Pakistan military withdraws officers from civilian duties

Feb 12, 2008, 8:41 GMT

Islamabad - The Pakistan Army has recalled hundreds of officers assigned to government offices to distance the military from the state bureaucracy, a news report said on Tuesday.

The move came after Pakistan's top military commanders met at their garrison headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi last week.

'We have asked the federal government to relieve those Army officials immediately who can be replaced easily,' Major-General Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman, told the English-language Dawn newspaper.

The Pakistan Army, long a dominate pillar of the country, is moving to restrict officers from getting involved in politics, with the recently appointed military chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani ordering personnel to stick to their professional duties.

Kayani has also rejected proposals that the military oversee national elections scheduled for next Monday, asserting that the Election Commission of Pakistan was solely responsible for their transparency. The polls are meant to bring a return of civilian government after more than eight years of military rule under embattled President Pervez Musharraf.

However, the military will be on standby to assist police in maintaining order amid fears of post-election violence.

More than 300 army officers are presently working in government departments, according to Abbas, including the National Accountability Bureau, National Database and Registration Authority, and the Water and Power Development Authority.

There has been extensive criticism of such appointments, which only grew after Musharraf, who was army chief until last November, came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

However, Nawaz Sharif, a civilian prime minister who was ousted by Musharraf, himself appointed Army officers to key positions within the state's power authority and to conduct surveys of the educational system to rid them of corruption less than a year before being toppled.