Accusations of US-led regime-change operations in Pakistan and Bangladesh deserve UN attention

Flag of Bangladesh. Fredrik Rubensson from Stockholm, Sweden, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Jeffrey D. Sachs / Common Dreams

Two former leaders of South Asian countries have accused the United States of covert regime-change operations to overthrow their governments. One of the leaders, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, is languishing in prison, based on a perverse conviction that proves Khan’s claim. The other leader, former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheik Hasina, fled to India after a violent coup in her country. Their serious accusations against the United States, as reported by international media, should be investigated by the UN, because if proven, the US actions would pose a fundamental threat to world peace and regional stability in South Asia.

The two cases seem very similar. The very strong evidence of the US role in the overthrow of Imran Khan's government suggests that a similar phenomenon may have occurred in Bangladesh.

In the case of Pakistan, Donald Lu, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, met with Asad Majeed Khan, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, on March 7, 2022. Ambassador Khan immediately responded to his capital, conveying Lu’s warning that Prime Minister Khan was threatening U.S.-Pakistan relations because of Khan’s aggressively neutral stance on Russia and Ukraine.

The March 7 note from the ambassador (technically a diplomatic cipher) quoted Deputy Secretary Lu as saying: “I think if the vote of no confidence in the prime minister is successful, all will be forgiven in Washington because the visit to Russia is considered a decision of the prime minister. Otherwise, I think it will be difficult in the future.” The very next day, members of parliament took procedural steps to oust Prime Minister Khan.

On March 27, Prime Minister Khan brandished the figure and told his supporters and the public that the United States was out to bring him down. On April 10, Prime Minister Khan was removed from office when Parliament caved in to the American threat.

We know this in detail thanks to the Ambassador Khan Cipher, exposed by Prime Minister Khan and brilliantly documented by The Intercept’s Ryan Grim, including the text of the cipher. Absurdly and tragically, Prime Minister Khan is languishing in prison in part because of espionage charges related to the exposure of the cipher.

The United States appears to have played a similar role in the recent violent coup in Bangladesh. Prime Minister Hasina was apparently overthrown by student protests and fled to India when the Bangladeshi military refused to stop protesters from storming government offices. Yet there may be more to the story than meets the eye.

According to reports in the Indian media, Prime Minister Hasina claims that the US overthrew her. Specifically, she claims that the US removed her because she refused to grant them military facilities in a region considered strategic by the US as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China. While these are second-hand accounts from the Indian media, they closely follow several speeches and statements made by Hasina over the past two years.

On May 17, 2024, the same Deputy Secretary Liu who played a major role in overthrowing Prime Minister Khan visited Dhaka to discuss the US’s Indo-Pacific strategy, among other issues. Days later, Sheikh Hasina reportedly summoned the leaders of her 14-party alliance to make the startling claim that a country of white people was trying to bring her down, ostensibly telling the leaders that she refused to compromise her country’s sovereignty. Like Imran Khan, Prime Minister Hasina had pursued a foreign policy of neutrality, including constructive relations not only with the US, but also with China and Russia, much to the dismay of the US government.

Adding credibility to Hasina’s accusations, Bangladesh has delayed signing two military agreements that the United States has been pushing hard since 2022, including through former Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a hard-line neoconservative who has herself led numerous regime-change operations in the United States. One of the proposed agreements, the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), would require Bangladesh to cooperate more closely with Washington on military matters. Prime Minister Hasina’s government was clearly not keen on signing it.

The US is by far the world leader in regime change operations, but it categorically denies its role in covert regime change operations, even when caught red-handed, such as when it intercepted Nuland’s phone call in late January 2014, as she planned the US-led regime change operation in Ukraine. There is no point in calling on the US Congress, much less the executive branch, to investigate the allegations made by Prime Minister Khan and Prime Minister Hasina. Whatever the truth of the matter, they will deny and lie as much as necessary.

This is where the UN should step in. Covert regime-change operations are clearly illegal under international law (including the doctrine of non-intervention, as expressed for example in UN General Assembly Resolution 2625 of 1970) and constitute perhaps the greatest threat to world peace, as they profoundly destabilize nations and often lead to wars and other civil unrest. The UN should investigate and expose covert regime-change operations, both to reverse them and to prevent them in the future.

The UN Security Council is of course charged, under Article 24 of the UN Charter, with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. When there is evidence that a government has been overthrown by the intervention or complicity of a foreign government, the UN Security Council must investigate these allegations.

In the cases of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the UN Security Council should request direct testimony from Prime Minister Khan and Prime Minister Hasina to assess the evidence that the United States played a role in the overthrow of the governments of these two leaders. Each of them should, of course, be protected by the UN for their testimony, to shield them from any retribution that might result from their honest presentation of the facts. Their testimony can be taken by videoconference, if necessary, given the tragic incarceration of Prime Minister Khan.

The United States could well use its veto in the UN Security Council to prevent such an investigation. In that case, the UN General Assembly could take up the issue, under UN Resolution A/RES/76/, which allows the UN General Assembly to consider an issue blocked by a veto in the UN Security Council. The stakes at stake could then be assessed by the entire UN membership. The veracity of US involvement in the recent regime changes in Pakistan and Bangladesh could then be analyzed objectively and judged on the basis of evidence, rather than mere assertions and denials. The United States participated in at least 64 covert regime-change operations between 1947 and 1989, according to the documented research of Lindsey O'Rourke, a professor of political science at Boston University, and in several other overt operations (for example, through the US-led war). They continue to engage in regime change operations with shocking frequency to this day, overthrowing governments in every part of the world. It is an illusion to believe that the United States will comply with international law on its own, but it is not an illusion to believe that the international community, which has long suffered from US regime change operations, is demanding an end to these operations at the United Nations.

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