Pakistan’s military Thursday dismissed allegations by ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan that the United States had conspired with his political opponents to force him from office but said the U.S. had used language that amounted to interference in Pakistani affairs.

Major General Babar Iftikhar, the military spokesman, also attempted in a televised news conference to distance his powerful institution from having anything to do with the no-confidence vote in parliament that ended Khan’s almost four years in power on Sunday.

The 69-year-old former cricket star has relentlessly alleged, before and after losing the vote, that “a foreign conspiracy of regime change” was behind his ouster to punish him for paying an official visit to Russia against Washington’s advice. Khan visited President Vladimir Putin on February 24, the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

Khan’s allegations are based on a March 7 ciphered communication sent to Islamabad by the then-Pakistani ambassador to Washington, Asad Majeed Khan, after a meeting with Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs.

The ousted prime minister said the message contained details of an alleged U.S. plot and that its authenticity had been affirmed at a meeting of Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC), comprising top civilian and military leaders, that he chaired on March 31.

A statement issued after the NSC meeting expressed “grave concern” at the communication from Washington and concluded that it “amounted to blatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan.”

Islamabad summoned the acting U.S. ambassador to the Foreign Ministry hours later that day and issued a demarche, or diplomatic note of protest, accusing the U.S. of interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs.

Iftikhar defended the demarche as a “diplomatic procedure,” but he challenged Khan’s interpretation of the NSC statement.

“Is there any word such as conspiracy used in it? I don’t think so,” the general stressed. “However, it is clearly written in the statement that the language used [by the U.S. official] is akin to interference (in internal affairs of Pakistan).”

Since his removal from office, Khan has said he left behind declassified copies of the controversial ciphered message with heads of key Pakistani state institutions, with a call for them to have it investigated by a high-powered judicial commission.

He used the NSC statement to try to block the no-confidence vote, but the top Pakistani court outlawed his actions and bound him to face the parliamentary process.

In his bid to force his successor, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, to announce snap elections, Khan has launched a series of nationwide massive public rallies, where he continues to blame Washington for orchestrating his departure, charges U.S. officials have repeatedly rejected.

“Our message has been clear and constant: There is no truth whatsoever to the allegations that have been put forward,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price reiterated Thursday.

“We support the peaceful upholding of constitutional and democratic principles, including respect for human rights,” Price told reporters.

Iftikhar also described the no-confidence motion against Khan as part of the “democratic process” in Pakistan’s parliament, claiming the military continues to adhere to its “apolitical” role in line with the country’s constitution.

The general repeatedly asserted at the news conference that the military is not interfering in politics but acknowledged that the army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, attempted to mediate the deadlock over the no-confidence vote between Khan and the opposition.

Iftikhar said Khan had asked Bajwa to convey to opposition leaders that the prime minister would call early elections if the vote against him was withdrawn.

“[Bajwa] went to the opposition and placed this request in front of them, [but] they said that they wouldn’t take any such step,” the spokesman added.

Skepticism about army claims

Critics remain skeptical about the military’s claims that it is adhering to its nonpolitical role. The skepticism stems from three military coups since the founding of Pakistan 75 years ago that led to 34 years combined of dictatorial rule in the country.

Generals continue to influence democratically elected governments from behind the scenes even when they are not in power, according to independent observers.

Human rights defender Tahira Abdullah said that the military spokesman’s news conference was “riddled” with contradictions and conflicting statements.

“It is difficult to comprehend as to whether or not the military wishes to be perceived as being part of our political theatrics any longer,” Abdullah said. “It cannot simultaneously ride with both the hares and hounds.”

Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at Washington’s Wilson Center, said the military’s decision to offer extensive remarks Thursday was likely meant to clear the air and offer its own view on issues, including the circumstances of Khan’s ouster.

“While the military certainly is not keen to stage coups these days, it continues to wield influence behind the scenes and continues to be a key but quiet political powerbroker,” Kugelman noted.

Adam Weinstein, a research fellow at the U.S.-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Pakistan’s civil-military imbalance is driven by the “incompetence” of civilian leaders as much as by the interference of generals.

“The military establishment enjoys an informal but powerful veto in political affairs. But Pakistan’s civilian leaders have also been more than happy to leave key governance tasks to the generals rather than take responsibility for it,” Weinstein said.

He added that outside powers such as the United States also empower the military establishment by sending clear signals that they are content to work directly with them on matters of foreign policy.

“Washington views the military establishment as more predictable than civilian leaders, and so it’s frankly happy with wherever imbalance exists,” Weinstein said.

VOA’s Cindy Saine contributed to this report.
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Drug addicts in Afghanistan say they are being brutalized and treated as criminals by the ruling Taliban, an accusation government security officials deny. Latif Yaqobi in Afghanistan filed this report, narrated by Anne Ball. Producer: Bezhan Hamdard. Camera: Latif Yaqobi.
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Since December, roughly 30 schools in Rohingya camps were closed by police or closed on their own in the face of police closures
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Local media watchdogs in Afghanistan and the United Nations have called on the Taliban to stop the arbitrary detention of local journalists in Afghanistan.

Afghan Journalists Safety Committee, in a statement on Thursday, said that the Taliban arrested its provincial representative in central Ghor province along with another local journalist on Wednesday.

According to the statement, the local journalist was released two hours later but AJSC’s provincial representative, Ghulam Rabani Hadafmand, was still in the Taliban’s detention.

“Although it has been more than 24 hours from the incident, the provincial representative of AJSC in Ghor is still under arrest,” said the statement, which called on the Taliban to release Hadafmand and “provide the necessary explanations based on the provisions of law.”

In a tweet on Thursday, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said that the “arbitrary & incommunicado detentions of journalists & media workers by the Taliban show no sign of abating.”

UNAMA has called on the Taliban to stop the “intimidation of media.”

UNAMA has said that Afghan journalist Bismillah Watandost was released after being held in detention by the Taliban for 10 days.

Watandost was arrested along with five other journalists in the southern city of Kandahar after four radio stations were raided on March 28.

Zahir Shah Angar, an Afghan journalist and managing editor of Da Sule Paigham radio in the southern Khost province, said that the detentions and continuing violence against journalists are making a challenging environment for journalists even more difficult.

“For sure, it has an impact on journalists’ work. Because it created fear among journalists,” he said.

Angar added that in the meetings with media support organizations, the Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, “repeatedly” said that they are “committed to the freedom of expression and in future journalists would not be arrested.”

He added, “We hope that the interim government [of the Taliban] will stand by their word. Otherwise, independent media would not be able to operate in the country.”

The International Federation of Journalists, in a statement on March 31, said the media crackdown has increased in Afghanistan.

IFJ said that from March 26 to 28, at least eight media workers in Afghanistan were arrested and two radio stations were closed.

In its statement, IFJ called on the Taliban for the “immediate release of all detained media personnel and the reinstatement of all broadcasters and media organizations affected by the Taliban’s new media restrictions.”

According to the Afghanistan Federation of Journalists and Media, 21 journalists were detained across Afghanistan in March.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in a statement on Feb. 4, reported an increase in “threats, summonses for interrogation and arbitrary arrests” of journalists in Afghanistan.

RSF said that the Taliban’s intelligence and Ministry of Promoting Virtue and Suppressing Vice are “directly implicated in this harassment, which violates Afghanistan’s press law.”

The Taliban did not respond to VOA’s inquiries about the recent detention of journalists.

Abdul Subhan Misbah, former deputy head of Afghanistan’s Lawyers Union, told VOA that the detention of journalists is “unlawful.”

“There is a media commission to deal with the media offenses in case of violations by journalists. If a case is not addressed by the commission, then it is referred to the court. These detentions are a violation of the laws,” Misbah said.

Misbah added “without doubt, it will put an end to the freedom of expression in the country, one of the main gains of the past two decades.”

In a conference in January, local radio owners in Afghanistan called on the Taliban to guarantee freedom and clarify their stance on the media law of Afghanistan.

After seizing power in Afghanistan in August 2021 the Taliban promised that media would be “free and independent,” but they have increased their crackdown on independent media in Afghanistan.

In a press release issued in November, IFJ said that at least seven journalists were killed in Afghanistan in the first three months of the Taliban’s takeover. It said there were “many more suffering intensifying threats, harassment, intimidation and violence.”

According to a survey by RSF in December 2021, about 40% of Afghan media have closed since Aug. 15 and 60% of Afghan journalists and media employees are no longer able to work, including more than 80 percent of female journalists.

The Taliban have also banned international broadcasters, including Voice of America, BBC and Deutsche Welle.

IFJ has called the Taliban’s ban on the international outlets “a major blow for press freedom and public access to information in Afghanistan.”
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The Taliban have portrayed their leader’s ban on secondary education for Afghan women and girls as based in religious principles, but Muslim scholars and activists say gender-based denial of education has no religious justification.

The unseen leader of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has kept mum despite growing demands from across the Muslim world to lift his ban on secondary education for Afghan girls.

Officials in the Taliban government’s Ministry of Education say they stand ready to reopen schools for all girls anytime Akhundzada orders. But the reclusive Taliban leader, who carries the religious title of “Commander of the Faithful,” has ignored repeated calls — even from many Afghan Islamic clerics — to reconsider his decision.

