Moves toward reform wane in Saudi Arabia
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1004/p06s01-wome.html
JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA – Just a year ago, democratic changes in this absolute monarchy seemed to be gathering steam. But what observers saw as a promising opening has been stymied as an influx of oil money and victories against militants linked to Al Qaeda have reduced the urgency surrounding reform.
A number of signs point to retrenchment. A law issued recently by the Council of Ministers makes the signing of petitions by government employees, or speaking critically of the government to the press, punishable by firing or jail. A trial of three reformists charged with dissension and other crimes, which started in August and was open to the public, has been closed. And in King Fahd's annual speech last month to the Shura Council, an advisory group, reforms were ignored, analysts say.
"It seems that the Interior Ministry has the upper hand in the war on terrorism, so they think it's about time for them to target reform-minded individuals," says Khaled al-Dukhayel, assistant professor of political sociology at King Saud University. "To [government officials], reforms are as much of a threat as terrorism, and they are now criminalizing reform activities," he says.
Just last year, members of the royal family, including Crown Prince Abdullah and Defense Minister Prince Sultan, seemed to vie with each other in championing reform. In Riyadh and the port city of Jeddah, the atmosphere was charged with a sense of upcoming change. Activists met in cafes and homes to brainstorm and write petitions asking for more political and social freedoms.
Lawyers, journalists, and professors took their cause to Arab satellite channels and newspapers, openly discussing previously taboo subjects. They called for transparency in Saudi Arabia's huge annual budget, accountability for government officials, an end to corruption, and more political participation.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, carried out mainly by Saudi hijackers, the kingdom has been under intense pressure from the US to provide outlets for political dissent. Pressure also increased from within last year after militants ratcheted up attacks to drive Westerners out of the kingdom, home to Islam's two holiest sites.
Some 100 people, including foreigners and policemen, have died in the violence. Recently, the Interior Ministry said it had gotten the upper hand, and since June, major attacks on Western compounds and car bombings have halted. Militants have still made their mark, engaging in a series of assassinations of Westerners. A week ago, a French engineer in Jeddah was shot as he left a market. It was the seventh killing of a Westerner in four months.
But a byproduct of the continued violence has been a boost to the kingdom's coffers from high oil prices, analysts say. The kingdom expects a budget surplus this year of 130 billion riyals ($3.5 billion), and the stock market has soared, according to economist and Shura Council member Ihsan Buhaleega.
That has shifted the focus on reform. "When the money came in, the government tried to provide better services rather than reforms," says businessman and former journalist Ahmad Adnan. "And the word reforms was conspicuous by its absence from King Fahd's Shoura Council speech."
Council member Ihsan Buhaleega says that economic reform is the first step. "The government is concentrating on ... improving people's lives by expanding social services and infrastructure and battling unemployment," he says.
Mr. Buhaleega says commitment to political reform is evident in the fact that Saudis will vote for half the seats of 178 municipal councils, starting in February. It is not clear if women will participate.
But to lawyer Bassem Alem, such measures are cosmetic at best. Weekly majlis, where senior princes grant an audience to citizens, is an example of the paternalism rulers prefer. "When people no longer stand in line to greet a prince and hand over a letter asking for help ... when we have civic institutions that take care of these things, then we will be on the path to reforms," he says.
Some activists have become discouraged. Mr. Adnan, a once-energetic activist, was dismayed at the arrest of reformist friends. "I felt then that reforms were a whim, not something being built into the system," he says.
All but three of the dozen activists arrested in March were released after pledging to no longer publicly demand reforms or talk to the media. But academics Abdullah al-Hamid and Matrouk al-Faleh and poet Ali al-Dimeini remain behind bars. The three made history when they had an open arraignment in Riyadh in August, the first public trial for dissidents. Charges included holding a public gathering, asking for a constitutional monarchy, and charging that the judiciary was not independent.
More than 120 people came to their second hearing but were initially barred by policemen. The trial was postponed when the detainees refused to enter the courtroom because they didn't see family or supporters.
Mr. Hamid stood on a chair and spoke emotionally on the need for greater freedoms. The men and women waiting in the hallway cheered. Court was adjourned till Monday, but the men refused to attend the closed hearing because they were not properly informed of it, their lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem says. "This is a severe step back," he says. "How can you expect fair elections in a country where people are jailed for political activism and don't even have the most basic rights, like gathering in public?"
Nuclear Supply, Proliferation and Terrorism
October 3, 2004
by Tom Marzullo
It’s time to play ‘connect-the-dots’ once again and this time we’ll look at the macro issues and drivers that will spread nuclear materials and explosives into the third world over the next decade and therefore to the terrorists.
We’ll get along to the scenarios this could realistically bring after we’re done discussing the how’s and why’s of the supply paths that are opening up.
First of all, there must be a source… in the news today we have two putatively rogue states that are or will shortly become nuclear capable. I am of course referring to North Korea and Iran as these supply points.
