society, mostly supporters of Khan, have been detained by the military, a crackdown that intensified after Khan was arrested earlier this year and held in custody for four days, sparking nationwide protests. Credible reports have emerged of torture by security forces, with reports of several deaths in custody.

The crackdown on Pakistan’s once-rambunctious press has taken a particularly dark turn. Arshad Sharif, a prominent Pakistani journalist who fled the country, was shot to death in Nairobi last October under circumstances that remain disputed. Another well-known journalist, Imran Riaz Khan, was detained by security forces at an airport this May and has not been seen since. Both had been reporting on the secret cable, which has taken on nearly mythical status in Pakistan, and had been among a handful of journalists briefed on its contents before Khan’s ouster. These attacks on the press have created a climate of fear that has made reporting on the document by reporters and institutions inside Pakistan effectively impossible.

Last November, Khan himself was subject to an attempted assassination when he was shot at a political rally, in an attack that wounded him and killed one of his supporters. His imprisonment has been widely viewed within Pakistan, including among many critics of his government, as an attempt by the military to stop his party from contesting upcoming elections. Polls show that were he allowed to participate in the vote, Khan would likely win.

“Khan was convicted on flimsy charges following a trial where his defense was not even allowed to produce witnesses. He had previously survived an assassination attempt, had a journalist aligned with him murdered, and has seen thousands of his supporters imprisoned. While the Biden administration has said that human rights will be at the forefront of their foreign policy, they are now looking away as Pakistan moves toward becoming a full-fledged military dictatorship,” said Rafiq, the Middle East Institute scholar. “This is ultimately about the Pakistani military using outside forces as a means to preserve their hegemony over the country. Every time there is a grand geopolitical rivalry, whether it is the Cold War, or the war on terror, they know how to manipulate the U.S. in their favor.”

Khan’s repeated references to the cable itself have contributed to his legal troubles, with prosecutors launching a separate investigation into whether he violated state secrets laws by discussing it.


Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party activists and supporters of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan clash with police during a protest against the arrest of their leader in Peshawar on May 10, 2023. Photo: Hussain Ali/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Democracy and the Military

For years, the U.S. government’s patronage relationship with the Pakistani military, which has long acted as the real powerbroker in the country’s politics, has been seen by many Pakistanis as an impenetrable obstacle to the country’s ability to grow its economy, combat endemic corruption, and pursue a constructive foreign policy. The sense that Pakistan has lacked meaningful independence because of this relationship — which, despite trappings of democracy, has made the military an untouchable force in domestic politics — makes the charge of U.S. involvement in the removal of a popular prime minister even more incendiary.

The Intercept’s source, who had access to the document as a member of the military, spoke of their growing disillusionment with the country’s military leadership, the impact on the military’s morale following its involvement in the political fight against Khan, the exploitation of the memory of dead service members for political purposes in recent military propaganda, and widespread public disenchantment with the armed forces amid the crackdown. They believe the military is pushing Pakistan toward a crisis similar to the one in 1971 that led to the secession of Bangladesh.

The source added that they hoped the leaked document would finally confirm what ordinary people, as well as the rank and file of the armed forces, had long suspected about the Pakistani military and force a reckoning within the institution.

This June, amid the crackdown by the military on Khan’s political party, Khan’s former top bureaucrat, Principal Secretary Azam Khan, was arrested and detained for a month. While in detention, Azam Khan reportedly issued a statement recorded in front of a member of the judiciary saying that the cable was indeed real, but that the former prime minister had exaggerated its contents for political gain.

A month after the meeting described in the cable, and just days before Khan was removed from office, then-Pakistan army chief Qamar Bajwa publicly broke with Khan’s neutrality and gave a speech calling the Russian invasion a “huge tragedy” and criticizing Russia. The remarks aligned the public picture with Lu’s private observation, recorded in the cable, that Pakistan’s neutrality was the policy of Khan, but not of the military.

Pakistan’s foreign policy has changed significantly since Khan’s removal, with Pakistan tilting more clearly toward the U.S. and European side in the Ukraine conflict. Abandoning its posture of neutrality, Pakistan has now emerged as a supplier of arms to the Ukrainian military; images of Pakistan-produced shells and ammunition regularly turn up on battlefield footage. In an interview earlier this year, a European Union official confirmed Pakistani military backing to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister traveled to Pakistan this July in a visit widely presumed to be about military cooperation, but publicly described as focusing on trade, education, and environmental issues.

This realignment toward the U.S. has appeared to provide dividends to the Pakistani military. On August 3, a Pakistani newspaper reported that Parliament had approved the signing of a defense pact with the U.S. covering “joint exercises, operations, training, basing and equipment.” The agreement was intended to replace a previous 15-year deal between the two countries that expired in 2020.


Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan leaves after appearing at the Supreme Court in Islamabad on July 26, 2023. Photo: Aamir Qureshi AFP via Getty Images


Pakistani “Assessment”

Lu’s blunt comments on Pakistan’s internal domestic politics raised alarms on the Pakistani side. In a brief “assessment” section at the bottom of the report, the document states: “Don could not have conveyed such a strong demarche without the express approval of the White House, to which he referred repeatedly. Clearly, Don spoke out of turn on Pakistan’s internal political process.” The cable concludes with a recommendation “to seriously reflect on this and consider making an appropriate demarche to the U.S. Cd’ A a.i in Islamabad” — a reference to the chargé d’affaires ad interim, effectively the acting head of a diplomatic mission when its accredited head is absent. A diplomatic protest was later issued by Khan’s government.

On March 27, 2022, the same month as the Lu meeting, Khan spoke publicly about the cable, waving a folded copy of it in the air at a rally. He also reportedly briefed a national security meeting with the heads of Pakistan’s various security agencies on its contents.

It is not clear what happened in Pakistan-U.S. communications during the weeks that followed the meeting reported in the cable. By the following month, however, the political winds had shifted. On April 10, Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote.

