On 18th September 2011 Andrew Marr interviewed Pakistan Movement for Justice founder and former cricketer Imran Khan
ANDREW MARR:
Pakistan is a deeply troubled country, currently suffering again from terrible flooding. It's also of course known a great deal for a great deal of political instability and violence. It was once hailed as a partner of the West in the so-called War on Terror, but it's now distrusted by the Americans after Osama Bin Laden was discovered there. Well the Pakistani cricketer turned politian, Iran Khan, has just published a personal history of his country in which he is scathing about the government and about American policy in the region, and he joins me now. Welcome. This is a book which says in essence that Pakistan has become pretty much the most corrupt political system in the world. That's a pretty high claim.
IMRAN KHAN:
Well this was going to happen, Andrew, because in the 2008 elections an amnesty was given to eight thousand of the biggest criminals in the country. And not only were they given amnesty. They were allowed to contest elections, and most of them are in power right now. So when you have criminals running a country, corruption goes through the roof. And it's not even corruption; it's plunder right now.
ANDREW MARR:
Now you famously created a cancer hospital, a free cancer hospital. You've done a lot of that kind of philanthropic work. And you hope that your political party's time might have come, but you're starting from a very small base, if I can put it politely, and you're up against people with huge amounts of money and a kind of old system of sort of barons parcelling out party seats.
IMRAN KHAN:
Well, Andrew, the last election we contested was nine years back. Since nine years, the other parties have gone down in Pakistan because of corruption. All the parties are in power in different provinces, and as corruption rises, as discontent rises, there's insurgency throughout our Western borders, there's target killing in Karachi, there are floods. So there's a total disillusionment of the people from these old political parties. And so according to all the polls, my party is now the number one party in Pakistan, and I'm confident that this will be the biggest upset in Pakistan because the young people all want a change.
ANDREW MARR:
You know we're sitting in Birmingham. A lot of Pakistani people in Britain, particularly in the Midlands and so on. Is it important for a politician like you to come over to Britain and talk to Pakistanis here as well as part of the campaign?
IMRAN KHAN:
Yes it is because there are six million overseas Pakistanis. Their GDP, you'd be surprised, is equal to a 180 million Pakistanis. And they do fund not only us political parties, but whenever you want … when you fix the system there, the governance system, the biggest investment will come from overseas Pakistanis just like in China and in India, it was the expatriate community, the overseas Chinese and Indians who helped in their development. So the hope lies in the future in the overseas Pakistanis who when you fight corruption, fix the system, that's where the real money's going to come.
ANDREW MARR:
Let's talk about the aftermath of the death of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. When we talked in the programme to President Obama, he was pretty withering and angry about the Pakistani government's involvement in all of this or his suspicions about that. What's the feeling now in Pakistan because it was a very bruising moment for both countries?
IMRAN KHAN:
Humiliating for Pakistanis. Humiliating that a country has lost 35,000 people dead - a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, there were no Pakistanis involved, al-Qaeda was in Afghanistan. And the economy has lost 70 billion dollars - the total US aid is about 20 billion dollars - and 3.5 million refugees, internally displaced people. So a country that has given such sacrifices, in the end for us Pakistanis whatever the government role we don't know, but to be called by Panetta, the CIA Chief, either Pakistan was incompetent or they were complicit, I mean that was … I think that was the most humiliating thing for us Pakistanis.
ANDREW MARR:
And David Cameron here said that Pakistan was facing both ways on terrorism, you remember?
IMRAN KHAN:
Well exactly. And that's why people like us believe that this was the wrong war, we should not have gone into it. It has devastated our country. We are teetering on collapse. It's an un-winnable war not only in Pakistan. In Afghanistan it's the same.
ANDREW MARR:
And as Western forces pull back in Afghanistan, doesn't that simply push the fight against the remaining part of al-Qaeda into Pakistan further? You've got these drone attacks and so on at the moment.
IMRAN KHAN:
We have drone attacks, but they are totally counterproductive. All they do is they kill suspected militants, their families, but these are quickly replaced by more people. So every year the violence has grown, so these have failed to … these are failed policies. They failed in Afghanistan, they are failing in Pakistan. The answer lies in a political settlement. There is no military settlement.
ANDREW MARR:
Your critics say that you know you come across very well and all the rest of it, but you've become quite a tough Islamist yourself.
IMRAN KHAN:
Anyone who just does not go along with the US policy is either with us or against us. You've got to become either a Right Wing or a hardliner. I mean I objected to this insane War on Terror. You don't fight a War on Terror with bombs and F-16s and helicopter gunship, drones in villages where innocent people are getting killed. It's just exacerbating the situation. So anyone who opposes this policy becomes an Islamist. This is a ridiculous thing. I mean the issue is never going to be settled militarily. Any expert now knows that anyone - your ex-Ambassador Sherard Cowper(-Coles) - he says exactly the same.
ANDREW MARR:
The same thing. Alright. Imran Khan, thank you very much indeed for joining us today.
IMRAN KHAN:
Thank you, Andrew.
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