The World Food Program says Zimbabwe is at the peak of its lean season with 2.7 million people across the country facing food insecurity even before effects of an ongoing drought kick in. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Mangwe, one of the most affected districts.
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Month: March 2024
No Need for US Waiver to Build Gas Pipeline With Iran, Pakistan Says
islamabad — Pakistan said Thursday that it does not need a waiver from U.S. sanctions to build its portion of a pipeline to import natural gas from Iran.
“It is a segment of the pipeline which is being built inside Pakistani territory. So, we do not believe that at this point there is room for any discussion or waiver from a third party,” Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said in response to a VOA question at the weekly news briefing.
Donald Lu, U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said Wednesday that the department was monitoring the planned pipeline between Iran and Pakistan. He told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Islamabad had not requested a sanctions waiver to conduct gas trade with Iran.
“We have also not heard from the government of Pakistan [on a] desire for any waiver for American sanctions that would certainly result from such a project,” Lu said.
Last month, Pakistan’s outgoing caretaker government gave approval to begin construction of an 80-kilometer section of the pipeline, largely to avoid paying Iran billions of dollars in penalties for years of delays on the $7 billion project.
Pipeline’s history
Pakistan and Iran have been in talks to build a gas pipeline between the two countries since the mid-1990s.
The two sides signed a Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement in June 2009 for a pipeline that would supply 750 million to 1 billion cubic feet per day of gas to energy-starved Pakistan from Iran’s South Pars Field.
The two sides held an inauguration ceremony at the border in 2013 for construction on the Pakistani side. Iran had already begun work on its side in 2010.
While Iran claimed it had completed construction of 900 kilometers of the pipeline on its side by 2011, construction has not started on Pakistani side until now.
Islamabad suspended the project multiple times as officials cited concerns that Pakistan would invite U.S. sanctions for importing energy from Iran. Tehran faces U.S. banking sanctions for its nuclear program.
Over the years, Iran repeatedly threatened to take Pakistan into international arbitration and slap it with a penalty of nearly $18 billion for breach of contract. Just as time was running out for Islamabad to meet Tehran’s deadline of commencing construction by March 2024, the country’s outgoing government green-lighted the project.
In the approved first phase, Pakistan will construct an 80-kilometer section of the pipeline from its border with Iran to its port city of Gwadar in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
Pipeline’s future
Pakistan spent more than $17 billion on energy imports last year. It was a reduction from prior years as demand for fuel fell with rising inflation.
According to the International Energy Agency, natural gas makes up the largest proportion of Pakistan’s energy portfolio. Nearly a third of it is imported.
Although Pakistan does not need a sanctions waiver from Washington to build the pipeline, it will require it to buy Iranian energy.
Washington-based security affairs expert Kamran Bokhari told VOA that while Pakistan could build the case for a waiver from Washington to buy gas from Iran, it has little room to negotiate.
“Pakistan has very little leverage right now because Pakistan has too many asks of the U.S. because of its economic, financial situation,” he said.
Pakistan’s internal and external debt is ballooning. The country is on its way to seeking a 24th bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
Bokhari said Washington would also be unwilling to allow any arrangement for Pakistan that could help Iran.
“[The] United States is locked in a very strategic regional struggle with the Iranians, and they need to be able to make sure that the Iranians do not get breathing space,” he said.
Countries that purchase energy products from Iran do so in limited quantities to avoid U.S. sanctions.
Naeem Yahya Mir, former managing director of state-run Pakistan State Oil, told VOA that Pakistan could bypass U.S. banking sanctions by not paying for Iranian gas with dollars.
“If you negotiate, they [Iran] have been doing barter … also it is in their [Iran’s] interest to open this market,” Mir said. “It’s a mutual benefit.”
In June 2023, Pakistan authorized barter trade with Iran as its foreign exchange reserves dipped to dangerously low levels. However, Bokhari does not believe Pakistan can viably barter for Iranian gas in the long run.
Mir, who also served as the technical adviser for Kuwait Petroleum Corporation for nearly three decades, blamed Pakistani bureaucracy for the delay in building the pipeline and failing to request a waiver from Washington to buy gas from Iran.
