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imran khan
Accusations of US Regime-Change Operations in Pakistan and Bangladesh Warrant UN Attention
The very strong evidence of the U.S. role in toppling the government of Imran Khan in Pakistan raises the likelihood that something similar may have occurred in Bangladesh.
Aug 19, 2024
Two former leaders of major South Asian countries have reportedly accused the United States of covert regime change operations to topple their governments. One of the leaders, former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, languishes in prison, on a perverse conviction that proves Khan’s assertion. The other leader, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheik Hasina, fled to India following a violent coup in her country. Their grave accusations against the U.S., as reported in the world media, should be investigated by the UN, since if true, the U.S. actions would constitute a fundamental threat to world peace and to regional stability in South Asia.
The two cases seem to be very similar. The very strong evidence of the U.S. role in toppling the government of Imran Khan raises the likelihood that something similar may have occurred in Bangladesh.
In the case of Pakistan, Donald Lu, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia and Central Asia, met with Asad Majeed Khan, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., on March 7, 2022. Ambassador Khan immediately wrote back to his capital, conveying Lu’s warning that PM Khan threatened U.S.-Pakistan relations because of Khan’s “aggressively neutral position” regarding Russia and Ukraine.
The Ambassador’s March 7 note (technically a diplomatic cypher) quoted Assistant Secretary Lu as follows: “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead.” The very next day, members of the parliament took procedural steps to oust PM Khan.
On March 27, PM Khan brandished the cypher, and told his followers and the public that the U.S. was out to bring him down. On April 10, PM Khan was thrown out of office as the parliament acceded to the U.S. threat.
We know this in detail because of Ambassador Khan’s cypher, exposed by PM Khan and brilliantly documented by Ryan Grim of The Intercept, including the text of the cypher. Absurdly and tragically, PM Khan languishes in prison in part over espionage charges, linked to his revealing the cypher.
The U.S. appears to have played a similar role in the recent violent coup in Bangladesh. PM Hasina was ostensibly toppled by student unrest, and fled to India when the Bangladeshi military refused to prevent the protestors from storming the government offices. Yet there may well be much more to the story than meets the eye.
According to press reports in India, PM Hasina is claiming that the U.S. brought her down. Specifically, she says that the U.S. removed her from power because she refused to grant the U.S. military facilities in a region that is considered strategic for the U.S. in its “Indo-Pacific Strategy” to contain China. While these are second-hand accounts by the Indian media, they track closely several speeches and statements that Hasina has made over the past two years.
On May 17, 2024, the same Assistant Secretary Liu who played a lead role in toppling PM Khan, visited Dhaka to discuss the US Indo-Pacific Strategy among other topics. Days later, Sheikh Hasina reportedly summoned the leaders of the 14 parties of her alliance to make the startling claim that a “country of white-skinned people” was trying to bring her down, ostensibly telling the leaders that she refused to compromise her nation’s sovereignty. Like Imran Khan, PM Hasina had been pursuing a foreign policy of neutrality, including constructive relations not only with the U.S. but also with China and Russia, much to the deep consternation of the U.S. government.
To add credence to Hasina’s charges, Bangladesh had delayed signing two military agreements that the U.S. had pushed very hard since 2022, indeed by none other than the former Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the neocon hardliner with her own storied history of U.S. regime-change operations. One of the draft agreements, the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), would bind Bangladesh to closer military-to-military cooperation with Washington. The Government of PM Hasina was clearly not enthusiastic to sign it.
The U.S. is by far the world’s leading practitioner of regime-change operations, yet the U.S. flatly denies its role in covert regime change operations even when caught red-handed, as with Nuland’s infamous intercepted phone call in late January 2014 planning the U.S.-led regime change operation in Ukraine. It is useless to appeal to the U.S. Congress, and still less the executive branch, to investigate the claims by PM Khan and PM Hasina. Whatever the truth of the matter, they will deny and lie as necessary.
This is where the UN should step in. Covert regime change operations are blatantly illegal under international law (notably the Doctrine of Non-Intervention, as expressed for example in UN General Assembly Resolution 2625, 1970), and constitute perhaps the greatest threat to world peace, as they profoundly destabilize nations, and often lead to wars and other civil disorders. The UN should investigate and expose covert regime change operations, both in the interests of reversing them, and preventing them in the future.
The UN Security Council is of course specifically charged under Article 24 of the UN Charter with “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.” When evidence arises that a government has been toppled through the intervention or complicity of a foreign government, the UN Security Council should investigate the claims.
