Date:13/11/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/11/13/stories/2004111304000400.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Arafat's love for City of Minarets

By Dasu Kesava Rao

HYDERABAD, NOV. 12. Hyderabad city has a special place in the Palestine leader, Yasser Arafat's heart.

He had visited the city twice and fell in love with its people and cosmopolitan culture. Arafat did not tire of repeating how grateful he was to Hyderabadis, as to all Indians as a whole, for their continued support to the cause of a Palestine State.

He was touched by the hospitality extended to him during his visit to deliver the convocation address at Osmania University, which conferred an honorary doctorate on him on May 22, 1982. He came to Hyderabad again on November 22, 1997, to lay the foundation for the Indo-Arab League building.

At the Indo-Arab League function Arafat had hoped that peace would prevail in the region where Muslims, Christians, Jews and others would live in harmony. The Palestine leader said he proposed to organise celebrations to mark the 2000th year of the birth of Jesus Christ in the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. He invited Indians to participate in a big way.

Poignant memories

Intellectuals, academics and sympathisers of the Arab cause refer poignantly to Arafat's fond hope, expressed at the league meeting, that an independent and sovereign State of Palestine would materialise by 1999. The leader died without seeing his dream come true in his lifetime, they lament.