Saudi
Exodus Grows
By Ewen MacAskill
24 June, 2004
The Guardian
Western
firms are offering substantial sums of "danger money" to expatriate
staff in Saudi Arabia to stem a panic-driven exodus from the kingdom
in the wake of al-Qaida attacks.
The Guardian has
learned that one of the biggest firms in the country, the British-owned
defence company BAE Systems, is offering each of its 2,400 expatriate
staff an extra £1,000 a month to stay. A BAE Systems source in
Riyadh said the money was intended to compensate for disruption. "It
recognises that these are difficult times," he said.
The source added
that it would help those families having to find rented property in
Britain at short notice while those who remained in the kingdom, both
families and singles, also needed recompense for the constraints on
their freedom of movement. The payments are to continue indefinitely.
The beheading last
week of the US engineer Paul Johnson has had a profound impact on the
expat community and has threatened to turn the stream of departures
from Riyadh, Khobar, Dharan and Jeddah over the past few months into
a flood.
In interviews with
the Guardian, several workers in Riyadh and Jeddah suggested that the
numbers who have already left or are planning to leave are much higher
than has yet been reported.
One businessman
in Riyadh who is planning to leave after almost 20 years said foreign
residents had been "spooked" by Mr Johnson's kidnapping. Another
Briton said occupancy in the 50 to 60 compounds in Riyadh favoured by
westerners had dropped by between 5% and 15%.
A British businessman,
a long-term resident of Riyadh, said he was sending his family home
and brushing up his CV in the hope of leaving in the next three to four
months. "I don't know anyone who is thinking of staying. The kidnapping
was astonishing. It was a gruesome death."
The businessman,
who like other expatriates requested anonymity, said companies such
as BAE Systems needed to prevent an implosion of their staff because
they stood to lose significant amounts of money if they were unable
to fulfil their contracts with the Saudis.
A mass departure
would be a political embarrassment for the Saudi government and a victory
for al-Qaida. It would also seriously disrupt the economy, with potential
knock-on effects on oil prices.
In a reflection
of the pressure the regime is under, the Saudi government last night
offered a one-month amnesty for any al-Qaida members to give themselves
up. If they did, they would escape the death penalty. The offer was
made by the de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, on behalf of the
incapacitated autocrat, his half-brother, King Fahd, in a broadcast
on state television.
The Saudi foreign
minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, at a press conference in Jeddah yesterday,
said he hoped the exodus will not happen. "I think Saudi Arabia
will do everything it can to show the country remains a safe place for
experts to work," he said.
The foreign minister
played down the flight of expatriates, portraying it as an annual exodus
home for the school holidays and to escape the summer heat.
The scale will not
be determined until September when they are scheduled to return from
their breaks.
The Saudi government
hope is that if there was to be a decrease in violence over the summer,
some of those who left intending not to return might reconsider.
There are 30,000
British in Saudi Arabia and 40,000 Americans, almost all of them living
in fortified compounds.
As well as high
walls, barbed wire and concrete blocks to prevent suicide bombings,
they are guarded by soldiers hidden behind sandbags and by armoured
vehicles with machine guns.
One of the few expatriates
interviewed prepared to go on the record, Roger Harrison, a British
photojournalist with the Arab News in Jeddah, said: "There are
more leaving than people are letting on."
Places such as coffee
shops, pizza restaurants and other haunts are avoided by westerners
fearful of becoming another al-Qaida target.
An American businessman
in Jeddah said: "There is a lot more tension. We keep looking over
our shoulders. A lot of us only go from work to the compound and back."
Expatriates try
to minimise the risk by not travelling alone and avoiding dressing too
obviously like westerners.
The headquarters
of a well-known US company in a prominent location in Riyadh looks normal
from the outside but it is virtually empty inside. Fearful of an attack,
one of the staff said yesterday that two senior expatriate workers relocated
last week to Bahrain and its Saudi staff have been told to work from
home.
A British health
worker in Riyadh said yesterday she was shipping her furniture and other
goods home in preparation for a sudden departure along with her partner.
She said the prospect of being killed was bad enough but it was the
prospect of being taken hostage that rattled her and others in the capital.
"The attacks are not random. They know where they live and work
and when they go home. That is why they are able to pick them up."
She said "masalama"
(goodbye) parties to sell off household goods used to be relatively
infrequent but in her circle they were now running at about four to
five a week. "There is kitchenware, garden furniture, children's
stuff. A kiddie's car seat. A Jaguar went up for sale," she said.
The departures fall
into various categories. There are those who have resigned and left,
and those working out their notice or trying to negotiate an end to
their contracts without incurring penalties. There are others who have
sent their families home and will remain on their own.
Others are relocating
to neighbouring states such as the United Arab Emirates or Bahrain,
intending to commute to Saudi Arabia. And there are others, mainly singles,
prepared to hang on.
Mr Harrison, who
has been in Saudi for eight years, said he would be among the last to
leave but will consider his options if violence continued: "Before,
Saudi was a challenge but boring and safe. The atmosphere has changed.
There's no going back."
© Guardian
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