David Pratt: Pakistan military consolidates power after jailing

And now, again, the army is calling the shots after an elected official falls out of their favour. In this instance, it happens to be former prime minister Imran Khan who at one time was said to have been brought to power with the help of Pakistan’s military but now finds himself the object of their disapproval.  

It was back in April last year that Khan was forced out of power by a no-confidence vote in Parliament that likely had the tacit backing of the military. Khan, unlike some of his predecessors, refused to go quietly, haranguing the generals in a series of rallies across the country and claiming that they tried to assassinate him last November. 

For the country’s military, enough was enough, and last week a Pakistani court sentenced the now opposition leader to three years in jail over corruption allegations. With the conviction comes a five-year ban from politics which would effectively prevent Khan from campaigning ahead of national elections that were scheduled to take place later this year. 

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Members of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party have since denounced his imprisonment as a brazen attempt to prevent the PTI – which many analysts consider the country’s most popular political group – from mounting an electoral challenge.  Khan’s jailing was the culmination of months of escalating tension between the PTI and both the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the military, which controls much of Pakistan’s political decision-making from behind the scenes. 

After some pro-Khan protests turned violent in May, the PTI was subjected to a relentless backlash. Thousands of its supporters have been arrested, with some facing prosecution in military courts, while dozens of PTI politicians, fearing arrest, have quit the party, leaving it severely weakened.   Further adding to the political unease, a decision by a Sharif-led committee to redraw the country’s electoral boundaries on the basis of a recently completed census means ministers now expect the election to be delayed until early next year.  

“The elections are being delayed for only one reason and that is because they believe Imran Khan will get more votes,” PTI spokesperson Zulfi Bukhari was cited by the Financial Times last week as saying.  So where do things go from here and what does it mean for democratic processes in Pakistan? 

Well, to begin with, most analysts say that both Khan’s jailing and any delay to elections will only escalate political tensions. Some argue that with its leader imprisoned and others also behind bars, the PTI is consigned to oblivion. 

But other analysts say it’s too early to write off Khan and his party and that it could feed into the political persona he created after losing power – that of a fearless campaigner for Pakistan’s disadvantaged.  Writing in the magazine Foreign Policy, Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the US-based Wilson Center, maintains that the PFI “still has a pulse”. 

“If the party capitalises on its base’s anger about Khan’s imprisonment and wider dissatisfaction with the government’s performance, it can still make electoral gains,” says Kugelman, adding the caveat that this will prove difficult if the “political establishment’s crackdowns against PTI continue and if steps are taken to rig the election against the party”.

But others are less optimistic about the PTI’s prospects and political outlook for the country as a whole. Some observers insist that it was inevitable that Khan would shoulder blame for a shambolic stint in office and the dangerous demagoguery that preceded and followed it. 

As for the future, nine months into the job and fresh from his victory over Khan and his supporters, General Asim Munir, who heads the armed forces, is growing ever more assertive. 

Writing for the UK-based news and opinion website UnHerd, Kunwar Khuldune Shahid – a journalist based in Lahore – summed up the pessimism of many Pakistanis: “We will have to continue coping with the decisions of an unaccountable military establishment, having been unequivocally abandoned by self-serving demagogues, of which Imran Khan is only the latest.”     

United States   

DAYS after the flames began to race through Hawaii’s historic Maui town, killing at least 67 people, the magnitude of the tragedy remains unclear. With US president Joe Biden declaring a major disaster in the wake of the inferno, search teams this weekend continued to comb through the smouldering ruins of the historic town of Lahaina.  

The Lahaina fire that spread from the brush to town was still burning but 85% contained, Maui County said in a statement. Two other wildfires on the island were 80% and 50% contained. 

Officials have warned that the teams with cadaver dogs could still find more dead from the fire that torched 1000 buildings and left thousands homeless, likely requiring many years and billions of dollars to rebuild.  

The wildfires led to a number of deaths

“Nobody has entered any of these structures that have burned down and that's where we unfortunately anticipate that the death toll will rise significantly,” US Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii told MSNBC. Hawaiian officials meanwhile are trying to determine how the fires spread so rapidly through the resort town with little warning. 

Hundreds of people remained unaccounted for, and rumours swirl about the death toll and the cause of the wildfires, the worst in Hawaii’s history.  As frustration with the government response deepens, the state emergency services agency confirmed that it had not activated warning sirens as the fire advanced, though it said alerts were sent via mobile phones, television and other channels.  

Speaking to the Washington Post in a phone interview on Friday, Adam Weintraub, a spokesman with the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said that no emergency sirens were activated at the state or county level during the wildfires.  “Our logs don’t reflect that there was any activation order,” Weintraub said.

“It’s possible that as a result of a short circuit or melting from the fire that some of the sirens did sound, but there was no intent to sound the sirens based on our activation log.” 

Weintraub also told the newspaper that the other three emergency alert systems – interrupting broadcast programming with specific details about an emergency and an action plan, emergency banners on mobile devices, and opt-in emergency messages – were activated at some point during the fires. 