The new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, eventually confirmed the existence of the cable and acknowledged that some of the message conveyed by Lu was inappropriate. He has said that Pakistan had formally complained but cautioned that the cable did not confirm Khan’s broader claims.

Khan has suggested repeatedly in public that the top-secret cable showed that the U.S. had directed his removal from power, but subsequently revised his assessment as he urged the U.S. to condemn human rights abuses against his supporters. The U.S., he told The Intercept in a June interview, may have urged his ouster, but only did so because it was manipulated by the military.

The disclosure of the full body of the cable, over a year after Khan was deposed and following his arrest, will finally allow the competing claims to be evaluated. On balance, the text of the cypher strongly suggests that the U.S. encouraged Khan’s removal. According to the cable, while Lu did not directly order Khan to be taken out of office, he said that Pakistan would suffer severe consequences, including international isolation, if Khan were to stay on as prime minister, while simultaneously hinting at rewards for his removal. The remarks appear to have been taken as a signal for the Pakistani military to act.

In addition to his other legal problems, Khan himself has continued to be targeted over the handling of the secret cable by the new government. Late last month, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said that Khan would be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act in connection with the cable. “Khan has hatched a conspiracy against the state’s interests and a case will be initiated against him on behalf of the state for the violation of the Official Secrets Act by exposing a confidential cipher communication from a diplomatic mission,” Sanaullah said.

Khan has now joined a long list of Pakistani politicians who failed to finish their term in office after running afoul of the military. As quoted in the cypher, Khan was being personally blamed by the U.S., according to Lu, for Pakistan’s policy of nonalignment during the Ukraine conflict. The vote of no confidence and its implications for the future of U.S.-Pakistan ties loomed large throughout the conversation.

“Honestly,” Lu is quoted as saying in the document, referring to the prospect of Khan staying in office, “I think isolation of the Prime Minister will become very strong from Europe and the United States.”

March 7, 2022 Pakistani Diplomatic Cypher (Transcription)

The Intercept is publishing the body of the cable below, correcting minor typos in the text because such details can be used to watermark documents and track their dissemination. The Intercept has removed classification markings and numerical elements that could be used for tracking purposes. Labeled “Secret,” the cable includes an account of the meeting between State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, who at the time was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S.

I had a luncheon meeting today with Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Donald Lu. He was accompanied by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Les Viguerie. DCM, DA and Counsellor Qasim joined me.

At the outset, Don referred to Pakistan’s position on the Ukraine crisis and said that “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.” He shared that in his discussions with the NSC, “it seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy.” He continued that he was of the view that this was “tied to the current political dramas in Islamabad that he (Prime Minister) needs and is trying to show a public face.” I replied that this was not a correct reading of the situation as Pakistan’s position on Ukraine was a result of intense interagency consultations. Pakistan had never resorted to conducting diplomacy in public sphere. The Prime Minister’s remarks during a political rally were in reaction to the public letter by European Ambassadors in Islamabad which was against diplomatic etiquette and protocol. Any political leader, whether in Pakistan or the U.S., would be constrained to give a public reply in such a situation.

I asked Don if the reason for a strong U.S. reaction was Pakistan’s abstention in the voting in the UNGA. He categorically replied in the negative and said that it was due to the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow. He said that “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead.” He paused and then said “I cannot tell how this will be seen by Europe but I suspect their reaction will be similar.” He then said that “honestly I think isolation of the Prime Minister will become very strong from Europe and the United States.” Don further commented that it seemed that the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow was planned during the Beijing Olympics and there was an attempt by the Prime Minister to meet Putin which was not successful and then this idea was hatched that he would go to Moscow.

I told Don that this was a completely misinformed and wrong perception. The visit to Moscow had been in the works for at least few years and was the result of a deliberative institutional process. I stressed that when the Prime Minister was flying to Moscow, Russian invasion of Ukraine had not started and there was still hope for a peaceful resolution. I also pointed out that leaders of European countries were also traveling to Moscow around the same time. Don interjected that “those visits were specifically for seeking resolution of the Ukraine standoff while the Prime Minister’s visit was for bilateral economic reasons.” I drew his attention to the fact that the Prime Minister clearly regretted the situation while being in Moscow and had hoped for diplomacy to work. The Prime Minister’s visit, I stressed, was purely in the bilateral context and should not be seen either as a condonation or endorsement of Russia’s action against Ukraine. I said that our position is dictated by our desire to keep the channels of communication with all sides open. Our subsequent statements at the UN and by our Spokesperson spelled that out clearly, while reaffirming our commitment to the principle of UN Charter, non-use or threat of use of force, sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, and pacific settlement of disputes.

I also told Don that Pakistan was worried of how the Ukraine crisis would play out in the context of Afghanistan. We had paid a very high price due to the long-term impact of this conflict. Our priority was to have peace and stability in Afghanistan, for which it was imperative to have cooperation and coordination with all major powers, including Russia. From this perspective as well, keeping the channels of communication open was essential. This factor was also dictating our position on the Ukraine crisis. On my reference to the upcoming Extended Troika meeting in Beijing, Don replied that there were still ongoing discussions in Washington on whether the U.S. should attend the Extended Troika meeting or the upcoming Antalya meeting on Afghanistan with Russian representatives in attendance, as the U.S. focus right now was to discuss only Ukraine with Russia. I replied that this was exactly what we were afraid of. We did not want the Ukraine crisis to divert focus away from Afghanistan. Don did not comment.

I told Don that just like him, I would also convey our perspective in a forthright manner. I said that over the past one year, we had been consistently sensing reluctance on the part of the U.S. leadership to engage with our leadership. This reluctance had created a perception in Pakistan that we were being ignored and even taken for granted. There was also a feeling that while the U.S. expected Pakistan’s support on all issues that were important to the U.S., it did not reciprocate and we do not see much U.S. support on issues of concern for Pakistan, particularly on Kashmir. I said that it was extremely important to have functioning channels of communication at the highest level to remove such perception. I also said that we were surprised that if our position on the Ukraine crisis was so important for the U.S., why the U.S. had not engaged with us at the top leadership level prior to the Moscow visit and even when the UN was scheduled to vote. (The State Department had raised it at the DCM level.) Pakistan valued continued high-level engagement and for this reason the Foreign Minister sought to speak with Secretary Blinken to personally explain Pakistan’s position and perspective on the Ukraine crisis. The call has not materialized yet. Don replied that the thinking in Washington was that given the current political turmoil in Pakistan, this was not the right time for such engagement and it could wait till the political situation in Pakistan settled down.

