House Of Saud
Re-Embraces Totalitarianism
By John R. Bradley
12 April, 2005
Asia
Times
Residents
of the tiny provincial capital of Saudi Arabias northernmost province
last week witnessed a grisly scene in the main public square: the corpses
of three militants tied to poles, on top of which were placed their
severed heads. The three - who returned to the kingdom after fighting
in Afghanistan - were beheaded in Sakaka, the capital of al-Jouf province,
after being convicted of murdering the regions deputy governor,
a top religious court judge and a police chief. They also killed a Saudi
soldier, and kidnapped a foreign national.
That small-scale
rebellion in al-Jouf, along with a prison riot and a rare public demonstration
in support of the Palestinians, occurred in a region that is a power
base of the al-Sudairy branch of the al-Saud ruling family. The branch,
known as the "Sudairy Seven", includes King Fahd and his six
full brothers, who hold most of the key government posts. Saudi officials
admitted in January last year that the rebellions three leaders
had attracted the support of dozens of locals. At one stage, perhaps
fearing an explosion of violence or even a popular uprising, some 8,000
soldiers from the National Guard were deployed in the nearby city of
Tabuk.
At its height in
2003, the unrest had seemed to represent in microcosm the kingdom-wide
tensions that threatened to spill over into a general uprising. The
rebellions end, then, with the crudely symbolic public display
of its leaders heads on poles, could now likewise be seen as marking
the al-Sauds triumph over the most extreme of its homegrown enemies
- at least for now.
The al-Saud regime
appears to have got the upper-hand in its battle with radical Islamists.
Al-Qaedas suspected chief in Saudi Arabia, Saleh al-Aoofi, was
reportedly among at least 16 militants killed last week in three days
of fierce gun battles with security forces in the north of the kingdom.
Another two of the 26 most-wanted terrorists were confirmed killed in
that and another clash in the capital Riyadh, leaving only three from
the list still at large.
Through its actions
against militants and close, behind-the-scenes cooperation with US,
British and French intelligence services, the regime has convinced all
but the most entrenched anti-Saudi voices in Washington that it is a
crucial and reliable ally in the global "war on terrorism".
Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto leader, is expected to meet with
US President George W Bush at his Crawford, Texas, ranch later this
month, signaling the importance Bush continues to place on US-Saudi
relations (notwithstanding the pre-election excitement over the issue).
Partial elections for municipality councils, dismissed by the vast majority
of Saudis as a waste of time and in which even many senior princes did
not bother to set an example by voting, have meanwhile given other pro-al-Saud
voices in the West - who often have links to Saudi-funded think-tanks
and/or the arms and oil industries - an additional reason to champion
the regime as a force for modernization and democratization.
In reality, the
opposite is true. The regime is not giving up power or changing its
historically repressive domestic policies in the face of opposition,
but - more predictably - closing ranks and reasserting its totalitarian
rule. Emboldened by its success in the domestic "war on terror",
which got under way only after their rule was directly threatened, the
al-Saud is flexing its other muscles so that the masses, too, are left
in no doubt that it is back in total control. As with other Arab regimes,
it is using the "war on terror" to silence all dissent, but
in ways that have peculiar Saudi characteristics.
A few days after
the al-Jouf executions, for instance, six Somali nationals were beheaded
together in Jeddah for the crime of armed robbery. The six killed no
one, meaning the punishment was grossly unfair, even by the standards
of Saudi Arabias strict code of Islamic Sharia law. The Somalis
had served their initial five-year sentence, and had also been flogged;
they were not even aware before being led to the chopping block that
they had suddenly been sentenced to death, according to human rights
groups. Hailing from an impoverished, war-ravaged country whose government
can be guaranteed to ignore the sorry plight not only of its citizens
abroad but even those at home, the Somalis were easy prey for a regime
eager to do whatever it can to instill fear in the restless Saudi population.
In the two years
following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when reformist voices were
in the ascendancy and pressure from Washington meant the al-Saud had
to at least pretend to behave like civilized rulers, it was reported
in domestic newspapers that there was an increasing recognition that
the death penalty was not working as a deterrent. But at least 40 people
have been publicly beheaded this year alone, more than during the whole
of last year. And while there had been a wider debate in the Saudi media
about the social causes of crime, now scare stories blaming "African
immigrants" abound in a government-sponsored campaign aimed at
diverting attention away from the real causes: corruption, massive unemployment
and a lack of respect for authority.
