Pakistan

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Pakistan in the midst of a full-blown constitutional crisis
Pakistan’s Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the constitutionality of Sunday’s incidents at the National Assembly. A no-trust vote against the Imran Khan government was dismissed on account of it being part of a ‘foreign conspiracy’

April 04, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch



Pakistan is in the middle of a full-blown constitutional crisis with each day bringing a fresh series of developments that increase the uncertainty surrounding the country’s future.

Monday April 4, was a day of dramatic developments. The Supreme Court began hearing arguments on the constitutionality of the events of the previous 24 hours and is likely to arrive at a decision on Tuesday. On Sunday, the country’s National Assembly had met to vote on a no-trust motion against prime minister Imran Khan. However, in a surprise move, deputy speaker of the assembly Qasim Khan Suri dismissed the motion. Suri ruled that the motion was in violation of Article 5 of the country’s constitution which states that “Loyalty to the State is the basic duty of every citizen.” Earlier, information minister Fawad Chaudhry claimed in the Assembly that the no-trust motion was part of a foreign conspiracy to overthrow the government and hence violated Article 5. The deputy speaker accepted the argument and dismissed the motion.

Shortly after, Khan appeared on national television and accused the opposition of attempting to force a regime change on behalf of external actors (referring to the US). He declared, “I have advised the President to dissolve the Parliament. By using the constitutional power we have stopped this foreign-conspiracy. In a democratic society, change should come through elections. People, not the foreign powers, can decide.” Soon, president Arif Alvi accepted the prime minister’s recommendation and dissolved the National Assembly. The president also announced that Imran Khan would continue as caretaker prime minister until an interim prime minister was appointed ahead of elections. The president wrote to the prime minister and leader of the opposition Shehbaz Sharif, seeking suggestions for a caretaker prime minister. In response, Imran Khan nominated former Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmad.

The question before the Supreme Court is whether it can intervene in the proceedings of parliament. The opposition has requested the court to declare the deputy speaker’s and president’s actions unconstitutional.

An escalating crisis
The current crisis marks the convergence of two developments – the no-trust motion moved by the united opposition and prime minister Imran Khan’s claim that a foreign power was behind these plans. The no-trust motion was expected to succeed as there had been defections from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and some coalition members in the government, such as the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), had switched sides. The government had been trying to postpone the no-confidence motion citing various grounds.

Opposition parties, including the Pakistan Democratic Movement (comprising the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and other parties) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have been insisting that the PTI-led government demonstrate its strength in the 342-member National Assembly. Notably, no democratically elected government has ever completed a full term since the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Opposition groups cited the inability of Khan’s government to address the economic grievances of the common people as the reason for the no-confidence vote. Rising inflation rates have led to increased prices of essential food items like edible oil, pulse, wheat and sugar. Pakistan was forced to approach the IMF which demanded strict conditions and austerity policies in return for providing money.

Meanwhile, at a public rally on March 27, Khan spoke about a “threatening letter” he allegedly received from a foreign power as proof of a “foreign conspiracy”. He later mentioned the US and on April 1, reports emerged that the government had summoned a senior US diplomat in Pakistan and lodged a protest against its alleged interference.

Opposition groups demanded verification of the letter, calling it fabricated. Those favoring the government have claimed that the information provided in the document can be independently authenticated.

Many opponents of Khan’s government including senior journalists, rights activists and political workers, have rejected the theory of foreign intervention in Pakistani affairs as a “concoction” to survive this political crisis.

However, these developments also come at a time when Imran Khan’s policies have moved away from the US. Significant differences have also emerged between him and the Pakistani military, a longstanding ally of the US and the most powerful institution in the country. According to critics, repeated disagreements between the military and the civilian government in Pakistan, ongoing for some time now, have become more apparent with the Ukraine war.

Khan was seen denouncing the joint letter issued by 22 European countries urging Pakistan to support a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. He declared at a public rally: “Are we slaves and do whatever you tell us… We are neutral in this conflict and will support those who want to end the war in Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, army chief Qamar Bajwa harshly condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine.

In a Facebook post, Taimur Rahman, general secretary of the Mazdoor Kisan Party [Workers and Peasants’ Party], noted that while parties accuse each other of treachery and of being foreign funded, this is an accusation that needs to be proved in court with evidence. He concluded that in the absence of the accusation being proved, the dismissal of the no-trust motion was unconstitutional. He added that if fresh elections were held, the chances of the PTI returning to power were not bright due to its differences with the military establishment and its failures on the economic front, as well as its inability to fulfill its promises.

Rahman said that if the military establishment chose to remain relatively neutral in the upcoming elections, many politicians associated with the establishment could side with the opposition, which would adversely affect the ruling PTI.

Tuesday will prove a vital day for Pakistan as the Supreme Court’s decision could determine what happens in the coming weeks and months.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/04/04/ ... al-crisis/

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US Ousts Imran Khan But His Revolutionary Narrative Endures
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 5, 2022
MK Bhadrakumar


The US may control a handful of Pakistani political and military officials, but PM Imran Khan owns the street.

Washington has reactivated old cronies in Islamabad to unseat PM Imran Khan, but the latter has sown seeds of immense dissatisfaction with the old guard and their US backers within the Pakistani public. And Khan’s domestic and foreign allies will not sit by idly either.

Last Wednesday, during a meeting with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the Tunxi city of eastern China’s Anhui province, China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the thoughtful remark that there was a need to “to guard against the negative spillover effects of the Ukraine crisis” in the Asian region:

“We can’t allow the Cold War mentality to return to the Asian region. It’s impossible to allow a repeat of camp confrontation in Asia. We mustn’t allow turning medium and small states in the region into an instrument or even a victim of the games of big powers. The Chinese side intends to move in the same direction along with Pakistan and neighbouring countries, play a constructive role in ensuring regional and global peace and make its contribution to Asia.”

Curiously, as it turned out, that was also Qureshi’s last tour abroad as Pakistan’s top diplomat. No sooner than he came back home, his government fell, engulfed in a murky situation of precisely the kind that Wang Yi warned against.

Did Wang Yi have a premonition? We may never know but it is inconceivable that he was unaware of the tensions in Pakistan’s domestic politics fueled from outside, which led to the regime change last weekend.

From all accounts, the coup attempt in Pakistan unfolded as per an Anglo-American script. Prime Minister Imran Khan claimed to have documentary evidence to show that the senior-most official in the US state department dealing with the region, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, had sent to him a threatening message via the Pakistani ambassador in Washington that his time was up in Islamabad as prime minister.

Imran Khan also alleged that the US embassy in Islamabad had been fraternizing with local politicians who subsequently defected from his coalition government. Washington has been vaguely dismissive about the allegations.

According to Khan, it was his official visit to Moscow in February, which coincided with the launch of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, that provoked Washington the most – apart from his independent foreign policies and stubborn refusal to set up US military bases in Pakistan.

On Saturday, against the backdrop of the tumultuous political developments in Pakistan, the powerful army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa waded into an unusual topic — Russia. He openly criticized Russia for its special operation in Ukraine, calling it a “great tragedy” that had killed thousands and made millions refugees and “half of Ukraine destroyed,” demanding that it must be “stopped immediately.”

He noted that Pakistan had enjoyed excellent defence and economic relationships with Ukraine since its independence but relations with Russia were “cold” for a long time because of numerous reasons, and that Pakistan had sent humanitarian assistance to Ukraine via Pakistan Air Force planes and would continue to do so.

Significantly, Bajwa also stated that “we share a long and excellent strategic relationship with the US,” and that Pakistan sought to broaden and expand relations with both China and the US “without impacting our relations with [either].”

Without doubt, the powerful general spoke with an eye on Washington, acutely conscious of the political transition in his country and taking care to place himself on the ‘right side of history.’

Bajwa’s message to Washington was three-fold: one, he didn’t share Imran Khan’s enthusiasm for close ties with Russia; two, nor did he share Imran Khan’s ‘anti-American’ foreign policies; and, three, he wouldn’t allow Pakistan’s alliance with China to overshadow his desire to deepen relations with the US.

Make no mistake, Pakistani generals are first and last seasoned politicians. That is why both China and Russia are acutely conscious of the geopolitical significance of the regime change event in Islamabad. Wang Yi’s prescient remarks find their echo in a report by the influential Russian daily Kommersant on Monday, based on expert opinion in Moscow:

“The dynamics of the current crisis indicate that Pakistan is at the threshold of a power change which may nullify many agreements with Moscow, considering that the new regime in Pakistan which will form in the next few months will be much more pro-American.”

According to the Director of the analytical center at the Moscow-based Russian Society of Political Scientists Andrey Serenko, “A special concern is caused by the fact that… Bajwa openly supported Russia’s adversaries. The drift of military-political heavyweights in Pakistan towards the US may have much more negative consequences for it [Russia] in the Central Asian region bordering Afghanistan. Belligerent and extremist elements in the Taliban, which are traditionally controlled by Pakistan’s special services, as well as the terrorist groups of the Islamic State and Jamaat Ansarullah have not lost interest in spreading jihad beyond Afghan borders.”

Equally, a member of the faculty of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy, Vadim Kozyulin, had this explicit warning to give: “Washington putting pressure on the Pakistani government inevitably leads to the complication of the security situation in the Central Asian region and the emergence of new risks for the CSTO countries.”

Succinctly put, Russian experts anticipate a reversal of Imran Khan’s friendly policies seeking Eurasian integration. China too will be apprehensive that one of the US’s top priorities is to undermine the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), of which Pakistan is a major hub. Certainly, the US will not want Islamabad to be a facilitator for the expansion of Chinese influence in Afghanistan. During a recent visit to Kabul, Wang Yi had proposed to the leadership of the Taliban Interim government the extension of the China-Pakistani Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship of the BRI, to Afghanistan.

From Iran’s perspective too, any surge in the US presence in Pakistan would have serious security implications, especially if US bases were to reopen. The negotiations in Vienna for the revival of the JCPOA are yet to come to fruition, and in any case, even with the lifting of US sanctions, Washington’s containment strategy against Iran is expected to continue in some newer form. The agenda of the recent conclave of the top Abraham Accords signatories, Egypt and the US [(hosted by Israel), was to build up a coordinated approach to countering Iran’s regional policies.

Pakistan has a history of aligning with the US’ Persian Gulf allies in their rivalry with Iran. Imran Khan deviated from that path and genuinely sought rapprochement with Tehran. To be sure, Washington will encourage the new regime in Islamabad to revert to the default position.

The broader US objective will be to roll back the Chinese presence in the Persian Gulf region. Thus, for a variety of reasons, while in the US strategic calculus, Pakistan always remained an important player, in the current context of global realignment, this becomes a pivotal relationship. The Pakistani military has an impeccable record of subserving American regional interests — and, it does have a rare capability and ‘expertise’ to do so — which no Muslim country is willing to perform in the current circumstances.

The US may be able to count on the Pakistani generals to ensure that Imran Khan does not ever again return to power. But the paradox is that his electrifying narrative — against corruption, for social justice and inclusion, Islamism and ‘anti-Americanism’ — has struck deep roots in Pakistani soil and will be difficult to vanquish. The main opposition parties stand hopelessly discredited in the public perception, given their track record of corruption and cronyism in office.

So, the big question is: Who will garner Imran Khan’s revolutionary rhetoric? A prolonged period of political turmoil can be expected. Now, in such a scenario, the role of the military becomes extremely crucial. The military leadership’s future intentions remain unclear. Traditionally, Pakistani military leaderships have been pro-US, and for its part, Washington always regarded the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi as its number one interlocutor.

The military denies involvement in civilian politics but the generals have in the past never hesitated to take advantage of political chaos to assume power. Of course, US backing for such a dispensation is indispensable and that is where Bajwa’s olive branch to Washington sets the agenda for politicking.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/04/ ... e-endures/

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Commentary: Regime change in Pakistan
Commentary by Rick Majumdar | April 11, 2022

On April 10, in Islamabad, Pakistan the Supreme Court upheld a vote of no confidence to remove Imran Khan of the Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from power. The opposition parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) voted in favor of no confidence. 174 votes were in favor for no confidence, two more than 172 vote mark that needed for this to be passed.