I reiterated our position that countries should not be made to choose sides in a complex situation like the Ukraine crisis and stressed the need for having active bilateral communications at the political leadership level. Don replied that “you have conveyed your position clearly and I will take it back to my leadership.”

I also told Don that we had seen his defence of the Indian position on the Ukraine crisis during the recently held Senate Sub-Committee hearing on U.S.-India relations. It seemed that the U.S. was applying different criteria for India and Pakistan. Don responded that the U.S. lawmakers’ strong feelings about India’s abstentions in the UNSC and UNGA came out clearly during the hearing. I said that from the hearing, it appeared that the U.S. expected more from India than Pakistan, yet it appeared to be more concerned about Pakistan’s position. Don was evasive and responded that Washington looked at the U.S.-India relationship very much through the lens of what was happening in China. He added that while India had a close relationship with Moscow, “I think we will actually see a change in India’s policy once all Indian students are out of Ukraine.”

I expressed the hope that the issue of the Prime Minister’s visit to Russia will not impact our bilateral ties. Don replied that “I would argue that it has already created a dent in the relationship from our perspective. Let us wait for a few days to see whether the political situation changes, which would mean that we would not have a big disagreement about this issue and the dent would go away very quickly. Otherwise, we will have to confront this issue head on and decide how to manage it.”

We also discussed Afghanistan and other issues pertaining to bilateral ties. A separate communication follows on that part of our conversation.

Assessment

Don could not have conveyed such a strong demarche without the express approval of the White House, to which he referred repeatedly. Clearly, Don spoke out of turn on Pakistan’s internal political process. We need to seriously reflect on this and consider making an appropriate demarche to the U.S. Cd’ A a.i in Islamabad.

https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imr ... ne-russia/

******

Pakistani president approves appointment of Senator Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar as caretaker prime minister
Xinhua | Updated: 2023-08-12 20:01


This handout photograph released by the Pakistan's Press Information Department (PID) on August 10, 2023 shows Pakistan's President Arif Alvi signing the dissolution of the National Assembly, in Lahore. [AFP PHOTO/Pakistan's Press Information Department (PID)]

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistani President Arif Alvi on Saturday approved the appointment of Senator Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar as the caretaker prime minister, said a statement from the President House Media Wing.

The president has given the approval in terms of Article 224(1A) of the Constitution of Pakistan, according to the statement.

Earlier, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, after detailed consultations with the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, or the lower house of the parliament, Raja Riaz, forwarded a summary to this effect to the president for approval, according to a statement from the Prime Minister's Office said.

Kakar has been a member of the Senate of Pakistan since March 2018. He was elected to the Senate of Pakistan as an independent candidate in the general seat from the southwest Balochistan province in the 2018 Pakistani Senate election.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... 1bc1b.html

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US Analyst Daniel Patrick Welch: US Behind Khan’s Ousting (Interview)
AUGUST 12, 2023


Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan leaves after appearing at the Supreme Court in Islamabad on July 26, 2023. Photo: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images.

American writer and political commentator Daniel Patrick Welch says there was never any serious doubt that the United States was behind the toppling of the democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Imran Khan in Pakistan in April 2022.

He added the United States will stop at nothing to maintain its global hegemony, as actions in other theaters show.

Welch made the remarks in an exclusive interview with the Press TV website on Thursday, August 10, a day after The Intercept published a classified document, revealing Washington pushed for the removal of Khan from office over his neutrality on the Ukraine war.

According to the document published by The Intercept, US State Department officials used threats and promises to encourage Khan’s removal as the prime minister.

The US State Department encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Khan as prime minister over his independent foreign policy regarding Russia, according to the text of the Pakistani cable, produced from the meeting by the Pakistani ambassador and transmitted to Pakistan.

The classified cable, known internally as a “cypher,” reveals both the carrots and the sticks that the State Department deployed in its push against Khan, promising warmer relations if Khan was removed, and isolation if he was not, The Intercept reported.

Welch said, “So this recent discovery of the secret cable that was leaked to The Intercept and published by them is big news today, or for the moment, at least.”

“But it’s interesting how The Intercept goes into great detail on how they can’t really verify it because they can’t get the corroboration from someone inside the Pakistani military, and on and on,” he added.

“But the funny part is that in many ways it’s not really news at all. For Pakistani citizens and anyone with a conscience in the rest of the world, this is like getting the foreign language subtitles to a great home movie that everyone has been watching for over a year,” he stated.

“There was never any serious doubt that the US was behind this ouster of Imran Khan. Look, I’m not in court. We are not required to prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt. They create doubt! They even have a phrase for it — it’s called plausible deniability. So they can come out at every turn and say ‘Well this is all false. This has always been false,’” Welch emphasized.

“So why do I say ‘At every turn…?’ Because it’s the same thing! Ukraine isn’t about Ukraine. West Africa isn’t about West Africa. And this isn’t about Imran Khan. This is about the West—specifically, the US—and its desire to flex its muscle and keep its hold on the world, and nothing can get in their way,” he added.

“The interesting part for me is that the analysis seems to be vetting the US vs. Russia, that it’s about Imran Khan’s statements about Ukraine — a position that most of the world’s population firmly believes, and not what the West is trying to sell as ‘isolation,’” Welch said.

“That is the reason that Russian flags show up at protests in Haiti, In Senegal, in Mali, in Niger, in Burkina Faso, everywhere, is that they stood up and said No ‘Way! Get out of here!’ To the West. And that is as much symbolic as it is ideological and political,” he said.

