Harmonized and integrated Response of Pakistanis to face the challenges

Pakistani community, true to its traditional spirit withstood the challenges of the moment, in a very integrated and motivated manner.

a) Community through young volunteers, philanthropists etc contributed whole heartedly and reinforced the Embassy resources in the management of Relief Centers. In all four Relief Centers were established in Libya. At one stage in one Relief Centre alone 3200 destitute were housed and their basic needs catered entirely by the Pakistan Mission including food, shelter and medical.

b) One of the Embassy Schools at Tripoli had to be converted into Relief Centre and thus inevitably temporarily became non functional. As an alternative to this two brand new Schools were established and made functional in a record time inducting new instructional staff during the crisis, transported through the incoming chartered flights.

c) In conjunction with other organizations of Pakistan, the exercise was conducted in the most cost effective manner. Pakistan holds the honor of being the only country whose aircrafts landed at the Libyan soil and which operated the chartered flights from the Libyan airports. Other countries used the neighboring countries as a jump of point for their flights. The direct and bold use of Libyan soil resulted in our evacuation being comparatively the most cost effective.

d) Although certain affected Pakistanis had to be inevitably evacuated, yet a sizeable number of approximately 10,000-12,000 Pakistanis who have opted to stay behind, still remain in Libya, standing shoulder to shoulder with their Libyan brothers consistently contributing in the rebuilding of Libyan society. The fact that Pakistanis stood with Libyans at a time when all others had abandoned them has triggered a convergence of Libyan sentiments and support towards the Pakistanis. Thus, in the months and years ahead, there exists an opportunity of creating a similar impact in Libya that our forefathers had created in the decades of 1920’s during the Khilafat Movement in Turkey. Conclusively, it can be said that the time is ripe to stretch our present investment in terms of created good will to its logical culmination by understanding at the National level the importance of opportunity which exists in a potentially profitable but apparently neglected country- Libya. (Lt. Gen. (Retd) Javed Zia) Ambassador