Previously, on March 1, the heads of 22 diplomatic missions, including those of EU member states, released a joint letter urging Pakistan to support a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly condemning Russia's intervention in the Ukraine.

Following this, on March 4, Pakistan became the first country to officially sign a huge trade deal with Russia at a time when Moscow has come under severe criticism. As part of the agreement, Pakistan would import 2 million tons of wheat as well as natural gas from Russia, a deal worth several billion rubles.

At a rally on March 6, Imran Khan said, "What do you think of us? Are we your slaves?” in response to the critiques of Pakistan starting its trade in wheat and natural gas with Russia and not condemning the country because of the intervention in Ukraine.

At a rally on March 27, Khan spoke of an official communiqué sent by the U.S. that threatened his position. Khan would then contact and summon U.S. diplomat Donald Lu (Assistant Secretary of State for the South and Central Asian Affairs), the author of threat letter to Pakistan.

Imran Khan dissolved the National Assembly of the parliament in the face a no-confidence motion, citing that there was foreign interference within Pakistan's politics. This would be met with intense support for Khan with chants inside the parliament such as “Amrika ka Jo yaar wo hain gaddar” (the friends of America are traitors).

The Supreme Court of Pakistan however reinstated the ruling on Thursday, April 7 ,stating that dissolution of the parliament was illegal and proceeded to restore the National Assembly. Khan was removed from office on April 10.

During Khan's tenure ties with China improved and the CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor), a project worth $62 billion, was established. This would rapidly upgrade Pakistan's required infrastructure and strengthen its economy by the construction of modern transportation networks, numerous energy projects, and special economic zones. This was a welcome and marked change in Pakistan from the IMF-led debt entrapment that the country was so used to, and which devastated the country's economic landscape.

These close ties with China and Russia came to the attention of the Western countries, especially the United States. It can be believed in no uncertain terms that this was a regime change effort by the U.S. that ultimately removed Imran Khan from office.

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2022/4/11/ ... e-pakistan

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Massive Pro-Khan Rallies Sweep Pakistan On Eve of New PM Vote
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 11, 2022
The Cradle




As the Pakistani parliament gears up to elect a new prime minister to replace the freshly ousted Imran Khan, massive protests swept the nation with thousands rallying in favor of Khan and against what many have called a foreign conspiracy spearheaded by the US.



Multiple cities erupted in protests on the night of 10 April in support of the ousted PM and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party, including in Islamabad, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Karachi, and Lahore.


“In a democratic system the final voice will be the voice of the people. And the voice is the people is Imran Khan,” Ambareen Turk, a local PTI activist told Reuters from the protest in Islamabad.

Pakistani expats living in West Asia also joined in on the protests, with rallies taking place in Dubai.


The parliament will meet on 11 April to elect a new prime minister.

The leading opposition figure is Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who had been jailed on corruption charges.

Khan’s PTI, meanwhile, has nominated Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the former foreign minister of Pakistan, for the post. PTI threatens to resign from the parliament en masse if Qureshi loses.

A massive resignation such as that would likely lead to new elections.


Only a few minutes after midnight on 10 April, the parliament of Pakistan held a no-confidence vote to oust Prime Minister Imran Khan. The vote was held successfully, with the majority of MPs in favor of ousting Khan from office.

Khan has accused the opposition of conspiring with “foreign powers” to remove him from office because he would not comply with western demands to stand against Russia and China.

Pressure on Khan started after 6 March, when he made headlines for criticizing western powers for pressuring Islamabad into condemning Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.

“What do you think of us? Are we your slaves … that whatever you say, we will do?” Khan said at a political rally.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/04/ ... w-pm-vote/

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Turmoil erupts in Pakistan as Prime Minister ousted
Walter SmolarekApril 14, 2022
Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... sts/104040

Political upheaval is gripping Pakistan following the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was elected to office in 2018 and removed on April 10. Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in the following day amid mass protests held by Khan’s supporters, who argue that the no-confidence motion in the legislature that ousted him was the result of a U.S.-orchestrated plot.

At the end of March, the coalition supporting Khan fell apart and the opposition found itself in the majority in the country’s National Assembly. The forces opposing Khan’s government – principly Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party – immediately moved to call a vote of no-confidence. On April 3, the day the vote was scheduled to take place, Khan announced that President Arif Alvi had dismissed the National Assembly on his advice and that new elections would take place soon.

But this move was challenged in the country’s Supreme Court. The court ruled April 7 that the National Assembly should reconvene to consider the no-confidence motion. Amid a boycott by members of Khan’s Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI) party, just enough lawmakers participated to remove Khan from office and install Sharif.

The armed forces of Pakistan have played a decisive role in the country’s political life since independence and frequently intervene in civilian affairs. Khan’s removal from office reportedly coincides with a souring of relations between his government and the military. Because of this type of interference from the armed forces and by imperialist powers like the United States, no prime minister of Pakistan has ever completed their full term.

The role of the U.S. government in Pakistan

The U.S. government has carried out a litany of crimes against the people of Pakistan over the course of many decades, backing brutal military regimes and sparking armed conflicts that left tens of thousands dead. During the so-called War on Terror, the Pentagon viewed the regions of Pakistan near the broder with Afghanistan as an extension of the war zone and waged a notorious drone bombing campaign. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, this drone war led to thousands of deaths, including up to 1,000 civilians. The constant presence of U.S. drones in the skies sowed terror throughout large swathes of the country.

The Pakistani military received $18 billion in “Coalition Support Funds” from the Pentagon between 2002 and 2018 and were an essential partner to U.S.-led NATO forces during the occupation of Afghanistan.

Decades earlier, the United States also used Pakistan as a launching pad for aggression in Afghanistan. To fight the socialist government of Afghanistan and their Soviet allies, the CIA organized a right wing fundamentalist insurgency out of which the Taliban and al-Qaeda would ultimately emerge. Recruits, weapons and other supplies were provided to the insurgents across the border with Pakistan.

Some of these groups would later turn on the Pakistani government and fight a bitter war with the U.S.-backed Pakistani military. This war has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Pakistanis.

Imran Khan’s PTI party rose to power on an anti-corruption platform and positioned itself as a fresh force to challenge the entrenched power of establishment politicians. Khan denounced the U.S. drone war against the country, and the party’s first big electoral breakthrough came in 2013 when it won the provincial election in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – the province of Pakistan most affected by U.S. drone strikes.

When the PTI triumphed in the 2018 general election, there was not a decisive break in Pakistan’s alliance with the United States. Instead, relations went up and down over the course of the Trump administration. When Khan first assumed office, tensions with the United States were high due to Trump’s announcement earlier that year that he would cut off aid to the country. But Khan attempted to improve relations the following year with a trip to the White House to meet with Trump and other top U.S. leaders, accompanied by the head of the military and the head of the country’ intelligence agency to show the unity of the entire Pakistani state behind their relationship with Washington.

Six months later, Khan and Trump met again, this time at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “[W]e’ve never been closer with Pakistan than we are right now,” gushed Trump, calling Khan “a very good friend of mine.”

Collapse of the Afghanistan occupation

But relations took another turn for the worse after the Biden administration assumed office. Biden irritated the Pakistani government by declining to hold a highly-anticipated phone call with Khan, and Pakistan registered its disapproval by deciding not to attend Biden’s “Democracy Summit” in December. But most important is what happened in Afghanistan. The United States was dealt a humiliating blow as the Taliban overran the Afghan government in a lightning offensive over the summer of 2021. Elements of the Pakistani state, especially the intelligence service, have long maintained ties with the Afghan Taliban, and this became an even more bitter source of frustration among U.S. officials following their stunning defeat.

The day after the Taliban captured the Afghan capital Kabul, Khan remarked, “What is happening in Afghanistan now, they have broken the shackles of slavery.” Khan’s government had earlier rejected the possibility of the United States using Pakistani territory to launch “counter-terrorism” air strikes on Afghanistan following the withdrawal of their ground forces.

A month and a half before his ouster, Khan was in Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin – a meeting that took place the day after the invasion of Ukraine. While in office, Imran Khan was not a consistent opponent of U.S. imperialism, nor a champion of the country’s working class. However, he did act independently of the United States in key areas. How direct a role the United States had in the political drama that played out over the past three weeks as Khan’s government lost its majority and fell will likely only become clear with time.

What’s next?

Both the PTI and the parties that united to dislodge it from power are in favor of holding new elections soon. Now in opposition, Khan has positioned himself as a nationalist defending Pakistan’s sovereignty from what he labels the U.S.-installed government of Shehbaz Sharif, who comes from an extremely wealthy family that has long played a central role in the country’s politics.

At the demonstrations held by PTI supporters, protesters united around the slogan “imported government not acceptable” and chanted, “Any friend of America is a traitor”. Regardless of whether or not Imran Khan is inflating his own record as an anti-imperialist, these positions tap into widely-held sentiments across Pakistani society and have the potential to take on a life of their own.

When elections are held at a still to be determined date, all forces in Pakistan’s politics will try to exert an influence on the outcome. This includes the powerful armed forces. Any attempts by the United States to interfere in this process should be opposed as yet another instance of disregard for Pakistan’s independence.

https://www.liberationnews.org/turmoil- ... rationnews

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Ousted Pakistani Leader Was Challenging Investment Treaties That Give Corporations Excessive Power

Mexico and many other countries are facing anti-democratic corporate lawsuits like the case that pushed Khan to withdraw from international investment agreements.
RESEARCH & COMMENTARY
APRIL 14, 2022
by Manuel Pérez-Rocha

The parliament of Pakistan recently ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan in a no-confidence vote. The reasons for the former cricket star’s political downfall are not entirely clear. His economic policies were a mixed bag at best, but he deserves credit for one thing: he’d taken a bold stand against international investment agreements that give transnational corporations excessive power over national governments.

In fact, Khan had begun a process of terminating 23 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) that allow corporations to sue governments in unaccountable supranational tribunals. Instead, he believed such disputes should be handled through local arbitration.

Khan had learned the hard way how these so-called “investor protection” agreements can tie the hands of government officials, limiting their ability to act in the public interest. In 2019, a year after Khan became Prime Minister, a tribunal (three private judges behind closed doors, to be clear) of the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ordered Pakistan to pay an Australian mining company $6 billion in compensation for denying a mining permit on environmental grounds.

A similar suit by the same company, Tethyan Copper — a subsidiary of Canadian giant Barrick Gold, through a different tribunal under the International Chamber of Commerce brought the total amount Pakistan owed Tethyan to $11 billion.

The ICSID ruling concluded that Pakistan had violated a BIT with Australia by failing to provide Tethyan “fair and equitable treatment,” a vaguely worded obligation that corporate plaintiffs love to exploit. The tribunal also decided that denying the license for Tethyan’s Reko Diq gold and copper project was tantamount to “indirect expropriation” — never mind the fact that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had ruled the permit invalid because the company had violated national mining and contract laws.

ICSID’s response was to order Pakistan to draw billions of dollars from its public coffers to compensate Tethyan for their lost expected future profits. The company had only invested about $150 million in the project.

Khan’s government went to great lengths to reverse the decision, highlighting that the $6 billion ICSID award alone represented about 2 percent of its GDP, or 40 percent of its cash reserves in foreign currency. The government argued that international tribunals must realize that their decisions have an impact on state policies, including poverty alleviation. But the U.S. District Court, responsible for enforcing the ICSID ruling, declared that Pakistan’s hopes of annulling the award were nothing more than “wishful thinking.”

The ruling against Pakistan under this investor-state dispute settlement system is even more unfair as it came just after the IMF had approved a $6 billion loan to the country that imposes harsh austerity measures on public spending. To overcome this financial straitjacket, Pakistan had no choice but to give in to this concerted attack by financial institutions and international courts and the world’s second-largest gold mining company.

LEARN MOREThe environmental threat of investor-state suits
On March 20, Barrick Gold announced that it had reached a settlement with Pakistan that will allow the company to resume their controversial Reko Diq mining project in the province of Balochistan. This is a disturbing example of international investment treaties’ chilling effect on environmentally responsible policies and public interest regulations.