“I mean, this is Lula! This is Brazil. They have another popular politician who is saddled with some ridiculous, made-up crap about corruption. They put him in jail and give him this fake, trumped-up sentence that is going to prevent him from running. Like they did—they, meaning the US, the CIA—for Bolsonaro. And, now, for whoever they appoint to run Pakistan,” he explained.

‘It’s about China, not Russia’
Welch said that the problem is that the Pakistani military is being “shortsighted if they are thinking that they are taking the US side against Russia. Because it’s not.”

“It’s about China. Why is China a threat? The US ruling class is right—they are! Because the US, it’s death merchants and billionaires, have spent what? SIX TRILLION dollars in the last twenty years, to destroy everything, to murder millions and line the pockets of their already rich billionaires and the politicians they also own,” he noted.

“They are the only ones who have profited from this. Most of the world is in shambles because of it. And at the same time, the Chinese have spent trillions as well. Building up—not destroying. Building up railroads from Laos to China,” he said.

“The Belt and Road Initiative is unbelievable. Just incredible. Raising people out of poverty—their own 800 million or whatever it was. And starting to teach and help the rest of the world that they don’t need to live in this yoke of oppression that the West imposes,” Welch added.

“And China is also much more savvy and slower on the trigger. They’re very close to Pakistan. They don’t have to do this tomorrow. But they will. Those economic levers. Those diplomatic levers. That the West uses to dissociate from any popular politician or movement. Or any sort of progress—anything, really outside that political sphere,” he observed.

“They [China] do much more quietly and much more aptly, I think. And whether or not they [West] are successful in stopping the populist impulse—the right side of history—at this time, Lula eventually became president of Brazil. Not Bolsonaro. So we’ll see. We. Shall. See,” he concluded.

Daniel Patrick Welch is a writer of political commentary and analysis. He lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, US, with his wife. Together they run The Greenhouse School. He has traveled widely, speaks five languages and studied Russian History and Literature at Harvard University.

https://orinocotribune.com/us-analyst-d ... interview/

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Democracy, diktats, and detention: Imran Khan gets cancelled

Imran Khan's transformation from prime minister to prisoner stands as a stark cautionary tale for global leaders who challenge the 'rules-based international order.'


F.M. Shakil
AUG 14, 2023


Photo Credit: The Cradle

In a striking judicial development on 5 August, a court in Islamabad handed down a significant verdict against former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. The court found him guilty of a serious lapse in his responsibilities, specifically his failure to report the sale of state gifts on his income tax and asset declaration forms.

Consequently, the popular politician and former cricket star was sentenced to three years in prison and, notably, was further disqualified from seeking public office for a minimum period of five years.

In a swift sequence of events, following the court's decision, the Pakistan Election Commission promptly took action by effectively suspending Khan's political ambitions until the year 2028.

The timing of this politically-motivated move was indeed impeccable, coinciding with the country’s preparations for the upcoming general election in the months ahead. With the conclusion of the current National Assembly's term on 12 August, the new caretaker prime minister, a “little-known senator,” Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has been announced, following an agreement between Khan’s successor Shehbaz Sharif and opposition leader Raja Riaz.

While the session court's verdict in the Toshakhana state gifts case contained certain procedural flaws, potentially offering legal recourse for Khan, its ramifications have already cast a shadow over his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Consequently, his prospects of regaining authority within the forthcoming five-year interval appear to be increasingly diminished.

Khan's downfall: Ego or US conspiracy?

Imran Khan, 70, the popular politician who governed the nuclear-armed South Asian state of approximately 240 million people for a notable span of three and a half years, experienced a political upheaval of considerable magnitude last year.

His tenure was brought to an abrupt and highly controversial end through a vote of no confidence lodged by the collective opposition in the lower house of parliament.

Censured for bearing the brunt of a faltering economy and the inability to fulfill his electoral pledges, Khan found himself deserted by his coalition allies - culminating in his political downfall - which many of his supporters believe was orchestrated by Washington and its Pakistani allies.

The events leading to Khan's recent detention earlier this month were undoubtedly calculated to disrupt his electoral maneuvering, within a backdrop of corruption allegations.

This episode is merely the latest addition to a series of comparable incidents observed globally, wherein popular, charismatic leaders who strayed beyond the confines of the "rules-based international order" encountered legal ramifications.

Governments that embarked on independent foreign and domestic policy trajectories also faced precipitous declines, bearing the usual hallmarks of a foreign-backed conspiracy. The question lingers of whether these occurrences are a result of coincidental alignment or a well-orchestrated strategy to reprimand leaders who refuse to align with either democratic or "autocratic" forces.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, a distinguished author, columnist, human rights advocate, and professor at the Forman Christian College in Lahore, provides an insightful perspective.

He tells The Cradle that, in the context of Khan's incarceration, the narrative of a grand design guided by external influences is unsubstantiated: "Imran Khan was crazily in love with himself, and that self-centered trait brought him down," he posits.

Hoodbhoy instead attributes Khan's downfall to his pronounced self-centeredness and an inflated ego. Khan's close alignment with the Pakistan army, based on shared ideologies of machoism, aggressive militarism, anti-Indian sentiment, Islamism, and disdain for feminism, resulted in his eventual undoing.

"For years, he and the army were singing from the same hymn sheet, and Khan pandered to their every desire without even batting an eye at their business interests and housing projects," he explains, adding:

"Khan pictured himself as Erdogan, surrounded by his loyal followers who would turn a blind eye to any wrongdoings he committed. It was only after Khan put his foot down and called the shots on his choice of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief that the whole shebang started to fall apart at the seams. If he had managed to pull off getting Gen. Faiz Hameed installed as the Chief of Army Staff, it would have sealed the deal for him for the next ten years."

Rules for thee, but not for me

However, a strongly contrasting viewpoint asserts that the rules-based order is the driving force behind the decline and agony of a substantial number of politicians across the Global South, who found themselves humiliated for adopting a more independent middle ground - Khan included.

Critics argue that the hereunto US-led global order conceals a more sinister reality, wherein a select group of powerful nations manipulate the system to advance their own opportunistic agendas.

