Military winding up camps across Bangladesh

Bangladesh's powerful military has begun winding up camps across the emergency-ruled country and has no intention of imposing martial law, the army chief was quoted as saying Wednesday. The armed forces deployed some 60,000 troops across Bangladesh on January 10, a day before the president imposed a state of emergency and cancelled polls after months of political turmoil.
But lieutenant general Moeen U Ahmed told editors of local dailies the military has pulled out from more than 500 sub-districts across the country, one of the journalists told AFP. "Except a few sensitive sub-districts troops have been pulled out from all the sub-districts. The army now has bases only in all 64 districts of the country and if the government wants, it will also pull out from there," Moeen was quoted as saying.
The army chief said "the military does not have any intention to impose martial law in the country. It has no plan to grab power," according to A.S.M. Bahauddin, editor of Bengali-language daily Inquilab.
"He said the army does not have any intention to engage in politics. Personally, he said he has no plan to join politics. He said the army has aided the government and would remain suubservient to the government. An armed forces spokesman confirmed Moeen met the editors in northern Dhaka but refused to say what was discussed.
The army is widely seen as having engineered the events in January that also led to President Iajuddin Ahmed quitting as head of the interim administration and appointing a military-backed government.
The new government vowed to clean up politics and carry out a series of reforms before elections are held. The government last month said polls would be held at the end of 2008.
The emergency government, led by a central bank governor, has used the armed forces to crack down on corruption and gave them unlimited power to arrest anyone without any warrant. Military-led forces have since arrested tens of thousands of people across the country including some 60 top politicians, accused of widespread corruption during the previous democratic regimes. Top army generals were made heads of government bodies while mid-ranking officers were included in decision-making bodies in district administrations.
Since winning independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has had a history of coups and counter-coups. It was run by military dictator Hussain Mohammad Ershad from 1982 to 1990 before democracy was restored in 1991.