Stranded in Libya: Pakistani mission yet to secure landing rights

Complaints received against charde d' afffairs of the Pakistani mission in Tripoli.

KARACHI:

Charge d’ affairs of the Pakistani mission in Tripoli, Ali Javed, has failed to get the requisite plane landing rights for immediate evacuation of expatriates from Libyan authorities, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Despite more than two weeks into the Libyan crisis, Javed made the effort of meeting Libyan authorities only late on Tuesday to request for landing permission. However, a source in Tripoli close to the embassy staff said that since Wednesday was Jamahiriya Day, a national public holiday in Libya commemorating the declaration of the country as a people’s republic in 1977, Javed was told to wait for the permission until the next working day.

Foreign Office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua confirmed to The Express Tribune on Thursday that the ministry was still awaiting clearance from Libyan authorities. “As soon as the requisite clearance is received, air evacuation from Tripoli will be undertaken for which arrangements have been made,” she said in a statement.

The charge d’affairs has come under heavy criticism from expatriates who have returned from Tripoli via chartered flights. They accused Javed and his staff of being indifferent to their frantic pleas for evacuation even when the crisis in Libya became ugly post-February 17.

Two Pakistani nationals Abrar and Ahmed (names changed on request), who got in touch with The Express Tribune over Skype from Tripoli, say the embassy official’s indifferent attitude still persists. They complained that the embassy was still not informing them when they would be evacuated, if at all.

One of them met Ali Javed and demanded an answer. “He told me that since I was in such a hurry, I should just take a bag and wait outside the airport and try to catch a flight from any private airline,” Abrar said.

Meanwhile a PIA relief flight, the Airbus PK-7612, departed from Karachi at 11pm on Wednesday to Marmaris, Turkey and brought back home 195 Pakistani passengers, including two infants to Lahore at 1:55pm on Thursday. They had escaped Libya on their own to Turkey from where they were picked up by the airline. PIA spokesperson Mashood Tajwar said the airline was now awaiting clearance from the Foreign Office to airlift Pakistani nationals directly from Libya. Sources within the airline say that no flight is expected to fly to Tripoli until this coming Sunday.

Additional Spokesperson Kamran Taj from the Foreign Office in Islamabad was repeatedly requested to provide the details about Ali Javed’s experience, who is supposed to head the rescue mission of Pakistanis trapped in Libya. However, Taj refused. “That simply is not possible,” he said without giving any reason.

A high level source in the foreign ministry told The Express Tribune that the office has been receiving numerous complaints against Ali Javed from the Pakistani community in Libya for some time now. He said the charge d’ affairs claim to fame in the ministry is actually only due to his father, a retired army general. “He is not one of the officers who cleared the CSS exams, but came into the ministry on a reserved quota,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4^th, 2011.