The UN Security Council, for instance, has taken selective action against aggression by western powers. Sabur Ali Sayyid, one of Pakistan's top columnists and editor of a news portal, tells The Cradle:

“This ‘pay-to-play system’ has been a real wild goose chase when it comes to Syria, Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon. It is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, but it just does not work. The UN resolutions and rulings from associated organizations turned a blind eye to human rights violations in these regions and did not lift a finger to punish those responsible, let alone impose any sanctions on them.”

On the issue of Khan's ousting from Pakistani politics, he adds: “Khan was pushing their buttons and making them bend over backward to put them in their place." In Pakistan, Sayyid says, survival is very tough for anti-imperialist and anti-US activists: “When it comes to Pakistan, we make sure to nip such elements in the bud before they become a thorn in our side on the global stage.”

The Pakistani columnist highlights the inherent selectivity within the rules-based paradigm, likening it to a painstaking search for a needle in a haystack, fraught with deception. Sayyid underscores the western world's tendency to condemn actions by Russia outside its borders, yet remain conspicuously silent on issues like Kashmir and developments across West Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. This selective engagement, he contends, illustrates the double standards at play.

Within a historical context, critics point out that the US and its western allies have frequently undermined democratic norms by orchestrating coups to topple legitimately elected governments around the globe. Instances like the CIA-led coup in Iran in 1953 and the destabilization of the Guatemalan government a year later underscore western disregard for democratic principles. And US involvement in numerous coups, such as those in Indonesia, South Vietnam, and Chile, further exemplify the west's unchecked violation of international law.

Studies indicate that, since World War II, the US has interfered in elections and domestic politics in over 80 countries, including two dozen democracies. And while the west disparages Russia's military intervention in Ukraine, the US and the European Union kicked off this conflict in 2014 by inciting protests against the pro-Russian elected Ukrainian president before the end of his term.

Disruptive defiance

Prior to his tribulations since April 2022, Khan had levied allegations of US-backed machinations aimed at his removal—an assertion stoutly refuted by both Islamabad and Washington. Khan's subtle allusion to a certain "bigwig" nation that became perturbed following his February 2022 visit to Russia was telling. Amidst the backdrop of Russia-Ukraine tensions, reservations were loudly voiced across western media platforms regarding his two-day trip to Moscow - the first of any Pakistani head of state in more than two decades.

A growing list of world leaders - former US President Donald Trump among them - have been accused of undermining the post World War II US-led, rules-based liberal international order, and have subsequently faced retribution for their divergent viewpoints.

Trump's alleged transgressions encompassed his critical stance on institutions predominantly managed by the US and his propensity to champion a global “anti-democratic” movement.

Popular leaders are not just targeted whilst in office; lawfare is often employed to eliminate any prospects for a political comeback.

Last year, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina was found guilty of fraudulent activities during her presidency spanning 2007 to 2015. The verdict culminated in a six-year prison sentence and a permanent ban on her involvement in public office. Kirchner's reputation for advocating multipolarization and her measured stance on international crises such as Ukraine has been well documented.

Throughout Kirchner's tenure, consistent communication between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev and herself was evident. In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, Buenos Aires voiced opposition to economic and other forms of alignment with western-imposed sanctions.

Brazil's former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stands as another victim of the US-backed global order. In 2017, Lula was convicted on charges of money laundering and corruption, purportedly linked to his earlier presidency from 2003 to 2010.

A Brazilian court later overturned his conviction in 2021, allowing him to run for public office. He regained office after defeating Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in last year's presidential election. Under Lula's administration, Brazil sent a delegation to Venezuela, permitted Iranian warships to dock in Rio de Janeiro, and refused to deliver weapons to Ukraine.

According to experts, Lula is rekindling Brazil's longstanding doctrine of non-alignment to shape a policy safeguarding national interests in an increasingly multipolar world—a stance that has stirred concern within the US and Europe. Moreover, Lula has articulated intentions to establish a coalition of nations, encompassing India, China, and Indonesia, tasked with facilitating peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

As Pakistan moves forward, the void left by Imran Khan's absence will undoubtedly impact the country's political dynamics. In an era and region characterized by the waning influence of the US and the ascent of Eurasian integration, the ascent of a new interim prime minister and the impending general election will additionally contribute to shaping the nation's future.

https://new.thecradle.co/articles/democ ... -cancelled

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Imran Khan Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison Days Before Elections in Pakistan
JANUARY 31, 2024


Imran Khan supporters rally with the ex-prime minister's picture. File photo.

A special Pakistani court set up in a prison in Rawalpindi sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan to 10 years in prison on 30 January for “leaking official secrets” in proceedings that were conducted behind closed doors.

“Our lawyers were not allowed to represent Imran Khan. They were not even allowed to cross-examine the witnesses. What was unfolding in the court was merely a charade and a sham,” Syed Zulfiqar Bukhari, a spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, told Al-Jazeera.

“This was pretty much a writing on the wall,” he added, stressing that the trial was held in an “unlawful manner.”

Khan’s ally, former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The sentence was issued as part of the so-called cypher case, which pertains to a diplomatic cable that shows the US State Department encouraged Pakistani officials to oust Khan from office over his neutrality on the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

Khan revealed the existence of this cable in early 2022, mere weeks before a parliamentary removed him from office.



Since then, Khan has been slapped with over 150 legal cases. He was also arrested twice, charged with “terrorism,” banned from broadcasting his speeches, and even survived an assassination attempt.

The special court, established under the Official Secrets Act, found Khan guilty on Tuesday, January 30, of “misusing the confidential cable” that a former Pakistani ambassador sent to the US.

The conviction against Pakistan’s most popular political figure comes just nine days before crucial elections in which the PTI has been banned from using its party symbol. Pakistani authorities also recently ordered journalists and television news channels not to mention Khan’s party in their election coverage.

Pakistani media was already barred from reporting Khan’s speeches or rallies on TV.

