Barack Obama is not a stranger to Pakistan

Posted on 08 November 2008. Tags: Barack Obama, Pakistan, USA

Few American presidents have been Pakistan. Some US Presidents may not have ever been out of the US. President George W. Bush was one such Texas Governor, who had never been out of the USA. Presdent Barack Obama has visited many countries including Paksitan. Whether Senator Barack Obama wanted to prove his hawkish credentials or whether he was reading from the Neocon playbook, this much is certain, Barack Obama not only knew Pakistanis but has also visited the country with his Pakistani buddies. Only time will tell if the only good thing that that came out of visit is his perfect pronunciation of the country’s name. President-Elect Barack Obama is one of the very few American politicians who pronounces the correct name of the country. Many say that Obama visited Pakistan: Didn’t learn anything!

Chairman Senate Muhammadmian Soomro may be having a friend in White House if Barak Hussain Obama finally succeeds in his presidential bid.Hardly a few people know about Soomro’s link with Obama, which he never discussed it in public. But in private interactions with influential Pakistanis here in the US, Obama disclosed that Soomro’s father was his host when he went on a hunting expedition in Jacobabad during his visit to Pakistan in 1981.

While in Karachi, Obama had stayed at the residence of his college friend, Hassan Chandio. In Jacobabad, he was the guest of Soomro family. Muhammadmian Soomro confirmed this information and said it was his first meeting with Obama.

“Yes, he had been our guest and spent three days in Jacobabad,” he told The News. Soomro, presently in the US, his second home, said an American friend had told his father, Ahmadmian Soomro, about Obama’s arrival in Pakistan and asked him to look after the American. Soomro’s father was the deputy speaker of West Pakistan Assembly and had also later served in the Senate.

By the time Soomro’s father had hosted Obama, he was only a college student who went to Pakistan on his way from Indonesia where his mother was working with the Ford Foundation’s micro credit finance project. Also Obama’s mother was a frequent traveller to Pakistan and according to Time Magazine, she had a little bit proficiency in speaking Urdu.

When Soomro was asked about the person who referred Obama to his father, he said he nowadays lived in some country in South America. He was, however, reluctant to disclose his identity, saying he will have to seek permission from that man before giving his profile.

Although, Obama has not disclosed his link with Soomro, he mentioned it during his canvassing campaign while talking to a Pakistani American, Shahid Ahmad Khan, member of Board of Trustees Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.Thursday, April 24, 2008 By Umar Cheema NEW YORK: The News

Obama’s war mongering should be repudiated not encouraged. During the 2008 elections Senator Barack Obama listened to the hawkish members of the Bush Administration and threatened Pakistan. Threats: Obama’s Kabul indoctrination: Venom against Pakistan. As a result of his rhetoric against Pakistan the Bush Administration upped the ante in FATA. Is Bush stealing Obama’s war on Pakistan? Pakistani Americans are a powerful lobby in the US. Pakistani-Americans ask Obama to ease rhetoric about bombing targets in Pakistan.

LAHORE: The 44th president-elect of the United States of America Barack Hussain Obama is no stranger to Pakistan as he had travelled to Karachi in 1981 as a college student at the age of 20 and stayed in the Sindh province for full three weeks.

Obama’s mother had also worked as a consultant to the Asian Development Bank for five long years in one of the least developed cities of PunjabóGujranwala-considered one of the biggest slums of South Asia.

Addressing a fundraiser at San Francisco on April 5, 2008, Obama, an African-American, had referred to a 1981 trip he made to Pakistan during his college years. A New York Times report of April 6, 2008 quoted Obama as having said in his speech that he actually came to know of the disparity between Sunnis and Shias only after his Pakistan visit.

The paper said his mentioning of Pakistan was apparently aimed at boosting his foreign policy credentials to offset those of his contenders Senator John McCain and Senator Hillary Clinton. “Foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain,” the newspaper quoted Obama as having said in his April 5, 2008 speech.

His campaign press secretary Bill Burton subsequently gave inquiring journalists more details of Obama’s Pakistan visit. US Today of April 10, 2008 quoted Bill as saying: “Mr Obama had visited Pakistan for three weeks after visiting his mother Mrs Ann Dunham and half-sister, Maya Soetoro, in Indonesia. Obama is no stranger to Pakistan By Amir Mir

According to news reports Mr. Obama visited Pakistan. His mother had visited the country so many times that she had a working knowledge of Urdu-the national language of Pakistan as well as many Muslims in the Subcontinent.

He had travelled with a college friend whose family used to live in Karachi.” As a matter of fact, Obama had travelled to Pakistan after leaving Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1981 to transfer to the Columbia University in New York.

The Afghan war was at its peak at that time and the US State Department had already issued a warning for Americans travelling to Pakistan.An August 14, 2008 report by the Associated Press even alleged that Obama had actually travelled to Pakistan under his Muslim name-Barry Soetero-while using an Indonesian passport.

As a matter of fact, Barack Obama Junior was born to Barack Obama Senior, a black Kenyan, and Ann Dunham, a white American. Barack Obama Senior and Mrs Ann Dunham were divorced when their son Obama was two.

Obama Senior, who had died in a car accident in 1982, met his son only once after the divorce. Ann Dunham later married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim.

A news report carried by a US-based website www.pakistaniat.com http://www.pakistaniat.com/ in Sept 2008 stated while quoting the US media that Barack Obama had many Pakistani friends during his college days, and it was friendship that brought him to Pakistan. In his memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama talks of having a Pakistani roommate when he moved to New York, a man he calls Sadik (his 1982 roommate at an apartment at a sixth-floor walkup on East 94th Street). Obama describes Sadik as a short, well-built Pakistani who smoked marijuana, snorted cocaine and liked to party. During his years at the Occidental College, Barack befriended Wahid Hamid, a fellow student and an immigrant from Pakistan. Wahid Hamid is now a vice president at Pepsico in New York. His third Pakistani friend was Imad Husain, a Pakistani, who is now a Boston-based banker.

According to www.pakistaniat.com , during his Pakistan visit, Obama stayed in Karachi with the family of his college friend Hassan Chandeo. Now a self employed financial consultant living in Armonk in Westchester County of New York, Hassan Chandeo took his African-American college friend on traditional partridge hunting trips to Hyderabad, Larkana, Shikarpur and Jacobabad districts. Partridge hunting is considered a symbol of good hospitality in Sindh. Barack Obama made friends with a Sindhi politician Muhammadmian Soomro as well, who hails from the Shikarpur district of Sindh and is Senate Chairman. The newly elected American president reportedly lived at Muhammad Ali Society residence of Ahmad Mian Soomro, the father of Muhammadmian Soomro.

Another US-based website www.freerepublic.com quoted Time Magazine on September 1, 2008, stating that Obama may have visited Pakistan again in the second half of 1980 and stayed there for a month with his mother who was an employee of the Ford Foundation and posted in Gujranwala as a microfinance consultant for an Asian Development Bank micro-credit finance project that ran from 1987 to 1992.

The report said Mrs Dunham, who died in Hawaii-Obama’s birth place-in 1995 from ovarian cancer, used to stay at Hilton International Hotel in Lahore. She travelled daily from Lahore to Gujranwala and Obama stayed with her in the same hotel which has been already renamed as Avari Hotel, the report added. Obama is no stranger to Pakistan By Amir Mir. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=145123.Isha Khan bdmailer@gmail.com