Demands for greater freedom and representation in the Middle East and North Africa are “a chain” moving across the region that will spare no regime that fails to address legitimate demands of its people, Kuwaiti Sheikh Fahad Al Salem Al Ali Al Sabah warned.
Regimes that don’t change will “be forced to change by the people,” Fahad, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family and founder of the Center for Dialogue Among Civilizations and Defense of Liberty, said in an interview at the Bloomberg Washington Bureau yesterday. Middle Eastern and North African leaders, he said, are “hearing the message.”
Fahad criticized the U.S. and other governments for missing the chance years ago to push Muammar Qaddafi to enact political changes in Libya that might have averted the bloody rebellion and costly international military intervention now underway.
The U.S. helped push Qaddafi in 2003 to accept responsibility and to pledge compensation for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and also to abandon pursuit of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, Fahad noted.
“The whole world missed an opportunity” to press Qaddafi then to make political changes that would have allowed for greater representation and perhaps addressed the demands underlying the rebellion that began earlier this year, Fahad said.
Blood in Streets
He said the world was “too late” in its response to the Libyan crisis, and that with “blood now on the streets,” it will be “a long time before Libya stabilizes,” regardless of when the fighting ends.
In Washington and European capitals, government officials are debating whether to arm Libyan rebels, in addition to providing air cover, to tip the balance in their favor. Fahad said he doubted any Arab state would send troops or weapons to help the rebels, and cautioned the West against doing so, saying the world doesn’t know enough about the opposition’s membership.
U.S. and European officials have said that Libya’s opposition Transitional National Council appears to include serious people committed to a democratic transition and keeping the country united, and U.S. officials say they haven’t seen evidence of significant al-Qaeda influence.
Deputy secretary of State James Steinberg told Congress today that the U.S. welcomes “very strong statements” made by the opposition council yesterday in favor of democracy and disavowing any connection to al-Qaeda or extremist elements.
Inserting a note of caution about getting involved in training “very disparate, very scattered” rebel groups who may have discordant agendas, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress today that “there are many countries that can do that,” and “frankly, I think somebody else should do that.”
No Military Aid
Fahad said that while his foundation has donated food, clothing and medicine to assist Libyans caught in the fighting, it has no plans to send military assistance to the opposition.
Fahad, who was taken as a prisoner of war by Iraq from November 1990 through June 1991, was elected to the board of the Commercial Bank of Kuwait, where he served on the executive committee, before moving to the National Guard and then became the country’s director of agriculture affairs and fisheries.
The sheikh said he thinks oil prices will continue to rise on instability in oil-producing nations in the Mideast and North Africa, and said Americans will feel the impact.
Fahad, a son of Sheikh Salem Al-Ali, head of the Kuwaiti National Guards, is a senior member of the Al-Salem branch of the Sabah family, and owns a newspaper and television station in Kuwait.
His Center for Dialogue, with offices in Kuwait, New York and Paris, has a declared mission to “combat ignorance” and “overturn constant brainwashing of populations orchestrated by extremists” through greater press freedom and expanded political representation.
‘Fix Your House’
Fahad said he has “tried to promote this in Kuwait first, because I believe that to fix your house gives you more credibility” before you seek “to fix your neighbor’s house.” He said his country, a constitutional monarchy, can be “a role model for the Middle East and the Gulf.”
Freedom House, a Washington-based human rights group, ranked Kuwait this year among 17 percent of countries in the Middle East and North Africa that are “partly free,” with greater political and civil liberties than in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, other U.S. allies in the region.
Fahad said his country still “needs more change, more reform,” especially regarding transparency of finances of government employees and the ruling family.
“We are very weak on fighting corruption,” he said, asserting that “forces benefiting from corruption want to change the constitution of Kuwait” to limit democracy.
Kuwait Parliament
Kuwait’s parliament is widely regarded as the most independent in the Persian Gulf, and a number of lawmakers have asked to question three cabinet ministers, all members of the ruling family, on April 5. Local newspapers have carried reports that the cabinet may resign or the emir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, may dissolve parliament before April 5.
As popular unrest against poverty and autocratic rule has swept the Arab world this year, protesters who rallied in Kuwait City on March 8 said they were seeking the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah, not the overthrow of the government or the monarchy.
The prime minister has survived two non-confidence votes in parliament since his appointment by the emir in 2006. Members of the Al-Sabah family hold other key Cabinet posts and the emir has the final say in all political matters in the Gulf Arab state, which is OPEC’s fifth-largest producer.
Fahad warned that Yemen, whose longtime ruler President Ali Abdullah Saleh is facing a popular revolt, is “on the same path of Libya.” The world, he said, should support dialogue among Saleh and his opposition to avoid a repeat of the violence in Libya.
Fahad was visiting Capitol Hill yesterday to speak with U.S. lawmakers about unrest in the Middle East and his suggestions for promoting dialogue and democracy in the region.
Source: Bloomberg