Other countries facing similar corporate lawsuits must pay special attention to this case. Mexico, for example, is being sued by the U.S. mining company Odyssey Marine Exploration for $3.54 billion. Filed before the ICSID in 2019 under the terms of NAFTA, the suit challenges Mexican authorities’ decision to deny a seabed mining permit to extract phosphate (used for fertilizers) in the Gulf of Ulloa, off the coast of Baja California Sur. The Puerto Chale Fishing Cooperative had strongly opposed the project, on the grounds that their members’ livelihoods depend on the marine areas and seafloor that Odyssey is intent on dredging.

After the company retaliated by bringing a claim to ICSID, the Fishing Cooperative and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) attempted to submit an amicus curiae brief to share their concerns. They also argued that the decision by Mexico’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) to deny the exploitation permit was consistent with the precautionary principle recognized in national and international law. The ICSID tribunal refused to admit the brief. (https://bit.ly/3umy8dL)

In their recent report “A Sea of Trouble: Seabed Mining and International Arbitration in Mexico,” Jen Moore of the Institute for Policy Studies and Ellen Moore of Earthworks explain that such refusals are common in this arbitration system designed to favor transnational corporations. The majority of the panel, made up of highly paid corporate lawyers, essentially asserted that the cooperative’s contribution was “irrelevant.”

One of the three arbitrators, Phillippe Sands, did express a dissenting opinion. Not only should the cooperative be heard, Sands argued, but that the failure to admit its concerns exposes the failings of the arbitration system, with potentially far-reaching impacts on environmental protection policies in Mexico.

With Khan’s ouster in Pakistan, it’s unclear what will happen to his government’s efforts to withdraw from Bilateral Investment Treaties and the invest-state dispute settlement regime. But resisting this anti-democratic system should not be a partisan issue. All governments should have the authority to adopt economic measures in the public interest — without the threat of expensive corporate lawsuits.

https://inequality.org/research/pakista ... -treaties/

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Pakistan’s US-Backed Coup Regime Stirs Up Pashtun Hornet’s Nest
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 18, 2022
M. K. BHADRAKUMAR


Afghans protest against Pakistani air strikes, Khost, April 16, 2022

The Pakistani air strikes on Saturday on the eastern Afghanistan provinces of Kunar and Khost killing dozens of people may seem at first glance a crude knee-jerk reaction to the ambush in North Waziristan the previous day in which seven Pakistani soldiers were killed. But there is some deliberateness in what happened.

Pakistani military leadership would know that such wanton killing of civilians would gain nothing tangible while it has the potential to play out at unforeseen levels. Certainly, the good part is that neither Washington nor any regional capital — or the new prime minister in Islamabad — voiced any disapproval.

But, predictably, the Taliban interim government strongly reacted. This is indeed a humiliating rebuff to the Taliban by its erstwhile mentors. The halo of having defeated a superpower dissipates when it transpires that the Taliban government is incapable of defending its citizens against an external attack.

This is a setback to the Taliban government’s campaign seeking international recognition. Things were going rather well of late with Russia joining some other regional states in granting accreditation to a Taliban nominee to head the Afghan missions in their capitals — a shade lower than formal recognition but de facto recognition, nonetheless.

Equally, the momentum created by the recent meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries in Tunxi, China, has suffered a setback. Ironically, China worked hard to generate such momentum. And, against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis, Russia was fully on board to assert that the regional states should keep the initiative on navigating a pathway for the Taliban government.

State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid a visit to Kabul in this connection. But now it transpires that Beijing’s Iron Brother has nullified all that with a single stroke. Beijing is keeping mum about the Pakistani attacks on Saturday, which constitute a flagrant violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

This last part is important because one consistent principle Beijing has espoused is to help Afghanistan defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. In fact, as recently as on March 31, Chinese President Xi Jinping in a special message to the top diplomats of Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries underscored that Afghanistan has come to “a critical point of transition from chaos to order.” He said:

“Afghanistan is a common neighbour and partner of all participating countries, and we form a community with a shared future linked by the same mountains and rivers who would rise and fall together… China always respects Afghanistan’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, and has committed to supporting its pursuit of peace, stability and development.”

Beijing, of course took such high ground with an eye on the US. Now, the Pakistani attacks set a precedent. From now onward, indeed, what prevents the US from undertaking military operations in Afghanistan? It didn’t occur to Bajwa that Afghanistan is struggling to regain its sovereignty and a jab at this point can wound lethally.

But then, there is no question that Bajwa coolly assessed that Washington would be empathetic toward his disciplining of the Taliban. In fact, with this single act, he demonstrated that the Pakistani military has no longer any emotional hang-ups about the Taliban, no matter their past symbiotic relationship through decades.

Arguably, Pakistan is edging closer to the Western camp even as the regional states led by China and Russia have been eroding the Western exceptionalism and constructively engaging the Taliban in a robust regional process. (By the way, the White House decided to dissociate at the last minute from the joint statement of China, Russia and Pakistan at the recent meeting of the so-called Extended Troika at Tunxi.)

This is a high-stakes game, since Wang Yi has formally proposed to the Taliban government leadership in Kabul on extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan and Acting Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar actually welcomed the idea.

In retrospect, it was Bajwa’s removal of Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed as ISI chief last October (overcoming former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s resistance) that proved to be the defining moment in the reset of equations between the GHQ in Rawalpindi and the Taliban. Hameed had enjoyed a good rapport with the Taliban leadership and their trust. Succinctly put, the Taliban accurately sensed the weighty compulsions behind Bajwa’s stubbornness — personal, political and geopolitical — to replace Hameed as ISI chief even by risking a standoff with Imran Khan.

Since Hameed’s replacement, things were never the same again between the Taliban and Rawalpindi. As Imran Khan’s influence began waning, Taliban who is clued in on the Byzantine politics of Pakistan, drew appropriate conclusions. Taliban’s overtures to the European powers, US, India, etc. can now be better understood. The Afghans instinctively seek to balance Pakistani pressures. But in this case, Taliban miscalculated, since Bajwa is so much more useful for Washington — in the immediate term, at least.

The Afghan opinion across the board has condemned the Pakistani attacks, including the Taliban’s bête noire known as the National Resistance Front (NRF). That said, however, the NRF (who form the anti-Taliban resistance groups drawn largely from the security establishment of the ancien régime in Kabul) also takes a swipe at the Taliban.

While strongly condemning the Pakistani attacks, the NRF statement also says, “Condemning this aggression and the blind attacks by Pakistani forces, we consider the Taliban occupying regime the main cause of foreign aggression in Afghanistan. We emphasise the dismantling of the occupiers and proxy groups in Afghanistan.”

The estrangement between Pakistani military and the Taliban puts the NRF in a dilemma, since its main plank is that the Taliban is a mere proxy of the ISI with an agenda to project Pakistani power into Afghanistan. That plank is coming unstuck just when the NRF is reportedly gearing up to launch its guerilla war in Afghanistan from its bases in Tajikistan.

The Foreign Policy magazine affiliated to the Washington Post recently reported that the guerrilla war is set to be launched in summer. Russian reports also mention that Western envoys have been quietly visiting Tajikistan to tie up loose ends. The paradox is that Bajwa and NRF leader Abdullah Saleh have now become bedfellows enjoying US patronage!

Yet, Bajwa’s decision is risky no matter the grandstanding. Hopefully, Bajwa refrains from taking the next logical step which will be to split the Taliban — something that will please the Americans. But he is poking Pashtun ethno-nationalism. This is highly sensitive at a juncture when the Pakistani power calculus itself is so heavily dominated by the Punjabi elites. The huge groundswell of support for Imran Khan among Pashtuns is self-evident from the size of the protest rallies in Peshawar and Karachi.

For the foreseeable future, Taliban would also have its uses for ethno-nationalism, given its inability or unwillingness to share power and form an “inclusive” government. In all likelihood, this will manifest as greater radicalisation and militancy of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban). The Afghan Taliban will be hamstrung even if it wants to rein in the TTP in these emergent circumstances following the regime change in Pakistan with American backing.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/04/ ... nets-nest/

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CP of Pakistan, Statement of Politburo on current situation in Pakistan
4/18/22 3:47 PM

The new setup in Pakistan has been established with the democratic parliamentary facade that has brought an unceremonious end to the Imran government. But the political crisis is far from over. The Shehbaz government has announced the paltry - but elusive - sum of RS 25000 as the minimum wage for the labourers. This delusional increase pales before the unbridled inflation that the average citizen of Pakistan faces on a daily basis. Even those with average earnings of Rs 50,000 per month find it hard to make both ends meet in the face of sky-rocketing price hike of the daily commodities. In these circumstances, the soaring inflation is impossible to control, much less to arrest its rising tide. To implement the wage policy in Pakistan is the dream that has never come true; even the organizations under government control or semi-governmental ones have defied its implementation. For these blatant violations and delaying tactics their owners and bosses have never been taken to task in the absence of effective labour laws. Only an organized struggle by the working and labour class can lead to the minimum wage compliance in letter and spirit.

The economy of the country has been surrendered to the IMF as Pakistan is under the siege of gnawing crises. How can such a situation allow the hope of a slightest relief to the common man? The economic crisis has always generated a domino effect. It has engendered political turmoil and consequently their cumulative effect gives birth to the state in crisis.

After the meeting of the Politburo of CPP which saw through threadbare and candid discussion on the current situation in Pakistan, the Party Secretary General, Imdad Kazi, issued the communique to the press that conflict among the elements of the ruling class has brought the country to the precipice of anarchy and resultant disintegration under the dictates and strategic planning of the global imperialists. The military generals have turned the country into a client and hanger-on state which has forfeited its sovereignty. These Generals have reaped its dividend in the form of family riches, industrial empires with luxurious life style in Europe and America. The sacred politics of public service and selfless politicians with the vision of statesmen - whose sole aim is to work for the progress and prosperity of the people - have never been allowed to take root and develop. They have been brutally tortured to death in the forts of Kuli, Attock and others. Those who survived the torture and persecution have been rendered mentally paralyzed and incapacitated. The rest have been forced to live in exile abroad. Even the sword of civil- military Establishment has fallen on the neck of its proteges who dared to assert themselves one way or the other.

The ban on student unions has closed the process of throwing up experienced and popular political leadership and workers. This has ensued the conditions wherein the mentee of the establishment Imran Khan by default has capitalized on the conflict among the inmates of the GHQ and has risen in rebellion against the "in-power" section of the Security Establishment. Imran is banking on the consciousness imparted by the leftist forces against Western and American Imperialism and utilizing the anti-imperialist sentiments up to the hilt to his benefit. Though while in power, he handed the management of important financial and economic organizations and institutions to the unelected Pakistani-American citizens instead of elected representatives who played havoc with the economy of the country. The consequential effect was the landing of the country into the debt-trap of the IMF and to remain so, for many many decades to come, has become a real possibility.
The conflict generated by the appointment of new COAS has lost the government to Imran Khan and now he is on the tidal wave of widespread anti-American sentiments of the Pakistani populace.

The CPP is of the considered opinion that due to indescribable economic conditions of the country, the ruling class has been placed in quandary of lack of finances to support their life of extravaganza and luxury which situation has impelled them to be on one another's throat for grabs. Here the public welfare and emolument are not to be seen. The masses better not expect any good from these plunderers and bootleggers belonging to the political and apolitical ruling elite. They are not the stuff to bring comfort and ease in the life of a common man. They cannot resolve their longstanding issues of joblessness and inflation. To expect that these ruling capitalists and exploitative forces will put them on the path of progress and prosperity is nothing but asking for the moon, as the time-honored proverb goes. This is high time that the masses realized that politics are class based and the political parties are but the class representatives of different classes of shade and color. The parliamentary parties are as such the representative parties of the aristocrats, feudal lords, owners of manors, chieftains, bankers and capitalists. Such groups can go to any length of meanness and brutality to get into power corridors. The clique of generals with the passage of time has evolved into a class in its own right. All these classes and groups pay lip-service to popular issues and problems to hoodwink masses into voting in their favour at polls.