“It is not the U.S., it is Pakistan’s internal decision-making process. … They can’t make decisions.”
If Pakistan gets to the second phase of the project with Iran, it will extend the pipeline to the country’s southern region, which could be prohibitively expensive for the cash-strapped country.
Lu told the committee it will not be easy for Pakistan to arrange funds for the project.
“Honestly, I don’t know where the financing for such a project would come from,” Lu said. “I don’t think many international donors will be interested in funding such an endeavor.”
Lu said the U.S. is working with Pakistan to explore other sources of energy, including environmentally friendly options.
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Oxfam Accuses Rich Corporations of ‘Grabbing’ Water From Global South
LONDON — As the United Nations observes World Water Day on Friday, there is a growing risk of conflict over water resources as climate change takes hold, the international body said.
Meanwhile, nongovernmental aid agency Oxfam accused global corporations of “grabbing” water from poorer countries to boost profits.
Declaring this year’s theme Water for Peace, the U.N. warned that “when water is scarce or polluted, or when people have unequal or no access, tensions can rise between communities and countries.”
“More than 3 billion people worldwide depend on water that crosses national borders. Yet only 24 countries have cooperation agreements for all their shared water,” the U.N. said. “As climate change impacts increase and populations grow, there is an urgent need within and between countries to unite around protecting and conserving our most precious resource.”
In South Africa’s largest city, Johannesburg, the taps have been running dry for several weeks, affecting millions of people.
On the outskirts of the city in Soweto, thousands of people have been lining up to collect water in bottles and buckets from tankers that bring in water from outside the city.
“It has been a serious challenge, a very challenging time for my age that I have to be here carrying these 20-liter buckets,” Thabisile Mchunu, an older Soweto resident, told The Associated Press on Monday. “And the sad thing is that we don’t know when our taps are going to be wet again.”
Crumbling infrastructure is partly to blame for the water shortages in Johannesburg. But scientists say worsening climate change is causing reservoirs to dry up in South Africa and many other parts of the world.
The United Nations estimates that 2.2 billion people live without safely managed drinking water.
Scientists from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say roughly half of the world’s population experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, with poorer nations in the Global South the worst affected.
Water “grabbing”
In a report published Thursday, Oxfam accused major global corporations of “grabbing” vital water resources.
“The private sector is grabbing and polluting this resource at the expense of local populations in order to make profits, further increasing inequalities. Droughts exacerbated by climate change affect agriculture and therefore the economies of the countries that depend on it, contributing to increased poverty, food insecurity and health problems for the inhabitants, particularly in the Global South,” the report said.
Oxfam accuses richer countries and multinational corporations of shifting water shortages to poorer regions by importing water-intensive products such as fruit, vegetables, meat, flowers and bottled water from overseas.
The report says agriculture accounts for 70% of water withdrawals, including through irrigation systems, to support the meat industry and biofuels.
“It is part of a neocolonial logic aimed at satisfying the consumption needs of the countries of the North at the expense of the countries of the South,” Oxfam said.
Its analysis suggests the private sector is failing to reduce its impact on water resources.
Of the “350 corporations that have been analyzed through the database — which account for half of the world’s agricultural revenue — only one in four of them are declaring they are reducing water use and pollution,” Quentin Ghesquiere, an agriculture and food safety adviser at Oxfam France, told VOA.
Government regulation
Oxfam also noted that large corporations are permitted to withdraw water, even when local populations face restrictions. It highlighted the activities of the French-owned multinational food products company Danone.
“Danone, in May 2023, continued to extract water from aquifers [in France] despite the restrictions that applied to local populations, in full legality. In the same year, the company made profits of almost 900 million euros and paid out 1.2 billion euros in dividends to its shareholders,” the Oxfam report said.
In a statement to VOA, Danone said that managing water sustainably is a priority, adding that “we have accelerated our innovations and investments to reduce, on a voluntary basis, water withdrawals from our bottling site.”
“Since 2017, we have invested 30 million euros to modernize our production lines, which allowed us to reduce our withdrawals by 17% over the period 2017-2023, maintaining volumes sold,” the Danone statement said.
