[NYTr] Musharraf Says "bye-bye" to Army, Prepares to Change Costume

Tue Nov 27 15:10:31 EST 2007

[This costume drama appears to be all the Prince of Darkness John
Negroponte was able to accomplish. More hapless bumbling by the Bush
Reich, even by an experienced diplo-murderer like Negroponte. But
then, this isn't Central America. -NYTr]

AFP via Yahoo - Nov 27, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071127/ts_afp/pakistanpolitics

Pakistan's Musharraf says his army goodbyes

by Nasir Jaffry

Pervez Musharraf was saluted by his troops Tuesday on his last full day
as Pakistan's army chief as he bows to international pressure to become
a civilian president.

Faced with swelling anger over his three-week-old state of emergency,
the embattled US ally received guards of honour as he launched a
two-day ceremonial tour of the army, navy and air force.

He is to resign as chief of army staff on Wednesday. The next day he
will take the oath for a second five-year term as president -- this
time without the uniform that he has described as being like his skin.

A military band played martial tunes and the national anthem as
Musharraf visited the joint staff headquarters in Rawalpindi. Soldiers
marched past and saluted Musharraf, who wore ceremonial dress, medals
and a green sash.

Musharraf later received colourful send-offs at the headquarters of the
air force and navy in Islamabad and exchanged souvenirs with senior
commanders.

"It's part of army tradition that the outgoing chief visits the troops
and thanks them for their services before relinquishing his command,"
military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Baseer Haider told AFP.

"The command changing ceremony will take place tomorrow."

On Wednesday, Musharraf will be driven to the army's general
headquarters to hand over his position as head of the nuclear-armed
military to his heir apparent, former spy chief General Ashfaq Kiyani.

By resigning from the military, Musharraf, who grabbed power in a coup
in 1999 and then signed up to the US-led fight against Al-Qaeda and the
Taliban, is meeting a key demand of the international community.

Interior ministry spokesman Javed Cheema said Musharraf's transition to
civilian life would not affect Pakistan's efforts to combat militancy.

"Uniform or no uniform it would not impact our war on terror," Cheema
said.

But the move is unlikely to placate opposition leaders who are
threatening to boycott elections set for January 8, amid one of the
most serious political crises since Pakistan's formation 60 years ago.

Last week, a purged Supreme Court rubber-stamped Musharraf's victory in
an October presidential election.

He will remain supreme commander of the armed forces with the power to
sack civilian governments, but faces fierce political opposition that
could leave him saddled with a hostile parliament.

His arch-foe Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister whom he ousted eight
years ago, returned from exile on Sunday vowing to end "dictatorship"
in Pakistan.

Sharif said Tuesday he had been in telephone contact with rival
opposition leader Benazir Bhutto three or four times in the last few
days as they consider a joint strategy for the elections.

A Bhutto party aide earlier said the two had not spoken.

"I shall try to convince Benazir Bhutto to boycott the polls," Sharif
told reporters in his home city of Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, adding
that he had already asked her to take a "firm stance" against the vote.

He said Musharraf wanted to rig the vote to secure a sufficient
majority in parliament that would indemnify him over his imposition of
emergency rule and his sacking of many of the nation's top judges.

Musharraf cited growing militancy and an unruly judiciary as reasons
for declaring the emergency, although critics say his real motive was
to purge the Supreme Court of hostile judges who could have overruled
his election.

On Tuesday, officials and residents said Pakistani troops had
re-captured a strategic mountain top from pro-Taliban militants in the
northwest Swat valley and shut down their pirate radio station.

The country has also suffered a record number of suicide attacks in
2007.

                          ***

AP via Yahoo - Nov 27, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071127/ap_on_re_as/pakistan

Musharraf bids farewell to army brass

By MUNIR AHMAD
Associated Press Writer

A grim-faced Pervez Musharraf bid farewell to his fellow generals
Tuesday, a day before quitting as army chief in a move that could ease
Pakistan's political crisis.

Opponents welcomed Musharraf's belated conversion to civilian rule and
appeared to pull back from a threat to boycott January's parliamentary
elections.

Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, said
Musharraf's conversion to a civilian president would make "a lot of
difference," and he would only refuse to participate in the vote if all
opposition parties agreed to do so as well.