These circumstances leave us with no option but to rise up in revolution against all these exploitative forces. Only a revolution can lead us to build Socialism and bring the rule of the working class and masses. Only Socialism can give a true welfare state with free education, health facilities and no one without a job. In the Socialist state the resources of the country are used for the betterment and development of its people, not armament and brinkmanship.

The Communist Party of Pakistan extends its appeal to the workers, peasants, women, students and masses in general to rally around at the platform of those parties which are their genuine mouthpiece and representative and are real fighting machines against the oppressive properties and capitalist classes and have been struggling against them for decades. The leadership and workers of the CPP have been struggling and fighting hard for the inalienable rights of the underprivileged and downtrodden sections of the society. The saga of their class struggle is that of torture, oppression, trials and tribulations and life of suppression and misery in the secret dungeons of torture centres which spans over seventy years. The emancipation of the have-nots lies in rejection of the agents of the imperialists, looters and despotic dictators and embracing of the class struggle against them.

Politburo

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Pakis ... -Pakistan/

[blindpig]

Plug for Pakistan
June 13, 17:59



Plug for Pakistan

Pakistan must make a choice between the US-controlled IMF and China as to which of the two can most realistically help it avert bankruptcy and thus become its main financial and economic partner during the most chaotic decade since World War II.

The respected Pakistani Express Tribune, citing "senior sources", reported on Thursday that the US-controlled IMF has demanded the country renegotiate energy agreements linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship project of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. way" (BRI), as an implied precondition for receiving assistance from this global financial body.

This comes at a time when the economic crisis in Pakistan continues to worsen in all directions, and the new authorities, who scandalously replaced former Prime Minister Imran Khan in early April under the pretense of solving these problems, have still not offered any sustainable solution.

It should also be mentioned that Pakistan and China agreed in September last year not to change tariff and tax policies related to CPEC energy deals, so the new authorities will backtrack on the words of the previous government if they try to renegotiate these conditions under pressure from the US-controlled IMF. The optics of such an attempt could lend credence to the former premier's claims that they came to power as a result of regime change engineered by the US against him as a punishment for his independent foreign policy. China is Pakistan's main strategic partner and one of the engines of the emerging multipolar world order along with Russia, so Islamabad must act very carefully in this regard.

Any drastic moves towards simultaneously presenting themselves as succumbing to US pressure after accusations that they were brought to power by America to reverse Pakistan's grand strategic reorientation from former Prime Minister Khan's multipolar conservative-sovereignist direction to Washington's unipolar liberal-globalist direction, pursuing its own interests, can cause irreparable damage to the reputation of the new government. It is worrying that Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa just a few days ago suggested that China's interest in South Asia seemed to be waning, including in Pakistan, where the BRI flagship project is being implemented.

According to him:
“My analysis is that China has shifted its strategic focus to Southeast Asia. They see more strategic interest in the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia, in this region and in Africa. They are less interested in this region. I don't know if I'm right or not, but even the attention to Pakistan has declined. This shows that their interest here is not the same as before. Their interest has shifted to two other areas."

While this remains his personal opinion for now, as it has not been objectively confirmed, it is nonetheless a reasonable observation, as the recent economic and political turmoil in China's leading partner countries such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan may have caused Beijing to reconsider its grand strategy. .

Instead of focusing on South Asia as before, the People's Republic may indeed be refocusing its attention on neighboring ASEAN countries and Central Asia, the former of which has a much larger and more stable market, while the latter could connect China with Iran and Turkey. Africa, as always, remains a priority in China's all-out efforts for global engagement, as none of these countries can develop sustainably in this century without the other, meaning that there will be no success. While South Asia is important to China and especially Pakistan's CPEC project, the recent uncertainty there may have comparatively dampened its interest.

If this observation is even partially true, then it suggests that Pakistan has been placed in the dilemma of the US-controlled IMF and must make a zero-sum choice.

If this observation were even partially accurate, it would mean that the US-controlled IMF has left Pakistan in a dilemma whereby it must make a zero-sum choice. Simply put, Pakistan must choose between following through on Washington's implicit demands through this global financial body and thus risk complicating relations with China or pushing back against the same country with which its new government aims to improve relations, possibly destroying an opportunity for rapprochement, while maintaining excellent strategic relations with the People's Republic.

The stakes could not be higher, given former Prime Minister Khan's earlier warning of a sequence of events that could lead to the end of his country under the worst-case scenario.

According to him:
“If the establishment does not make the right decisions, then I can assure in writing that they and the army will be destroyed, because what will happen to the country if it goes bankrupt. Pakistan is heading towards default. If that happens, which institution will suffer [most]? Army. After she suffers, what concessions will be demanded of us? Denuclearization. If the right decisions are not made at this time, the country is heading towards suicide.”

As worrisome as this scenario sounds, it certainly seems plausible, especially given the dilemma Pakistan has reportedly just thrown into the US-controlled IMF. This is putting enormous pressure on the country's military and intelligence structures, referred to in Pakistani jargon as the "establishment", to decide what course of action to take soon. The problem, however, is that the establishment has recently decided to abandon its former role in running the country, unexpectedly adopting a position of "neutrality" after a controversial vote of no confidence in former Prime Minister Khan, which he claims was staged by the US.

This newfound stance may not be the best practice at such a watershed in Pakistan's history, as the establishment has previously argued that CPEC is an initiative of great strategic interest with the full support of all stakeholders in the country. With that in mind, their continued "neutrality" could be interpreted by some observers - especially in China - as tacit approval of whatever action the new government decides to take on the US-controlled IMF's stated demand for a revision of the CPEC energy agreements. By not intervening and allowing them to possibly succumb to Western pressure, the establishment could inadvertently send a very disturbing message to China.

The People's Republic may immediately suspect that former Prime Minister Khan's claims that his successors came to power as part of a US-sponsored regime change to alter his independent foreign policy have merit if they abruptly retract the former government's agreement to keep terms CPEC energy deals under indirect US pressure through the IMF. This may signal to the Chinese that the new government is more in line with a Western worldview led by the US than one led jointly by Russia and China. Moreover, Beijing may also conclude that the establishment is also tacitly supporting this grand strategic reorientation.

If this scenario materializes, Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa's observations of China's alleged decline in South Asia could become a fait accompli, at least for Pakistan. The People's Republic is likely to view the new Pakistani government and its establishment supporters as untrustworthy, thus potentially redirecting its focus away from that country and towards Central Asia, as it seems to be already doing, in order to create ties with more economically and politically stable Iran and Turkey. Pakistan and CPEC will no doubt always be important, but they will no longer be "first among equals" in the BRI.

Reflecting on the strategic ideas outlined in this analysis, it is clear that the US has placed Pakistan in a double dilemma. First of all, he must urgently avert an impending bankruptcy in order to preserve the integrity of his nuclear program, according to the wise warning of former Prime Minister Khan, but he must also choose between the US-controlled IMF and China - which of these two countries can most realistically help him in this and, accordingly, become its main financial and economic partner during the most chaotic decade since the Second World War. This means that Pakistan is being forced to make a key zero-sum choice that will have huge strategic implications for years to come.

http://newsstreet.ru/blog/31778.html - zinc
https://oneworld.press/?module=articles ... ew&id=2954 - original in English

In general, a fairly simple two-move - we overthrow the legitimate government and, with the help of representatives of the dependent part of the establishment, we try to spoil our strategic opponents (in this case, China and Russia) even at a huge economic cost to Pakistan itself.
We are waiting for China to respond.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7675122.html

Google Translator

[blindpig]

CP of Pakistan, THE DECLARATION AND RESOLUTION ISSUED BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PARTICIPANT PARTIES AT LEFT ALTERNATIVE CONFERENCE, ISLAMABAD
6/23/22 3:56 PM

Imdad Kazi SG, CPP and the representatives of other mainstream Left political parties and the parties of the Federating units vehemently called upon the rulers of the country while addressing at the National Press Club, Islamabad to the Left Alternative Conference to reduce their lavish spendings incurred by their extravagant lifestyle at the cost of the poor of the country to give the country traction out of the deep morass of prevalent economic crisis. They pointed that from the president to the governors, and from the prime minister to the chief ministers, down to federal and provincial ministers along with the federal and provincial MPs, civil and military bureaucrats and judges of the higher judiciary should get their salaries and perks and privileges considerably curtailed to deliver the country from the ruthless boot of the IMF conditionalities and as such put the country on the course of progress and development.

The Left Alternative Conference was convened by the CPP on June 18, 2022 wherein the delegates of the sixteen leftist parties participated. The speakers categorically expressed deep concern over the deteriorating socioeconomic situation of the country, the responsibility of which they squarely placed on the shoulders of the civil-military bureaucracy which is in collusion with judiciary and capitalist and aristocratic elites of the country. The labourers, workers and the masses in general bear the brunt of the worsening condition through paying direct and indirect taxes augmented by inflation and joblessness. The toiling masses are left with no alternative other than self-immolation along with family members to spare themselves the life of hunger, destitution and shame. The speakers regretted that the middle class is going through great motions to provide their families with a two-square meal. On the contrary, the ruling junta is busy mercilessly gobbling down the resources of the smaller provinces and nationalities, especially Balochistan with impunity. People's lives have been ruined in cahoots with international imperialists and countries with imperialistic designs as well as financial organizations.

To counter this depressing and hopeless situation, the Left Parties were in full agreement that they had to get united to provide an alternative platform for the masses.

The speakers insisted that the capitalists are engaged in a very bestial manner to accumulate wealth and riches through exploitation of the havenots of the world. They're savagely destroying the natural environment by contributing to hazardous environmental pollution. They called a spade a spade by rightly pointing to the fact that the path leading to the solution of these socioeconomic problems goes through socialism. To vanquish imperialism along with its stooges, i. e, civil-military bureaucracy, primitive feudalism and bloodthirsty capitalism harnessed with neoliberalism is only possible through Socialist Revolution to achieve the wider aims of prosperity and happiness.

A joint declaration was issued at the end of the conference and a 5-member Committee was constituted to further the realization of the objective of the Left Alliance. It was decided, moreover, that every participant party shall, in this context, seek the approval of the respective central committees before meeting on July 23 at Islamabad. The final touches will be given to the next course of action coupled with arriving at the consensual decision of the alliance name and organizational structure.

_________
DECLARATION _________

The following declaration was issued at the end of the conference attended by the delegates of the progressive and leftist parties which work under the universal principles of freedom and greater autonomy as informed by Marxism-Leninism.

Since its very inception, Pakistan became a security state getting inspiration from the religious dogmas, parochial ideas instead of being destined to be a secular welfare state. This led to the lopsided empowerment of the security establishment at the expense of the atrophy of the sociopolitical and socioeconomic institutions.

The country has been regrettably turned into a client state that rendered it to find itself in the midst of the crater of the crises. Currently, the country is grappling with an insurmountable structural crisis that has brought it at the verge of bankruptcy multiplied by inflation, joblessness and other multiple socio economic problems. The ruling elitist parties and their cohort civil-military bureaucracy have held the state hostage whose institutions are used as a handmaid in collaboration with the imperialist financial organizations like IMF, etc to the detriment of the interests of the country. To hope for any good from such parties and groups of welfare and relief for the toiling masses is nothing but a delusion at its worst.

Therefore, we, the Leftist Parties, have agreed on the following program to come for the rescue of oppressed and deprived nationalities and the people at large at this hour of national chaos.

1 We will together strive for the emancipation from the IMF and other exploitative financial organizations that are instrumental in staunching the subsidies alongside increase in the utility bills and prices of the daily commodities. To deliver Pakistan in its true sense of the word, we will work for bringing an end to the neo-liberal economic policies, controlling the unbridled inflation, stopping privatization and annually creating job opportunities.

2 We will endeavor to fashion the federation of Pakistan with guiding principles of secularism, with full provincial autonomy for the federating units, with equal rights for all minorities. We will exert our efforts for the repealment of all discriminatory laws against women and the minorities so that they may live with safety, dignity, self-respect and without gender discrimination. To this end, fundamental amendments shall be demanded to be effected in the constitution of Pakistan.

