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| Threat of Army takeover recedes in Pakistan | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 21: Fears over Army takeover in Pakistan have started subsiding with the civilian regime and the Army-ISI top brass trying to bury the hatchet. The fast moving events during the last one week indicate a lowering of tensions between the government and the military establishment. The first sign of the rapproachment was witnessed when the Navy chief Admiral Muhammad Asif Sandila was decorated on Friday with Nishan-i-Imtiaz (military), one of the highest national honours, for his meritorious services.
The citation of the award conferred by President Asif Ali Zardari at a ceremony in the Presidency reads: "Nishan-i-Imtiaz (M) was being conferred upon the naval chief in recognition of his long meritorious services..
The event was immediately taken by political observers as a sign that the crisis generated by the memo scandal was over even though the inquiry by a Supreme Court-appointed commission was ongoing.
The presence at the investiture ceremony of the entire military top brass, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Gen Khalid Shameem Wynne, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, reinforced this impression.An icebreaker between President Zardari and Gen Kayani preceded it last week after weeks of heightened tensions.
A meeting between Gen Wynne and the president followed, making it further clear that a rapprochement was in the works.
The new-found bonhomie contrasts with the hardline positions taken by civilian and military leaders over the past two weeks.
After a standoff between the government and the military intensified late last month, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani fired the first salvo against the military establishment, saying "there can be no state within a state".
He followed that comment shortly by accusing the army chief and the ISI head of having acted "unconstitutionally and illegally" while submitting replies to the Supreme Court in the memo case.
The army retaliated almost in the same tone, warning the prime minister of "serious ramifications".
But before the situation could turn ugly, mediators stepped in and Gen Kayani went to the Presidency last Saturday to offer truce in return for the government creating a conducive environment so that the two could live together.All these developments have delayed the move to stage a coup by the Army and apart from the role of the mediators the Army was neither in a mood to stage the coup nor prepared to takeover because of the opposition from the civil society within Pakistan and from Washington which continues to prefer the civilian regime to the military dictatorship.(eom) |
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