This week President Pervez Musharraf and the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, answered charges against themselves by sending out letters to western leaders and the media. But by Thursday, the thunder was stolen by “several hundred retired armed forces men” demanding that Musharraf step down as president and hand over power to Chaudhry in a caretaker arrangement (The News, February 1). They also demanded that Justice Bhagwandas be appointed chief election commissioner, and that A.Q. Khan be either released or tried in court. It had been speculated, remarkably, that the retired military men — who included Lt Gen Hamid Gul, Lt Gen Asad Durrani, Lt Gen Faiz Ali Chishti and Gen Mirza Aslam Beg — would at the Thursday meeting also apologise to the nation for “their past roles against democracy”. That did not happen, and the news report alluded to a few military men’s impatience with some of the questions at the press meet seeking admission of their own accountability. A proposal by a retired navy commodore, Shahid Nawaz, for en masse resignation of ex-servicemen working in government departments too was not accepted. The gathered men expressed solidarity with civil society agitations against Musharraf, and indicated they could begin their own agitation.

Pointing back

In an editorial Friday, The Daily Times recommended that the interrogative lens be kept a while longer on the retired generals, listing many of their individual mis-steps. On Musharraf, it said: “We must insist that General (Retd) Musharraf apologise for the Kargil Operation which was more an example of professional incompetence than defiance of the Nawaz Sharif government whom he accuses of having agreed to the operation. He must apologise for undermining the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when Mr Sharif was prime minister.” And taking a composite view of security errors, the editorial added: “The biggest crime to which many retired generals must confess, and then apologise for, is the policy of seeking ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan because the consequences of this policy are now threatening to actually spell the end of Pakistan itself. In fact, some of these retired generals are too tainted for mouthing principles that the civil society of Pakistan has decided to uphold. They should zip up unless they are ready to give up what they have enjoyed over the years and are still enjoying at the cost of the nation.”

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