“Islam is the bearer of rights for women, including the rights to education and work,” a group of clerics in Kabul said on Tuesday while calling for the reopening of secondary schools for girls. It was the clerics’ second such demand in less than a month.

Prominent individual scholars have made similar calls while citing Islamic legal jurisprudence in support of education and work for women.

“There is not a single problem with females’ education,” said Sheikh Faqirullah Faiq, a leading Islamic scholar in Afghanistan, in an audio message last month. He said he was speaking on behalf of many other Muslim scholars.

Akhundzada, who has ultimate and undisputed power in the Taliban regime, has not given a reason or justification for his opposition to girls’ education, but in his terse written decrees, which are widely circulated by Taliban officials, he has always insisted that his decisions are strictly in accordance with Islamic verses.

Global calls

From the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to the councils of religious scholars in several Muslim countries, a chorus of Muslim voices has opposed the ban on girls’ education.

“Following the decision by the de facto government of Afghanistan to maintain an earlier ban on girls’ schools, the General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation expresses its deep disappointment over this unexpected decision,” the organization tweeted on March 24.

The ban on girls’ education has no Islamic justification, according to Daisy Khan, founder and executive director of Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality. “Islam places great emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge,” she told VOA.

“The Taliban’s recent ban on secondary education for girls is unacceptable and is clearly contrary to Islamic teachings. There is no mention in the Quran or prophetic sayings that justifies such action by the Taliban,” Haroon Imtiaz, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of North America, told VOA.

The lack of response from the Taliban’s top leader to such explicit repudiation of his ban stands in breach of his Islamic duties and obligations, experts say.

They say that as the head of an Islamic state, the Taliban leader must consult with and listen to his people and the wider Muslim community.

The Taliban government “must seek the counsel of those who serve the public daily — the ulema who understand the plight of their people, and civil society organizations who understand social dilemmas facing people,” Khan said.

Tribal culture?

While describing it un-Islamic, some experts say the Taliban leader’s opposition to girls’ education might be shaped by Afghanistan’s patriarchal tribal traditions.

“Unfortunately, misogynistic customs and practices — including in Muslim-majority countries like Afghanistan — have continued to propel the domination of men over girls and women, with the Taliban’s un-Islamic prohibition on girls’ education being one manifestation,” said Zainab Chaudry, a spokesperson and director of the Maryland office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nongovernmental civil rights and advocacy group in the United States.

Having some of the worst health, economic and social indicators for women in the world, Afghanistan was reported to be the worst country for women even before the Taliban’s return to power.

“Cultural edicts and practices that conflict with religious obligations are not permissible in Islam,” Chaudry told VOA.

Imtiaz, the spokesman for the Islamic Society of North America, said cultural restrictions that make it difficult for Muslim women to pursue work and education “are unacceptable. In a hadith, the Prophet Muhammad is known to have said, ‘The best of you are those who are best to your women.’ In no way are we honoring and benefiting women if we place unfair restrictions on their ability to flourish.”

History of defiance

Taliban leaders have a history of defying global calls to change their controversial decisions.

Despite widespread international outcry for the protection of sixth-century Buddha statues carved into a cliff in central Afghanistan, former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had the giant historic monuments destroyed in 2001, alleging it was his Islamic duty.

Like his predecessor, the current Taliban leader has virtually unlimited power within the country and is accountable to no one. As such, he alone decides the fate of the Afghan girls’ secondary education and the rights of Afghan women to work.
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Pakistan’s new government said Tuesday it would “constructively and positively” engage with the United States to promote “shared goals” of regional peace, security and development.

The Pakistan parliament elected Shehbaz Sharif as the country’s new prime minister on Monday after a no-confidence vote ousted incumbent Prime Minister Imran Khan, ending his nearly 4-year-old coalition government.

“We welcome U.S. reaffirmation of long-standing ties with Pakistan,” Sharif’s office said in response to remarks by White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday in which she underscored the criticality of Washington’s ties with Islamabad regardless of its leader.

“We look forward to deepening this important relationship on the principles of equality, mutual interest and mutual benefit,” the Pakistani statement said.

On Monday, Psaki said the Biden administration supported the “peaceful upholding of constitutional democratic principles” and does not support one political party over another in Pakistan.

“We value our long-standing cooperation with Pakistan, have always viewed a prosperous and democratic Pakistan as critical to U.S. interests,” she said.

Psaki said the “long, strong and abiding” relations will continue under new leaders in Islamabad. She declined to say whether Biden had any immediate plans to speak to Sharif.

Islamabad’s traditionally tumultuous relationship with Washington suffered setbacks under Khan, who took power in 2018 as the head of a coalition government with a thin majority in parliament.

Throughout his nearly four years in office, Khan relentlessly criticized Washington for what he said was a flawed war in neighboring Afghanistan, which ended last August.

In the weeks leading up to his ouster, Khan repeatedly alleged the U.S. had colluded with his political opponents to topple his government to punish him for moving Pakistan closer to China, and Russia in particular.

Washington has rejected the allegations, and so has the Pakistani opposition.

Domestic concerns

Analysts say repairing ties with the U.S. would be a key priority for Sharif, but domestic political and economic issues are likely to keep him busy.

Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations and the U.S., does not anticipate immediate foreign policy initiatives, saying the new government will not have much time because the next elections are due in October 2023.

“The priorities of the Sharif government will be domestic, mainly dealing with the challenge of a troubled economy afflicted by inflation and the need to finance the growing current account deficit,” she said.

Lodhi said she expects Pakistan’s relations with China and Saudi Arabia to strengthen under Sharif. She said efforts may be directed to mend ties with the U.S. and the European Union, the two biggest destinations for Pakistani exports.

“But before engagement with the U.S. can be undertaken, the government would want to put the foreign conspiracy charge made by Imran Khan to rest by an in-camera session of parliament’s national security committee to examine this allegation, which the new prime minister has pledged to call,” she noted.

Khan said he has left behind a ciphered diplomatic message from the Pakistani ambassador in Washington that proves his allegations the U.S. was behind the “foreign conspiracy” that toppled his government.

The ousted prime minister and his party lawmakers resigned from parliament in protest of Sharif’s election, and Khan is set to address a series of public rallies on Wednesday to demand an early election.

Russia and China

The governments of China and Russia both congratulated Sharif Tuesday on his election.

“China and Pakistan are all-weather comprehensive strategic cooperative partners with rock-solid and unbreakable relations. China looks forward to working together with the Pakistani side,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing.

The Russian embassy in Islamabad said in a tweet that Putin “expressed hope that Shehbaz Sharif’s activities will contribute to further development of Pakistan-Russia cooperation.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry had also accused Washington of being behind the vote of no-confidence against Khan, saying he was being punished over his Moscow visit.

India, Pakistan relations

Sharif also reached out to rival India on Tuesday, expressing his desire to improve relations between the two nuclear-armed nations, which have gone to war several times over the disputed Kashmir region.

“Pakistan desires peaceful & cooperative ties with India. Peaceful settlement of outstanding disputes including Jammu & Kashmir is indispensable,” Sharif tweeted in response to wishes from his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi.

On Monday, Modi congratulated Sharif on Twitter. “India desires peace and stability in a region free of terror, so that we can focus on our development challenges and ensure the well-being and prosperity of our people,” the Indian prime minister said.

Kashmir has sparked two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. The divided region remains a primary source of bilateral military tensions, as both claim it in its entirety.

Relations between India and Pakistan plunged to historic lows under Khan, who routinely likened the Modi-led Hindu nationalist government to the Nazis.

The two countries came close to another war over Kashmir in February 2019, and bilateral tensions escalated months later when New Delhi scrapped a decades-old semi-autonomous status of the Indian-controlled part of majority-Muslim Kashmir, prompting Khan to intensify his criticism.

Shehbaz’s older brother, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, had good relations with Modi and hosted him at his residence in Lahore in December 2015 when the Indian leader made a surprise trip to Pakistan.

Analysts are skeptical about a major change in bilateral relations, citing the limited stint of the new Pakistani government and with no letup in tensions over Kashmir.

“New initiatives with India are unlikely as the government’s life span is uncertain until fresh elections, but efforts to reduce tensions are possible,” former ambassador Lodhi said.
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When Meghnad Bose arrived in the Delhi neighborhood of Burari to cover a Hindu mahapanchayat, or public meeting, for the Indian news website The Quint, he noted that police were already there to ensure order.

The Save India Foundation and other groups involved in the event had earlier told Bose that they planned to hold the gathering regardless of whether permission was granted.

Among those scheduled to speak was Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, a Hindu priest who under bail conditions linked to an earlier event is prohibited from participating in events aimed at “creating differences between communities.”

The atmosphere was tense, Bose told VOA. The day before, police had denied permission for the event. But around 500 people had gathered to listen to the speakers, some of whom made threatening comments directed at the media.

“Anger was evident,” Bose said. “We didn’t know how it would escalate.”

The journalist’s safety concerns came to the fore when freelance photojournalist Mohammad Meharban called to say that a mob had gathered around journalists.

“Once I reached there, the mob was manhandling the two journalists,” Bose said. He called for nearby police to help but said that at first no one responded.