The Oxfam report recommends stronger regulation and calls for “ambitious funding for adaptation in developing countries and universal access to water.”
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Nations Pledge to Boost Nuclear Power to Fight Climate Change
Paris — Representatives of 30 nations meeting in Brussels vowed to beef up nuclear energy Thursday as one solution to meet climate-fighting targets and guarantee reliable energy supplies. But the issue of nuclear power is divisive, and critics say it shouldn’t be part of the world’s approach to energy challenges.
The summit was the first of its kind, drawing leaders and delegates from the United States, Brazil, China and France, among others. The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, co-hosted the meeting and is promoting nuclear energy as a key way to reduce skyrocketing climate emissions.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said, “The heads of government, presidents, they believe that in the current context energywise, securitywise, nuclear has a very important contribution to make.”
Over 400 nuclear plants operate in about 30 countries, with another 500 planned or under construction. But overall, nuclear represents 10% of global electricity generation. In a statement, countries attending the meeting committed to increasing nuclear power’s potential, including by building new plants.
White House climate advisor John Podesta said, “I think what this summit will do, will put a marker down … that expansion of nuclear power is critical for tackling the climate crisis that is really beginning to disturb everyone across the globe.”
European Union countries such as France, which gets about 70% of its electricity from nuclear power, believe it can help meet ambitious European climate goals.
But the EU itself is divided. Some member states, including Germany, Austria and Spain, have safety and environmental concerns about nuclear energy, including the waste it generates.
So do groups such as Greenpeace, whose activists protested the Brussels summit.
Lorelei Limousin, the climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace EU in Brussels, said, “Nuclear power is too slow to tackle the climate emergency. Nuclear energy is also very expensive, and much more expensive than renewables today. Finally nuclear power remains dangerous today — with risks to health, environment, safety.”
Supporters say those risks can be managed — and they say that for now, increasing nuclear’s share of the power mix is essential if the world is to turn around a dangerous climate trajectory.
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Russian Court Rejects Lawsuit by Navalny’s Mother Claiming Poor Medical Treatment by Prison
Launch of ISS-Bound Russian Rocket Aborted Moments Before Liftoff
Chinese-Built Airport in Nepal Raises Worries of Debt Trap
A China-funded international airport in Nepal opened more than a year ago but still hasn’t received international flights. With loan repayments for the Pokhara airport due to start soon, many worry Nepal has fallen into a debt trap. Henry Wilkins reports.
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UN: Belarus Runs Campaign of Violence, Repression to Crush Dissent
GENEVA — A report by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights accuses the government of Belarus of running a campaign of violence and repression to crush political dissent and maintain its grip on power.
“Considering the range of human rights violations committed against the population of real or perceived political opponents in discriminatory fashion, the office’s report describes reasonable grounds to believe that the crime against humanity of persecution may have been committed,” said Christian Salazar Volkmann, director of the field operations and technical cooperation division at the OHCHR.
The report Volkmann presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council Wednesday examines all alleged human rights violations committed in Belarus related to the run-up to the 2020 presidential elections and its aftermath.
The report is based on information and evidence from first-hand interviews with 657 people supported by more than 5,400 items, as well as 229 written submissions from victims, witnesses and nongovernmental organizations.
Volkmann said information gathered last year “substantiates the scale and patterns of the violations” identified in previous reports and finds that since May 1, 2020, Belarus has “effectively deprived people in Belarus of their ability to exercise” their civic rights.
The 2020 election of incumbent Alexander Lukashenko to a sixth term in office was decried by international monitors as “neither free nor fair.” Lukashenko denied this.
In his presentation to the council, Volkmann said that opposition parties had been barred from participating in last month’s parliamentary elections, putting into question their ability to participate in next year’s presidential elections.
He said laws adopted or amended by Belarus since 2021 have been used “to oppress and punish real or perceived opponents.”
“In the course of 2023, several prominent human rights defenders, journalists and trade unionists were sentenced to long prison terms,” he said, noting that thousands of people continue to be arbitrarily arrested and detained for “having exercised their freedom of expression and/or assembly.”