4. Efforts shall be made to bring an end to the military operations carried out in different parts and federating units of the country and forced disappearances. We will work for the immediate release of all political and human rights activists or get them to be tried in the court of law with full freedom of defence to prove their innocence.

5. Our joint efforts shall be concentrated to bring about financial autonomy of the federating units, royalty over natural and mineral resources, practically an end to the concurrent list under the 18th amendment of the constitution to hand over the residual powers and departments to the federating units with the abolition of the federal ministries thereof to stop the national resources going to the drain.
6. We will struggle in unison for the restoration of the State-Subject Rules, repealment of the 4th schedule and right to making independent decisions by the people of Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir under the principles of freedom of expression and liberty.
7. All endeavors shall be made towards the realization of longstanding inexorable demand of the people of Saraiki and Waseeb to achieve the status of a province for their region.

8. All non-productive expenditures, particularly that of military ones, shall be resisted tooth and nail. Will commit ourselves to the goal of rescinding all perks and privileges with burgeoning allowances of the civil-military bureaucrats of grade 18 and above including judges that have taxed the public exchequer beyond imagination.
9. Will work tirelessly to abolish feudalism and aristocracy by parceling out the vast tracts of land under the possession of a single individual or family into small holdings of the peasants wherein they toil. For this purpose we will galvanize our parties gathered in alliance for achieving the ceiling of 50 acres of the irrigated land and 100 acres for the non-irrigated one. Will focus our energies to have tax rebate on the holdings of 16 acres and less.

10. Will struggle for industrial development and getting the closed units to operate once again.

11. Will aim our efforts at the implementation of Indus Waters Treaty for the due share of canal Waters to be allotted to the smaller provinces along with the involvement of all stakeholders in the process of decision making about the manipulation of Waters from upstream to downstream. We will strive together to set those injustices right done to the smaller federating units and J&K. The upstream construction of any dam shall be resisted and to rescue the Indus Delta, efforts shall be put into gear to allow 10,000 cusec water to be released downstream from the Kotri Barrage.

12. Will struggle for the realization of the social security and old-age benefits for the peasants working on the agricultural farms on daily wages in line with industrial workers.

13. Will work to dismantle the gig economy and system of the third-party involvement and thus help the workers to be employed on permanent basis and given the right to form trades unions under law; will work hard to help fix minimum pay of Rs 40,000 for all workers and employees and the implementation thereof.

14. Journalists working in print and electronic media must have a fair and just pay and remuneration with group insurance and job protection as determined by the Wage Board to cope with the prevalent situation of backbreaking inflation and price hike. The alliance shall strive for this shoulder to shoulder with the journalists.

15. The state shall be made to realize the foremost responsibility of free quality education and medical treatment, job and amenity of a house to live therein with dignity and honour.

16. Will not rest until we have, through unified efforts, made the state provide jobs for the jobless youth with unemployment allowance till they have a work to do.
17. Will spare no efforts to get the students unions revived so that students have an opportunity to elect their representatives in educational institutions and as such contribute to throwing up a vibrant future political leadership of the country as the educational institutions always have served as a political nursery through the length and breadth of the world.

Central secretariat

Communist Party of Pakistan
Central Secretariat: D-168, Naseem Nagar Phase-III, Hyderabad, Sindh.
Phone: +92-22-2670231, Fax: +92-22-2670231, Mob: +92-333-2714014, +92-300-3065723,
E-Mail: cppk1948@gmail.com Web: www.cpp.org.pk

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Pakis ... ISLAMABAD/

[blindpig]

Pakistan’s ousted president Imran Khan trounces his opponents by a wide margin in their own stronghold of Punjab. (Photo Credit: The Cradle)

Imran Khan rewrites Pakistan’s political history
By M. K. Bhadrakumar (Posted Jul 19, 2022)

Originally published: The Cradle on July 18, 2022 (more by The Cradle) |

It is an unsavoury proposition always, be it in India or Pakistan, when political power is usurped by fly-by-night operators who engineer defections from a ruling party, and an established government gets overthrown despite its mandate to govern.

In India–so far, at least–such shenanigans leading to regime change at the federal or state level have not been manipulated by foreign powers–except, perhaps, in the ouster of the first communist government in the southern state of Kerala, way back in 1959.

In South Asian politics, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives have been chronic cases where foreign interference in their domestic politics has become endemic. But they are either small countries or weak states, vulnerable to external pressure.

A coup by other means

It was the first time that the curse of foreign interference appeared in a big South Asian country such as Pakistan when the U.S. openly sought the removal of then-Prime Minister Imran Khan, and a regime change indeed ensued within a short period of time.

To what extent the political forces that constituted the successor regime in Islamabad drew encouragement from Washington to usurp power, we do not know, and may never. But given the political elite’s past record of rentier mentality, such a thing cannot be ruled out.

Although those elites in India and Pakistan have strong similarities, the Pakistani (civilian) elite has long held a tradition of looking over their shoulder for U.S. approval.

Imran Khan himself insists that this was precisely what happened, and therefore, he has called his protest movement a “jihad.” Indeed, the abrupt warming up of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, which was in a state of disrepair under Khan, no sooner than he was ousted, also signified the Biden administration’s delight and sense of relief over the regime change in Pakistan.

As for Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had no time for Pakistan previously, the sudden upbeat tone of his personal diplomacy toward the new ruling elite in Islamabad, which is also drawn from powerful political dynasties that are intimately known to the U.S. establishment, distinctly conveyed the impression that on his cold war chessboard, he could now count on a new pawn to be pitted against China (and Russia.)

Khan not ‘out’

However, such euphoria was short-lived. Contrary to the estimations, including in India, that Imran Khan’s political career was over, events have shown that he is still very much Pakistan’s current history, and, if anything, it is the usurpers in Islamabad who are relics from the past.

To be sure, Khan’s “jihad” has taken the form of a tsunami that today threatens to drown the usurpers. The manner in which he has stormed the heartland of Punjab in Sunday’s by-elections must be sending alarm bells ringing in the corridors of power, not only in Lahore but also in Islamabad.

A landslide victory

The mammoth crowds that follow Imran Khan everywhere are indeed turning into votes. Without doubt, it is after a very long time that a truly charismatic politician has appeared on the Pakistani political landscape.

Khan has stunned his detractors and political opponents by taking control of the crucial Punjab provincial assembly. His party won 15 of 20 seats up for grab in by-elections, trouncing arch-rival Pakistan Muslim League-N (which incidentally heads the federal government in Islamabad also since April after Imran Khan’s ouster) on its home ground.

The result is not only a major blow for current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif but is also widely regarded as a foretaste of what could happen in a general election. Imran Khan has been demanding an early general election which is otherwise due in October 2023.

The powers that be

The conventional wisdom that the Pakistani military establishment would feel challenged by such a spectre has been proven wrong this time around (which also augurs well for the country’s political future.) Fundamentally, the axiom that a Pakistani civilian politician who developed differences with the military leadership would be a fallen angel ever condemned to oblivion has also withered away.

In fact, the swiftness of Imran Khan’s return to centre stage is awesome, as if he never quit the centre stage and the usurpers were mere interlopers.

Imran Khan has rewritten Pakistan’s political history by knocking at the doors of political power so soon after his ouster by an unholy alliance of time servers with foreign patronage.

If the election results from Punjab have conveyed one single thing, it is that the people of that country have understood what democratic empowerment is and are determined to voice their opinion.

And that opinion is, unmistakably, that the regime change in Lahore following the ouster of Imran Khan’s party from power was a repugnant episode, and must be undone. The strong likelihood is that it also becomes a signpost for those in power in Islamabad.

Given Pakistan’s grave economic challenges, political stability is an imperative need, and the last thing the country deserves is to be burdened with a national government which lacks legitimacy. When a country is faced with such a predicament, the only way out is to hold fresh elections that can hopefully bring to power a new, stable government with the mandate to rule.

Of course, mandate only gives legitimacy to rule and does not necessarily guarantee good governance–Bangladesh is, perhaps, a solitary exception in the South Asian region–but that is something that we can learn to live with as a fact of life in our part of the world.

Understanding Khan’s ‘jihad’

Imran Khan’s “jihad” is not a call for anarchy. Nor is he stirring up a “colour revolution”. He is, on the contrary, a factor of stability for Pakistan–strictly abiding by the rule of law and constitutional order. He is only demanding a new government with a mandate to rule, a cause that he has consistently espoused since signs of a U.S.-sponsored political coup against him began to crystallize.

The real danger is that if there is a disconnect between the rulers and the ruled, it not only weakens the incumbent government and affects decision-making, especially when difficult decisions need to be taken, but also that political drift could spawn anarchical conditions. And that is an eventuality Pakistan can ill afford in the prevailing circumstances.

It is possible that Khan may be returned to power in fresh elections. It is equally possible that his party may once again fall short of a majority and has to build a coalition, or, alternatively, reconcile with the role of an opposition. But the present logjam needs to be broken, nonetheless. And that is only possible through new elections.

Political instability in Pakistan will be detrimental to the country’s long term interests at the present juncture in global affairs, where it has a serious role to play as a major regional power.

Pakistan has a lot going for it in the emergent world order characterized by multipolarity. It is up to the Pakistani political elite not to goof up, in their mad scramble for power. That makes fresh elections in the shortest possible time a dire necessity.

https://mronline.org/2022/07/19/imran-k ... l-history/

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CP of Pakistan, JOINT DECLARATION OF THE 13 LEFTIST PARTIES ON THE ON-GOING TENSION IN SINDH AND CRIMINAL ATTITUDE OF THE FEDERAL AND PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS
7/18/22 3:29 PM

WE, THE Leftist Parties, strongly condemn the tragic incidents that occurred in Hyderabad which resulted in loss of life and limb and damage to precious property. Some arrests have been made in consequence of lodging of the FIR of the occurrences. We demand that all nominated accused should be brought to justice in a fair trial. We are of the considered opinion that as a reaction to this sorrowful incident, attacking hotels, restaurants, public and private transport and peaceful pedestrians and subjecting them to indignities and inhumane treatment is in no way tenable and justified. We condemn these brutal acts as well.

These happenings are eye-opener to stress upon us the realization of nationalistic or national contradictions and conflicts that have bedeviled Pakistani society.

The State of Pakistan should prioritize the discharge of responsibility to remove the genuine apprehensions of Sindhis. We feel that if the Supreme Court verdict in law and order situation case in Sindh had been implemented in letter and spirit for which the deadline of 2018 was set for its execution, the situation would have been quite different today and we would have been spared such horrible and gory scenes of death and destruction unfolding in the length and breadth of the urban areas of Sindh.

We put forward this inexorable demand that in the light of the SC decision all illegal immigrants should be deported to their countries of origin which is vital for the maintenance of peace and controlling the law and order situation in Sindh. The State of Pakistan which has already been beset with an intense crisis and anarchic situation is guilty of criminal inaction and negligence for two long days of killing, arson, plunder and destruction that speaks volumes of insensitivity of the Federal and Provincial Governments. Both governments were conspicuous by their absence which is very hard to interpret otherwise than their complicity in and sufferance of the whole tragic episode. It certainly gives credence to the notion that the government worked as a catalyst to get the citizenry at each other's throat and bay for each other's blood to deflect their attention from the real crisis so that the forces of social change are deprived of uniting masses for the larger aim of achieving just and egalitarian society.

It is the primal objective of the ruling elite to cause divisions in the society through ethnic dissensions and disputes to prolong its exploitative and oppressive rule over gullible masses. The authorities and political figures put in place cosmetic measures and gloat over putting behind the bars and beating the culprits to distract people's attention from the real issues and problems.

We consider the Sindh government and the Rangers responsible for adding fuel to the fire. The Rangers have been for the last thirty-five years getting lion's share of budgetary allocation that runs in hundreds of millions but still their inefficiency incompetence and slothfulness is writ large as they fail to stem or forestall such untoward incidents.

We appeal to the brave Sindhi people to refrain from fighting and getting embroiled in controversies with other ethnic communities and direct their protests and anger instead against the state and Sindh government that have sowed the seeds of discontent, deprivation, restlessness, dissension, frustration and injustice. In their struggle and fight against the state for their genuine and alienable rights they will find us shoulder to shoulder with them.

