A conversation with Imran Khan. Gulf News speaks to Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician as he leads the march to protest US drone attacks. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00As protests over U.S. drone attacks intensified in the tribal heartland of Pakistan, Gulf
00:10news caught up with Imran Khan, while the Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician was
00:15traveling from Tang to Dera Ismail Khan on Sunday afternoon.
00:20Minutes after his convoy carrying thousands of Pakistanis and a contingent of U.S. anti-war
00:25activists was turned back from the border of South Waziristan, Imran Khan spoke about
00:30the road ahead in an interview with Gulf News.
00:32How do you feel?
00:33You were turned back, right?
00:34From the checkpost?
00:35Not from the checkpost, but the army, again, they turned us back because we had got so
00:41late that we would have been stuck inside Waziristan after sunset.
00:45Over 100,000 people, but you just could not take the risk, and the army advised us that
00:51there's a real danger to these people, and so I could not be so responsible to take a
00:56risk for my people.
00:57You don't feel you endangered the lives of all these Westerners by taking them to the
01:02area?
01:03Like, I know it was their decision to go...
01:04I had, but my own workers, you know, they were women with us, and plus they were foreigners,
01:13so there's no way we could have taken a risk with them after sunset inside Waziristan.
01:18But even taking them in the daytime, it was a risk, right?
01:22Because many Westerners are even threatened...
01:24It was a risk.
01:25It was a risk.
01:26I have to admit, I was a little worried because not so much from the Taliban, more from Maulana
01:33Fazlur Rahman, who was instigating violence by saying a conspiracy of Jews and Christians
01:39and in the mosques he was spreading this, you know, propaganda that this was a Jewish
01:43conspiracy.
01:44So, you know, my only tension was that our foreigners, you know, should not... no harm
01:50should come to them.
01:51So most definitely, you know, we got out OK.
01:54There's been a lot of talk about all this being a political stunt, and even the TTP,
01:59whom you've been advocating for by saying that military operations should end in the
02:04tribal areas against the TTP and other militant groups, and also that negotiations should
02:10take place.
02:11They've come out with a very strong statement against you and specifically this drone march.
02:17What is your... what are your comments on that?
02:19Look, Faryal, I never...
02:22I have never been as wrongly misinterpreted as pro-Taliban.
02:28I've always been anti-military operations.
02:31I've always been pro-political dialogue because I have always believed that military operations
02:37creates militants.
02:38Knowing the character of the people in the tribal area, the more collateral damage, the
02:43more militants.
02:44And I always thought this was an insane and senseless policy, people who didn't know the
02:49history of either Afghanistan or Pakistan's tribal areas.
02:52So that's why I always advocated political settlement, which was wrongly interpreted
02:57as being pro-Taliban.
02:58The whole idea was not to, you know, to sort of devise a policy which is pro-Taliban, but
03:07it was how are we going to get peace in Pakistan's tribal areas?
03:12Because eight years of insanity has only created more militants, more extremism.
03:16There is more extremism in Pakistan today than ever in our history.
03:20So the whole idea was that we should, you know, we should find an alternate policy.
03:25This is... this was called a peace march, anti-drone and pro-anti-military operations.
03:30It's pro-peace, pro-dialogue, pro-political dialogue.
03:33Do you also feel the DTP feel threatened that because of your reaching out to the tribal
03:38people and they've long been neglected, not just because of this last decade and the counterterrorism
03:43operations going on, but because of neglect from the state of Pakistan, do you feel they
03:48feel threatened that because you've reached out to them and you're the only national leader
03:53who is capable of and who will probably fulfill his commitment and bring them into mainstream
03:59Pakistan politics and give them share of the resources which they are rightly, they
04:04have a right to?
04:05Do you feel that DTP feels threatened by this?
04:08Well, Faraz, there's some... and there's no one DTP and there's a mixture of various reasons
04:13why what is called Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, they're criminals, they are people who are
04:19Pashtun nationalists who are fighting just for the solidarity with Pashtuns across the
04:24border and anti-Americanism.
04:27Then there's the hardcore DTP which has some sort of, you know, their own religious ideology
04:32which is a smaller percentage.
04:35Then there are Punjabi Taliban, you know, the old Jihadi organization, there's a mixture
04:38of all these.
04:39So you can't say one thing as DTP as a policy because there's no one policy, there's a lot
04:45of groups now operating, split the groups which call themselves Taliban.
04:50But I'm sure that there are elements in them which are threatened because once there is
04:55peace, no longer will they have the strength or power they have right now, the power which
05:01they enjoy right now because they have complete power in the tribal areas.
05:05Right.
05:06Imran, what purpose has the march served according to you?
05:10Like, you've been turned back from the border, do you feel you've achieved your objective?
05:14Well, it's number one.
05:15Number one, it has made this an international issue, it's being now debated and talked about
05:19all over the world.
05:21You know, you look at the sort of attention it's got, no other, never has it had such
05:26international attention.
05:28And secondly, in Pakistan, the jinx has been broken that, you know, people are scared to
05:36hold a rally and D.I. Khan, forget about Tank, you know, and the sort of response we got
05:42from the people of Tank, the whole town came out to receive us.
05:45Remember, Tank and D.I. Khan is full of tribals internally displaced who, I mean, 80% of the
05:51people in South Waziristan have left the area.
05:55So they're mostly in Tank and D.I. Khan, so the reception we got from them, I mean, it
06:00was seen to be believed.
06:01It was one of the biggest, I mean, I don't think there's ever been a reception like that.
06:05Right.
06:06So therefore, we have the second, so one, we have internationalized the issue, also
06:12nationalized it.
06:13There's now more talk.
06:14Everyone is condemning drones.
06:15But secondly, you know, we have, we have reached out to the people in the tribal area.
06:20They suddenly, for the first time, they feel that someone cares.
06:25You know, we people in Pakistan care for them.
06:27These are the forgotten people.
06:29And eventually, peace will come.
06:31This is the first step towards peace.
06:33When we win the people over to the tribal areas, over to our side, that's when there'll
06:39be peace.
06:40Right.
06:41Do you feel this is the turning point, and it will even, like, mobilize people within
06:46Pakistan to stand up and say no to the government for allowing these drone strikes?
06:51Because there's no way the government has no knowledge, and these drone strikes keep
06:57occurring.
06:58The drone strikes take place with the complicity of Pakistan government.
07:03The Pakistan government is completely two-faced.
07:06Shah Levin, when he was asked, Admiral Muller, in a Senate hearing committee, that why do
07:12you do drone strikes when Pakistan objects, Admiral Muller told him that we do it with
07:17the consent of Pakistan government.
07:18So they're just being two-faced.
07:19They lie to us, as was revealed in WikiLeaks.
07:22It remains to be seen if Imran Khan is able to mobilize people across Pakistan after the
07:28peace march to take a stand against drone strikes.
07:36For more UN videos visit www.un.org