European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 29, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Ottttatpropneaai6ifayr Rtula Miqu Fotr irate a a trom tout tto hopping Matt with neighbor inn Ami ing Lack twin combat Kuwait s ruling elite is fearful. Kuwait s Leader mar Jabar Ahmad Sabah. Kuwait Clouds Over air conditioned Eden Tyjohn Klefner new York times t is 9 o clock on a saturday night a the Sultan Center and kuwaitis Are doing one of the things they do Best consuming. Tha Sultan Center is a huge supermarket and up and Down us acres of aisles men in spotless while Robes and women with Spike heels poking from beneath their wraparound Black chador Are pushing shopping Carls from the huge piles of imported Tresh vegetables to he bins of Frozen wonder bread to the to guides near the computerized Cash registers. An escalator rises from the Center or the store which is open 24 hours to a second Story. There hardware sporting goods and rows of automobile accessories attract clumps of Young men and a Western style lunchroom one of the most popular gathering spots in town is perpetually jammed in the lot outside flashy american cars compete with Mercedes Lor parking spaces. Oil has brought the Liny persian Gulf emirate really just a Boom town surrounded by Sand irom souk to shopping mall virtually overnight. There arc a few car Tully preserved pieces of mud Wall Here and there from the area s Days As a fortress trading Post. Its name derives from the arabic Lor Little tort " it was also a Pearl diving Center. But now the landscape is dominated by Iro ways Glass and steel space age buildings and huge Villas whose Only restraints Are the taste of the owners. A skillful government program of investing at least �70 billion of Oil profits abroad including a fund for future generations Olio percent of Oil revenues untouchable until 2001, has blunted the Impact of falling Oil prices but Clouds hang Over this air conditioned Eden where wealth accumulates without work. Its two giant neighbors. Iran end Iraq have been locked in combat for 6 a years end Kuwait s comfortable ruling elite is increasingly fearful. There is a very close relationship Between the conflict and the Domestic situation Here a Western Diplomat said noting a series of developments. Including the recent arrest of a band of shiite moslem kuwaitis for blowing up an ail loading Dock that have marred the veneer of Tranquillity Here. Kuwait has gambled very much on the iraqis maintaining the upper hand but the strategic balance seems to be shifting slowly but surety toward Iran the Diplomat said. Kuwait is Tike Finland except it is bordered by two russian. Iran is very close but Iraq is a nagging worry is that Only 40 percent of the 1.6 million people in he country Are kuwaiti citizens although All share such Oil benefits As guaranteed housing including maid s quarters. Kuwaitis make up Only 18.7 percent of the work Lorce which includes Many iranian shiites end palestinians and so Many workers from the Indian subcontinent that the English language newspaper. Runs two pages of urdu. Police officials announced in november that 26.898 people had been Doport cd dui chg the year or so curly reasons. Diplomats put the figure higher Oslo aging that about 40,000 palestinians inn group that largely built the educational and governmental system wore sent Back to Jordan until King Hussein asked for 9 respite these silos Thomakou Daboul a third of to population a also Learod because a Diplomat said they might have the picture of the Emir on the Wall and Ayatollah Ruhollah with All the looming problems. Kuwaitis seem largely unconcerned about one of the Biggol developments the demise of parliament the biggest White elephant in Kuwait at the moment is the House of parliament a striking modernistic Structure with a great curving roof that conjures up the folds of a bedouin tent to is equipped with closed circuit television electronic voting machines and a Host of other legislative modern ties. The parliament was a kind of showpiece of a democracy that kuwaitis said made them a rarity in the persian qute. Holding a feisty babble ranging from aging Nasse rites to moslem fundamentalists parliament was looked on with suspicion if not alarm by neighbouring nations but was a must Stop for important visitors. In addition to parliament kuwaitis prided themselves on supplanting Lebanon in having the greatest press Freedom in the Arab world. But democracy took a break last summer. In july Kuwait s Leader Emir Jaber Ahmad Sabah who rules under what is called Here the one family concept dissolved parliament and imposed press censorship. He cited the pressures of the Gulf War terrorism there had been several spectacular bombings including a suicide car attach on the Emir himself and the falling Oil prices. Democracy is shaking the Emir said adding that Kuwait was exposed to a fierce foreign conspiracy that threatened lives and almost destroyed the wealth of the one kuwaiti intellectual said ii was very courageous of a Small nation to have democracy but i wish it had been better editorials in the kuwaiti press hailed the Advent of censorship with one publication ats Yassa declaring go ahead and we stand by you. We do not wish to see a society fragmented and scattered under untapped slogans of Freedom of later some 49 leading editors and journalists All of them expatriates Many Pate sinian who had Given kuwaiti journalism its flair were dismissed and lord to leave the country. What is remarkable in the aftermath diplomats. Kuwaitis and foreign residents say is How Little the parliament and the outspoken newspapers Are missed even by the former members of parliament. They went Loo far is the common refrain in challenging the conduct of the government and at least by implication that of the Sabah family which has ruled since tribes came out of the nejd desert to found Kuwait in 1756. It was All a sort of a game really a Western Diplomat said of parliament. But for the Crown Prince of an Arab country to Hava to stand on his feel and answer criticism is very strange indeed Crown Prince Saad Abdullah Salem Sabah the Emir s Cousin and the prime minister so tired of the exercise that he began spending Long periods in London. What the Emir s decree demonstrated diplomats and scholars in Kuwait say is the Way in which Oil wealth rather than introducing new political ideas has tended to Rel Lorce the traditional tribal governing Structure. This was noted by a kuwaiti sociologist Mohammad a Umachi in his recently published Book beyond of when he wrote it is the ruling clan in the form of the state that distributes Oil capitalism and socialism Are old economic definitions a Umachi said in an interview. A resource like Oil and a culture that is islamic arabic and tribal dictates a certain kind of Structure. The Emir As the lather has been in our culture a Long kuwaitis much prefer Cash to democracy a foreign resident said. The Bottom line Here is thai everyone is a Western Diplomat said this is a country that is More capitals than America and in is own Way More communist than the soviet Union at the same to me but at hear it s a tribal Structure. The Emir liked parliament soil was sunday March 29. 1987 the stars and stripes Page 17
