08-11-2010, 08:48 PM
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Re: Air Chief refuses to attend dinner party hosted by Hussain Haqqani
What to believe? Online story today or The News story on Monday?
Haqqani cancels banquet, donates proceeds for flood victims
The News Monday, August 09, 2010
By Sami Abrahim
WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani has cancelled a banquet that he was scheduled to host for Pakistan Air Force (PAF) chief Rao Qamar Suleman at the embassy, and decided to donate the money that would have been spent on the banquet to the fund for flood victims.
The PAF chief has supported the ambassador’s decision and chosen to have a much more austere bilateral visit than is usually the case. The PAF chief’s visit is part of the traditional visits by Pakistani services chiefs to the US on invitation of their counterparts. During the last two years, the army and navy chiefs also visited the US and had been hosted by the ambassador to a banquet attended by senior US civil and military officials, media personalities and senators and congressmen.
Since Ambassador Haqqani’s appointment, the guest list at embassy banquets has become even high profile, given his own personal contacts in the US hierarchy.
Embassy sources say that PAF chief Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman first considered cancelling his trip to the US in view of the floods, but given the importance of the transfer of F-16 aircraft from the US, decided to go ahead with the trip but only on condition that it was devoid of any pomp and show.
Haqqani decided to cancel the banquet scheduled for Tuesday and also cancelled all public events involving significant expenditure. Instead, the ambassador is now hosting a town hall meeting of Pakistani Americans to organise fund-raising for the flood victims.
The Pakistani ambassador has already been active in pleading the case for securing US government and International Financial Institution funding for flood relief efforts.
He personally requested the State Department to provide US helicopters for the rescue of people trapped in the floods even before the instructions on the subject received from Islamabad, embassy sources said. In addition to helicopters, the US government has also committed $35 million for the flood relief efforts.
This is not for the first time Haqqani has taken the initiative to show financial responsibility and set an example, said the Pakistan embassy officials, though he now tends to keep a lower profile because of the controversies emanating from his close ties to President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani as well as his vocal pro-US stance.
Last year, he became the only Pakistani ambassador to reimburse more than $20,000 to the government for telephone calls over and above his official limit even though government rules allow ambassadors to get such extra expenditure condoned by the Foreign Ministry. Haqqani told his staff at the time that since he could afford to reimburse the national treasury because of his independent earnings from his book he felt he should do it.
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