“With the sentence coming at a time when elections are less than 10 days away, it will only motivate our supporters and make them come out in droves. It looks like the authorities want to suppress the PTI and its voter base, but their acts will only drive us to vote in bigger numbers,” Bukhari added.

https://orinocotribune.com/imran-khan-s ... -pakistan/

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The US Toppling of Imran Khan
February 5, 2024

The Pakistani leader probably sealed his fate when, at a rally, he berated the West for pressuring him to condemn Russia over Ukraine at a vote in the United Nations, writes Jeffrey Sachs.


Imran Khan livestreaming an address to Pakistan in 2023. (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, YouTube, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)

By Jeffrey D. Sachs
Common Dreams

A principal instrument of U.S. foreign policy is covert regime change, meaning a secret action by the U.S. government to bring down the government of another country.

There are strong reasons to believe that U.S. actions led to the removal from power of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022, followed by his arrest on trumped-up charges of corruption and espionage, and sentencing this week to 10 years imprisonment on the espionage charge.

The political objective is to block Pakistan’s most popular politician from returning to power in the elections on Feb. 8.

The key to covert operations of course is that they are secret and hence deniable by the U.S. government. Even when the evidence comes to light through whistleblowers or leaks, as it very often does, the U.S. government rejects the authenticity of the evidence and the mainstream media generally ignore the story because it contradicts the official narrative. Because editors at these mainstream outlets don’t want to peddle in “conspiracy theories,” or are simply happy to be the mouthpieces for officialdom, they give the U.S. government a very wide berth for actual regime-change conspiracies.

Covert regime change by the U.S. is shockingly routine. One authoritative study by Boston University professor Lindsay O’Rourke counts 64 covert regime change operations by the U.S. during the Cold War (1947 and 1989), and in fact the number was far larger because she chose to count repeated attempts within one country as a single extended episode.

Since then, U.S. regime change operations have remained frequent, such as when President Barrack Obama tasked the C.I.A. (Operation Timber Sycamore) with overthrowing Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. That covert operation remained secret until several years after the operation, and even then, was hardly covered by the mainstream media.


U.S. Marines and Jordanian Army soldiers collaborate in Amman, Jordan, 2016. (US Military, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

All of this brings us to Pakistan, another case where evidence points strongly to U.S.-led regime change. In this case, the U.S. desired to bring down the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, the charismatic, talented and hugely popular leader in Pakistan, renowned both for his world-leading cricket mastery and for his common touch with the people. His popularity, independence, and enormous talents make him a prime target of the U.S., which frets about popular leaders who don’t fall into line with U.S. policy.

Cooperated With Russia & China

Imran Khan’s “sin” was to be too cooperative with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, while also seeking normal relations with the United States.

The great mantra of U.S. foreign policy, and the activating principle of the C.I.A., is that a foreign leader is “either with us or against us.” Leaders who try to be neutral amongst the great powers are at dire risk of losing their positions, or even their lives, at U.S. instigation, since the U.S. does not accept neutrality. Leaders seeking neutrality dating back to Patrice Lumumba (Zaire), Norodom Sihanouk (Cambodia), Viktor Yanukovych (Ukraine), and many others, have been toppled with the not-so-hidden-hand of the U.S. government.

Like many leaders in the developing world, Khan does not want to break relations with either the U.S. or Russia over the Ukraine War. By sheer coincidence of prior scheduling, Khan happened to be in Moscow to meet Putin on the day that Russia launched the special military operation (Feb. 24, 2022).


Before Russian-Pakistani talks, Khan laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin wall on Feb. 24, 2022. (TASS)

From the start, Khan advocated that the conflict in Ukraine should be settled at the negotiating table rather than on the battlefield. The U.S. and E.U. arm-twisted foreign leaders including Khan to fall into line against Putin and to support Western sanctions against Russia, yet Khan resisted.

Khan probably sealed his fate on March 6 when he held a large rally in northern Pakistan. At the rally, he berated the West, and especially 22 EU ambassadors, for pressuring him to condemn Russia at a vote in the United Nations. He also excoriated NATO’s war against terror in next-door Afghanistan as having been utterly devastating to Pakistan, with no acknowledgment, respect, or appreciation for Pakistan’s suffering.

Khan told the cheering crowds, “EU ambassadors wrote a letter to us asking us to condemn and vote against Russia… What do you think of us? Are we your slaves … that whatever you say, we will do?” He added,

“We are friends with Russia, and we are also friends with America; we are friends with China and with Europe; we are not in any camp. Pakistan would remain neutral and work with those trying to end the war in Ukraine.”

From the U.S. perspective, “neutral” is a fighting word. The grim follow-up for Khan was revealed in August 2023 by investigative reporters at The Intercept.

Just one day after Khan’s rally, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu met in Washington with Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. Asad Majeed Khan. Following the meeting, Ambassador Khan sent a secret cable (a “cypher”) back to Islamabad, which was then leaked to The Intercept by a Pakistani military official.


Lu speaking to State Department employees in 2022. (State Department, Freddie Everett/ Public domain)

The cable recounts how Assistant Secretary Lu berated Prime Minister Khan for his neutral stance. The cable quotes Lu as saying that “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.”

Lu then conveyed the bottom line to Ambassador Khan:

“I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead.”

Five weeks later on April 10, with the U.S. blunt threat hanging over the powerful Pakistani military, and with the military’s hold over the Pakistani Parliament, the Parliament ousted Khan in a no-confidence vote.

Within weeks, the new government followed with brazenly manufactured charges of corruption against Khan, to put him under arrest and prevent his return to power.

In an utterly Orwellian turn, when Khan made known the existence of the diplomatic cable that revealed America’s role in his ouster, the new government charged Khan with espionage. He has now been convicted on these charges to an unconscionable 10 years, with the U.S. government remaining silent on this outrage.

When asked about Khan’s conviction, the State Department had the following to say: “It’s a matter for the Pakistani courts.” Such an answer is a vivid example of how U.S.-led regime change works. The State Department supports Khan’s imprisonment over Khan’s public revelation of U.S. actions.