This patchwork account of what notifications were sent out and whether they were done via text message, email or phone calls remains a cause for concern and Hawaii governor Josh Green was cited by CNN as saying that he had “authorised a comprehensive review ... to make sure that we know exactly what happened and when.” 

Meanwhile, Maui County fire chief Bradford Ventura said at a press conference that the fire's speed made it "nearly impossible" for frontline responders to communicate with the emergency management officials who would typically provide real-time evacuation orders. 

“They were basically self-evacuating with fairly little notice,” he said, referring to residents of the neighbourhood where the fire initially struck.  Andrew Rumbach, a specialist in climate and communities at the Urban Institute in Washington and former urban planning professor at the University of Hawaii, described the spread of the inferno as a “nightmare scenario" with few escape options. 

“A fast-moving fire in a densely populated place with difficult communications, and not a lot of good options in terms of evacuations,” Rumbach told Reuters news agency.  In the coming days, as Maui continues to count the human and financial cost, officials will likely face even tougher questions over the emergency procedures.     

Niger 

TENSIONS remain high in Niger following the July 26 coup that deposed President Mohamed Bazoum. Already there are concerns over the wellbeing of Bazoum who is being held in the presidential palace in Niamey, Niger’s capital, alongside his wife Hadiza and one of their children, Salem. 

The latest reports that have emerged – some based on a series of text messages shared with the news outlet by Bazoum – suggest that throughout the week, the family has been allegedly denied adequate food and water. Bazoum has also said that he was warned that he would be killed along with his family if there were any attempt to free him.  Meanwhile, alongside this personal plight of Bazoum and his family, the wider regional and international geopolitics continue to play out. 

In Niamey itself, many Nigeriens have joined junta-organised rallies to show support for the country’s generals, criticise Western powers and laud Russia, which is vying for influence with the West in the region. 

Niger's junta meanwhile has yet to react to the prospect of a forceful intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).   Some regional West African army chiefs from the bloc were expected to meet in coming days to discuss the creation of a “standby force”. Ecowas stressed that all options were on the table and it still hoped for a peaceful resolution, while security analysts said the force could take weeks to set up, potentially leaving room for negotiations. 

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Ecowas gave no details about the make-up, location and proposed date of deployment for any military intervention force following its meeting on Thursday in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.  Nigerian president Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who currently chairs the Ecowas bloc, has been at pains to underscore that talking with Niger’s junta and its leader, General Abdourahmane Tchiani, remains the preferred option. 

“It is crucial that we prioritise diplomatic negotiations and dialogue as the bedrock of our approach,” Tinubu stressed.    But some analysts, recognising the extent of popular support inside Niger for the coup, say that any negotiations with the junta look increasingly as if they will have to be on their terms and that options for Ecowas are narrowing.  

Meanwhile, France and the US – both of whom have a military presence in Niger – can only look on while bringing whatever pressure to bear that they can for the return of Bazoum as head of state. Difficult days still lie ahead in this crisis that has international repercussions.   

Kuwait:   

IT has already grossed $1 billion in box office sales worldwide since its debut but not everyone thinks Barbie (below) is a harmless piece of movie entertainment. As the film opened across the Middle East last Thursday, Kuwait and Lebanon have moved to ban the film.  Kuwait announced its ban late Wednesday, saying the film promotes “ideas and beliefs that are alien to the Kuwaiti society and public order”, without elaborating, according to a statement published by the state-run KUNA news agency. 

In Lebanon, meanwhile, culture minister Mohammad Mortada moved to ban the film, saying it "promotes homosexuality" and contradicts religious values.  Mortada is backed by powerful Shi'ite armed group Hezbollah, whose head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has ramped up his rhetoric against the LGBTQ+ community, referring in a recent speech to Islamic texts that call for punishing offenders with death. 

But as the Associated Press (AP) and Rolling Stone magazine have reported, the film contains no overt sexuality or references to LGBTQ+ rights. The all-star cast merely includes “actors who are gay and transgender, such as Kate McKinnon and Hari Nef, respectively”.

The film, reports AP, also seems to have drawn the ire of the authorities in both countries because of its “sheer flamboyance and broad message of inclusion and gender equality in a region where homosexuality is widely seen as taboo”.

However, in spite of the criticism in Kuwait and Lebanon, the movie will nevertheless open in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.  

But it is not just in the Middle Eastern countries that Barbie has been met with some disdain. In the US itself – where the film was made – some conservative and right-wing commentators have attempted to rally a boycott of the film because of similar gripes to those in Lebanon.  

Politics, too, played a part in Vietnam which banned the film because it features a map showing China’s claim to the South China Sea.  

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The map appears to include the “nine-dash line” that China uses to mark its claim to most of the sea, despite protests from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.   The film’s Hollywood producer, Warner Brothers, called the map a “childlike crayon drawing ...

not intended to make any type of statement.”  But as the Economist magazine recently pointed out, upsetting the Chinese is the last thing Hollywood wants given it has one eye on a marketplace and country that is vying with America to be the biggest filmmaker.