We call upon Pakhtun brethren that the Pakhtuns and Sindhis both are oppressed nationalities and so it makes no sense to fight a war of attrition among themselves instead of struggling against the ruling elite that is squarely responsible for their myriads of miseries and high incidence of poverty and destitution.

We extend our appeal to the Afghans as well that Afghanistan has been turned into virtual rubble through despicable jihad business of imperialist forces and Pakistani generals which scenario forced them to leave their hearth and home . It is now incumbent upon them to play their role in building a peaceful environment for their own good and foil the evil designs of global conspirators by not becoming party to local disputes and quarrels that might create the impression of them contributing to conflicts and illegal possessions.

In the last, we earnestly assert on the labourers, peasants, women, youth and masses in general that if today they find themselves steeped in the situation of inflation, joblessness and other social and economic ills, it is solely thanks to the ruling elite and civil-military bureaucracy. They have - in their mad pursuit for luxurious life and making properties - turned the country insolvent and out at elbows while leaving the country and her people at the mercy of imperialist lending organizations like IMF, etc. They should rise and struggle against the oppressive and exploitative forces. Unless we wrench out our emancipation from them, we cannot achieve our class and national rights, shaking off the yoke of poverty and deprivation. Freedom from them will be the harbinger of happiness and prosperity and getting means for honorable and dignified living.

Names of the Parties.

1. Communist Party of Pakistan

2. Pakistan Mazdoor Kisan Party

3. National Party

4. Pakistan Inqilabi Party

5. Pakistan Mazdoor Mahaz

6. Awami Tahreek

7. Awami Jamhori Party

8. Mazdoor Kisan Party

9.Pakistan Seraiki Party

10 Jummu Kashmir People's Party.

11. Jummu Kashmir National Awami Party

12 .Gilgit Baltistsn Awami Workers Party

13 . Gilgit-Baltistan Bachao Tahrek

http://solidnet.org/article/5560bc13-06 ... 23ed76c54/

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Failed Assassination of Imran Khan May Push Pakistan’s US-Backed Coup Regime to Tipping Point
NOVEMBER 12, 2022


Imran Khan addresses a rally in Pakistan in October 2022. Photo: Multipolarista.

First Washington supported a soft coup against Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan. Then the unelected regime banned his speeches, charged him with “terrorism,” and banned him from politics. Now a failed assassination attempt may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Pakistanis have been out on the streets protesting in the millions over the past few months. Even though the country has been afflicted by the horrific floods, the political momentum for radical change has not abated.

An assassination attempt on former Prime Minister Imran Khan this November has brought matters to a tipping point. Today, Khan’s popularity as a political leader and public figure is at its peak – a fact even his detractors will concede.

And this is precisely what has got him into trouble.

Khan was ousted in a regime-change operation at the beginning of April. We can now conclusively say that the group responsible for the ouster included virtually the entire corrupt feudal-dynastic political class, the chief of army staff and some of his cohorts in the military high command, and of course the godfather overseeing it all: the United States.

It was a classic case of a “color revolution,” which unfolded within just a few weeks. Elite sections of civil society, including the ostensibly more “progressive” ones, as well as the entire mainstream media, set the stage for the powerful to do their dirty work through lawfare.

With political support from Washington, they organized a bogus vote of no confidence, with the help of huge sums of money coming from both inside and outside Pakistan to buy off members of Khan’s own party, the Movement for Justice (PTI).What has followed has been nothing less than historic. Pakistan has seen many civilian politicians deposed unceremoniously, but the bulk of ordinary people have been fairly indifferent to such elite intrigues.


Imran Khan’s PTI broke the two-party dictatorship

The curse of the country has been that sometimes the civilian politicians in power, and their blatant plundering of the country, have actually made military rule seem better – or at least no different.

The ouster of Imran Khan engendered sadness and anger among large segments of the population, who believed that the “Khan experiment” was now dead.

But the former prime minister demonstrated an indefatigable resolve to fight back, which is frankly miraculous in a country where wealth and power are so obscenely monopolized by civilian and military elites who despise Khan.

From one city to the next, all across the country, Khan has held major rallies. His speeches have aroused a population that otherwise thought they would just have to live in despair, with the ancien régime coming back to power.

Over the past few months, in the scorching heat of the summer and through the devastating floods, Khan has not budged an inch on his simple core demand: elections to determine who should be governing the country.

But what seems like a fairly banal demand is anathema to the traditional mainstream political parties, especially the two which have played musical chairs in impoverishing the country, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

PML-N in particular, with its current unelected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has gone into panic mode, because it has always been accustomed to dominating the most powerful and populous province of the country, Punjab.

The most fascinating and encouraging aspect of Khan’s PTI is that it is perhaps the first national political party that has constituencies and support in all of Pakistan’s provinces.

This is no small feat for a young political party that has broken the stranglehold of the two-party duopoly that has dominated Pakistani political life for the past three decades.

Surely, it seems to strongly indicate that Pakistanis desperately wanted political change – and a lot of it.



According to media reports and statements by multiple officials, including Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, four principal issues were underscored in those meetings:

The next COAS, to be determined by the end of November, should be pro-Washington and restart security cooperation, approving drone attacks and American military bases in Pakistan.

Pakistan must start distancing itself from its age-old ally, Beijing, by reducing CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) initiatives, especially in the port of Gwadar; and it should not interfere with terrorist actions undertaken by the extremist ETIM (East Turkestan Islamic Movement) from Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Islamabad should “normalize” relations with the Israeli apartheid regime, manufacturing consent with a massive psyops media campaign.
No elections should be held until Khan’s popularity decreases in some way or the other.
Perhaps feeling emboldened and empowered by his meeting with the mafia don in Washington, General Bajwa granted some authority to the military-intelligence apparatus to openly speak against Khan. That was a fatal mistake.

In a very foolish and infantile press conference by the Director-General (DG) of the ISI (Pakistan’s military intelligence, perhaps second only to the COAS himself in terms of power in the country), the DG went wild and loose with criticisms of Khan.

General Bajwa has maintained all along that the military is completely “neutral” in the country’s political process. This press conference demolished that myth.

Then, in another unprecedented move, Khan hit right back at the DG of the ISI, scathingly shaming him.

Messing with the DG of the ISI is just not done. Yet Khan did it.

Most importantly, and extraordinarily, this has led to widespread condemnation of the top echelons of the military-intelligence apparatus by ordinary Pakistanis.

This is despite the fact that the regime threatened people who criticize the military on social media with seven years in prison.

The genuine fear that Pakistanis have of their national security state seemed to have vanished overnight.


Meanwhile, the political parties in government, which in the past showcased themselves as being at the forefront in the struggle against the military establishment, are not only silent but complicit in what that establishment is doing to critics.

Illegal detentions, torture, and murders are happening on this government’s watch. High-profile journalist Arshad Sharif, who had exposed corruption in the regime, was murdered in strange circumstances after he fled to Kenya.

But the PDM government, the so-called “anti-establishment” forces, are simply watching this all happen.

The only positive outcome of this is that these political groups have been thoroughly exposed for their hypocrisy, lies, and opportunism.


China makes rare criticism of Pakistan

After General Bajwa made his trip to reassure Washington that its demands would be met, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited China in a period of unusual friction between the two countries.

Though soundbites of being “all-weather friends” were regurgitated, President Xi Jinping, in a highly unusual fashion, stated that Pakistan needs to do more to protect Chinese workers.

“President Xi expressed his great concern about the safety of Chinese nationals in Pakistan, and conveyed his hope that Pakistan will provide a reliable and safe environment for Chinese institutions and personnel working on cooperation projects there,” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry reported.

This kind of public criticism had never been done before. It seems to indicate that Beijing knows very well how Islamabad is concerning itself with improving ties with Washington, rather than retaining the deep ties it has held over decades with China.

China Pakistan Xi Jinping Shehbaz Sharif
A series of terror attacks have killed and wounded Chinese citizens in Pakistan, especially targeting geostrategic infrastructure projects that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Beijing has asked for permission to send its own security detail to protect their citizens, but Islamabad has apparently taken Washington’s orders to reject this request.

Pakistan is arguably China’s most powerful ally, but we are seeing tensions emerge now that were never witnessed in the past.

Despite Prime Minsiter Sharif’s reassurances, Beijing knows very well that the real power lies in the hands of General Bajwa and the military high command. And the latter’s renewed love affair is with Washington, not Beijing.

Failed assassination of Imran Khan backfires
A gunman tried to murder Iman Khan on November 3 as he marched through Wazirabad in a protest.

The would-be assassin fired several shots; one hit Khan in his shin; one killed a PTI official; and several others were injured.

Khan himself claimed he had information from supporters inside the intelligence agencies that showed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his allies ordered the assassination attempt.


At this point, one can only speculate about the thinking behind this atrocity. Many Pakistanis believe that, if a trained shooter from the intelligence agencies wanted to kill Khan, then he could have.

But General Bajwa is due to retire in just a few weeks, and is not too keen about the possibility of setting off a civil war, or at least significant social unrest.

Many observers believe the shooting was a warning to Khan and his supporters.

But this explanation seems weak because, by now, the whole world knows that Khan is as hard as a rock, and virtually nothing has deterred him from openly confronting the powers that be – be they in Islamabad or Washington.

This assassination attempt may, once again, backfire badly.

The grotesque action took place in the midst of the “long march” called by Khan, starting in Lahore and ending in Islamabad.

It is important to note that not only has Khan forcefully emphasized that his rallies and marches must remain peaceful, but that indeed these tens of millions of Pakistanis who have come out have been incredibly disciplined and peaceful in their protests.

This fact should silence Western orientalists who propagate the idea that large “Mozlem” crowds engage in frenzied violence when let loose.

The myth that Imran Khan was the military’s puppet

The routine mantra that has been repeated ad nauseum is that Imran Khan had previously been a darling of the military establishment, but that he later had a falling out with the high command at the end of 2021, and that is what led General Bajwa and his colleagues to dump Khan and punish him.

This line of thinking stems from the very useful term of propaganda employed to describe Khan’s ascent to power: the so-called “hybrid regime.”

Though it is virtually impossible to find a consistent definition of what this term actually meant, we can surmise that it was a liberal smear implicating Khan as a puppet of the military, who would obediently follow its script.

While it is undoubtedly true that the Pakistani military wanted to punish the other two political parties by reminding them who is really in charge of national security policy in the country, it is simultaneously true that Imran Khan was the most popular politician in the country – and by a long shot.

It is completely erroneous to claim that the army’s top brass felt like it was getting its puppet into power. In fact, the military needed Khan more than Khan needed it, given that Khan and his political party were the only ones popular enough for the army to retake power.

The important detail is that the military high command knew it was a gamble to empower a fiercely independent Imran Khan – but it was a risk they felt they had no choice but to take.

At the very least, the military top brass knew that Khan would not engage in conspiratorial plots with the Americans to undermine the military, as the other parties had done.

Lahore Pakistan rally Iman Khran
The fact that both Khan and the military had similar views on ending the war in Afghanistan hardly qualified Khan to be called a puppet.

In fact, well before the tussle between Khan and General Bajwa over who should be the next director general of the ISI at the end of 2021, the military and their friends in the Persian Gulf were irritated by Khan’s constant reference to the Chinese way of eliminating poverty and the need for a welfare state, as he spoke to crowds of rich Arabs in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

On top of this, Khan’s unflinching and vocal support for the Palestinians and his consistent condemnation of apartheid Israel led the establishment to consider him a “loose cannon” who could not be controlled, a civilian politician who would not simply take orders on issues of national security.

If the term “hybrid regime” simply meant civilian politicians unwilling to defy the military-intelligence apparatus of their states – or deep states – then virtually every US administration can be described as a hybrid regime.

The one American leader who did try to defy the consensus of the national security state during the Cold War was John F. Kennedy – and we know the price he paid for it.

Thus, this entire narrative was farcical. If anything, so-called hybrid regimes existed all throughout the 1990s and afterward in Pakistan.