“I started shooting the scene and police stopped me,” Bose said. “Subsequently (the) mob too started shouting at me to stop recording.”

Bose said police took him and the other journalists to a nearby police vehicle.

In total, seven journalists were beaten, verbally assaulted or had equipment taken during the attack. Four First Information Report requests — the first step to making a complaint with police — have been filed over the April 3 incident.

A complaint filed by a female journalist said the mob molested and assaulted her.

Delhi police did not respond to VOA’s request for comment and information about the incident. But local media cited police as saying they sheltered the journalists in a vehicle as a safety precaution.

Intimidation

The hostile reception to those covering the rally illustrate a wider reality for India’s media who are increasingly coming under attack while on assignment, analysts say.

“Attacks on press freedom are part of an escalating crackdown on independent and democratic institutions in the country,” Jayshree Bajoria, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, told VOA. “Journalists are being targeted for simply doing their work or even for their posts on social media, especially if their work is critical of the government.”

Bajoria said that the risk of threats, including via social media, increases for journalists from religious minorities.

The New York-based research and journalism organization Polis Project documented a similar pattern when it investigated attacks against media in India.

“We discovered two things,” said Suchitra Vijayan, founder and executive director of the Polis Project. Most journalists were targeted with violence and that “all kinds of harassment predominantly happened in Delhi, BJP-ruled states, and in Kashmir.”

Vijayan, who authored Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India, believes India will see further escalation of violence against media, adding, “This is all part of the system in which India has become an incredibly dangerous place to be a journalist.”

Maya Mirchandani, the head of the media studies department at India’s Ashoka University, said a lack of protection for media sends a poor signal.

“All these instances where the police are standing by when journalists are getting harassed by the right-wing group of people, mob; it doesn’t instill a sense of confidence in the journalist. Even the state is not interested in them to do their job honestly, so it is an intimidation tactic,” Mirchandani told VOA during a phone call.

When asked how such attacks impact the ability of journalists to cover India’s pro-Hindu movement, Manoj Joshi, a distinguished fellow at the Delhi think tank Observer Research Foundation, told VOA, “They have a major impact on the ability of journalists to cover the Hindutva movement.”

The government’s silence on such attacks, Joshi said, have “a chilling effect on press freedom in the country.”

The central office of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment. An email address provided on the party’s website returned an error message, saying its mailbox was full.

Declining freedoms

The increase in harassment of journalists has impacted India’s rankings on global indices of democracy and media freedoms.

The government says there is a free press, but that is not necessarily the truth, Mirchandani said.

“Yes, there are journalists and websites and TV channels that are continuing to do solid reporting and be critical, but they are few and far between,” she said. “The government and its ability to use state machinery to impose its agenda and ideology on the media has had an impact on the free speech.”

Part of the problem is the business model of journalism, Mirchandani said, adding that media will always be under pressure when they rely on government subsidies and advertising for revenue.

The role media play in a democracy is crucial, says Bajoria from Human Rights Watch. “Governments that believe in accountability and good governance protect it, not suppress it.”
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Iran summoned the Afghan envoy to Tehran on Tuesday and is stopping all consular services in Afghanistan, Iranian state TV reported, a day after protesters threw rocks at Iranian diplomatic missions in Kabul and Herat.

The protests came after videos posted on Twitter in recent days showed young Afghan refugees in Iran being harassed and humiliated by ordinary Iranians. Reuters could not verify authenticity of videos.

Iranian officials on Monday denied there was mistreatment of Afghan refugees in Iran, state television reported.

“The Afghan charge d’affaires in Tehran was summoned in protest to attacks on the Iranian embassy in Kabul and the Iranian Consulate in Herat in Afghanistan on Monday,” state TV reported.

Footage on social media, which could not be verified by Reuters, showed a small group of Afghan protesters throwing rocks at Iran’s diplomatic missions in Kabul and in the western Afghan city of Herat on Monday.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the Taliban, which rules Afghanistan, are responsible for the security and safety of Tehran’s diplomats and announced stopping its consular services in the neighboring country “until further notice,” Iranian state media reported.

Although Iran’s clerical establishment has had generally good relations with the Taliban, there have been longstanding tensions along the two countries’ 900-km (560 miles) joint border, which has active smuggling routes.

Over five million Afghans, both documented and undocumented, live in Iran, Iran’s state news agency IRNA quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian as saying last week.
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Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa appealed Monday for an end to protests calling for his resignation over his handling of the worst economic crisis in decades, saying his government is launching a plan to rebuild the country. 

In a televised speech to the nation, he asked for patience and told protesters that “every second” spent demonstrating on the streets takes away opportunities to receive crucial foreign currency. 

Protesters, meanwhile, continued occupying the entrance to the president’s office for a third day Monday, demanding he step down. 

The Indian Ocean island nation is on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with dwindling foreign reserves and $25 billion in foreign debt to be repaid over the next five years. Nearly $7 billion is due this year. Talks with the International Monetary Fund are expected later this month, and the government has turned to China and India for emergency loans to buy food and fuel. 

For months, Sri Lankans have stood in long lines to buy fuel, cooking gas, food and medicine, most of which come from abroad and are paid for in hard currency. The fuel shortage has caused rolling power cuts lasting several hours a day. 

Rajapaksa blamed the foreign exchange crisis on COVID-19 restrictions and the loss of crucial tourism income. 

“We are embarking on an enormous program to overcome the crisis we face today. Every second spent by the president and this government is used up, exhausting avenues to rebuild our country,” he said. 

“Friends, every second you protest on the streets, our country loses opportunities to receive potential dollars,” he said. 

Much of the anger expressed by weeks of growing protests has been directed at the Rajapaksa family, which has been in power for most of the past two decades. Critics accuse the family of borrowing heavily to finance projects that have earned no money, such as a port facility built with Chinese loans. 

Supporters of camped out protesters supplied drinking water, food and tea while ambulances and doctors stood by to deal with any health emergencies. Muslim protesters broke their Ramadan fasting at the site, sharing food with those around them. 

Dinush Thyagaraja, a 29-year-old tourism professional, said that he voted for Rajapaksa in the 2019 presidential election, believing he was the best candidate to restore national security after losing a friend to Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks that year on hotels and churches. 

More than 260 people died in the attack carried out by local Muslim groups inspired by the Islamic State group. 

“I do realize I did make a mistake, and I want to rectify that,” said Thyagaraja. 

“I am unable to feed my family. I don’t know whether we will be able to enjoy a meal in another month to come.” 

Even Rajapaksa’s former coalition allies are calling for him to be replaced with an interim prime minister and a multiparty government. They say they don’t want the powerful Rajapaksa family in an interim government because it is at the center of the public ire. 

In his speech, Rajapaksa refused to yield power, saying the governing coalition will continue to rule Sri Lanka because opposition parties rejected his call for a unified government. 

“We invited all political parties represented in parliament to join us and uplift the country. But they did not join us,” Rajapaksa said. “As the party in power, we took up that responsibility.” 

The crisis and protests prompted many Cabinet members to resign. 

Parliament has failed to reach a consensus on how to deal with the crisis after nearly 40 governing coalition lawmakers said they would no longer vote according to coalition instructions, significantly weakening the government. 

With opposition parties divided, they, too, have not been able to form a majority and take control of parliament. 

 
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The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan has left its mark on thousands of Afghans in the Indian capital who over the past two decades set up businesses to cater to Afghans who used to visit India. Now as the flow of visitors from Afghanistan dries up, their livelihoods have been hit hard. For VOA, Anjana Pasricha has a report from New Delhi.
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U.S. President Joe Biden told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that buying more Russian oil is not in India’s interest, as the United States pushes New Delhi to take a harder line against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Biden told Modi during an hourlong video call Monday that the U.S. is ready to help India diversify its sources of energy, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.  

“The president also made clear that he doesn’t believe it’s in India’s interest to accelerate or increase imports of Russian energy or other commodities,” Psaki said. 

A U.S. official described the call between the two leaders as “warm and productive,” saying Biden stopped short of making a “concrete ask” of Modi on Russian energy imports. 

During a short portion of the call open to reporters, Biden started the conversation by highlighting the partnership between the U.S. and India, saying the nations would “continue our close consultation on how to manage the destabilizing effects of this Russian war.”  

Modi expressed growing concern about the situation in Ukraine, particularly in Bucha, where the remains of many civilians have been found.  

“Recently, the news of the killings of innocent civilians in the city of Bucha was very worrying. We immediately condemned it and have asked for an independent probe,” Modi said.  

Modi said he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggested that the Russian leader hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  

India has remained neutral in Russia’s war in Ukraine, raising concern from Washington but earning praise from Moscow.  

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met Modi in New Delhi last month, said India had judged “the situation in its entirety, not just in a one-sided way.”  

India has refrained from imposing sanctions on Russia and abstained when the U.N. General Assembly voted last week to suspend Moscow from its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council.  

India has also continued to purchase Russian oil and gas, despite pressure from the United States and other Western countries to refrain. Russia has offered steep discounts on its energy supplies, and India has bought at least 13 million barrels of Russian crude oil since the invasion of Ukraine, compared with the 16 million barrels it bought in 2021, according to data compiled by Reuters.  

Psaki did not say whether India had made any commitments to reduce Russian energy imports. 