But Sharif also kept up his rhetoric against the general, insisting
that Musharraf lift a state of emergency imposed to prolong his rule.

Musharraf faces increasingly adamant calls from critics at home and
abroad to lift the emergency imposed on Nov. 3 and make good on a
long-standing pledge to restore civilian rule.

To calm the turmoil, he has released thousands of opponents and let all
but one of Pakistan's independent news channels go back on the air.

On Tuesday, he took the first visible steps toward hanging up the
uniform on which his eight-year domination of this nuclear-armed
country of 160 million people has depended.

A guard of honor of about 150 army, navy and air force troops stood to
attention as Musharraf arrived at the colonial-style army headquarters
in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

A military band played the national anthem as an unsmiling Musharraf,
wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, a green-and-white sash over his uniform
and more than a dozen medals on his chest, inspected the troops on a
small parade ground.

He held a brief closed-door meeting with other top army commanders,
then traveled to the headquarters of the navy and air force in the
nearby capital, Islamabad, for more farewell salutes and handshakes.

Musharraf made no comment to reporters, who were allowed to watch and
film some of the events.

Musharraf insists his continued rule as president is essential for
Pakistan, which faces an increasingly violent onslaught from Islamic
extremists, to remain stable as it reverts to democracy.

To secure his position, Musharraf has abrogated the constitution and
purged the Supreme Court, which was about to rule on the legality of
his victory in a presidential election held in October.

Pliant judges in the retooled court last week dismissed opposition
complaints that Musharraf's retention of his military role disqualified
him from running for elected office.

That maneuver and the crackdown on dissent has dealt a blow to his
relations with Benazir Bhutto, another former prime minister who has
returned from self-exile and who shares his secularist, pro-Western
views.

Bhutto, who has twice been put under house arrest to stop her from
leading protests, has joined Sharif in denouncing Musharraf's
backsliding on democracy. However, she and Sharif are fierce political
rivals, and there are doubts that they can forge a united front to
force out Musharraf.

Bhutto says she is reluctant to leave the field open to pro-government
parties and her spokesman said Tuesday she would applaud if Musharraf
makes good on an oft-delayed pledge to leave the army.

"Let us see what happens tomorrow because he has reneged on his promise
in the past," Farhatullah Babar said.

Musharraf is to appear in uniform for the last time Wednesday as he
hands over his command to Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, a former chief of the
intelligence service.

Kayani, a close associate of Musharraf, is widely expected to maintain
the army's pro-Western policies even as he tries to repair the image of
a force damaged by its direct involvement in politics.

An official insisted Tuesday that Musharraf's switch would bring no
change in resolve against terrorism.

"Uniform or no uniform, it would not impact our war on terror,"
Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.

Sharif, who returned Sunday from exile in Saudi Arabia, went on CNN in
September to calm doubts about his commitment to battling the Taliban
and al-Qaida.

"You can't fight terror the way Mr. Musharraf is fighting," Sharif
said, adding that the Pakistani leader "needs the threat of terror for
his own survival. We will fight out of conviction."

But Sharif, a conservative with good relations with religious parties,
is reaching out to the many Pakistanis who disagree with sending the
army to fight militants along the Afghan border and who deride
Musharraf as an American stooge. Civilians as well as militant have
died in those operations and occasional U.S. missile strikes on targets
inside Pakistan.

"If the outside world declares somebody a terrorist, we shall not act
on it blindly," he told reporters in his home city of Lahore. "We are
against extremism and terrorism. But it doesn't mean to allow foreign
countries to bomb our people."

That posture could entice some votes away from Bhutto, who has said she
might let U.S. troops strike at Osama bin Laden if the al-Qaida leader
is found in Pakistan.

It remains unclear whether Sharif can assemble a slate of candidates
strong enough to challenge the pro-Musharraf ruling party or Bhutto's
party in January.

Still, a day after filing his nomination papers, Sharif gave the
strongest hint yet that he would actually take part.

"If all political parties agree, I think we should boycott the polls
because it is a lethal weapon," he said. "But if we don't get an
agreement, we should try to reach our objectives in the polls."

[Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad and Zarar Khan in
Lahore contributed to this report.]