The “progressive” government of the late Benazir Bhutto, for instance, was plundering the country along with her husband at home, while allowing the military establishment to fully support the rise to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan. That sounds like a hybrid regime more than anything under Khan.

Pakistan’s role in the US new cold war
It is difficult to write about these political developments that are unparalleled in the history Pakistan.

The sheer audacity of Imran Khan and the tens of millions of protestors who detest the current regime and sections of the top brass of the military is rather extraordinary.

Nevertheless, we must not lose sight of the larger geopolitical power plays at work here.

We have seen how Washington has been humiliated by its own former puppets, like Saudi Arabia and India, which have refused to go along with this “new cold war” that the US is waging against China and Russia.


In such conditions, it seems that Washington wants to resuscitate its old Cold War relationship with the formidable Pakistani military.

In its crusade to halt the progress of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, to prevent the expansion of BRICS, and in general to impede Eurasian integration, Washington wants the new Pakistani chief of army staff to play old Cold War games of subversion, terrorism, and hybrid warfare.

Khan is no revolutionary socialist. But one doesn’t need to be a revolutionary socialist to believe your country has the right to have its own independent foreign policy.

And because Khan is committed to that, be it in defense of his relationship with China and Russia and especially his robust defense of Kashmiris and Palestinians, he will remain an impediment for the godfather in Washington.

The outcome of this chaotic situation in Pakistan is deeply uncertain. But there is one thing that is crystal clear: the political battle is between Khan and the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis on the one side; and the powerful and wealthy civilian and military Pakistani elites and their sponsor, Washington, on the other.

Despite legitimate criticisms of how Khan governed when in power, progressives clearly ought to be able to figure out where they stand now.

(Multipolarista)

https://orinocotribune.com/failed-assas ... ing-point/

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Whats next for Pakistan as Imran Khan and the establishment blame each other

Taimur Rahman, General Secretary of the Mazdoor Kisan Party, analyzes the political situation in Pakistan after the assassination attempt on Imran Khan

November 16, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch



Taimur Rahman, General Secretary of the Mazdoor Kisan Party, analyzes the situation in Pakistan in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on former PM Imran Khan.

He explains the demands Imran Khan raised and how the country’s establishment and government have responded to them and the economic crisis. He also talks about some of the alternative policies that can help bring Pakistan out of the abyss.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/11/16/ ... ach-other/

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Pakistan’s Imran Khan Compares His Ouster to CIA Coup in Iran, Criticizes Western Colonialism
JANUARY 2, 2023


Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan (left) meets with Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi in September 2021 File photo.

By Ben Norton – Dec 31, 2022

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister likened the US-backed parliamentary coup that removed him from power in April 2022 to the violent CIA operation that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953.

The CIA-organized coup “was a very similar pattern followed in when my government was dismissed,” Khan said.

He likewise praised Iran’s independence today, stating that Western sanctions means that “the people of Iran might have suffered, but they haven’t lost their dignity.”

Khan added that, while Pakistan and Iran may have some differences, “you cannot disagree with them standing for their sovereignty. So I admire that about them.”

As prime minister, during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Khan publicly called on the United States to lift its illegal sanctions on Iran, arguing, “It is very unjust they are dealing with such a large outbreak on one side, and on the other they are facing international sanctions.”

Since his ouster, Pakistan’s unelected, US-backed coup regime has hit Khan with baseless “terror” charges, violently repressed protests, banned public broadcasts of his speeches, and arrested dissidents for criticizing it on social media.

Prominent journalists who exposed the corruption of the coup regime, like Arshad Sharif, were killed in mysterious circumstances.

A gunman even tried to assassinate Khan, shooting him in the leg at a rally in November.

Khan made these comments likening the coup against him to the CIA putsch against Mossadegh, and commending Iran for its independence, in a December 28 interview with the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), a think tank based in Istanbul, Türkiye.

In the discussion, Khan stressed the supreme importance of sovereignty, saying “a sovereign country is the key for me to success.”

He criticized the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) for limiting the sovereignty of developing nations like Pakistan.

Khan also emphasized that he will always support the struggle of the Palestinian people and would never recognize Israel.

Imran Khan praises Iran’s independence

Khan said of Iran in the interview:

Well, in Iran, during Mohammad Mossadegh’s premiership, his government was removed, and this is now documented, it was removed by the CIA. And it was because an independent-minded prime minister took over Iran, and wanted to make policies for the interest of the people of Iran. And so we all know what happened to him.

There was, first of all, there was this campaign of propaganda campaign against him in the media. Then the opposition parties were paid to do demonstrations against the government of Prime Minister Mossadegh. And then his own party members were given money to change party affiliation. And eventually it was finally the army which removed him.

So it was a very similar pattern followed in when my government was dismissed.

But, you know, let me just talk about Iran. I find that it is most important for a country to live with dignity and self-respect. I mean, that for me is the most important thing.

You know, we Muslims, our oath with the Almighty is “La ilaha illa Allah” – “There is no god but Allah.” It gives us dignity, self-respect. We are not supposed to bow in front of anyone but the Almighty.

And the Muslim countries, when they become subservient or when they become blind states, when they lose their dignity.

Unfortunately, in Pakistan, we have suffered from this. I have found that Pakistan’s foreign policy, the vast majority of the people of Pakistan have found it very undignified, because we have relied on aid, and we stretch our hands, and we get money.

Or we fight other people’s war, and then we participate, a lot of our own people die in this, and we do it for foreign aid or US dollars. And I think it has consequences for our society.

Number one, the society never learns to stand on its own feet, because only when you stand on your own feet do you realize your strength. But when you are always having crutches of foreign aid, just because you are trying to serve someone else’s foreign-policy objectives, you lose your dignity.

And for me, the people of Iran might have suffered, but they haven’t lost their dignity.

They, you know, we will disagree with maybe what their world view is. We might disagree with the world view of Islam. But you cannot disagree with them standing for their sovereignty. So I admire that about them.

Imran Khan calls for sovereignty, criticizes IMF

Later in the discussion, Khan reiterated similar comments about the supreme importance of sovereignty:

Eventually, a country has to be sovereign.

I believe that a country must stand its own feet, have dignity and self-respect, and that’s what gives it strength. because you rely on your own resources.

A human being that walks on crutches, his legs will waste away. The bigger the weight we lift, it strengthens us. Same with human societies.

If you start depending on aid, which we have, and if you depend on foreign loans and the IMF, you would never really learn how to stand on your own feet.

So a sovereign country is the key for me to success.

Imran Khan criticizes Western colonialism

Khan argued that developing countries are still recovering from the harms of European colonialism:

You see, the problem most of the developing world, or what you call the ex colonies, all of us, the problems we faced are the same. We have struggled to establish rule of law, justice. I mean, justice means rule of law. Rule of law means that everyone is equal before the law. And when you have colonialism, basically the colonials are above law.

And in Pakistan, unfortunately, and like most of the developing, like most of the ex-colonial countries, when they got their independence, the rulers mostly took the role of the colonizers, and they put themselves above law.

And so when you do not have rule of law, corruption becomes one of the biggest symptoms of the lack of rule of law, because the powerful elite goes above law.

And when they start making money, the state institutions cannot check the corruption. And that’s how countries become poor, not because of lack of resources, but the corruption of the ruling elite that bankrupts countries.

And that’s the case with almost the entire developing world. It’s certainly the case with Pakistan. We suffer because, after colonialism, either we had military dictatorship, half the time we were ruled by military dictators – and military dictators, clearly, when they when they take over a country, when they decide to impose martial law, they break the constitution. It’s against the constitution and the rule of law.

But unfortunately, when we’ve had civilian government, so called democratic government, they also have put themselves above law, which is why they have been able to make so much money through corruption and take the money abroad.

And it’s the same story in almost all the developing world. What you have in the developing countries are the ruling elites siphoning off money and taking it abroad.

You know, the problem about the Muslim world is that we are still evolving. We are coming out of colonialism; we haven’t found our feet. Our education system lags behind. We don’t have a great many scholars who can direct us. We have a split.

We have the Westernized elites in the Muslim world who have moved quite far away from the religion and don’t understand much about it. And then we have a lot of conservatives who do not understand the Western thought.

Imran Khan reaffirms support for Palestine, refusal to recognize Israel

Khan reaffirmed his strong support for Palestine and reiterated that he would never recognize Israel:

The founder of Pakistan [Muhammad Ali Jinnah], whom we call Quaid-e-Azam, the “Great Leader,” you know, he in 1948 gave a statement on Palestine, and he spoke about the injustice which was being done to the people of Palestine.

And he was very clear that Pakistan would not accept or would not recognize Israel as long as the people of Palestine were not given justice. So that has been basically the line of all Pakistani heads of state since then.

And secondly, we have – the issue of Palestine is almost exactly the same as the people of Kashmir. So the moment we give up our principled stand on the recognition of Israel means that we give up on Kashmir, too, because the issues are more or less the same.

…

So the United States, being a superpower, every country wants to have a good relationship with them. So the temptation is that, if you are friendly, if you recognize Israel, you will have a good relationship with the US.

But the problem in Pakistan is that it is a democratic country. And anyone who wants to go to the people, he knows that the public will never accept any head of state who has recognized Israel.

https://orinocotribune.com/pakistans-im ... lonialism/

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Chaos in Pakistan: Imran Khan Takes on America and its Comprador Elites
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 18, 2023


Junaid S AhmadWith staunch US support, Pakistan’s unelected “imported government” is trying to arrest former Prime Minister Imran Khan, the most popular politician in the country, to prevent him from running in elections. But protesters are protecting him.

“There is great chaos under heaven; [hence] the situation is excellent.”

-Mao Zadong

If 2022 was the year of popular uprisings in Pakistan, raising hope for protesters fed up with a thoroughly corrupt and repressive civil-military regime, 2023 seems to be the year when the government is trying every dirty trick in the book to kill that hope.

After a US-backed regime change operation removed elected Prime Minister Imran Khan from power in April 2022, Pakistan witnessed an unprecedented phenomenon in the nation’s history: For the first time, a civilian politician who was ousted from power didn’t simply end up in the dustbin of history, alongside interchangeable corrupt politicians who for decades played musical chairs, competing to plunder the country.

On the contrary, what occurred were massive outpourings of support for Khan and widespread opposition to the ancien régime put in power by Washington’s mercenaries in the military high command.

The enormous popular rejection of the current “imported government”, as Khan calls it, has made Pakistan’s elites increasingly desperate. They want him eliminated.

Assassination was their first method of choice – but they fumbled. At a rally in November, a gunman shot Khan in the leg, injuring but failing to kill him.

In the meantime, Plan B is being implemented: Arrest Khan on bogus charges and disqualify him from politics forever.

The former prime minister has been relentlessly holding peaceful demonstrations, demanding elections. The government knows that Khan would easily win, so it wants to prevent him from running.

A Gallup poll in March found that Khan is by far the most popular politician in Pakistan, with a 61% approval rating, compared to 37% disapproval.

The current, unelected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has the complete opposite: a 32% approval rating, compared to 65% disapproval.

The figures are clear: Nearly two-thirds of Pakistanis support Khan and oppose the unelected government.

Pakistan’s “imported government” orders the arrest of Imran Khan

Faced with its deep unpopularity, on March 8, Pakistan’s regime initiated Plan B.

Khan was leading a peaceful protest – one of the countless rallies he has organized since the April 2022 regime-change operation.

This time, massive state security forces went on a rampage and tried to arrest Khan. But they could not do it. Standing between them and Khan were tens of thousands of his supporters.

The only way to get to Khan would have been a bloodbath. This was avoided – although one Khan supporter was killed.

Then again, on March 13, Khan called for a rally in the city considered to be the heart of Pakistan: Lahore.

Despite the entire state security machinery targeting him and his supporters, the rally in Lahore was one of the biggest the city has seen.

Khan and the protesters marched confidently and peacefully in every corner of the city, where they seemed unstoppable, greeted with joy by ordinary Pakistanis of all walks of life.

The former prime minister was undeterred, committed to holding demonstrations in the provinces of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), in the lead-up to what he hopes will be national elections.