State Department refuses to condemn sentencing of #ImranKhan and claims it is #Pakistan's internal matter
Matthew Miller repeatedly dodged the question, instead giving vague answers about how the US supports the democratic process in Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/ii8nMjs0Df

— Arthur Morgan (@ArthurM40330824) January 31, 2024

Pakistan will therefore hold elections on Feb. 8 with its most popular democratic leader in prison and with Khan’s party the subject of relentless attacks, political murders, media blackouts, and other heavy-handed repression.

In all of this, the U.S. government is utterly complicit. So much for America’s “democratic” values. The U.S. government has gotten its way for now — and has deeply destabilized a nuclear-armed nation of 240 million people. Only Khan’s release from prison and his participation in the upcoming election could restore stability.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the U.N. Broadband Commission for Development.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/05/t ... mran-khan/

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Biden Administration is Silent as Former Pakistani Prime Minister is Sentenced to 10 Years For Revealing How the U.S. Pushed For His Removal
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - February 7, 2024


Dozens of supporters of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party shout slogans during a rally in Peshawar on Sunday
[Source: breitbart.com]

The Biden administration claims that U.S. foreign policy works to uphold human rights and democracy while containing rising authoritarian powers such as Russia and China.

Biden administration officials routinely condemn the jailing of opposition figures in Russia like Alexey Navalny and by socialist governments like Nicaragua and Venezuela.

But the Biden administration has voiced no outcry over the arrest of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who just days ahead of parliamentary elections on February 8, was given a ten-year prison sentence for revealing state secrets about how the U.S. pushed for his removal from power.[1]


Imran Khan [Source: pakistanaffairs.pk]

The document that Khan revealed showed that U.S. State Department officials had threatened Pakistani officials with consequences were Khan not removed from office, citing anger over Khan’s neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Captain of Pakistan’s national cricket team throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Khan served as Pakistan’s Prime Minister from August 2018 until his ouster in April 2022.

In May 2023, he was arrested by paramilitary troops as part of a wave of repression directed against his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party along with independent journalists like Arshad Sharif, who was hounded out of Pakistan and assassinated in Kenya.[2]

Outspoken Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif killed in Kenya | news
Arshad Sharif [Source: localtoday.news]
According to a January report in Time magazine, thousands of PTI members have since been arrested and dozens of party leaders resigned following lengthy interrogations.

Khan’s name was even banned from Pakistani media, and the PTI Party was banned from using its trademark cricket logo on ballot paper, significantly hampering its chances among an electorate that is 40% illiterate.[3]

Arif Rafiq, a Pakistani specialist at the Middle East Institute, told The Intercept that “Khan was convicted on flimsy charges following a trial where his defense was not even allowed to produce witnesses. He had previously survived an assassination attempt, had a journalist aligned with him murdered, and has seen thousands of his supporters imprisoned. While the Biden administration has said that human rights will be at the forefront of their foreign policy, they are now looking away as Pakistan moves toward becoming a full-fledged military dictatorship.”

Over the last two decades, the U.S. government has provided billions of dollars of military aid to Pakistan, which has long been used as a base for clandestine operations into Afghanistan. This aid has helped to fortify the military’s power and fuel state repression.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA offshoot spent $3.952,238 in Pakistan in 2021 supporting civil society groups. Part of the purpose of the funding was likely to assist in regime change efforts once it was clear that Khan was too independent.


Arif Rafiq [Source: atlanticcouncil.org]

Khan’s rise to power had resulted not only from his status as a cricket star but also his generous philanthropy. The World Socialist Website (WSWS) criticized him for embracing austerity measures recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that resulted in the slashing of social spending and food subsidies and selling off of public sector enterprises wholesale.

Athiyan Silva and Kumaran Ira wrote that Khan “exploited social anger at the previous PML-N government to win the July [2018] election, making demagogic promises, including to create more jobs and provide relief for the poor, while criticizing the murderous U.S. drone attacks in the Federally Administered Tribal Area.”

Once in power, Khan “formed his government by picking ministers who have already worked under former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) governments, which imposed IMF austerity measures and collaborated with the U.S.-led NATO war in Afghanistan.”

Dropping his campaign rhetoric against U.S. drone murder, Khan met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after his election and began tacking closer to Washington, though sustained commitment to developing Pakistan’s economy and industry via the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, the “flagship project” of China’s Eurasian BRI (Belt and Road Initiative).[4]

Launched in 2015, the CPEC is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking western China to Pakistan’s strategic Gwadar Port on the Indian Ocean, near the oil-rich Persian Gulf.


[Source: globalvillagespace.com]

Pompeo stated that it would be “unacceptable” for Pakistan to use U.S. financial aid to pay off infrastructure and industrial debts to China, which is a key reason why Khan became a target for regime change alongside his lack of support for U.S. policy toward Ukraine.


Imran Khan and Mike Pompeo in 2018: The friendship did not last. [Source: en.m.wikipedia.org]

In a March 2022 meeting, Donald Lu, the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, told the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Asad Majeed Khan, that Khan had to be removed as Prime Minister in a parliamentary vote of no confidence. Otherwise, Lu said, there would be consequences for Pakistan.[5]

Khan’s replacement, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, was a right-wing businessman from a corrupt, oligarchic family who promised a “paradise for investors” and reversed Khan’s opposition to the war in Ukraine.[6] In the fall, the Biden administration helped broker a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after Pakistan came to an agreement to purchase arms for use by the Ukrainian military in its war with Russia.


Donald Lu [Source: wikiwand.com]


Shehbaz Sharif [Source: en.wikipedia.org]

Just days before the meeting with Majeed, Lu had been questioned at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing over the neutrality of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the Ukraine conflict.

In response to a question from Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)[7] about a recent decision by Pakistan to abstain from a UN resolution condemning Russia’s role in Ukraine, Lu said, “Prime Minister Khan has recently visited Moscow, and so I think we are trying to figure out how to engage specifically with the Prime Minister following that decision.”[8]

Lu subsequently told Majeed Khan that “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position [on Ukraine], if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.”