“Since 2020, thousands of Belarusians have been subjected to cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment in detention facilities across Belarus,” he said.
The report documents cases in which torture has resulted in severe injuries and instances of sexual and gender-based violence, adding that “death and rape threats were widespread.”
It describes the horrific, punitive treatment and conditions under which political prisoners are subjected in state-run penal colonies.
Authors of the report say, “Information gathered regarding the lack of adequate medical care in the penal colonies is particularly alarming,” adding that at least two people died “in the custody of Belarusian authorities in 2023 due to medical negligence” and two additional prisoners have died this year.
The U.N. human rights office found widespread arbitrary arrests of children took place in 2020 and 2021, resulting in more than 50 politically motivated criminal trials in which the children lacked protections guaranteed under international law.
“OHCHR also found instances of ill-treatment and possibly torture of children,” it said.
Volkmann told the U.N. council that Belarusian authorities have removed children in supposedly “dangerous situations” from their parents in ways that seemed more focused on “pressuring and punishing parents than safeguarding the best interest of the child.”
He said children sometimes were left without care, taken to orphanages, or “parents were forced under duress to transfer the custody of their children to a relative or friend.”
He said the campaign of violence and repression has driven an estimated 300,000 Belarusians into exile since May 2020.
“It is currently not safe for those in exile to return to Belarus,” Volkmann said. “I therefore recommend that other member states continue to facilitate access to international refugee protection.”
He called on the government of Belarus “to immediately release all individuals arbitrarily detained and sentenced on politically motivated grounds.”
To that, Belarus Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Larysa Belskaya indignantly responded that “there are no political prisoners in Belarus.”
“Persons serving sentences have been convicted of specific crimes, including against national security,” she said. “The Belarus lawbreakers are treated equally regardless of whether they are favorites of foreign politicians or act in their interests.”
The ambassador accused Western governments of supporting activists who “fled the country, who failed to undermine the Belarusian state through an attempt at a covert revolution and participated in illegal anti-government actions and clashes with law enforcement officers in 2020.”
“Now, they broadcast extremist calls and plans to overthrow the legitimate authorities in an armed conflict in Belarus,” she said.
“The real situation in Belarus is radically different from the false picture painted by the report of the so-called group of OHCHR experts,” she said. “The focus of the state policy of Belarus will always be the strengthening of the well-being of the people and the protection of the interest of the Belarus state.”
Volkmann ended his presentation by calling for “prompt, effective, transparent and independent investigations into all past violations of international law occurring since May 2020” and for an end to impunity and accountability for perpetrators of crimes in Belarus.
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Kenya Pauses Police Deployment to Haiti but Will Lead Multinational Force
While some Kenyans support President William Ruto’s insistence on sending a police mission in Haiti, many others still wonder why their country wants to lead a multinational force aimed at helping quell violence and restore security given that other nations that are more powerful and better equipped have not stepped forward. For more, let’s go to VOA Nairobi Bureau Chief Mariama Diallo. (Camera and Produced by: Amos Wangua)
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Wildlife Conservation, Traditional Medicine Collide in Eswatini
Manzini, Eswatini — Traditional medicine, or “muti,” is an important part of Eswatini’s culture. However, an increasing demand for muti has placed some of the southern African kingdom’s animal species at risk of extinction. That’s something conservationists and molecular biologists want to change.
Molecular biologist Zamekile Bhembe, who works for the USAID-funded EWild Laboratory at the University of Eswatini, is fighting poachers and trying to get them convicted for their crimes.
She said poaching for traditional medicinal purposes is a leading cause of biodiversity decline, and she wants stronger regulations to protect wildlife.
“Every time you see biodiversity declines, there will be some sort of poaching involved,” she said. “As a country, we cannot deny that we are using these resources as our traditional medicine. It’s just that we need a way of regulating.”
For generations, the people of Eswatini have held traditional beliefs and values close to their hearts. This is reflected in the fact that more than 80% of the population still consults traditional healers, or “witchdoctors,” for advice and healing.