In the cases of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the UN Security Council should seek the direct testimony of PM Khan and PM Hasina in order to evaluate the evidence that the U.S. played a role in the overthrow of the governments of these two leaders. Each, of course, should be protected by the UN for giving their testimony, so as to protect them from any retribution that could follow their honest presentation of the facts. Their testimony can be taken by video conference, if necessary, given the tragic ongoing incarceration of PM Khan.
The U.S. might well exercise its veto in the UN Security Council to prevent such a investigation. In that case, the UN General Assembly can take up the matter, under UN Resolution A/RES/76/, which allows the UN General Assembly to consider an issue blocked by veto in the UN Security Council. The issues at stake could then be assessed by the entire membership of the UN. The veracity of the U.S. involvement in the recent regime changes in Pakistan and Bangladesh could then be objectively analyzed and judged on the evidence, rather than on mere assertions and denials.
The U.S. engaged in at least 64 covert regime change operations during 1947-1989, according to documented research by Lindsey O’Rourke, political science professor at Boston Collage, and several more that were overt (e.g. by U.S.-led war). It continues to engage in regime-change operations with shocking frequency to this day, toppling governments in all parts of the world. It is wishful thinking that the U.S. will abide by international law on its own, but it is not wishful thinking for the world community, long suffering from U.S. regime change operations, to demand their end at the United Nations.Keep ReadingShow Less
Casar Leads Call for Probe of Election 'Rigging' as Pakistani Lawmakers Choose New PM
"We do not want the United States taxpayer dollars to go to militaries that then use that money to incarcerate journalists or suppress free speech or suppress political parties," said Rep. Greg Casar.
Mar 03, 2024
Pakistani lawmakers on Sunday elected Shehbaz Sharif to serve a second term as the country's prime minister following elections last month that were widely decried as illegitimate, with top officials and the military
manipulating the vote and cracking down on the party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan—the nation's most popular politician.
The election of Sharif, the younger brother of three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, drew shouts of protest from Khan's allies in Parliament who supported Omar Ayub, who served as federal minister for economic affairs under Khan. Despite facing large-scale repression ahead of the February contest, candidates backed by Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party won more seats than any other party—but not enough for an outright majority.
Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) party, the favored party of the nation's military, formed an alliance with the Pakistan People's Party and others, a partnership that Khan allies have derided as a "coalition of losers" and "mandate thieves."
Less than two weeks after the national elections, a top Pakistani administrative official publicly admitted to manipulating the results by converting "losers into winners, reversing margins of 70,000 votes of independent candidates for 13 national Parliament seats."
PTI-backed candidates were forced to run as independents after election authorities banned the party's well-known symbol, a cricket bat.
قومی اسمبلی ہو یا سڑکیں، #CoalitionOfLosers کو پی ٹی آئی پارلیمنٹیرینز اور پاکستان کے عوام کی جانب سے ٹف ٹائم مل رہا ہے۔ ان کا مستقبل اچھا نظر نہیں آتا۔ وہ شرمناک زندگی گزار رہے ہیں کیونکہ پاکستان میں ہر کوئی جانتا ہے کہ وہ مینڈیٹ چور ہیں!#مینڈیٹ_پر_ڈاکہ_نامنظور pic.twitter.com/xuuo1kYmxX
— PTI Layyah (@PtiofficialLyh) March 3, 2024
Days before Sharif's election as prime minister, U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) expressed concerns about "pre- and post-poll rigging" and called on President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to withhold recognition of a new Pakistani government until a "thorough, transparent, and credible investigation of election interference has been conducted."
"Without taking this necessary step, you risk enabling anti-democratic behavior by Pakistani authorities and could undermine the democratic will of the Pakistani people," reads the letter, which was signed by more than 30 Democratic lawmakers.
"Pakistan is a longstanding ally of the United States, and we recognize the importance of our relationship for regional stability and counterterrorism efforts," the letter continues. "It is in the U.S. interest to ensure that democracy thrives in Pakistan and that election results reflect the interests of the Pakistani people, not the interests of the Pakistani elite and military. We look forward to working with you to show Pakistanis that the U.S. stands with them in their fight for democracy and human rights."
Last August, The Interceptobtained a secret cable indicating that the Biden administration pressured the Pakistani government to remove Khan as prime minister. Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote shortly after two American diplomats met with Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. in March 2022.
Khan has since been imprisoned on corruption charges that he and his supporters say are politically motivated.
In an interview with Voice of America on Friday, Casar said he has "long studied" how "the United States supported coups, supported military governments, and suppressed democracy in Latin America."