On March 14, the regime escalated its crackdown. Police surrounded Khan’s house in Lahore and tried to arrest him.

In response, thousands of supporters gathered at Khan’s home, protecting him.

The police responded with extreme violence, wounding dozens of protesters.

From his house, Khan symbolically delivered a speech via video stream, sitting with the tear gas canisters that had been fired outside.

The regime tries to ban Khan from public life

Khan’s determination to relentlessly participate in mass mobilizations has led the regime to try to ban him from public life.


Even Western organizations that are often biased, such as Amnesty International, have condemned the unelected Pakistani government’s authoritarian tactics, which have included prohibiting all speeches and rallies by Khan, as well arresting people who criticize the military on Twitter.

There are two main factors preventing an all-out assault to arrest Khan: the wrath of the population that would ensue, and fear that significant ranks within the armed forces would revolt and turn their guns on their superiors, à la Vietnam.

Indeed, it has been because of Khan’s popularity not just among ordinary Pakistani civilians but within the military ranks as well that the former prime minister has survived so far.

Khan’s popularity among some parts of the army is easy to explain. Rank-and-file soldiers and the majority of the junior and mid-rank officer corps are not keen on Washington dictating a War on Terror 2.0. They have always appreciated Khan’s principled opposition, since day one, to any military solution to the militancy in Afghanistan and the northwest of Pakistan.

Throughout 2022, Khan’s political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, the “Movement for Justice”), exponentially rose in popularity, in contrast to the all-too-visible political shenanigans of the coalition of feudal family dynasties and other corrupt forces in power.

If it is true that Khan mismanaged both political and economic governance while in power, then the current lot has engendered a virtual implosion and collapse in the country.

Khan challenges Pakistan’s pro-Western elites

It is difficult to overstate how incensed ordinary Pakistanis are with the political mafias, significant sections of the military top brass, and the chief mafia don: Washington.

One of the most disturbing aspects of what has been happening is the virtual connivance of liberal-left forces and the Pakistani deep state in attempting to eliminate Khan from the Pakistani political scene.

The visceral hatred of Khan by Pakistan’s comprador elites cannot be explained by simply having differences with Khan on various policies – something that Khan’s own critical supporters have as well.

No, for this elite class of the liberal, pro-Western Pakistani intelligentsia, Khan has committed the ultimate crime: socio-cultural class betrayal.

Khan lived abroad for so long during his impressive cricket career. He studied at Oxford, and speaks perfect English. Thus, Pakistan’s ‘Westoxicated’ elites thought that Khan would behave just like them.

Instead, Khan has rejected the condescending attitude that the country’s Western-educated elites show toward ordinary Pakistanis.

Khan has mobilized tens of millions because of his sincerity to reimagine a new Pakistan, prioritizing social justice and an independent foreign policy.

The fact that one small, sectarian leftist party or the other is not being given the credit of leading the revolt against the unpopular regime has made them neurotically envious of Khan.

It is clear for all to see: Khan and the critical supporters both in and outside of his political party have become the most dangerous threat to Pakistan’s status quo.

That is why we have seen very unusual and fast-paced meetings between US officials and Pakistan’s generals and regime officials: Washington’s “friends again”.

Elimination of Khan is absolutely necessary for the troika of these power centers: local comprador political elites, the military high command, and Washington.

Why? Because they know that Khan and his party will sweep any elections that are held.

US encourages Pakistan to “continue working with the IMF”

In the meantime, Pakistan is enduring a deep economic crisis. The country has nearly exhausted its foreign exchange reserves.

The regime is in talks with the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) to save itself from bankruptcy. All of the corresponding policies of austerity and taxing the poor – “structural adjustment” – are to be expected.

CIA officer turned US State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a press briefing on March 8 that Washington wants Pakistan to “continue working with the IMF” to impose “reforms that will improve Pakistan’s business environment”, in order to “make Pakistani businesses more attractive and competitive”.

In other words, the US State Department wants Pakistan to double down on neoliberal economic policies, such as lowering wages and cutting social spending.

If hated before, the current “imported government” is now despised more than ever.

Imran Khan’s independent foreign policy angers the mafia don in Washington

Khan’s foreign policy was anathema to Washington.

He refused to recognize apartheid Israel as a legitimate state.

He improved ties with Russia for straightforward reasons of economic necessity (as well as promoting the geostrategic stability in the broader Central Asian region).

Khan mended ties and cooperated with Iran, even praising its revolutionary “dignity.”

He strengthened ties with China.

At the same time, Khan repeatedly said he desired friendly relations with Washington, proposing that they work together in peacebuilding in Afghanistan and the wider region.

But these other foreign policy aims were utterly unacceptable to the mafia don, which seems to be set on a war path with Beijing (and others).

Pakistan has been a close ally of China since the 1960s. But Islamabad’s intense obsession with pleasing Washington is a flagrant slap in the face of Beijing.

The meetings that top Pakistani military officials, including the powerful Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, have held with officials in Washington and London are not being missed upon by Beijing or Moscow.

Though Pakistan is suffering through some of the worst economic woes in its history – thanks to the robber barons in power – the US still knows that the South Asian nation has one of the most formidable militaries in the world, and is a nuclear-powered country of 230 million.

Washington also knows that it can easily woo the military top brass by reminding them of how only the US and its weapons and fighter jets can allow Pakistan to stay apace with arch-rival India, trying to match its military supremacy in the region.

This is why the US is so keen on Pakistan participating in Joe Biden’s second “Summit for Democracy” in March 2023. (Despite the fact that Pakistan’s current government was not elected, and repeatedly resisted calls for holding a vote.)

As prime minister, Khan respectfully declined the invitation to the first summit in 2021, because he knew exactly what the intention was: A declining empire seeking to muster as many nations as it can to be a part of its “coalition of the willing” against official enemies like China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.

According to leaks by Pakistan’s own ambassador to the US (who has a soft spot for Khan), Washington wants to reestablish its old military base in Pakistan, which was closed down in 2011.

The US is also reportedly dictating to Pakistan which militant groups to go after and which ones should be left alone – such as the anti-China East Turkestan independence movement or the ISIS elements giving trouble to Beijing and the Taliban government in Kabul.

Most importantly, Washington wants to compel Islamabad to do everything possible to significantly reduce or halt any progress on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Moreover, Washington and the Persian Gulf monarchies are having a splendid time in convincing the new favorable military-civilian regime in Islamabad to undertake a political 180 that Khan would never agree to: gradually normalizing relations with Tel Aviv.

Nevertheless, what all of these power centers conspiring against Khan overlook is that they are dealing with a different Pakistani population now. The people’s political consciousness has exponentially risen with the ouster of Khan from power.

Hence, whether Khan is assassinated or somehow arrested or disqualified from politics, the powers-that-be might get a rude awakening, and be surprised that they are dealing with a new Pakistan, with or without Khan – one that will have zero tolerance for their venality, corruption, and subordination to Washington.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... or-elites/

[blindpig]

Troubled Pakistan Arrests Former PM Imran Khan
Today former prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan was arrested while visiting the Islamabad High Court in an unrelated case. The arrest comes at a critical point for Pakistan's economy. Behind the scene U.S. and China are wrestling for influence.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been arrested as he appeared in a court in the capital, Islamabad, to face corruption allegations, sparking protests across the country.

The arrest on Tuesday is the latest twist in a months-long political crisis and follows several unsuccessful attempts to apprehend the cricketer-turned-politician, including a police raid in March at his residence in the eastern city of Lahore which he had managed to evade.

Last year Imran Khan was ousted from office after a few turncoats in his PTI party decided to vote with the opposition against him. He has alleged that the Pakistani military, and behind it the U.S., were involved in the scheme. Since then he has called for new elections.

Khan continues to be the most popular politician in the country and has a large following. His supporters are now out in the streets to protest against his arrest.

The case that led to this arrest is one of several dubious ones launched against him:

Akbar Nasir Khan, a top police official in Islamabad, told Al Jazeera that Khan was arrested in a case related to the Al-Qadir University Trust. The anti-corruption National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had issued an arrest warrant against Khan on May 1 in relation to the case, he said.
The accountability body issued a statement saying Khan had been arrested “for the crime of corruption”.

“The former prime minister has not given any adequate response to the summoning notices of NAB. His arrest has been made in accordance with the NAB ordinance and the law,” the statement read.

Since his removal from power last year, Khan has been slapped with dozens of charges, all of which he denies and says are politically motivated.

There is video of the unruly arrest by some 100 paramilitary rangers in riot gear.
https://twitter.com/sumrkhan1/status/16 ... 5451345922

Khan had recently accused the head of the Pakistan's military intelligence service ISI of being responsible for two assassination attempts against him:

The military on Monday issued a harshly worded statement, terming the accusations of its involvement in last year’s shooting “highly irresponsible and baseless”.
“We ask the political leader concerned to make a recourse to legal avenues and stop making false allegations,” the statement said.

Khan, however, doubled down on the allegations in a video message he released early on Tuesday, before leaving Lahore for Islamabad to attend a court hearing in a separate case.

“This man [Major General Faisal Naseer] tried to kill me twice and whenever an investigation is carried out, I will prove that it was this man and there is a whole gang with him,” the PTI chief said.

The PTI has called on its supporters to protest against the arrest. There have since been some riotous scenes throughout Pakistan's cities.

Arresting Khan over some dubious issue after his recent spat with the military looks bad. The current unelected government will be seen as illegitimate instrument of the military, a role Khan himself was accused of before he was ousted.

There will now come days of rioting and violent police and probably military response throughout Pakistan. These will continue until Khan is released. In similar cases Pakistan's supreme court eventually ruled that arrests like the one of Khan are illegal:

“In a state like ours, the state’s power to use violence and restrict an individual’s freedom is often used to punish politicians and leaders who have lost the establishment’s favour. Without prejudice to the merits of the case against Imran Khan, his recent arrest can hardly be viewed with a legal lens alone.
“Even when viewed from a legal lens, the arrest appears derogate with the judgment rendered by the supreme court in the Khawaja Salman Rafia’s case, where it held that arrests before conviction are an aberration given the serious erosion of fundamental rights that it entails.

“Additionally, the court in that case had alluded to accountability laws being used for political engineering. While the PTI government had preferred a review against the afore-noted decision in 2020, its leader now appears to have been embroiled in the same web of political engineering, thus showing the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Pakistan's economy is extremely weak with very high inflation, food scarcity and too few currency reserves. It might default soon. An announced but not agreed upon IMF program will impose even more harsh conditions that the country will be unable to fulfill.

It is possible that the U.S. controlled IMF is intentionally trying to push Pakistan into default. Much of the country's debt is to Chinese institutions and the U.S. has for some time tried to involve Chinese belt and roads project related debt into national restructuring attempts. China has rejected that scheme. To then let Pakistan default will only make it more reliant on China.

The U.S. however may still try to do it.

Posted by b on May 9, 2023 at 16:20 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/05/t ... .html#more

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Protests in Pakistan leave at least four dead


Protesters in the Pakistani capital demand the immediate release of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. | Photo: EFE
Posted May 10, 2023 (5 hours 42 minutes ago)

he PTI party reported that several politicians sympathetic to the former prime minister were detained by Pakistani security forces.

The protests and demonstrations in Pakistan after the arrest on Tuesday of former Prime Minister Imran Khan have left a preliminary balance of four dead and dozens injured in the Asian country.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) political group, an ally of the former prime minister, reported that the deaths were reported in the towns of Quetta, Faisalabad, Chakdara, and Lahore.

It also indicated that dozens of people were injured in the demonstrations that broke out shortly after the arrest of Imran Khan.


The PTI also reported that several politicians sympathetic to the former prime minister were detained by Pakistani security forces.

At dawn this Wednesday, the protests will continue in the main cities of Pakistan to demand the release of the former Pakistani prime minister.


Due to the demonstrations and protests, the Government of Pakistan imposed emergency measures in the country's capital, Punjab, to avoid clashes between the security forces and supporters of the former prime minister.

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan was detained at a courthouse in the Pakistani capital on Tuesday as he was on his way to court to extend a bail order for one of several cases against him.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/pakistan ... -0003.html

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