Biden and Modi last spoke in March at a meeting of the so-called “Quad” alliance of the U.S., India, Australia and Japan. Biden said that of the group, only India was “somewhat shaky” in its response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.  

During their virtual talk Monday, Biden and Modi were expected to have discussed a range of issues in addition to Ukraine, including dealing with climate change and countering China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region.  

Psaki said in a statement Sunday that the leaders would discuss “strengthening the global economy and upholding a free, open, rules-based international order to bolster security, democracy, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”  

Some information in this report came from Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. 
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Pakistan’s parliament elected Shehbaz Sharif as the country’s new prime minister Monday, a day after an opposition no-confidence vote against incumbent Imran Khan ousted him, ending his nearly four-year-old coalition government.

Sharif secured 174 votes, two more than required to win the election in the 342-member National Assembly, or lower house of parliament. He later took the oath of office, administered by acting President Sadiq Sanjrani.

The 70-year-old prime minister was chosen unopposed by an opposition alliance after lawmakers of Khan’s erstwhile ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party boycotted the voting process and left the house, accusing the United States of being behind the toppling of their government.

Washington rejected the charges, saying there was “no truth” to them. The Pakistani opposition also rejected the charges.

Qasim Shah Suri, deputy speaker of the legislature, a member of PTI, refused to chair Monday’s session for the election of the country’s chief executive, citing the alleged “foreign conspiracy” behind Khan’s ouster.

The special house session was eventually presided over by Ayaz Sadiq, a senior lawmaker of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Party, who announced the outcome of the vote.

Minutes before the vote, PTI legislators resigned en masse from the lower house in protest.

“We are announcing we are all resigning,” Shah Mahmood Qureshi, former foreign minister and vice president of Khan’s party, told the house. The resignations, if accepted, will require fresh by-elections in well over 100 seats.

In his televised address to the house after winning the vote, Sharif again rejected the claim that a foreign conspiracy had toppled the PTI government, calling the allegation a “lie, drama and fraud.”

He said he intended to call a closed-door meeting of relevant security-related parliamentary committees to investigate the allegations.

“This debate should be laid to rest, and I will make arrangements for the in-camera session at the earliest,” Sharif said. He also termed the country’s economic situation “very serious,” blaming his predecessor and vowing to improve it.

Sharif vowed to seek better relations with Washington and criticized Khan’s anti-U.S. rhetoric.

An anti-corruption court was due to indict Sharif and his son in connection with a high-profile money laundering case on Monday, but the indictment was deferred until April 27, and their pre-arrest bail was also extended to that day.

“There can’t be any bigger insult to this country” when a person facing corruption cases worth “billions of rupees is selected, elected as prime minister,” Khan told reporters after attending a meeting of his party lawmakers ahead of Monday’s vote.

Khan’s downfall, Sharif’s rise

The 69-year-old former cricket star was voted out of power early Sunday after a nearly 14-hour-long session of the assembly, making him the first prime minister to be ousted by a no-confidence vote in Pakistan. No democratically elected prime minister has served a full five-year term since the founding of the country in 1947.

The repeatedly delayed no-confidence vote against Khan was held after the country’s Supreme Court ruled last week that the prime minister had acted in violation of the constitution when he blocked the vote and then dissolved parliament.

The embattled Pakistani leader defended his blocking of the vote, alleging it was the result of U.S. meddling in his country’s politics.

Sharif was for years chief minister of the country’s most populous Punjab province, with a reputation for being an effective administrator.

He is the younger brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was removed from office by the Supreme Court in 2017 for failing to disclose a foreign bank account and was subsequently sentenced to a10-year jail term on corruption charges related to his four luxury London flats.

In November 2019, the Khan government allowed Nawaz Sharif to leave prison to spend six weeks in Britain for urgent medical treatment. He has not returned to Pakistan.

Voter protests

Khan remained defiant following his removal from office and vowed to lead a sustained protest campaign against the new government.

Tens of thousands of his supporters protested his ouster Sunday night across major Pakistani cities, including the capital, Islamabad.

The rallies went on until early Monday, with protesters peacefully blocking roads and chanting slogans against opposition parties and America.

“Never have such crowds come out so spontaneously and in such numbers in our history, rejecting the imported govt led by crooks,” Khan said on his Twitter account late on Sunday.

During his nearly four years in power, Khan consistently maintained he had inherited a bankrupt economy from previous governments of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party and PML-N, accusing them of rampant corruption and laundering billions of dollars into foreign bank accounts.

The Sharif family and PPP leaders reject the corruption charges as politically motivated. In fact, Pakistan’s major political parties have traded corruption allegations during their respective stints in power from 2008 to 2018.

Khan lost his majority in the run-up to the no-confidence vote after 20 lawmakers from his party defected amid accusations that they were bribed into changing their loyalties. Main coalition partners also switched sides and joined the opposition, leaving Khan to fight for his political survival.

The vote ultimately proceeded after senior military generals reportedly held an emergency meeting with Khan just before midnight on Saturday and allegedly “coerced” him into ending his opposition to the parliamentary process.

Khan’s aides and the army both rejected the reports as baseless.

Weakened military link

Khan was elected in 2018, promising to root out corruption and introduce reforms to fix economic troubles in the country of about 220 million people.

The military ruled Pakistan for almost half of its nearly 75-year history after staging coups against elected governments. Direct and continued indirect military interventions are blamed for the fragility of democracy in the nuclear-armed South Asian nation.

Critics say Khan rose to power with the military’s help but lost its support after a disagreement over the appointment of the country’s spy chief and foreign policy matters, including ties with the U.S.

“Opposition parties saw weakening relations between Khan and the military as an opportunity” to bring about Khan’s ouster, said Adam Weinstein, a research fellow at the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

“Parties tend to align with the security establishment when it suits them and challenge it when convenient,” Weinstein noted.

Through his nearly four years in office, Khan criticized Washington for what he said was a flawed U.S. war in Afghanistan and hailed the Taliban takeover of the neighboring country last year.

He visited Russian President Vladimir Putin on the day Russia invaded Ukraine and has refused to condemn the Russian aggression. He has criticized the West in public meetings for pressuring his government to denounce Putin.
…

Pakistan is set to vote in opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif as the country’s next prime minister Monday, a day after incumbent Imran Khan lost a no-confidence vote, bringing down his nearly four-year-old coalition government.

The 342-member National Assembly, or lower house of parliament, voted on the no-confidence motion against Khan early Sunday, with 174 legislators from a united opposition supporting it, two more than required to force the former cricket star from office.

Sharif led the opposition bid to oust Khan, and later submitted his nomination to the legislature for the prime minister’s election, which the 70-year-old politician is widely expected to win.

Khan is the first prime minister to be ousted by a no-confidence vote in Pakistan, but no democratically elected prime minister has served a full five-year term since the founding of the country in 1947.

The repeatedly delayed no-confidence vote against Khan was held after the country’s Supreme Court ruled last week he had acted unconstitutionally when he previously blocked the no-confidence vote, and subsequently dissolved parliament.

The embattled Pakistani leader had defended his blocking of the vote, alleging that the no-confidence motion was the result of the United States meddling in his country’s politics.

Washington rejected the charges, saying there was “no truth” to them.

Late Sunday, tens of thousands of supporters of Khan’s party took to the streets across major Pakistani cites, including the capital, Islamabad, to renew their support for the deposed leader and protest alleged U.S. meddling in Pakistan’s politics.

Khan had lost his majority in the run-up to the vote after 20 lawmakers from his ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party defected. Main coalition partners also switched sides and joined the opposition, leaving him to fight for his political survival.

Despite its ouster, the PTI remains the largest political force, with around 135 seats in the National Assembly barring the defected lawmakers.

The no-confidence vote ultimately went ahead reportedly after a meeting between Pakistan’s powerful army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, and Khan amid criticism the delay in the parliamentary process was deepening days of political turmoil.

Neither Khan nor the military commented on the reported meeting.

Khan’s critics say he had risen to power with the help of Pakistan’s military but lost its crucial support in recent months after developing differences over key security appointments and foreign policy matters, encouraging the opposition to stage his ouster.

The deposed prime minister took to Twitter on Sunday for the first time after his ouster to reiterate a “foreign conspiracy” had toppled his government.

“Pakistan became an independent state in 1947; but the freedom struggle begins again today against a foreign conspiracy of regime change. It is always the people of the country who defend their sovereignty & democracy,” Khan said.

The military ruled Pakistan for almost half of its nearly 75-year history after staging coups against elected governments. Direct and continued indirect military interventions are blamed for the fragility of democracy in the nuclear-armed South Asian nation.

Khan was elected in 2018, promising to root out corruption and introduce reforms to fix economic troubles facing the country of about 220 million people.

“Economic mismanagement aside, PTI’s anti-corruption platform was popular precisely because corruption was so endemic in Pakistan’s mainstream dynastic political parties. Those issues didn’t just disappear,” said Adam Weinstein of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington.

“Khan’s choices in Cabinet members and economic mismanagement helped erode some support. Then opposition parties saw his dampening relations with the military as an opportunity to strike,” Weinstein said.

Sharif was for years chief minister of the country’s most populous Punjab province, with a reputation for being an effective administrator.