The treatment of
Saudi gay men, too, seemed to be improving when international uproar
followed an Interior Ministry statement in January 2002 that three men
in the southern city of Abha had been "beheaded for homosexuality".
The report provoked widespread condemnation from gay and human-rights
groups in the West - and a swift denial from an official at the Saudi
Embassy in Washington, DC. Tariq Allegany, an embassy spokesman, said
the three were beheaded for the sexual abuse of boys, adding: "I
would guess theres sodomy going on daily in Saudi Arabia, but
we dont have executions for it all the time."
The kingdoms
Internet Services Unit, responsible for blocking sites eemed "unIslamic"
or politically sensitive, even unblocked access to a home page for gay
Saudi surfers after being bombarded with critical emails from the US.
A S Getenio, manager of GayMiddleEast.com, said at the time Saudi Arabia
seemed concerned about the bad publicity blocking the site would bring,
"at the time it was involved in a multi-million dollar advertising
campaign in the US to improve its image".
Now the al-Saud
have no such inhibitions. The website is once again blocked, and the
Saudi religious police - acting on "tip offs" - are raiding
gay gatherings in Jeddah on an almost monthly basis. More than 100 young
men caught dancing and "behaving like women" at a private
party were sentenced this month to a total of 14,200 lashes, after a
trial behind closed doors and without defense lawyers. The men were
also given jail sentences of up to two years. This witch-hunt, like
the one targeting "African immigrants", also serves to deflect
public attention from the royal familys indulgence and mismanagement.
But it additionally makes the al-Saud seem more Islamist than the Islamists,
as they try to steal the radicals clothes to shore up support
among the masses.
The paradox, then,
is that instability in the kingdom over the past two years, interpreted
in the West as possibly threatening the regimes very existence,
in the end helped it not only survive but consolidate its iron grip
on power. It was one factor, for instance, that sent the price of a
barrel of oil skyrocketing to all-time highs.
At the same time,
the violence hindered, rather than helped, those who were pushing for
peaceful democratic changes. No one knows that better than Saudi Arabias
three leading reformists and their lawyer, who are languishing in jail
in Riyadh after calling for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy
and an independent judiciary. Peaceful public demonstrations have been
ruthlessly crushed, with some of the participants sentenced to lashings
and jail.
Their organizer,
Saad al-Faqih, who heads the London-based opposition group The Movement
for Islamic Reform in Arabia, was bizarrely linked by the US to an alleged
plot by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to kill Crown Prince Abdullah,
the details conveniently "leaked" to the New York Times. Then,
with backing from the United Kingdom government, the US got him listed
by the United Nations as an al-Qaeda supporter and funder. This whole
travesty was hastily concocted, say other Saudi dissidents, at the behest
of the al-Saud, who were beginning to realize with alarm that al-Faqihs
calls for change could potentially lead a peaceful revolution.
The kingdom now
has an estimated US$60 billion budget surplus, and has announced massive
new infrastructure projects. Flush with cash, the regime again seems
to be resorting to the tried and tested, following the strategy of spending
ostentatiously to keep the people happy or satisfied, or at least not
dissatisfied, just as had been the case in the oil boom years of the
1970s. Once again, it wants to be seen as the goose laying the golden
egg. But it is fools gold.
The regime has always
sought to buy the loyalty of the Saudi people by providing a cradle-to-grave
welfare system, and crush all those who refused to play the game. But
by once again dealing with the symptoms and not the causes, the regime
is merely tightening the lid on a pressure cooker in an attempt to delay
the inevitable. And what worked in the 1970s, with a population of less
than 10 million, will not work with a population of 24 million.
The hoped-for stability
is therefore delusional in a country where underlying social and economic
problems are not being addressed, and to where thousands of Saudi jihadis
will return in due course from neighboring Iraq. Indeed, unconfirmed
reports on Islamist websites say dozens of Saudi jihadis have returned
to the kingdom from Iraq in recent months specifically to plan a fresh
wave of attacks against the oil industry, following an unprecedented
call by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden last December for just such
attacks.
All the talk now
on Islamist websites is about the remarkably vulnerable Saudi oil pipeline
network. It is not a matter of if, but when, those attacks start to
take place, in a second wave of violence that will once again punish
the al-Saud regime for burying its head in the oil-rich sand.
John R Bradley
is the author of Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis. He
has reported extensively from Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East
for many publications, including The Economist, The New Republic, Salon,
The Independent, The London Telegraph, The Washington Times, and Prospect.
See his website.