"And that ultimately hurt, not just Latin Americans, but also hurt people in the United States. It did not work. It did not work economically. It did not work for our safety," said Casar. "The same should apply with [the] United States and Pakistan. We should not simply let geopolitics or corporations or our military alliance override our core value of democracy."
Addressing suggestions that his call for an investigation of the February election might constitute "meddling" in Pakistan's internal politics, Casar said that "our interest is not whether one group or another group wins an election."
"The people of Pakistan should be able to decide their own election," said Casar. "We have very clear laws that aid is contingent on human rights being respected, free speech being respected. We do not want the United States taxpayer dollars to go to militaries that then use that money to incarcerate journalists or suppress free speech or suppress political parties."
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US Progressives Decry Pakistani Military's Election Meddling
"We have a special responsibility to ensure that, going forward, our security cooperation is with a government that represents the will and democratic consent of the Pakistani people."
Feb 14, 2024
Leaders of the U.S. Congressional Progressive Caucus on Wednesday decried the Pakistani military's alleged meddling in last week's general election, in which candidates affiliated with jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan's party won the most parliamentary seats despite efforts to sideline them.
In a stunning rebuke of the military- and U.S.-backed caretaker government that dubiously charged Khan with corruption last year, candidates affiliated with the former prime minister and cricket superstar's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party won 93 National Assembly seats, more than either the conservative Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) party's 75 seats or the center-left Pakistan People's Party's 54 seats.
"In their elections last week, Pakistanis sent an unequivocal message that they want a country led by the people, not the military," Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Chair Emeritus and Peace and Security Task Force Chair Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)—who is also running for U.S. Senate—said in a statement.
Khan is currently imprisoned after being sentenced last month to 10 years behind bars for allegedly leaking a diplomatic cable showing that the Biden administration encouraged the Pakistani government to oust him over his neutral stance on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Khan and his supporters say the charges against him were politically motivated.
On Tuesday, PMLN, PPP, and other party leaders agreed to form a coalition government, a move meant to thwart PTI power. Under the deal, Shehbaz Sharif, a former PMLN prime minister, will likely serve as Pakistan's next leader. The PTI says the military rigged or meddled in at least dozens of races.
The government was also widely criticized for blocking cellphone and internet service across the country during the election.
"We condemn the Pakistani military's efforts to impede those free and fair elections and call for the immediate cessation of any of those continuing efforts," Jayapal and Lee said in their statement. "Given the history of U.S. support for Pakistan's government and security forces, we have a special responsibility to ensure that, going forward, our security cooperation is with a government that represents the will and democratic consent of the Pakistani people."
The Biden administration and numerous U.S. lawmakers also expressed concerns regarding voter suppression and intimidation, restrictions of civil liberties, and electoral violence. Scores of people were killed and wounded in a pair of election eve bombings in Balochistan, among other incidents.
Writing for Foreign Policy in Focus on Tuesday, Mehlaqa Samdani of the advocacy group Community Alliance for Peace described some of the alleged voter suppression:
As the date for parliamentary elections approached, the PTI was stripped of its electoral symbol, and party candidates were forced to contest as independents... PTI candidates and their families were targeted, harassed, and assaulted, and many were forced to campaign in hiding.
Voter suppression was rife. People did not know until very late where they would vote, and at times voters within a single family were assigned polling stations hundreds of miles apart. The day before the election, citing security concerns, the Election Commission of Pakistan announced that polls would close early, further restricting voter access.
"And yet, despite massive pre-poll rigging and voter intimidation, supporters of the PTI came out in droves," Samdani added. "Tens of millions exercised their electoral rights and delivered a stunning upset."
Hasan Ali wrote for The Nation this week that Pakistan is "in a state of crisis."
"The country of 240 million people, which is reeling from chronic levels of inflation and an economic meltdown, needs a strong and stable government to address its problems," he asserted. "The official results of the election, however, have only added to the chaos. Any government that comes in, unless it is led by the PTI, will not have the legitimacy to make difficult decisions, and is likely to be dependent on the military's support."
"Pakistani progressives, too, have been left with a conundrum," he continued. "It is clear that the PTI has the overwhelming support of the population, but the party appears ideologically committed to the twin pillars of religious populism and social conservatism."
"On the other side stands the Pakistan army, which has destabilized Pakistani politics ever since the country gained its independence and made a habit of suppressing the rights of its citizens," Ali added. "The prevailing mood among the left thus far is that the people have made their choice in putting their faith in PTI and that this choice must be respected by the military establishment."
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