While on the domestic front, the key challenge facing the next prime minister will be a financial crisis and inflation that Khan was unable to address, repairing ties with the United States would be a key foreign policy mission in the wake of his predecessor’s relentless criticism of Washington over the alleged regime change plot.

Through his nearly four years in office, Khan had criticized Washington for what he said was a flawed U.S. war in Afghanistan and hailed the Taliban takeover of the neighboring country last year.

Khan visited Russian President Vladimir Putin on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. Khan refused to condemn the Russian aggression and slammed the West in public meetings for pressuring his government to denounce Putin.

In recent statements, Sharif displayed disagreement over Khan’s anti-U.S. rhetoric, stating Pakistan’s economic dependence on Washington. “Beggars cannot be choosers,” he said in an interview with local television.

Coincidently, an accountability court was due to indict Sharif and his son in connection with a money laundering case Monday (April 11), the same day as his swearing in as Pakistan’s 23rd prime minister. Local media reports say the case is likely to be pushed back.

“It is a stigma on Pakistan that a person who is supposed to be indicted tomorrow will be taking oath as prime minster instead,” said Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, who was the interior minister in Khan’s deposed cabinet, while addressing a public rally Sunday.

Sharif rejects corruption charges against him as politically motivated.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.
…

Sri Lankan protesters occupied the entrance to the president’s office for a second day on Sunday, demanding Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign over the debt-ridden country’s worst economic crisis in memory.

Hundreds of demonstrators weathered heavy rain with raincoats and umbrellas and chanted anti-government slogans. Some called for the entire Parliament to disband to make way for a younger leadership.

“We will stay on, we will leave only when we have chased them out,” Sanjeewa Pushpakumara, a 32-year-old ex-soldier, said of Rajapaksa, his influential family and all the lawmakers.

Pushpakumara said he fought in the last stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war with ethnic Tamil rebels, which government soldiers won in 2009 after 2 1/2 decades. Both Rajapaksa, who served as a powerful defense bureaucrat, and his older brother Mahinda, who was then president and is currently prime minister, were credited with the victory.

“We will send them home, take the people’s money back and send them to jail,” said Pushpakumara. “These people are destroying the country that we saved and it is sad to see the army and police protecting them.”

Supporters distributed food, water and raincoats to the protesters.

The Indian Ocean island nation is on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with $25 billion foreign debt — nearly $7 billion of which is due this year alone — and dwindling foreign reserves. Talks with the International Monetary Fund are expected later this month, and the government had turned to China and India for emergency loans to buy food and fuel.

For months, Sri Lankans have stood in long lines to buy fuel, cooking gas, food and medicines, most of which come from abroad and are paid for in hard currency. The fuel shortage has caused rolling power cuts lasting several hours a day.

Much of the anger expressed by weeks of growing protests has been directed at the Rajapaksa family, which been in power for most of the past two decades.

Critics accuse the Rajapaksa brothers of borrowing heavily to finance projects that earn no money, such as a port facility built with Chinese loans.

S.D Prageeth Madush, a 36-year-old businessman, spent the night at the protest site.

“When the people ask you to go, you should go democratically,” said Madush. “Anyone can see that the people don’t like him (the president) anymore but he doesn’t like to let go of power.”

“I am going to stay on. We have to suffer difficulties if we are to make a better future for our children,” he said.

The crisis and protests triggered the Cabinet’s resignation last Sunday. Four ministers were sworn in as caretakers but much of the key portfolios are vacant.

Rajapaksa proposed the creation of a unity government but the main opposition party rejected the idea. Parliament has failed to reach a consensus on how to deal with the crisis after nearly 40 governing coalition lawmakers said they would no longer vote according to coalition instructions, significantly weakening the government.

With opposition parties divided, they too have not been able to show majority and take control of Parliament.
…

Facing an existential threat from climate change, Mumbai, India’s financial hub has embarked an ambitious climate action plan that aims to make the city carbon-neutral by 2050.

It is the first city to set a timeline to reach zero emissions in South Asia, one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to rising temperatures.

In recent years, the coastal city has witnessed more bursts of torrential rain, storm surges and cyclones, in addition to rising sea levels.

Built on a narrow strip along the Arabian Sea, the city’s low-lying areas where millions of poor people live in shanties, and the city’s southern tip, home to glitzy office towers, the stock exchange and legislature, are especially vulnerable, according to climate scientists.

“Mumbai will become a climate-resilient metropolis,” Maharashtra state Chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray said last month, unveiling the plan. Mumbai is Maharashtra’s capital.

The goal is ambitious — Mumbai wants to achieve net zero emissions 20 years ahead of the goal set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the country. In this decade alone, authorities aim to reduce carbon emissions by 30%.

The target is not easy. Skyscrapers have mushroomed in recent decades as the city’s population has swelled to 20 million, its green spaces have shrunk, and urbanization is continuing at a relentless pace.

The city plans key changes in the way it manages energy, transport, water, waste, and green spaces.

A beginning has been made with the transport sector, which contributes about 20% of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. The goal is twofold: a huge push for “green” vehicles and encouraging a switch from private to public transport that is being expanded with new metro projects and more buses.

So far 386 electric buses have replaced diesel buses and about 2,000 more will be added to make half the city’s fleet green by next year.

“Fares are super cheap, and a single card can be used in buses and metros to ease travel,” said Saurabh Punamiya, a policy adviser on the climate action plan.

“Hotels and industries will also be encouraged to switch to electric vehicles,” he said.

Experts say shifting to electric mobility has become feasible.

“The price gap between electric and petrol cars has narrowed significantly in India. The only thing authorities need to ensure is that they make enough charging stations,” Vaibhav Chaturvedi, a fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a think tank, said.

However, persuading more people to use mass transit will be far more challenging, he said.

“The trend we are observing is that people are moving from public transport to buying two-wheelers and then cars as they move up the income ladder. Across states and cities, we have been super-unsuccessful in stopping this because people are aspirational,” Chaturvedi said.

In a city where much of the emissions come from air-conditioned glass and chrome skyscrapers, there will also be a move to shift to green buildings.

“We propose that all new structures constructed after 2030 need to become zero-emission buildings,” said Lubaina Rangwalla, with the World Resources Institute, which is the technical adviser on the city’s new plan.

“This can be done by putting up solar panels, using energy-efficient products such as LED bulbs, recycling wastewater, building percolation pits to conserve rainwater and having enough tree cover to reduce the need for cooling,” she said.

Officials also plan to protect trees and mangroves and rejuvenate urban forests that the city has lost in recent decades.

Climate scientists have in particular flagged the huge loss of mangroves that not only act as carbon sinks but are buffers against coastal erosion and flooding.

Skeptics point out that trees are still being felled to make way for coastal freeways and underground car tunnels are being built to cut congestion in the city, known for its slow-moving traffic. Authorities say that the losses are being compensated for by transplanting trees and point out that the new roads will cut emissions by speeding traffic flow.

The biggest challenge, however, will be to phase out the nearly 70% of emissions generated by the power sector. Much of the city’s electricity comes from coal-based power plants, and demand in coming decades is set to soar as Mumbai’s population expands. So far there is no clear plan on how do produce more electricity and reduce total emissions at the same time.

India has set a goal to meet half its energy from renewable sources by 2030, and while progress is being made, hurdles have emerged, such as finding enough land to put up solar parks in a densely populated country.

Proposals are being considered to put floating solar panels on lakes formed behind dams on the city’s outskirts.

“Thirty years down the line, a lot of teething troubles that the renewable energy sector is facing will smoothen out and a lot more renewable energy will be generated. Besides solar, there are also options of wind and nuclear energy. Mumbai has set a challenging goal but there are ways for the city to achieve this target by 2050,” Chaturvedi said.

Setting a goal, he said “pushes decision makers to think along those lines and make policies accordingly.”

 
…

Police in India were seeking to arrest members of a gang who dismantled an 18-meter-long iron bridge and likely sold it off in parts as scrap metal, officials said on Sunday.

The robbers, posing as government officials attached with the irrigation department in the eastern state of Bihar, used gas cutters and earthmoving machinery to break down an abandoned bridge in Amiyawar village, about 150 kilometers south from Patna, the state capital.

Selling metal scrap can be a lucrative business in India, where cases of theft of metal parts from public property to sell in large, unorganized scrapyards for quick cash are common.

A police officer said Amiyawar residents assumed that the government officials had decided to dismantle the old bridge, built over a water canal some three decades ago, as it was not in use. Villagers had previously submitted an application to the irrigation department to dismantle the bridge, one resident said.

“People came with heavy machinery, gas cutters and worked for two days during the daytime to dismantle the bridge,” said Gandhi Chaudhary, 29, a villager. Locals asked those working about their identity and were told they had been hired by the irrigation department to dismantle the bridge.

Earlier in the week the scrap metal was loaded into a vehicle and the site was vacated.

“We have identified some members of the gang, and some are yet to be tracked down. They destroyed public property and stole a bridge.” said Subash Kumar, a police official probing the case.
…

Thousands of Sri Lankans rallied in the country’s main business district and Christian clergy marched in the capital to observe a day of protest Saturday calling on the debt-ridden nation’s president to resign, as anxiety and anger over shortages simmered.

