PAKISTAN: Musharraf houdt op, vermijdt met Beschuldiging
ISLAMABAD (IPS) | Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf trad van bureau op Maandag af die weken van speculatie beëindigt over of hij zou of met beschuldiging op lasten van illegaal het grijpen van macht door het parlement onder ogen zien=zou= ophouden zou dat in Februari wordt verkozen en dat door politieke tegengestelde partijen aan hem wordt overheerst.
Musharraf, die macht in een bloedeloze militaire staatsgreep in Oktober 1999 greep, werd gedwongen om na de beslissende Partij van de Mensen van Pakistan (PPP) van vermoorde vroegere eerste minister Benazir Bhutto en Pakistan Moslim liga-Nawaz (pml-n) af te treden, die door een andere vroegere eerste minister, Nawaz Sharif, begraven verschillen over de beschuldigingskwestie wordt geleid.
Musharraf had zowel Sharif als Bhutto in ballingschap jarenlang gehouden. Allebei keerden terug om de algemene verkiezingen te bestrijden maar Bhutto werd vermoord op Dec. 27 terwijl bij de campagne. Er was geen direct woord op of Musharraf zelf nu het land zou verlaten.
In zijn laatste dagen in bureau vond Musharraf zich geïsoleerd. Het krachtige leger van Pakistan - van wie hij tot November belangrijkst was - besliste neutraal te blijven. En de partij die hij, de MoslimLiga van Pakistan heeft gevoed - Qaid (pml-q), begon op een afstand te houden zodra hij overhandigde bevel van het leger aan Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
Musharraf was ook onder stijgende kritiek door Washington voor het er niet in slagen om de beloften te houden die hij aan strijdelementen heeft gemaakt van Taliban en al-Qaeda die binnen langs ruw de grens van Pakistan Afghanistan hadden gegraven en weerstand tegen de V.S. aangeboden. en de troepen van de NAVO in Afghanistan.
Maar de ambtenaren zeiden de vrienden van Musharraf in de Verenigde Staten, Groot-Brittannië en Saudi-Arabië dat binnen worden gestapt om een veilige uitgang voor hem te verzekeren.
In zijn urenlang adres over TV onder toezicht van Pakistan, toonde Musharraf, een vroeger commando, sterke zenuwen. „Geen lastenblad kan zich tegen me bevinden. Niet zelfs kan één enkele last tegen me worden bewezen aangezien ik volledig vertrouwen in Allah Almighty heb en ik deed alles met het geloof van Pakistan Eerste.“
“ Dit is geen tijd voor individuele bravado. [Of] ik verlies of in beschuldigingswerkzaamheden win, zal de Pakistaanse natie de verliezer zijn,“ Musharraf bovengenoemd in zijn adres. Hij was overtuigd dat de' eer `en de waardigheid van het land zullen [door de berusting] en naar mijn mening worden beïnvloed, zal de eer van het bureau van voorzitter ook beïnvloed worden''.
Zijn tegenstanders gedacht verschillend. “It’s a victory for all democratic forces and it’s victory for Benazir Bhutto and all those who sacrificed their lives for democracy,” said PPP spokeswoman Farzana Raja.
Musharraf, who had been adamant for the last two weeks not to resign and instead face impeachment proceedings, announced that after consultations with his legal advisers and close political supporters, he has decided to resign in the larger national interest.
‘’I hope the nation and the people of Pakistan will forgive my mistakes as I believe that whatever I have done in the past was in good faith; for the betterment of the people, and for the country”.
‘’Even if the impeachment fails, Musharraf said, ‘’relations between the presidency and the parliament will never be the same again. As ‘Pakistan first’ has been my philosophy, I eventually decided to quit without creating a fuss in the supreme national interest”.
‘’He [Musharraf] tried to justify pretty much what he had done, but I think at the end of the day this was the only option, because the space for him to remain president had shrunk so much that it had become impossible to carry on,’’ said information minister and PPP member Sherry Rehman, reacting to the address.
As army general Musharraf was responsible for masterminding the 1999 armed incursions into the Indian part of the divided territory of Kashmir at Kargil, that triggered off a military standoff between the South Asian countries. A full-scale war was averted between the nuclear-armed neighbours only because of Western intervention led by Washington.
In the October of 1999 Musharraf seized power by ousting a government led by Sharif. He succeeded in fending off international calls for the restoration of democracy mostly by reinventing himself as a key ally of the U.S. in the ‘war on terror’ in neighbouring Afghanistan.
A grateful Washington pumped in more than ten billion dollars worth of aid meant for the war effort, that indirectly helped Musharraf stave off challenges to his rule. Questions are now being asked as to how and where that money was actually spent.
Musharraf’s luck began to run out in March last year when he tried to oust the chief justice of the Supreme Court Iftikhar Chaudhry, triggering an open confrontation with the country’s influential legal fraternity.
In November he forced his own re-election for another five-year term and sacked 60 members of country’s higher judiciary, when they refused to endorse a state of emergency he ordered. But his political allies were defeated by the PPP and the PML-N in the February elections, sealing his fate.
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