Asad Majeed Khan [Source: foreignpolicy.com]

Lu in turn said: “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead.”[9]

The day before the meeting, Khan had addressed a rally responding directly to European calls that Pakistan support Ukraine. “Are we your slaves?” Khan thundered to the crowd: “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us?” he asked. “We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance.”

Khan’s fiercely independent stance was intolerable for the U.S., which demands obedience like a Mafia godfather. And so Khan had to go, like Lumumba, Castro, Qaddafi, and so many others.


1.Khan has now been sentenced to an additional 14 years in prison for allegedly accepting illicit gifts while he was in office and was barred from holding public office for ten years. His wife, Bushra Bibi, was also given a 14-year prison sentence. Khan questioned the fairness and impartiality of the trial during the hearing, asking the judge: “Why are you in a hurry to announce the verdict? I have not even recorded my final statement.” Mr. Khan then exited the courtroom, and the judge announced the sentence in his absence. ↑

2.According to The Intercept, the Pakistani military has enshrined authoritarian powers for itself that drastically reduce civil liberties, criminalize criticism of the military, expand the institution’s already expansive role in the country’s economy, and give military leaders a permanent veto over political and civil affairs. ↑

3.Charlie Campbell, “Pakistan Can Keep Imran Khan Out of Power, but It Can’t Keep His Popularity Down,” Time, January 17, 2024. Khan was the target of several assassination attempts and was shot and wounded in a political rally. In November, Imaan Mazari, a human rights lawyer on who represents families of those forcibly disappeared, works on issues of forced evictions and media freedom, was taken from her home by men in plainclothes and elite security forces at 3am without an arrest warrant after speaking at a rally against enforced disappearances. Mazari was charged under the broad Anti-Terrorism Act including sedition, rebellion against the state, and terror-financing. PTI leaders have only been able to contest the upcoming elections as independents and have been subjected to police raids and harassment.

4.Athiyan Silva and Kumaran Ira, “Pakistani premier Imran Khan imposes austerity mini-budget,” World Socialist Website, October 2, 2018. ↑

5.See Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hassain, “Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan,” The Intercept, August 9, 2023.
↑

6.Shehbaz Sharif was the younger brother of three-time Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a protégé of the late U.S.-backed dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, who contributed to the Islamicization of Pakistan in the 1980s when he provided support under the CIA’s oversight for the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahadin. In 2017, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered Nawaz Sharif to step down as prime minister due to Panama Papers-related corruption revelations. ↑

7.Interestingly, Senator Van Hollen, whose father was a foreign service officer and whose mother worked for the CIA and State Department, was born in Karachi, Pakistan. ↑

8.Grim and Hassain, “Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan.” ↑

9.Grim and Hassan, “Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan.” ↑

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/0 ... s-removal/

[blindpig]

Imran Khan’s PTI claim victory in Pakistan’s general election amid allegations of rigging

The Pakistan Tehreek e-Insaf had alleged persecution by the army and the ruling elite in the run up to the elections, with Khan jailed and barred from contesting and the party denied its electoral symbol

February 09, 2024 by Peoples Dispatch


PTI supporters cheer outside a vote counting center in Wazirabad, Punjab, which declared results in favor of PTI-backed independents, after being faced with massive protests. (Photo: Naya Pakistan)

As per the early results announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday, January 9, candidates supported by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek e-Insaf (PTI) were leading in most of the constituencies in the National Assembly.

PTI claimed their candidates have won a majority of the seats and alleged ECP of attempting to rig the election after a delay in the publication of the final results.

The final results were expected to be announced hours after the voting was over on Thursday evening. However, at 2 am, Friday, results of less than 30% of seats were announced by the ECP.

According to the official results for 58 seats announced so far, PTI backed independent candidates have won 19 seats.

Pakistan Muslim League (N), led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, won 17, and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had 18 seats. Others have four seats.

The ECP did not publish data about the official turnout on Thursday as well. However, it is expected to be much higher than the previous election in 2018 when it was just over 50%. There were over 128 million eligible voters in the country.

The elections for Pakistan’s National Assembly and four provincial assemblies were held on Thursday amid controversies over denial of electoral symbol to PTI, forcing its candidates to contest the elections as independents, and disqualification of Khan from holding any public post for next ten years.

PTI claims majority
On Friday, PTI’s official X (formerly Twitter) handle claimed that their supported candidates have won in 154 out of 255 contested seats.

There are 336 seats in Pakistan’s National Assembly out of which 266 are popularly contested. The 60 seats reserved for women and 10 reserved for minorities are distributed to the parties as per the number of seats they have won in popular elections.

Though the majority mark in the election is 134, seats no party or coalition will be able to form the government until they get 168 seats.

Since PTI is not contesting as a party, it will not be eligible for any share in the 70 reserved seats.

“According to independent reports, PTI has won well over 150 National Assembly seats & is in a solid position to form government in Federal, Punjab & KP [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa] with a clear majority,” PTI claimed however alleging that “manipulation of the results in the late hours of the night is an utter disgrace & a brazen theft of the nation’s mandate.”

PTI candidates were reportedly staging protests in front of returning officials (RO) responsible for counting and declaring the results in several constituencies for alleged fraud and manipulation by local media.

The allegations of rigging in the results were made by several other individuals including Mustafa Nawaz Khokar, former member of the National Assembly contesting as an independent this time from Islamabad.

The lead in early trends in the election results for PTI confirms the public opinion surveys conducted in the run up to the elections. Most of them had confirmed the widespread popularity of Khan and his party.

Several people claimed in their social media posts that the results so far indicate the anger of the common Pakistanis against the army’s intervention in the country’s politics. PTI’s consistent campaign regarding alleged unfair means with which Khan was removed from power and sent to jail also got widespread popular support as shown by polls before the election.

The elections were held amidst the widespread anger among people against the last government led by the PML (N) and PPP for their failure to curb the prices of the basic commodities and to address the economic problems faced by the majority of Pakistanis.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/02/09/ ... f-rigging/