But, France is included in this projection as well since it is an established nuclear power whose policies are frequently unfriendly to the interests of the western first world and can be expected to become more so as its population base shifts towards a Muslim majority over the next decade or so, with the political machinery of the radical Islamists inevitably propagandizing them into action as they already do… uniformly, across the globe.
In the very short term we are looking at North Korea, a regime caught between a rock and hard place. Kim Jong-Il must remain in power to stay alive for both he and his henchmen are tied to murders and terror activities to such an extent that he knows that he will appear before the bar, if he should manage to escape the rougher justice that also waits.
There is also the growing political/military conflict between radial Islam and North Korea’s former takeover target that repulsed the 1950 Soviet/Chinese-backed invasion, South Korea. Using the ancient dictum, North Korea finds itself a circumstantial fellow-traveler of the Islamists and this will further drive sales of nuclear materials and, perhaps, complete weapons systems.
North Korea has some other problems as well because it dare not use what it has bought at the cost of long term, mass starvation. Its day-to-day support from China is such that, short of a maniacal suicide attempt, even the serious threat of starting a nuclear exchange would spell the end in short order.
To survive at all, that regime must have hard currency and having painted itself into a corner, international relations-wise by its policies, it must therefore turn to the third world countries with hard currency to spare and pariahs such as itself. If they have the cash they will be able to buy the goods they need to survive… because money talks far louder than politicians, especially in the UN.
Oil prices will provide the lubricant for this exchange. Any reasonable reading of supply and demand would lead you to predicting the price of crude petroleum increasing by at least 50% over the next four years (discounting the perennial perturbations caused by war jitters) as major population masses (think China) enter the marketplace with an emerging consumer society eager for the ‘good life’ that is oil-consumption heavy.
As the Islamists have (and will likely retain) accessaccess to not-insignificant portions of the petroleum-based hard currency exchange and with numerous Middle-Eastern allies to act as go-betweens, even should any restraints be forced upon the North Koreans by any third party, the Islamists will eventually gain access to radiological materials… if not the ‘plug and play’ devices they crave.
If and when Iran comes fully on-line with their nuclear weapons program, a different dynamic will hold sway over their distribution possibilities, for the spread and ascendancy of Islamspread and ascendancy remains the touchstone of Iran’s ruling MullahsIran’s ruling Mullahs.
In this situation the Islamists understand that any transfers to them are going to have to move through a Byzantine trail of middlemen, with a series of unfortunate/carefully-arranged ‘thefts,’ so as to provide Iran’s representatives in the international arenas the required wiggle-room to ensure that the international community cannot easily unite against them. They also know that money talks and that cash-strapped countries who lost their shirts with Baathist Iraq (France, Germany and Russia spring first to mind) that will be eager to cut such a deal as spoilers.
Ah yes… then there is our nuclear ‘La Belle France.’ Given their aforementioned internal issues with a Muslim population that is rapidly breeding themselves into majority status and the ongoing fiscal disaster that they call their economy, the pressure to join in the business of sending nuclear materials and technology (even more than they already have) to the newly flush third world will simply be irresistible. As for French ethics, well… lets not even go there.
Short of a bloody French civil war, such is their future and the smart money says that the effete intellectuals bred at the Sorbonne will never have the cajones for that, though the French military has not been heard from in quite a while and I consider their participation overdue.
Now that I’ve carefully minced words and spared tender feelings, we’ll very briefly discuss where this goes in terms of America’s interests.
If Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain unchecked and its Islamist regime unchanged we can expect a terrorist attack inside the United States with a nuclear-based terrorist device within the next decade and especially if fate is not generally kind to the Islamist terrorists globally. Don’t forget that we are still the ‘Great Satan’ to both the Iranian Mullahs and the Islamist terrorists.
Because of the pure science of detecting/shielding nuclear materials it is not likely that a device using imported radio-nuclides could be unleashed in America’s midlands, but our seaports are a far different matter. Lacking an effective international inspection arrangement for shipping, nuclear materials/weapons will continue to be easily danger to our shores using relatively cheap, low-tech approaches. Ditto for an aircraft, especially from South or Central America, if an accurate and inescapable monitoring program is not put in place uniformly… a difficult proposition at best.
If a still-nuclear France turns Islamist and nuclear Iran remains Islamist then all bets are off and we will face a multifaceted nuclear threat more dangerous than the “M.A.D.” doctrine existent during the East-West Cold War… because religious fanatics habitually operate in non-reality by definition.
Better to nip this one in the bud.
Tom Marzullo is a columnist/physicist/educator who is a former US Army Special Forces combat soldier and US Navy Submariner with special operations experience in both services. He was the leader of the Internet-based effort by Special Forces veterans that debunked the false CNN/TIME magazine nerve gas story, 'Tailwind' and has provided testimony before the US Senate on military and intelligence matters. He resides in Colorado.
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/marzullo/2004/marzullo100404.htm