These healers use a wide range of plant and animal species to create traditional medicine, drawing on knowledge passed down through generations. However, excessive hunting has endangered the local populations of pangolins, crocodiles, vultures and owls, leading to calls for more sustainable practices.
Makhanya Makhanya, president of the Witchdoctors Association, is a widely renowned traditional healing practitioner in his own right. He said the role of traditional healers needs to be protected.
Such healers, he said, have served Eswatini for generations, providing healing and support to those in need. But he said current laws do not reflect the reality of their work. He wants to see regulations that recognize the traditional healers’ role in society and allow them to continue their work.
Patrick Maduna, a South African citizen, said he travels from neighboring South Africa to Eswatini to seek traditional medicinal solutions. His preference for traditional healing shows the complex relationship between modern and traditional medicine in Eswatini.
“I came all the way from South Africa to Swaziland for traditional attention,” he said. “I have been using the same traditional doctor since 2006, I have been coming to the same place. For me to come and get traditional attention, for me, it’s like therapy. I have never, ever gone to the hospital.”
Maduna said if there were laws in Eswatini to limit the poaching of animals for traditional medicine, he believes the so-called witchdoctors would comply with the rules.
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Australia Signs Security Accord with Britain
Sydney — Australia and the United Kingdom signed a new defense and security cooperation agreement Thursday that deepens the strategic relationship between the two nations, makes it easier for their defense forces to operate together in each other’s countries, and boosts a fledgling nuclear-powered submarine program with the United States.
Australia has said the new security and defense treaty updates its longstanding relationship with Britain “to meet contemporary challenges.”
Australia Defense Minister Richard Marles said in a statement that as “the world becomes more complex and uncertain, we must modernize our most important relationships.”
The new accord signed Thursday builds on the 2021 AUKUS alliance, which is designed to allow Australia to build a new multibillion-dollar fleet of nuclear-powered submarines with help from the United States and Britain.
Marles later told reporters in Canberra that a far-reaching pact with Britain was fundamental to Australia’s national security.
“It does reflect a relationship that has become much more strategic, a relationship which has a much bigger national security dimension,” he said. “To that end, the U.K. has a much greater presence in the Indo-Pacific than we have seen in a very long time. We also spoke today about AUKUS, which is, perhaps, at the heart of the contemporary strategic relationship between our two countries.”
Britain’s defense minister, Grant Shapps, is in Australia for the annual Australia-U.K. Ministerial (AUKMIN) meetings, which were first held in 2006. Officials said bilateral talks would also include support for Ukraine, peace in the Middle East, gender-based violence in the Pacific, climate change and trade.
The defense treaty signed Thursday includes provisions to make it easier for Australian and British forces to work together in each other’s countries, much like the joint training of Ukrainian troops in Britain. There will also be closer collaboration on undersea warfare, intelligence and military exercises.
Shapps told a news conference in Canberra that the treaty would enhance global efforts to maintain peace.
“We stand shoulder-to-shoulder in all of these many, many different ways, and the thing which has struck me most in my first few hours with you here today is the extent to which distance is absolutely no object to us at all because we stand united in our view of the world and what needs to be done and we are proactive nations that are prepared to stand up and make sure that we do maintain the world order,” he said.
The announcement of the new defense accord between Canberra and London comes a day after Australia hosted a visit by China’s most senior diplomat, the foreign minister Wang Yi.
Analysts have said that China’s increasing assertiveness is a key motivation behind the trilateral AUKUS agreement, but China has accused Australia, Britain and the United States of a “Cold War mentality,” saying the alliance was embarking on a “path of error and danger.”
Thursday, the Canberra government has also announced a new multi-million-dollar deal to send army vehicles to Germany. In one of the biggest defense export deals in Australian history, 100 Boxer armored vehicles will be sent to the German army.
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Suicide Bomber Hits Taliban’s Political Base in Southern Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD — A rare suicide bombing in Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar, known as the Taliban’s political headquarters, killed at least three people and injured more than a dozen early Thursday.
Taliban authorities said the victims had gathered outside the officially run New Kabul Bank to receive their salaries when a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body.
