'For some reason, if you don't agree with the U.S. foreign policy, you turn anti-American,' former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan tells Newsweek. Exclusive: Imran Khan says defying the U.S. led to his downfall in Pakistan | ✍️ ShaolinTom
during his premiership. The following April, he faced a no-confidence vote that pushed him out of power, which was followed by a slew of charges lodged against him under the incoming administration of current Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, whoToday, Khan is largely confined to his residence in Lahore while on bail from successive court appearances on allegations ranging from corruption to terrorism and even murder.
Clearly what happened was, having realized that they made a mistake, the army chief, and whatever his advisers do, they decided that, whatever happens, I should not be allowed to come back. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chair and former Prime Minister Imran Khan leaves from the High Court in Islamabad on June 8, a day before his interview with Newsweek. Khan says he is facing up to 150 charges, having received bail for 19 so far.Meanwhile, I come out and find that this corps commander's house had been burned and a television radio station had been burned, so I was quite surprised. And I thought maybe the mob had gone mad. Then we discovered that it was a planned thing.
But it's not just that. The entire media, which has asserted its independence over a period of time, the last 20 years, from a controlled media we went to a completely, in fact, overboard media...but very vibrant, they have been [told] that my name cannot be mentioned on television today—there are about 30, 40 channels. Everyone has been instructed. First, they stopped my interviews and speeches, and now I'm completely blacked out.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif sits below a portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who first led Pakistan after independence from the United Kingdom and partition with India in 1947, on February 2 in his office in Islamabad. Sharif heads the Pakistan Muslim League party, named after his brother, Nawaz Sharif, who served three non-consecutive terms as premier, but, like every other leader in Pakistan's 75-year history, did not complete any of them.
So, that's why the trip was planned. When I got there, of course, the same day, Putin walked into Ukraine. So, I think I was criticized for that. But what could I do?, to condemn Russia.
I would like to talk a little about the situation in Pakistan right now, where we have a severe economic crisis, the effects of climate change and, on top of that, some real security concerns with the rise of militant activity.
And our industry was all around, the agriculture, production sector, agriculture and industry were really after 17 years were growing. So, the moment the measures they took once the current currency started falling, inflation started going up, because the moment your currency falls, all imports, especially the inflexible imports like oil and food, palm oil, all of them go up. So, the inflation started going up.
So, therefore, we are stuck in this situation. The measures they are taking are creating more economic instability and political instability, which then is feeding into the economic instability. Our currency is now even worse than Sri Lanka, our inflation is even higher than Sri Lanka right now. And this is unsustainable, because sooner or later something will give, because...in just one year buying power has fallen by about 35-40 percent.
And that's exactly what happened. 80,000 Pakistanis died in that [war on terror]. And over $100 billion was lost to the economy, because there were suicide attacks, bomb attacks going on all over the country. So, I opposed that at the time. And I think that also might have been considered being anti-American. Because, for some reason, if you don't agree with the U.S. foreign policy, you turn anti-American.
I mean, our people picked up—10,000 people being picked up. The maximum people involved in the arson could not have been more than 200. There were only four places that got burned. So, 200, okay, 300? How do you justify 10,000 people for one month have been put in jail in inhuman conditions? So, this is what we are facing right now, them trying to crush this party is actually dismantling the democracy, the whole democratic structures, and basically the future of our country.
And unfortunately, we had these two families who would intermittently rule this country, they also have three times in power. And so, from that, the progress started with our media. Twenty years, as I said, our media started asserting its independence, until then it was controlled. The government controls the media. The government controls the judiciary.
So, the opposite has happened. Rather than any investment coming into Pakistan, there's a flight of capital. People are taking their money out of the country. In the past eight, nine months, 900 professionals have left Pakistan. I run the only specialized cancer hospital in Pakistan, a charity hospital, and it's very difficult to attract cancer specialists because they are in great demand all over the world. And any specialist can get three to four times the salary which he gets here.
You can't just use these things when you want to beat up China on Hong Kong or on Uyghurs, or Russia. You have to be consistent. When they see these violations going on, they should speak out. But, having said that, countries always fix their problems from within. I don't expect any interference from outside, like they did in Afghanistan or Iraq to bring in democracy.
But if you are trying to say about me and Donald Trump, our worldviews and our ideologies are completely different. I am opposite to his neoliberal economics. And he thinks greed is a great thing because the more you make, the more you grow.
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