Protesters carrying national flags and placards, some bemoaning the hardships through songs, blamed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his administration for mismanaging the crisis. He has remained steadfast in refusing to step down even after most of his Cabinet quit and loyal lawmakers rebelled, narrowing a path for him to seek a way out as his team prepares to negotiate with international lending institutions.

“Go home Rajapaksas” and “We need responsible leadership,” read the placards.

The protest also included a large number of youngsters who had organized themselves through social media and refuse to accept any political leadership. Many carried signs, saying “You messed with the wrong generation!”

The protesters stayed around the president’s office and vowed not to leave until their mission was accomplished.

For months, Sri Lankans have stood in long lines to buy fuel, cooking gas, food and medicines, most of which come from abroad and are paid for in hard currency. The fuel shortage has caused rolling power outages lasting several hours a day.

The Indian Ocean island nation is on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with $25 billion foreign debt over the next five years — nearly $7 billion of which is due this year alone — and dwindling foreign reserves. Talks with the International Monetary Fund are expected later this month, and the government had turned to China and India for emergency loans to buy food and fuel.

Much of the anger expressed by weeks of growing protests has been directed at Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who head an influential clan that has been in power for most of the past two decades. Five other family members are lawmakers, three of whom resigned as ministers last Sunday.

Thakshila Jayasinghe, a 35-year-old lawyer who joined the protest, said that she felt sorry for voting for Rajapaksa in the 2019 presidential election.

“I wonder what sin I have committed by voting for this president when I see the people suffer,” she said.

Reports said that at least four elderly people have died while standing in lines for hours trying to buy cooking gas or kerosene oil.

Jayasinghe said she voted for Rajapaksa believing he was the best candidate to restore national security following the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed more than 260 people. The attacks, blamed on local Muslim militants with ties to the Islamic State group, also shattered the tourism industry, alongside the pandemic, depriving Sri Lanka of hard currency.

At the same time, critics accuse Rajapaksa of borrowing heavily to finance projects that earn no money, such as a port facility built with Chinese loans.

Catholic clergy and lay people joined a rally from the “martyrs cemetery” in Negombo, north of the capital Colombo, where more than 100 people who died in the suicide attacks in the area’s St. Sebastian’s Church are buried.

They protested the economic crisis as well as the government’s alleged failure to uncover the conspirators behind the bombings.

“Today the country needs a major change and a new beginning,” Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, told protesters. “We ask from every citizen of this country to come together and change this system. To get together and tell these people to leave.”

“It’s enough now, it’s enough destroying the country, now leave and hand it over to someone who can govern this country,” he said.

The protest later moved near the Anglican cathedral in Colombo.

The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has been critical of the investigation into the bombings, citing allegations that some members of the state intelligence units knew and met with at least one of the attackers.

Rajapaksa earlier proposed the creation of a unity government following the Cabinet resignations, but the main opposition party rejected the idea. Parliament has failed to reach a consensus on how to deal with the crisis after nearly 40 governing coalition lawmakers said they would no longer vote according to coalition instructions, significantly weakening the government.

With opposition parties divided, they too have not been able to show majority and take control of Parliament. 
…

Shehbaz Sharif, the person most likely to be Pakistan’s next prime minister, is little known outside his home country but has a reputation domestically as an effective administrator more than as a politician.

The younger brother of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz, 70, led a successful bid by the opposition in parliament to topple Imran Khan in a no-confidence vote early on Sunday that Khan’s supporters tried for hours to block.

Analysts say Shehbaz, unlike Nawaz, enjoys amicable relations with Pakistan’s military, which traditionally controls foreign and defense policy in the nuclear-armed nation of 220 million people.

Pakistan’s generals have directly intervened to topple civilian governments three times, and no prime minister has finished a full five-year term since the South Asian state’s independence from Britain in 1947.

Khan’s ouster was a chance to make a fresh start, Shehbaz, the joint opposition candidate to replace Khan told parliament, soon after the vote.

“A new dawn has started … this alliance will rebuild Pakistan,” he said.

Shehbaz, part of the wealthy Sharif dynasty, is best known for his direct, “can-do” administrative style, which was on display when, as chief minister of Punjab province, he worked closely with China on Beijing-funded projects.

He also said in an interview last week that good relations with the United States were critical for Pakistan for better or for worse, in stark contrast to Khan’s recently antagonistic relationship with Washington.

There are still several procedural steps before Sharif can become Pakistan’s 23rd prime minister, not including caretaker administrations, although the opposition has consistently identified him as its sole candidate.

If he does take on the role, he faces immediate challenges, not least Pakistan’s crumbling economy, which has been hit by high inflation, a tumbling local currency and rapidly declining foreign exchange reserves.

Analysts also say Sharif will not act with complete independence as he will have to work on a collective agenda with the others opposition parties and his brother.

Nawaz has lived for the last two years in London since being let out of jail, where he was serving a sentence for corruption, for medical treatment.

As chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, Shehbaz Sharif planned and executed a number of ambitious infrastructure mega-projects, including Pakistan’s first modern mass transport system in his hometown, the eastern city of Lahore.

According to local media, the outgoing Chinese consul general wrote to Sharif last year praising his “Punjab Speed” execution of projects under the huge China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative.

The diplomat also said Sharif and his party would be friends of China in government or in opposition.

On Afghanistan, Islamabad is under international pressure to prod the Taliban to meet its human rights commitments while trying to limit instability there.

Unlike Khan, who has regularly denounced India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Sharif political dynasty has been more dovish toward the fellow nuclear-armed neighbor, with which Pakistan has fought three wars.

In terms of his relationship with the powerful military, Sharif has long played the public “good cop” to Nawaz’s “bad cop,” the latter has had several public spats with the army.

Shehbaz was born in Lahore into a wealthy industrial family and was educated locally. After that he entered the family business and jointly owns a Pakistani steel company.

He entered politics in Punjab, becoming its chief minister for the first time in 1997 before he was caught up in national political upheaval and imprisoned following a military coup. He was then sent into exile in Saudi Arabia in 2000.

Shehbaz returned from exile in 2007 to resume his political career, again in Punjab.

He entered the national political scene when he became the chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party after Nawaz was found guilty in 2017 on charges of concealing assets related to the Panama Papers revelations.

The Sharif family and supporters say the cases were politically motivated.

Both brothers have faced numerous corruption cases in the National Accountability Bureau, including under Khan’s premiership, but Shehbaz has not been found guilty on any charges.
…

Pakistan’s lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, voted Prime Minister Imran Khan out of power Saturday, nearly four years after he took office.

The voting on the opposition-launched, no-confidence resolution began after midnight local time, minutes after Speaker Asad Qaiser from Khan’s ruling party unexpectedly announced his resignation.

Qaiser invited a senior opposition lawmaker, Ayaz Sadiq, to chair the special session of the 342-member house, saying he could not take part in a “foreign conspiracy” to oust the prime minister.

Sadiq later announced that 174 lawmakers voted in favor of the no-confidence motion.

“Consequently, the resolution for vote of no-confidence against Mr. Imran Khan, the prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has a been passed by a majority of the total membership of the National Assembly,” Sadiq said.

Almost all legislators of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party left before or during the voting process.

Election of new prime minister

The legislative house will now elect a new prime minister and government Monday. Shehbaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party has already been nominated by the united opposition as their candidate for prime minister.

“We will not seek revenge. We will not put people in jails, but the law will take its course,” Sharif said in a speech after the vote.

Khan, the 69-year-old former cricket star, had lost his majority in the run-up to the vote after 20 lawmakers from his ruling party defected. Main coalition partners also switched sides and joined the opposition, leaving him to fight for his political survival.

Despite its ouster from power, the PTI remains the largest political force, with 135 seats in the National Assembly.

Supreme Court ruling

Saturday’s vote was held after the country’s Supreme Court ruled earlier in the week that Khan had acted unconstitutionally when he previously blocked the no-confidence vote and subsequently dissolving the parliament.

Khan defended his blocking of the vote, alleging that the no-confidence motion was the result of the United States meddling in Pakistan’s politics.

Washington rejected the charges, saying there was “no truth” to them.

“I will not accept an imported government, and I am determined to vehemently agitate against it,” Khan said in an address to the nation Friday. He called on his supporters to stage nationwide, peaceful protests Sunday.

The deposed prime minister alleged in his speech that he was being punished by Washington for visiting Russia and pursuing an “independent foreign policy” for Pakistan. He visited President Vladimir Putin on the day the Russian troops invaded Ukraine.

Lost military support

Khan is the first Pakistani prime minister to be ousted by a no-confidence vote, but no elected prime minister has served out a full five-year term since the founding of the country 75 years ago.

He was elected prime minister in 2018, promising to root out corruption and introduce reforms to fix economic troubles facing the country of about 220 million people.

But critics say most of those pledges have gone unaddressed amid persistent opposition allegations that Khan was misruling Pakistan and mismanaging the economy.

Khan’s critics say he had risen to power with the help of Pakistan’s military but lost the crucial support in recent months after developing differences over key security appointments and foreign policy matters, encouraging the opposition to stage his ouster.

