Former Pakistani PM Imran Khan Accuses Powerful Army Of Crackdown, Failures

mangochutney · Jul 1, 2023

Former Pakistani PM Imran Khan Accuses Powerful Army Of Crackdown, Failures

June 30, 2023 12:20 GMT

By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal

WATCH: Pakistan's Imran Khan Accuses Army Of Waging 'Revenge' Campaign

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan has criticized Pakistan's powerful military for the harsh crackdown on his Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI) political party in the aftermath of violent mob attacks on the military following his arrest last month.

Four military dictators have directly ruled Pakistan for nearly half of its 75-year history.

The military has dominated weak civilian governments during democratic periods, which typically ended with military coups. Powerful army generals have created and dismantled political parties.

In a wide-ranging interview with RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, Khan, a former-cricket-star-turned-politician, said he saw the military's influence on Pakistan's political life as a key cause for the nuclear-armed South Asian state's continued weakness.

Khan, 72, argued that Pakistan needs to transition from a state dominated by security institutions into a democratic state focused on looking after the welfare of its 231 million people.

"Today we must realize that if we don't change, our future will be in danger," he told RFE/RL, adding that his country wouldn't be able to move ahead if it failed to "turn into a real democracy and uphold the rule of law."
On June 26, top military spokesman Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry announced that the army had dismissed three senior generals and punished scores of other officers for failing to prevent protests on May 9.

During the protests, mobs allegedly including many PTI supporters torched military and government buildings and attacked monuments celebrating fallen soldiers after Khan was briefly detained on corruption accusations that he says are politically motivated.

The May 9 incidents have proved that what the enemies of Pakistan couldn't do was done by these miscreants," Chaudhry told journalists. He declared the violent protests as "highly condemnable, a black chapter in Pakistan's history and a big conspiracy against the country."

But Khan vehemently rejected his accusations, claiming in return that the military is waging "a revenge campaign" against the PTI.

He said that accusations that PTI is attempting to foment a mutiny within the army's ranks are part of a one-sided campaign by the military against the PTI.

"If the military disintegrates because of a mutiny, the country will be destroyed, too," Khan said, adding that orchestrating such a rebellion was unthinkable for him.

He said the PTI was facing an unprecedented crackdown in the aftermath of the May 9 events and accused the government. He accused the authorities of detaining over 10,000 PTI supporters, including its top leaders, and pressuring them to abandon his party.

Khan said that the authorities in Pakistan refuse to talk about the killing of some 25 PTI protesters on May 9.

He alleged that about 50 more PTI supporters received bullet wounds. Two people had their legs amputated while a third one was paralyzed for life following the military repression, he said.

"If you are launching a rebellion against the military, you need to have weapons and some planning to carry it out," Khan said, adding, "how could unarmed people rebel against the military?"

Khan's love-hate relationship with the military is decades-old. His PTI remained a one-man show until 2011, when rival opposition politicians alleged that the military bolstered the party's ranks by encouraging turncoat politicians to join Khan's campaign, dubbed the struggle to create a "New Pakistan."

Furthermore, political rivals accused the military of rigging the 2018 parliamentary elections in Khan's favor.

But his government's failure to tackle Pakistan's worsening economic crisis and to deliver promised governance reforms and performance ultimately led the military to withdraw its political support for the PTI-led government, by declaring itself "neutral."

This prompted Khan to accuse former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa of betrayal. He also blamed the military for orchestrating his downfall in a no-confidence vote in April 2022.

He told RFE/RL that his departure from power resulted in stalling an agreement that was in the works with the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), whose members have since staged a gradual comeback in Pakistan's tribal districts.

He said that after the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, its government insisted that Islamabad take back some 40,000 TTP supporters including fighters and their families.

"You could either shoot them dead or rehabilitate them here [after bringing them back to the country]," he said of the tough policy choices he has as prime minister.

"We had arranged funds to resettle them," he said. "But our government was removed, and the new government has no time and understanding [to resolve this issue]."

The TTP insurgency's gradual expansion was also seen as a result of the Afghan Taliban's return to power. Its attacks on Pakistani forces increased dramatically last year after a cease-fire with Islamabad collapsed.

Protesters across the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa called on Islamabad to provide security as returning Taliban fighters asserted control in the volatile region.

Khan blamed the military and the current coalition government of Pakistan's major political parties known as the Pakistan Democratic Movement for bungling the delicate peace talks with the TTP.

"Unfortunately, all the government and the military establishment attention is on trying to finish off [Pakistan] Tehrik-e Insaaf [instead]," Khan told RFE/RL.