A conversation with Imran Khan

Gulf News

A conversation with Imran Khan. Gulf News speaks to Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician as he leads the march to protest US drone attacks. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv

Transcript

00:00As protests over U.S. drone attacks intensified in the tribal heartland of Pakistan, Gulf

00:10news caught up with Imran Khan, while the Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician was

00:15traveling from Tang to Dera Ismail Khan on Sunday afternoon.

00:20Minutes after his convoy carrying thousands of Pakistanis and a contingent of U.S. anti-war

00:25activists was turned back from the border of South Waziristan, Imran Khan spoke about

00:30the road ahead in an interview with Gulf News.

00:32How do you feel?

00:33You were turned back, right?

00:34From the checkpost?

00:35Not from the checkpost, but the army, again, they turned us back because we had got so

00:41late that we would have been stuck inside Waziristan after sunset.

00:45Over 100,000 people, but you just could not take the risk, and the army advised us that

00:51there's a real danger to these people, and so I could not be so responsible to take a

00:56risk for my people.

00:57You don't feel you endangered the lives of all these Westerners by taking them to the

01:02area?

01:03Like, I know it was their decision to go...

01:04I had, but my own workers, you know, they were women with us, and plus they were foreigners,

01:13so there's no way we could have taken a risk with them after sunset inside Waziristan.

01:18But even taking them in the daytime, it was a risk, right?

01:22Because many Westerners are even threatened...

01:24It was a risk.

01:25It was a risk.

01:26I have to admit, I was a little worried because not so much from the Taliban, more from Maulana

01:33Fazlur Rahman, who was instigating violence by saying a conspiracy of Jews and Christians

01:39and in the mosques he was spreading this, you know, propaganda that this was a Jewish

01:43conspiracy.

01:44So, you know, my only tension was that our foreigners, you know, should not... no harm

01:50should come to them.

01:51So most definitely, you know, we got out OK.

01:54There's been a lot of talk about all this being a political stunt, and even the TTP,

01:59whom you've been advocating for by saying that military operations should end in the

02:04tribal areas against the TTP and other militant groups, and also that negotiations should

02:10take place.

02:11They've come out with a very strong statement against you and specifically this drone march.

02:17What is your... what are your comments on that?

02:19Look, Faryal, I never...

02:22I have never been as wrongly misinterpreted as pro-Taliban.

02:28I've always been anti-military operations.

02:31I've always been pro-political dialogue because I have always believed that military operations

02:37creates militants.

02:38Knowing the character of the people in the tribal area, the more collateral damage, the

02:43more militants.

02:44And I always thought this was an insane and senseless policy, people who didn't know the

02:49history of either Afghanistan or Pakistan's tribal areas.

02:52So that's why I always advocated political settlement, which was wrongly interpreted

02:57as being pro-Taliban.

02:58The whole idea was not to, you know, to sort of devise a policy which is pro-Taliban, but

03:07it was how are we going to get peace in Pakistan's tribal areas?

03:12Because eight years of insanity has only created more militants, more extremism.

03:16There is more extremism in Pakistan today than ever in our history.

03:20So the whole idea was that we should, you know, we should find an alternate policy.

03:25This is... this was called a peace march, anti-drone and pro-anti-military operations.

03:30It's pro-peace, pro-dialogue, pro-political dialogue.

03:33Do you also feel the DTP feel threatened that because of your reaching out to the tribal

03:38people and they've long been neglected, not just because of this last decade and the counterterrorism

03:43operations going on, but because of neglect from the state of Pakistan, do you feel they

03:48feel threatened that because you've reached out to them and you're the only national leader

03:53who is capable of and who will probably fulfill his commitment and bring them into mainstream

03:59Pakistan politics and give them share of the resources which they are rightly, they

04:04have a right to?

04:05Do you feel that DTP feels threatened by this?

04:08Well, Faraz, there's some... and there's no one DTP and there's a mixture of various reasons

04:13why what is called Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, they're criminals, they are people who are

04:19Pashtun nationalists who are fighting just for the solidarity with Pashtuns across the

04:24border and anti-Americanism.

04:27Then there's the hardcore DTP which has some sort of, you know, their own religious ideology

04:32which is a smaller percentage.

04:35Then there are Punjabi Taliban, you know, the old Jihadi organization, there's a mixture

04:38of all these.

04:39So you can't say one thing as DTP as a policy because there's no one policy, there's a lot

04:45of groups now operating, split the groups which call themselves Taliban.

04:50But I'm sure that there are elements in them which are threatened because once there is

04:55peace, no longer will they have the strength or power they have right now, the power which

05:01they enjoy right now because they have complete power in the tribal areas.

05:05Right.

05:06Imran, what purpose has the march served according to you?

05:10Like, you've been turned back from the border, do you feel you've achieved your objective?

05:14Well, it's number one.

05:15Number one, it has made this an international issue, it's being now debated and talked about

05:19all over the world.

05:21You know, you look at the sort of attention it's got, no other, never has it had such

05:26international attention.

05:28And secondly, in Pakistan, the jinx has been broken that, you know, people are scared to

05:36hold a rally and D.I. Khan, forget about Tank, you know, and the sort of response we got

05:42from the people of Tank, the whole town came out to receive us.

05:45Remember, Tank and D.I. Khan is full of tribals internally displaced who, I mean, 80% of the

05:51people in South Waziristan have left the area.

05:55So they're mostly in Tank and D.I. Khan, so the reception we got from them, I mean, it

06:00was seen to be believed.

06:01It was one of the biggest, I mean, I don't think there's ever been a reception like that.

06:05Right.

06:06So therefore, we have the second, so one, we have internationalized the issue, also

06:12nationalized it.

06:13There's now more talk.

06:14Everyone is condemning drones.

06:15But secondly, you know, we have, we have reached out to the people in the tribal area.

06:20They suddenly, for the first time, they feel that someone cares.

06:25You know, we people in Pakistan care for them.

06:27These are the forgotten people.

06:29And eventually, peace will come.

06:31This is the first step towards peace.

06:33When we win the people over to the tribal areas, over to our side, that's when there'll

06:39be peace.

06:40Right.

06:41Do you feel this is the turning point, and it will even, like, mobilize people within

06:46Pakistan to stand up and say no to the government for allowing these drone strikes?

06:51Because there's no way the government has no knowledge, and these drone strikes keep

06:57occurring.

06:58The drone strikes take place with the complicity of Pakistan government.

07:03The Pakistan government is completely two-faced.

07:06Shah Levin, when he was asked, Admiral Muller, in a Senate hearing committee, that why do

07:12you do drone strikes when Pakistan objects, Admiral Muller told him that we do it with

07:17the consent of Pakistan government.

07:18So they're just being two-faced.

07:19They lie to us, as was revealed in WikiLeaks.

07:22It remains to be seen if Imran Khan is able to mobilize people across Pakistan after the

07:28peace march to take a stand against drone strikes.

07:36For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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