Witnesses and local officials reported that the wounded were taken to a local hospital, with some sustaining serious injuries. A Taliban Interior Ministry spokesperson in the Afghan capital, Kabul, said the attack was under investigation.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing.
The reclusive Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, lives in Kandahar, the historical birthplace of his fundamentalist group, and effectively governs Afghanistan from there.
The men-only Taliban government in Kabul merely implements decrees that Akhundzada routinely issues from Kandahar. He rarely leaves the city.
Akhundzada has banned Afghan girls from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade and has barred many women from public and private workplaces and public life at large.
The Taliban waged an insurgency and reclaimed power in August 2021 when the United States-led foreign forces withdrew from the country after 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.
The de facto rulers have effectively suppressed or cornered Afghan opposition groups, but a regional affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group, known as IS-Khorasan or Daesh, routinely plots and claims attacks targeting members of the Taliban and the country’s minority Shiite community.
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South Africa’s ANC Pushes to Keep Zuma’s Party Out of Elections
Johannesburg — South Africa’s governing party has gone to court to try stop a newly created rival party from contesting May elections.
National elections on May 29 are widely expected to be the most fiercely contested ever, with surveys suggesting the African National Congress party will win less than 50 percent of the vote for the first time since the advent of democracy in 1994.
Now, a new opposition party named uMkhonto weSizwe, or MK for short, has infuriated the ANC by naming itself after the ANC’s disbanded armed wing, which was formed by Nelson Mandela and fought against apartheid.
The fact that former president Jacob Zuma, an ANC stalwart, has thrown his weight behind the rival party has only added insult to injury, and the ANC has suspended him.
On Monday, the ANC went to the electoral court arguing the MK party did not meet the necessary criteria when it registered with the electoral commission late last year.
ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula addressed media outside court on Monday, saying the ANC is also taking legal action to try and prevent Zuma from using the storied uMkhonto weSizwe name.
“We are challenging him in two levels in terms of this formation. You must understand this is the beginning,” Mbalula said. “Here today at the electoral court we are challenging him in terms of deregistration of this party.”
Mbalula said the ANC was also pursuing a copyright infringement case against the MK party over the name.
While Zuma was forced to resign as president in 2018 amid corruption scandals, and is currently mired in several court cases, he remains very popular with his fellow ethnic Zulus in KwaZulu-Natal province.
When in July 2021 he was briefly jailed for contempt of court, South Africa saw the worst violence in its post-apartheid history, with more than 300 killed in looting and rioting.
A poll this month by a local research group, the Brenthurst Foundation, showed the ANC getting below 40 percent and the MK party winning 13 percent of the vote.
“Does this mean that South Africa’s going to experience a violent election because it’s more contested? Well that remains to be seen,” Brenthurst Foundation Director Greg Mills said. “It’s undoubtedly going to be very heated. Especially in KwaZulu-Natal province where the MK party…has around one quarter of the vote.”
Some members of the MK party, like the party’s youth leader and Visvin Reddy, a Zuma ally, have threatened violence if they are barred from competing in elections.
“This country will be turned into civil war, the day that MK is not allowed to campaign, and be on the ballot paper. No one will vote, we will make sure of it,” Reddy said at an MK rally earlier this month.
After Monday’s arguments from MK and ANC lawyers, the Electoral Court reserved judgment until a later date.
An MK spokesman did not reply to multiple requests for comment from VOA.
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Russia Targets Kyiv in Aerial Attack
Ukrainians See Putin’s Reelection as Another Sign War Won’t End Soon
Like many people around the world, Ukrainians were not surprised by what was reported as President Vladimir Putin’s landslide victory in the Russian elections. Many see the outcome as another sign the war in Ukraine will not end anytime soon. For VOA, Anna Chernikova reports from Kyiv. Videography: Vladyslav Smilianets.
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US Diplomat Denies Pushing Pakistani PM Khan Out of Office
islamabad — A top U.S. diplomat for South and Central Asia has for the first time publicly addressed allegations of conspiring to oust Pakistan’s then-Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2022.
Testifying before the House Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu rejected the charge that he or his government played a role in fomenting Khan’s ouster.
