Omar Sharaf
Sharaf was born in Aswan Governorate, southern Egypt on 22 October 1925, the eldest male and the second child of six siblings to a middle class Egyptian family.
His father Dr. Mohammed Abdel Aziz Sharaf (Beni Suef Governorate 1889 – Cairo 1953) was a British-educated and trained medical doctor, who earned his PhD in general surgery from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
[2] Moving around with his parents, Sharaf attended several primary and secondary schools in both upper and lower Egypt, the family finally settling in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis.
[20] Sharaf served with distinction at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs for nearly four decades, from the early Fifties to the mid-Eighties, witnessing much of Egypt's diplomatic, political and military turmoil.
[28] The move was a consequence of the decisions and decrees taken at the second Baghdad summit of March 1979 that expelled Egypt from the Arab League, and boycotted and imposed sanctions on it over its peace accords with Israel.
[35] Sharaf was quoted in the press expounding the development of Egyptian–Chinese bilateral relations, emphasizing the importance of Mubarak's visit, the nature of the consultations the president would hold with his Chinese counterpart, and the various issues to be discussed.
[36] As this was the first visit of an Egyptian president to China, several treaties, protocols and memoranda of understanding (MOU) were signed between the two countries in various fields including agriculture, industry, technical and military cooperation.
[37] Sharaf also assisted in securing an agreement from China, where the latter would finance and build the Friendship and Culture Palace, later renamed the Cairo International Convention & Exhibition Centre (CICC).
[41] As a result of this visit, and in his capacity as ambassador to China, Sharaf was requested the following year to name and hoist the Egyptian flag on the 1586 Ton Chinese built Jianghu-1 class Type 053 frigate Najim al Zafir (951).
The flag hoisting ceremony took place on 20 July 1984, at the Hudong Shipyard in Shanghai China, and after completing her shakedown cruise in Chinese waters, Al Zafir set sail for Egypt where she was commissioned and entered service with the Egyptian Navy in late October 1984.
[52] Sharaf played a minor but important part in the drama that unfolded in Cairo surrounding the initial consideration of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences of Naguib Mahfouz for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.
Sharaf was quietly and unofficially approached in 1981 by Dr. Attia Amer, Professor of Arabic Literature at Stockholm University, with a request to forward translations of Mahfouz's work for further study and evaluation by the Swedish Academy.
[53] Sharaf acted on the request, only to be rebuffed by Cairo and presented with an alternative candidate, which the academy politely declined as all nominations were its sole prerogative and mandate and did not yield to government pressure.
[53] Sharaf would express disappointment at Cairo's incomprehensible stance on the issue, believing it would have made an enormous difference to the cause of Arabic literature, to Egypt, to him as ambassador, and naturally to Mahfouz, had the latter been nominated and won the prize, joining the list of Nobel Laureates for that year.
Sharaf was appointed in 1974 as an Omani diplomat with the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary and posted as Deputy Chief of Mission of the newly established embassy of Oman to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Sharaf would forge an excellent working relationship with his immediate superior, and Oman's first ever ambassador to Pakistan, HRH Prince Shabib bin Taimur Al Said,[55] as well as with Pakistani officials during the presidency of Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry and the premiership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
It was during his posting to Islamabad that Sharaf met and became a close friend of then Colonel and later Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, it helped that both men were born in the same upper Egyptian town of Aswan.
In Hong Kong, he assisted in the establishment of the offices and secured the general landing rights for Egypt's national carrier United Arab Airlines at Kai Tak International Airport.
[65][66] Ray Lewthwaite, a former British officer who had served in Egypt and North Africa during World War II, and his wife Margaret would be lifelong friends of the Sharaf's, being house guests at their Beijing embassy residence in the Eighties.
He was involved with providing solutions to the plight of refugees and assistance to internally displaced persons on the African continent, ensuring their protection, well-being and relocation when necessary.
The Cairo UNHCR Middle East office was established in 1954, and supervised international humanitarian aid and assistance to a number of African countries including Algeria, Rwanda, Togo and Angola, among others.
As deputy representative of the UNHCR Middle East, he actively assisted in his organization's participation in the first Afro-Asian consultative meeting held at the Arab League in Cairo, in February 1964.
[70] Prior to and upon assuming his new position as High Commissioner, Sadruddin Aga Khan had unsuccessfully lobbied the Egyptian government, from August till December 1965, to have Sharaf continue in his tenure as deputy representative of the UNHCR Middle East.
[73] Sharaf attended numerous commission meetings and conferences at the UN dealing with complex legal and human rights issues like non-refoulement, as well as one on the essential topic of the standardization of geographical names.
[80] Sharaf was in New York in May 1958 when his younger brother Sami, considered one of President Nasser's most trusted aides, arrived to assist in the resolution of the budding political crisis in Lebanon.
[83] Sami was again in New York with his elder brother in September 1960, preparing for President Nasser's only visit to U.S. to attend and deliver a speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Both men would travel to Moscow to participate in the society's meetings and gatherings of prominent politicians, diplomats, businessmen, academicians, historians, linguists and enthusiasts of Egyptian Soviet relations.
[101] Sharaf had no conflict furthering Egypt's interests including those with Israel by maintaining cordial and polite relations with his Israeli Counterpart in Stockholm, ambassador Mordecay Kidron, who also happened to be his next door neighbor.
[102] He also chose, out of the available pictures at his disposal, to have printed in a local Cairo monthly magazine a photograph taken of him welcoming, as doyen of the consular corps, Pope Paul VI to Hong Kong at Kai Tak International Airport in December 1970, reflecting his sense of religious tolerance as a Muslim.
He was also an enthusiastic sportsman and a lifelong member of the Egyptian Shooting Federation, becoming chairman of the Rifle Committee in 1979 and elected, later in life, to its governing board of directors.