Pakistan has experienced three military coups, leading to prolonged dictatorial rules in the country. Direct and indirect military interventions are blamed for the fragility of democracy in the nuclear-armed South Asia nation.
…

Their government still unrecognized by any country in the world, Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban have found a way to beat international isolation: opening diplomatic ties with neighboring countries and others, with an eye to gaining formal recognition.

In recent months, at least four countries — China, Pakistan, Russia and Turkmenistan — have accredited Taliban-appointed diplomats, even though all have refused to recognize the 8-month-old government in Afghanistan.

Last month, Russia became the latest country to establish diplomatic ties with the Taliban when its Foreign Ministry accredited Taliban diplomat Jamal Nasir Gharwal as Afghan charge d’affaires in Moscow.

“We regard this as a step towards the resumption of full-fledged diplomatic contacts,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Wednesday.

Although Zakharova said it was premature “to talk about official recognition of the Taliban,” the move is not sitting well in Washington, where officials are concerned it could confer undeserved legitimacy on the Taliban.

A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. and its allies “remain deeply troubled by recent steps the Taliban have taken, including steps to restrict education and travel for girls and women.”

“Now is not the time to take any steps to lend credibility to the Taliban or normalize relations,” the spokesperson said in response to a query from VOA. “This move sends the wrong signal to the Taliban.”

In the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last August, the U.S. and other Western countries shut down their diplomatic posts in Kabul. But they’ve maintained contact with the group, if only to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid into the country and influence Taliban policies.

The countries that have received Taliban diplomats all maintain embassies in Afghanistan.

Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Kabul and the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, said it was a “mistake” for Russia and other nations to accredit Taliban diplomats while the international community seeks cooperation from the Taliban on a number of fronts.

“When they accredit the diplomats, then they weaken the influence of the pressure that says you have to allow girls’ education and you have to cooperate with the NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) to help feed people or you won’t get recognition,” Neumann said. “So what the Taliban will see is that if they pay no attention to those statements, some states will begin to move toward recognition anyway.”

Accrediting a foreign diplomat is not the same as giving formal recognition, Neumann said. But that’s not how the Taliban see it.

“In practice, this is the equivalent of recognition, but it is not enough,” said Suhail Shaheen, who has been appointed by the Taliban to serve as Afghanistan’s envoy to the U.N. “Countries must recognize the Islamic Emirate.”

Shaheen, whose appointment has not been endorsed by the U.N., told VOA that about 10 countries have “accepted” Taliban diplomats, including China, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan.

Of those, only four — China, Pakistan, Russia and Turkmenistan — have formally accredited diplomats appointed by the Taliban, according to announcements by Afghan embassies and the foreign ministries of the host countries.

But previously appointed diplomats at Afghanistan’s embassies in Iran, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia now follow the Taliban foreign ministry’s “instructions,” Shaheen said.

“We don’t have any problem with anyone who contacts the current government of the Islamic Emirate and follows its instructions,” Shaheen said via WhatsApp. “That’s what they’ve done.”

Abdul Qayyum Sulaimani, the Afghan charge d’affaires in Tehran and a holdover from the previous government, told reporters in January that he’d received a letter from Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban foreign minister, confirming his status as acting ambassador.

Representatives of the Afghan embassies in Kaula Lumpur and Ryadh could not be reached for comment.

Qatar is a “special case,” Neumann said. The Gulf state has long allowed the Taliban to operate a political office in Doha, and it represents some U.S. diplomatic interests in Afghanistan. In November, Muttaqi met with Afghan embassy staff in Doha.

The Qatar Embassy in Washington did not respond to a question about whether the Qatari government had accredited any Taliban diplomats.

Afghanistan maintains 45 embassies and 20 consulates around the world. The majority are still run by diplomats appointed by the government of former President Ashraf Ghani and have refused to work with the Taliban government.

Mohammad Zahir Aghbar, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Tajikistan, said Taliban pressure to oust Afghan diplomats won’t work.

“No country will let them do that,” Aghbar told VOA’s Afghan Service.

Tajikistan, which maintains close ties to an anti-Taliban resistance group, is the only Afghanistan neighbor that has refused to allow Taliban officials to visit the Afghan Embassy.

Last week, a senior Taliban foreign ministry official visited an Afghan consulate in neighboring Uzbekistan “to improve and organize the consular affairs of the Afghan consulate” in the border town of Termez, according to a Taliban official.

Last month, Afghanistan’s embassy in Washington and its consulates in New York and Los Angeles shut down after running out of money.

Senior State Department Correspondent Cindy Saine and VOA Afghan Service’s Mirwais Rahmani contributed to this article.
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Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan renewed his allegations Friday that the United States was behind a parliamentary no-confidence vote against him and said he would not recognize an opposition government if he is ousted eventually.

Khan made the remarks in a late-night address to the nation a day before the National Assembly, or lower house of parliament, convenes to organize the opposition-launched no-trust motion that the embattled prime minister is expected to lose.

The Pakistani leader spoke a day after the Supreme Court set aside his move to block the vote, which was due to take place last Sunday. The house deputy speaker, a member of Khan’s ruling party, had ruled the vote was unlawful for being sponsored by a “foreign power.”

Khan then dissolved the parliament and his Cabinet and called for fresh elections in 90 days.

But the country’s top court, winding up several days of hearings Thursday, declared the deputy speaker’s ruling unconstitutional and restored the assembly. It also ordered the house speaker to arrange the vote, tabled by leader of the united opposition, Shehbaz Sharif.

“I am disappointed by the Supreme Court verdict … It has saddened me, but we accept it,” Khan said in his televised speech.

“I will not accept an imported government, and I am determined to vehemently agitate against it,” he said, calling for his supporters to stage nationwide peaceful protests Sunday.

The 69-year-old former cricket star, who took office in 2018, defended his blocking of the vote, alleging that the no-confidence motion was the result of U.S. meddling in his country’s politics. Khan said he has a cable or diplomatic communication from the Pakistani ambassador in Washington to prove it.

“I wanted the Supreme Court to at least look into it (the cable). It was a very serious allegation that a foreign country wants to topple the government through a conspiracy,” Khan said.

US denial

A State Department representative in Washington reiterated Friday that there is no truth to Khan’s allegations.

“We continue to follow these developments, and we respect and support Pakistan’s constitutional process and rule of law,” Jalina Porter said in response a VOA question while addressing a news conference. “But again, these allegations are absolutely not true.”

Khan alleged in his speech once again that he was being punished by Washington for visiting Russia and pursuing an “independent foreign policy” for Pakistan. He visited President Vladimir Putin on the day the Russian troops invaded Ukraine.

The prime minister had lost his majority in the 342-member house in the run-up to Sunday’s vote when lawmakers from his ruling party defected and main coalition partners switched sides and joined the opposition.

The power tussle has plunged the nuclear-armed country of 220 million people into political and economic turmoil.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, won the most seats in the 2018 election, but it did not get a majority, forcing him to form a coalition government.

The united opposition has announced that Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, will be their candidate for prime minister should the vote bring down the Khan government, which is due to complete its five-year mandated term in 2023.

Even if it loses the no-confidence vote, the PTI will remain the largest political force, with 155 seats in the legislative assembly.

The PML-N, with 83 seats, is the second-biggest party in the assembly, followed by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), with 56 seats.

Opposition leaders have said they are in favor of early general elections, but they want the new government to pass certain laws after winning the no-trust vote to ensure the next polls are free and fair.

For his part, Khan reiterated Friday that the opposition wants to undo crucial legislation his government passed to introduce electronic voting machines for the next elections for the first time in Pakistan, saying the measure will deter election rigging and fraud.

The prime minister claims the manual voting system now used in Pakistan has been heavily manipulated and politicized in favor of PML-N and PPP while the two parties were in power between 2008 and 2018.

Direct and indirect military interventions are blamed for the fragility of democracy in Pakistan, where no elected prime minister has served out a full five-year term since the founding of the country 75 years ago.
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Pakistan’s parliament will convene on Saturday to vote on removing Imran Khan as prime minister, an official notice said on Friday, potentially cutting short his term as leader.

The country’s top court ruled late on Thursday that Khan must face the no-confidence vote, which he is widely expected to lose, meaning he would be ousted from office.

The lower house of parliament has been convened for a session on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. (0530 GMT), the speaker’s office said in an order paper. The vote, brought by the opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif, is the fourth point on the agenda.

Khan, a former cricket star who took office in 2018, was due to address the nation later on Friday. He said after Thursday’s ruling that “My message to our nation is I have always and will continue to fight for (Pakistan) till the last ball.”

A member of Khan’s government denounced the Supreme Court’s decision to quash the prime minister’s effort to block the no-confidence vote.

“A judicial coup happened last night … ending parliamentary supremacy!” Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari said on Twitter.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said Khan had acted unconstitutionally in blocking the no-confidence vote when it was due to take place last Sunday, after which he dissolved parliament and called an election.

The ruling was the latest twist in a crisis that has threatened political and economic stability in the country of 220 million people, where the military has ruled for half its history.

Khan, who opposed the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan and has developed relations with Russia since he became prime minister, has accused the United States of supporting a plot to oust him. Washington has dismissed the accusation.

If he loses the no-confidence vote, the opposition will put forward a candidate for prime minister.

Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said after the court ruling that the opposition had nominated him to take over should Khan be ousted.