“These allegations, this conspiracy theory, is a lie, it is a complete falsehood,” Lu said responding to a question by committee Chairman Representative Joe Wilson, a Republican from the U.S. state of South Carolina.
Cypher conspiracy
In April 2022, Khan was expelled from power in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.
Khan has since alleged that a secret diplomatic cable, or cypher, sent by then-Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. Asad Majeed Khan, proves the United States conspired with Pakistan’s military and opposition leaders to remove him from office. The cable described a March 7, 2022, meeting with Lu in Washington.
Last August, an American news outlet, The Intercept, published what it said was the text of the cipher.
According to Ambassador Khan’s purported cable, the State Department officials at the meeting encouraged Khan to tell Pakistan’s powerful military that Islamabad could expect warmer relations if Khan were removed from office because of his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Pakistani prime minister was in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the day the invasion began and failed to condemn it.
“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 document quoted Lu as telling the Pakistani ambassador.
While the State Department has consistently rejected the allegation of conspiring in Khan’s ouster, the department’s spokesperson Mathew Miller conceded last year that the Biden administration was unhappy with Khan’s overtures to Russia.
“We expressed concern privately to the government of Pakistan as we expressed concerns publicly about the visit of then-Prime Minister Khan to Moscow on the very day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We made that concern quite clear,” Miller said at a regular press conference while responding to a question about The Intercept’s reporting.
The Pakistani military and Khan’s opponents also have rejected his allegations.
The former Pakistani prime minister is currently serving a 10-year prison term for revealing the contents of the secret cable, a charge he rejects as politically motivated.
Lu called the reporting of the diplomatic cable in Pakistani media inaccurate.
“At no point does it [the cypher] accuse the United States’ government or me personally of taking steps against Imran Khan,” he told the committee.
Lu pointed out that Pakistan’s now-former ambassador Khan had also testified to his government that there was no U.S. conspiracy to remove the prime minister from office.
In March 2022, Pakistan’s National Security Committee headed by Khan issued a demarche to the U.S ambassador over his country’s “interference” in Pakistan’s politics.
After Khan’s ouster, however, another NSC committee headed by then-Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif concluded that the diplomatic cable did not indicate any U.S. conspiracy.
“We respect the sovereignty of Pakistan. We respect the principle that Pakistani people should be the only ones choosing their own leaders through a democratic process,” Lu told Wednesday’s hearing.
The assistant secretary was disrupted several times as some in the audience called him a liar. The proceedings stopped on a few occasions, and Capital Police removed some in attendance for being disruptive.
Lu told the committee that he has received several death threats, and his family also has been threatened over “unfounded allegations” since Khan’s removal.
Election irregularities
Addressing reports of irregularities in Pakistan’s February 8 general elections, Lu said the Biden administration was persistently urging Pakistani authorities to investigate.
“We as a partner of Pakistan have called for that to be done transparently and fully and for those found responsible for irregularities to be held accountable.”
Pakistan’s much-delayed elections faced several controversies. A state-backed crackdown on Khan’s party, pre-election violence including terror attacks, suspension of mobile internet services on Election Day, and a massive delay in announcing results led local and international observers to question the fairness of the vote.
The United States, U.K. and the EU have called on Pakistan to probe the discrepancies.
In a February 28 letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a bipartisan group of 31 members of the U.S. Congress urged the administration not to recognize Pakistan’s new government until “a thorough, transparent, and credible investigation of election interference” was conducted.
In a statement on April 13, though, Blinken congratulated Sharif on being elected as prime minister of Pakistan. U.S. ambassador to Islamabad Donald Blome has since met Pakistan’s new president, prime minister, as well as foreign and finance ministers.
Representative Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas who was among the authors of the letter, questioned Lu on the administration recognizing Sharif’s government.
“We do not go around recognizing or withholding recognition. We decide whether we are going to engage with the government,” said Lu.
Pakistan’s polls delivered a hung parliament. Khan’s party had to field candidates as independents after it was deprived of a unified elections symbol.
Although candidates backed by Khan’s PTI won the largest number of seats in the lower house of the parliament, Sharif’s party, which came in second, formed a coalition government with Khan’s opponents.
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