Between Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and Iraq, there is quite a bit of oil ... perhaps almost too much for comfort ... I have a feeling I will be reading about Trinidad soon and so there goes that hiding place
stratfor.com
Circle of Opposition Forming Around Saudi Government
16 April 2002
Summary
A surge in illegal political protests in Saudi Arabia suggests that the country's various opposition groups are now mobilizing. From the oil-rich eastern provinces to the impoverished southwest, the underground opposition represents a geographic encirclement of the ruling House of Saud. Grasping where the opposition is coming from will be key to understanding the coming struggle.
Analysis
An unprecedented wave of political protests swept across Saudi Arabia in early April, with demonstrations breaking out in Dhahran, Damman, Sakaka, Jeddah and even in Riyadh, which saw a few scattered rallies. The government was cautious in its response, launching a limited but targeted crackdown, arresting organizers and demanding a halt to all such activities throughout the kingdom.
The demonstrations -- which are illegal under Saudi law -- reveal a band of opposition that stretches from the Shiite-packed shores of Dhahran in the east to the al Jouf agricultural region in the north, the holy Hijaz region in the west and the impoverished, radicalized southwest. The opposition is looking to redefine the political dynamic in Saudi Arabia, and the coming struggle will transform Riyadh's relationship with the country's regions, pitting the royal family against opponents on all sides.
The belt of dissent represents a near complete encirclement of the central Najd region, the Saudi royal family's ancestral base. The House of Saud has developed ties with almost all of the kingdom's tribes and clans. But those ties will be sorely tested in the months to come as a swelling collection of dissenters -- for the most part still invisible -- become more vocal in their criticism and more concerted in their efforts to challenge the government.
The Sun Rises in the East
The most visible opposition is in the eastern provinces, which are home to the majority of the country's vast oil reserves and are inhabited by a small but significant ethnic Shiite minority. Shiites account for between 200,000 and 400,000 of the kingdom's 17 million citizens.
The protests in Dhahran and Damman in early April -- though quickly quelled -- reportedly attracted thousands of participants. The man arrested for organizing the protests, Sheihk Abdul Hamid bin al-Sheikh al-Mubarak, is a prominent professor of Islamic jurisprudence who teaches at the King Faisal University in al Ahsa. Mubarak, also head of a non-governmental organization that raises funds for the Palestinians, is a clear example of the opposition the government faces from intellectuals and elites in the country.
Indeed, Mubarak carries weight with both Saudi Arabia's Sunni and Shiite communities. Though a Sunni himself, Mubarak's family also has a Shiite branch, according to the opposition Saudi Institute in Washington, D.C. One of his relatives, Sheikh Jafar Ali al-Mubarak, is a Shiite political activist who has been arrested at least four times by the government since 1985, including in 1996 following the bombing of the U.S. military base at al-Khobar that left 19 American servicemen dead, according to Amnesty International. As a marginalized religious minority, the Shiites are highly politicized.
The Northern Theater
Looking to the north, hundreds of Saudis in the town of Skaka March 1 marched and burned U.S. and Israeli flags, according to the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi. The newspaper quoted witnesses who said that security forces broke up the demonstration and arrested dozens of protesters.
Other reports suggest that protesters numbered in the thousands, although Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef said, "What happened in Skaka is due to the impulsive enthusiasm of about 150 youngsters because of their passionate solidarity with their Palestinian brothers," Saudi News Agency reported no information about a specific person or group behind the protests has emerged.
The level of dissent in the northern region remains opaque, but incidents such as the recent protest suggest it is higher than the government in Riyadh cares to admit. Also, the northern al Jouf area was home to at least one known associate of Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Sadiq Odeh, who is from Skaka and Tabuk. Odeh is an explosives expert and architect now in U.S. custody for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Unrest in the al Jouf region, normally a quiet agricultural area with trade between Jordan and Iraq, signals a significant shift in the population's tolerance for the status quo.
All's Not Quiet on the Western Front
Trouble has also been brewing in the wealthy Hijaz western region for some time. Site of the two holiest places in Islam, Mecca and Medina, the region is also home to a major port and many lesser tribes not favored by Riyadh. There are also a number of wealthy immigrant families from other countries like Yemen.
Riyadh's claims to the Hijaz region, which runs the length of Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coastline, are tenuous at best. During the time of the Ottoman Empire, the Hashemites -- the royal family based in Amman who claim direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad -- controlled the region. This heritage left the west with a higher level of literacy and political sophistication than in the central Najd region.
In another example of the growing opposition among the Saudi elite -- similar to the arrest of Mubarak in the east -- authorities in March arrested one the kingdom's most popular writers and poets after he published a poem in the newspaper al Madina Muhammad al Mukhtar Faal criticizing the Saudi judiciary. Abdul Mohsen al Muslim was picked up and imprisoned in the port city of Jeddah on March 17 following the publication of the poem, Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported.
In early April security forces were forced to break up a demonstration that reportedly numbered 1,000 men and women in Jeddah, the birthplace of bin Laden and from where many of his supporters in the region come.
Further south in the Asir, Najran and Jizan provinces, lawlessness, poverty, extremism and an illicit trade in both narcotics and guns combine to create a heady brew of radicalism and anti-government sentiment.
External Players Lining Up
Riyadh must also concern itself not only with internal dissent from every corner but also with the influence of outside players. Iraq, Jordan and Yemen all border the desert kingdom and each has had trouble with the Saudi government in the past. Across the narrow Persian Gulf, Iran and Saudi still eye each other with trepidation despite a security cooperation agreement.
The royal family insists that Iran exerts influence over Saudi Arabia's minority Shiite community in the east and has funded radical groups opposed to the government in Riyadh. For instance, several members of the group allegedly responsible for the 1996 U.S. military base bombing are Shiittes from the eastern province. Abdel Karim Hussein Mohamed al-Nasser, one of the FBI's most wanted terrorist suspects and the alleged leader of the Iranian-backed anti-Saudi Hezbollah group, is from the same region as Mubarak.
In the northern al Jouf region, Riyadh must counter the potential for Jordan or Iraq to insert itself in local politics and bolster opponents by exploiting common trade ties and the porous border.
As for the Arab country's Red Sea coastline in the west, both Jordan and Yemen, as well as more distance foes like Egypt, have a real interest in encouraging a division within Saudi government. Without control over the Hijaz, the royal family would lose its claim as keeper of the two holy mosques and therein a justification for its right to rule over Saudi Arabia.
The Lay of the Land
The House of Saud -- itself divided into competing factions -- has for nearly a century balanced the country's complex web of tribal alliances through an intricate distribution of economic benefits, like lucrative construction contracts or university appointments determined in part by tribal or clan affiliations. But the government's ability to fund a welfare state has waned in recent years due to oil price slumps and burgeoning foreign debt.
Despite a network of intermarriages that has tied the royal family to nearly every tribe in the country, a still largely invisible opposition continues to grow. No obvious connections between the different groups have surfaced. But their common hostility toward the government represents a geopolitical nightmare for the ruling family. If the opposition begins coordinating efforts or even rises up in simultaneous outbursts, then Riyadh would be completely surrounded on all sides both geographically and politically.
Still disorganized and underground at the moment, the opposition will push to restructure Saudi society, hoping to either replace the royal family with another dynasty or replicate Iran's Islamic revolution. Though the planning for the battle has been years in the making, the events of Sept. 11 brought those plans to the fore. It's too early to tell who will win, but with the struggle now beginning in earnest, it will become both more public and more bloody. |