Ending uncertainty?

The rupee currency hit all-time lows on Thursday and foreign exchange reserves tumbled.

Pakistan’s central bank hiked its benchmark interest rate by 250 basis points on Thursday, the largest such move since 1996.

On Friday, markets opened higher on investor hopes the crisis might be easing. The Pakistan Stock Exchange was up 680 points, or 1.5%, and the rupee had rebounded from historic lows.

“The court decision will end political uncertainty and constitutional crisis to a large extent. This will help restore come confidence in the markets,” Muhammad Sohail of Karachi-based Topline Securities told Reuters.

“However economic challenges remain and it will be interesting to see how new set-up takes bold steps to put things in order,” he added.

Pakistan’s sovereign dollar bonds stumbled again on Friday, however.

The 2029 issue dropped more than 1 cent to 88.6 cents on the dollar while shorter-dated issues traded around the mid-70s cents, Tradeweb data showed. The country’s bonds had traded close to par of 100 cents at the start of the year.

The opposition has said it wants early elections but only after delivering Khan a political defeat and passing legislation that it says is needed to ensure the next polls are free and fair.

The election commission has said the earliest it can hold elections is in October,which means any new government will have to deal with pressing economic issues before that.
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Sri Lanka faces unprecedented turmoil as a deepening economic crisis triggers raging street demonstrations while a political impasse plays out as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa defies calls to step down, complicating efforts to alleviate the situation, analysts say.

As lines for cooking fuel, gasoline, diesel fuel and food grow longer and crippling power cuts plunge homes into hours of darkness, public anger has mounted, with people from all walks of life joining spontaneous protests – students, the middle class and low-income workers.

The acute shortages have arisen as the country struggles to pay for essential imports, while foreign exchange reserves have been depleted to critically low levels.

“The prices of fuel, petrol, bread has almost doubled. Rice and basic staples have gone up rapidly in the past two months,” said Jehan Perera, director of the non-governmental advocacy group the National Peace Council, in Colombo.

There are also dire warnings of an impending health crisis. Sri Lanka’s medical association has said that critical shortages of drugs and medical equipment will affect hospital emergency services in coming weeks.

It is a massive setback for a country of 22 million people that was ranked three years ago as an upper middle-income nation by the World Bank.

The Sri Lankan rupee has depreciated sharply, while food inflation surged to nearly 30% in March. Foreign exchange reserves have dwindled to less than $2 billion, even as the country’s foreign debt adds up to about $50 billion.

Economists say that while the crisis was years in the making in a country where expenditures have exceeded income, mismanagement during the last two years led to the current problems.

“The government started using its foreign exchange reserves to pay for its debt. It basically self-destructed, with a series of missteps,” Murtaza Jafferjee, chairman of Advocata Institute, a research organization based in Colombo, said.

Tax breaks given after the government came to power to fulfill electoral promises depleted tax revenues. The government had argued that it would stimulate the economy.

The coronavirus pandemic battered the tourism sector, a vital source of revenue for the island nation of scenic tropical beaches.

A sudden ban last year on imported chemical fertilizers hit crop production and food supplies, especially the vital rice crop. The ban was imposed in a bid to switch to organic farming, but critics say it was also meant to conserve shrinking foreign exchange reserves.  Although it has now been lifted, it has contributed to food shortages, with farmers saying their yields have dropped significantly.

Critics also blame huge infrastructure projects built by China for adding to the country’s massive debt burden. “We built infrastructure that would take 20 to 30 years to pay back… We also selected white elephant projects,” Jafferjee said.

Surging commodity prices because of the Ukraine crisis became a tipping point, as imports of commodities such as fuel and wheat became more expensive.

The government appointed a panel of experts Thursday to address the debt crisis and “lead towards sustainable and inclusive recovery for Sri Lanka.” A government statement said it will work with the International Monetary Fund.

However, there are fears that political gridlock will make it harder to address the crisis. The entire cabinet resigned this week in an apparent bid to mollify public ire, whose chants of “Go home, Gota” are heard on streets nationwide and have become a trending hashtag on Twitter.

The administration is working with only a handful of ministers and there is no finance minister — a minister appointed this week quit in a day.

About 40 lawmakers have walked out of the ruling coalition, leaving the government in a minority. Opposition parties have rejected the president’s call to join a unity government and said they will call for a no-confidence vote on leadership if there is no effective action to resolve the economic crisis.

Rajpaksa has rejected calls to step down.

“As a responsible government, we state that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will not resign from his post under any circumstances,” chief government whip in parliament Johnston Fernando said Wednesday.

Rajapaksa was voted into power in 2019 with a landslide mandate after deadly attacks by Islamist militants raised security concerns.

Political analysts say it is a stunning reversal for the country’s pre-eminent political dynasty that controls the government. The president’s brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, is the prime minister.  His younger brother and other family members previously controlled key ministries such as finance, agriculture and education. They have now stepped down.

“The situation is volatile. People basically want the entire family to go,” the National Peace Council’s Perera said. “For the public, they have become a symbol of corrupt politics in the country.”

Analysts say the government has little choice but to seek an IMF bailout.

“We do not have access to international financial markets because credit rating agencies have downgraded us to junk and below junk status. So we are in an absolute bind,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, the head of research organization the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo.

There are fears that the economic hardships facing the country will not ease soon.

 “The situation is very, very dire. There is no quick fix at all. It is a question of putting in place a set of things that will eventually reach a point of stability,” warned Saravanamuttu.  “Things are going to get worse before they get better. I don’t think there is any escaping from that.”

The Advocata Institute’s Jafferjee said Sri Lankans will have to settle for significantly lower standards of living for some time, adding, “We will have to rebuild our country from scratch. It is one of our darkest hours.”
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Seven American women from various organizations visited Kabul last week despite a State Department advisory warning U.S. citizens against traveling to Afghanistan because of “civil unrest, armed conflict, crime, terrorism, kidnapping and COVID-19.”

The group, including one from a female-led grassroots organization called Code Pink, spent a week in meetings with Taliban officials, local people and women’s rights activists. They said they returned home “disappointed.”

“The purpose [of the trip] originally was to celebrate the opening of the girls’ schools,” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink who was with the group, said in a phone interview from her home in San Francisco.

But two days before traveling to Afghanistan, the group was informed that the Taliban, contrary to earlier assurances, had unexpectedly extended their ban on secondary schools for girls.

“We debated whether we should still go and decided it was important to show our support for the girls and try to do whatever we could to persuade the Taliban that that was a very bad decision,” Benjamin said.

Benjamin said Taliban officials told the group during the visit that the school ban was temporary.

“There was so much heartbreak among the young women that we met with,” Benjamin said. “They told us about how their hopes and dreams had been dashed, and how disappointed they were that they weren’t able to join with their brothers, and how important education is to them.”

The school ban has received universal condemnation, including among Islamic scholars inside and outside Afghanistan, who have called on Taliban leaders to reopen schools for girls.

Extreme poverty

Afghanistan has been grappling with massive hunger impacting about 94% of its estimated 36 million people, aid agencies say.

During their weeklong trip, the women witnessed the poverty on Kabul’s streets.

“We saw signs of severe economic distress from malnourished children and very needy people at food distribution sites. … We saw women waiting for bread in bread lines and just signs of economic distress everywhere,” said Kelly Campbell, co-founder of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

To avert the looming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the United Nations has called for $4.4 billion in aid for 2022. But donors have pledged only $2.4 billion.

While the United States has been the largest humanitarian donor to Afghanistan with a commitment of $512 million to the U.N. appeal, the women said the U.S. can and should do more to alleviate Afghan suffering.

“The U.S. spent $300 million a day for 20 years on war and occupation, and yet hasn’t even spent the equivalent of two days on the humanitarian appeal,” Benjamin said.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan, which lasted almost two decades, cost more than $2.3 trillion, according to research by the Watson Institute at Brown University.

Frozen Afghan funds

In the aftermath of the Taliban’s takeover of power in August 2021, the U.S. government imposed a freeze on more than $7 billion of Afghanistan’s financial reserves in New York.

The funds are also sought by a group of 9/11 victim families through a lawsuit filed in New York that blames the Taliban for the terrorist attacks in the U.S. in 2001.

In February, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that split the Afghan funds — $3.5 billion to be released to an Afghan humanitarian trust fund and the other half to be held until the lawsuit is settled.

“These funds do not belong to 9/11 families. They don’t belong to the U.S. They don’t belong to the Taliban. They belong to the people of Afghanistan,” said Campbell, who lost a family member in the 9/11 attacks in New York. She added that the freezing of funds has contributed to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Campbell said her organization has 275 active members, all family members of those killed in the 9/11 attacks, who strongly oppose the lawsuit filed by another group of 9/11 victim families.

“I haven’t spoken to a single 9/11 family member who’s excited about taking funds from starving Afghan people,” Campbell said.

Campbell and Benjamin said they would like to travel to Afghanistan in the future but until then will advocate for better U.S. policies toward the war-torn country.

“I don’t think a failed state in Afghanistan is in the interests of the United States or the world community. We’ve already seen the results in the past,” Benjamin said.

“We have a lot of interesting information to share with our own government,” said Campbell.
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