Bombs for emergency loans: How the US tricked Pakistan into supplying weapons to Ukraine

What does the fall of Imran Kahn and IMF loans have to do with the Ukraine war? The Intercept reveals a secret US deal. It’s about blackmail and contempt for democracy.

In April 2022 supported the USA the Pakistani military in its plan to organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the removal, US State Department diplomats expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan.

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When the conflict began, Khan, then prime minister, was on his way to Moscow for a long-planned bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The visit outraged Washington.

Die USA warned faces serious consequences if Khan remains in power. At the same time, it was promised that if he were to be deposed, “everything would be forgiven.”

After overthrowing Khan, the military began eliminating his party through a wave of killings and mass arrests. The former Pakistani prime minister himself is currently imprisoned for alleged misuse of secret documents. There are also 150 additional allegations against him – allegations that are widely seen as a pretext to prevent him from taking part in future elections.

Since then, Pakistan has sided with the USA and Ukraine in the Ukraine war. This attitude is also expressed in actions. One Search for US-Mediums The Intercept documents in detail how Washington organized secret Pakistani arms sales to the US for the Ukrainian military.

The USA then “repaid” Pakistan’s willingness to supply weapons to Ukraine by releasing a vitally important loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Pakistan. The US role in this was confirmed by the Democratic Senator from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen. Van Hollen is a leading voice in Washington when it comes to foreign policy. He explained to journalists: “The United States was instrumental in encouraging the IMF to offer its emergency economic assistance.”

The emergency loan – a total agreement worth six billion dollars – enabled the new Pakistani government to avoid a looming economic catastrophe to prevent and to postpone elections indefinitely – time that was used nationwide to take action against civil society and Khan to put in prison.

“Pakistani democracy could ultimately be a victim of the Ukrainian counteroffensive,” Arif says to Rafiq The Intecept, a scientist who conducts research at the Middle East Institute and is a specialist on Pakistan. “The premise is that we have to save Ukraine, we have to secure this defense line of democracy on the eastern edge of Europe,” concrete Rafiq.

And then an Asian, dark-skinned country has to pay the price. It can become a dictatorship. People are being deprived of the freedoms that celebrities tell us we need to support Ukraine for – the ability to elect our governments, civil liberties, the rule of law, all of the things that are supposed to distinguish many European countries and democracies from Russia .