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Arab contacts rescued Nawaz Sharif

KARACHI, Dec 11 (ANI) — The seventh of June, 1998 was a special day in the life of Nawaz Sharif. That day he was meeting the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz at his palace in Riyadh. While receiving Nawaz in the main hall of the palace, Crown Prince Abdullah made it abundantly clear to the small gathering of Pakistani Ministers and Saudi luminaries that Nawaz was not a usual foreign visitor to the palace.

After a long affectionate embrace, says News Intelligence Unit, (NIU), Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz held Nawaz’s hand in his hands and announced to the gathering: “Nawaz Sharif is a brother, a real brother and will always remain a real brother to me. We love him,”

This meeting of Nawaz Sharif with the Crown Prince, only 10 days after Pakistan’s nuclear tests, turned out to be an important event as it left Prince Abdullah so happy that he immediately promised an absolutely free supply of oil to Pakistan for two years, ordered Islamic Development Bank to structure a financial deal for Pakistan and in an unprecedented gesture allowed Sharif to address a big rally of Pakistanis at a stadium in Jeddah.

The bond established between the Sharif brothers and one of the most influential men in Saudi Arabia that day delivered a miracle to Sharif clan early Sunday morning when the Musharraf administration pardoned Nawaz Sharif’s convictions on charges of terrorism and tax evasion and allowed the entire Sharif clan to leave Pakistan for Saudi Arabia where the Sharifs will remain royal guests for a long time to come.

As Sharif family left Islamabad for Saudi Arabia it emerged that increasingly popular Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz led an informal group of Arab leaders, comprising Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Zayad Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan to use its resources and influence to convince Musharraf that freeing Nawaz Sharif and his family serves the best interest of Pakistan, officials informed the NIU.

ISLAMABAD: The pardon granted by President Rafiq Tarar to Nawaz Sharif is not a blanket pardon as it is granted on merit keeping in view legal procedures, Inter Services Public Relations Director- General Major General Rashid Qureshi said here on Sunday.

PSEB, staff head for showdown
Tribune News Service

PATIALA, Dec 11 — The Punjab State Electricity Board ( PSEB ) and its various employee unions seem to be heading for a showdown with the board unable to persuade the employees from going on strike tomorrow on the call of the National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees and Engineers.

While the PSEB authorities claimed that essential services would be maintained and there would not be any disruption in power supply tomorrow a majority of employee unions going on strike have claimed that power supply will be seriously affected due to the strike.

The board, while assuring normal transmission tomorrow said it had got an assurance from the Engineers Association that they would not try to disrupt power supply through sabotage. It had, however made elaborate security arrangements to tackle all eventualities.

Talks for a rapprochement continued till late in the evening with the board making its stand clear on privatisation and the proposed abolition of 7,000 posts yesterday. The board stating clearly that there was no move to privatise the PSEB, has passed a notification, retracting back the move to abolish 7,000 posts. Most of the unions of the board, including the Engineers and Technical Services Unions, the Ministerial Services Union, the Employees Federation (PSEB), the Bijli Mulazam Front and the PSEB Employees Federation (AITUC), are taking part in the strike with only the PSEB Employees Federation, which is part of an employee front led by Akali leader Charanjit Singh Walia, stating that it would not participate in the strike.

The PSEB Chairman, Mr G.S. Sohal, said that all Superintending Engineers in their respective divisions had been directed to take help of the local police to tackle security aspects. He said though the board had envisaged calling in the Army, it was not being done at present as the engineers had assured that no sabotage would be attempted by them.

A late evening official communique of the board said that the board engineers had assured that vital installations like generating stations and grid stations would not be left unmanned.

Similarly, a release of the PSEB Employees Joint Action Committee led by Mr Joginder Singh Jindu of the Ministerial Services Union and Mr Amarjit Singh Sodhi of the Technical Services Union claimed there would be a cent per cent strike tomorrow. They said some staff of thermal stations, hydel stations and the 132 KV and 220 KV grid stations would attend duty tomorrow to ward against any attempt to damage board equipment by unscrupulous elements. They said staff of all 66 KV, 33 KV and 11 KV Grid Stations would stage a “walkout”.

Though the board has announced its stand on privatisation and also taken back an earlier proposal to abolish around 7,000 posts, most of the board unions are going on strike, claiming nothing has been done to tackle the festering problems being faced by various categories of employees including “discrimination” in scales, lack of promotional avenues and “unprofessional” management of board affairs.