Qatar: The Small State Guide to Politics and Business?

 

Qatar model holds potential and risks for small-state development

Qatar is one of the world’s smallest states, but it also has one of the largest gas reserves. Small and wealthy, Qatar’s policies have echoed elsewhere. Is it a guide for other small states to follow?

 http://globalriskinsights.com/2013/11/11/is-qatar-the-small-state-guide-to-politics-and-business/

Qatar has the third largest gas reserves in the world valued by BP at 33.6 trillion cubic meters. In a world dependant on energy, Qatar reached the highest GDP per capita in the world in 2012, estimated at USD 88,000 per person, as well as soaring revenues reaching $9.6 billion in April 2012 alone. But the country shares problems with other GCC countries including Bahrain, Kuwait and UAE, where the small local population is outnumbered by a massive migrant one. In 2012, expatriates accounted for 94% of Qatar’s total labour force of 1.3 million. Furthermore, the country heavily depends on the profit generated by exploiting its non-renewable natural resources. In 2012, the Qatar Statistics Authority declared that half of Qatar’s GDP was generated by the oil and gas sector.  Whether these statistics are positive or not, the country’s rulers have tried hard to distinguish their small emirate from the rest of the Gulf States. Foreign politics is an obvious example.

Activist foreign policy
On the one hand, adopting unconventional stances has characterized Qatari regional foreign politics. Qatar was one of the first Arab states to establish diplomatic ties with Israel, starting in 1991. It is also one of the very few who maintain a relationship with Israel despite not having peace treaties following previous wars (e.g. Egypt and Jordan) or having a Jewish population (e.g Morocco and Tunisia). In the Gulf, it has many stances different from those of its neighbors who share the same political regime of family led states. Monarch-led countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain were obviously very hesitant to welcome the Arab Spring, yet Qatar was a strong supporter of almost every regime change in the Arab world. For instance, while the majority of Gulf States restricted their relationships with the former Morsi regime and strongly back the current Egyptian administration, Qatar has sided with the Muslim Brotherhood.

On the other hand, seeking regional leadership has also been one of Qatar’s main foreign policy traits. Several times it offered to act as a mediator in regional and even distant conflicts. It hosted several Darfur peace process rounds and donor conferences, and proposed several initiatives to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Seeking leadership sometimes extended to challenging other Arab countries, including the influential ones. This consequently gained Qatar several foes. The pre-2011 Arab League annual summits witnessed ongoing tension between the Qatari Emir and several other Arab leaders, especially Gaddafi and Assad. Ironically, few years later, Qatar became actively engaged in financing the air strikes against the Gaddafi regime as well as supporting the rebels in Syria’s civil war. It was the first and only Arab state who presented one of its citizens to run for the position of Secretary General of the Arab League in 2011 – a position that have always been dominated by Egypt since the League’s foundation over 60 years ago.

A real democracy?
Seeking an international reputation is also reflected internally. Qatar’s ruling family works hard to appear as modernizing and pro-democracy as possible. In a untypical move in the Middle East, the former Emir of Qatar Hamad Bin Khalifa handed over the power to his younger son Prince Tamim, making him the new ruler of the country. As the new Prince sacked the once powerful PM Hamad Bin Jassem and replaced the guard by a new one, Tamim declared he would continue his father’s track. Domestically, the new Emir seems to face several challenges, starting with re-organizing his own household, up to fixing regional relationships by creating an effective government structure and tackling the country’s social issues. It is too early to judge if this power-shift is a reform step towards government accountability, transparency and maybe a bit of democracy like Kuwait, or if it nothing but a promotional façade to this small country seeking both power and attention. Political freedoms have not seemed to change substantially. A poet was sentenced to 15 years in prison for allegedly inciting the people and insulting the former Emir in a poem in 2010. The verdict was nothing but confirmed during an appeal that took place earlier this month.

Resources and mounting challenges
Business-wise, Qatar is more successful than it is in its internal politics. The Emir seems to have an integral plan to diversify the economy through different approaches, including developing the private sector to attracting financial services entities, promotion of tourism and of course encouraging its sovereign wealth fund, Qatar Investment Authority (“QIA”), to invest in a variety of sectors around the world. The QIA is considered one of the wealthiest in the world, with assets estimated between USD 100-200 billion, and a long list of shares and investments that include Porsche,.........Read more

Mubarak, Morsi, and then?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rate This

Muriel Mirak-Weissbach

Muriel Mirak-Weissbach is a political journalist specialising in economic, political and cultural development in the Arab and Islamic world for thirty years. She is the author of two books published by Ithaca Press Through the Wall of Fire, Armenia – Iraq – Palestine: From Wrath to Reconciliation, and Madmen at the Helm: Pathology and Politics in the Arab Spring.

In his famous novel Animal Farm, George Orwell satirized the outcome of the Bolshevik revolution and Stalinism. His allegorical tale showed how a gang of animals had risen up against the exploitative farmer and seized power, only to reproduce the political structures they had sought to eliminate.

Something similar may be unfolding in Egypt. After the 2011 revolution, in which mass forces mobilized nationally over 18 days and forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign, an interim military government came in, followed by the Muslim Brotherhood, led by Mohammad Morsi, declared winner of the May–June 2012 presidential elections. Now, less than a year after assuming power, Morsi, who pledged to be the president of all Egyptians, is being denounced as ‘no better than Mubarak’, even the ‘new pharaoh of Egypt’. Masses of Egyptians, including many formations that constituted the revolutionary movement that ousted Mubarak, are again taking to the streets this time demanding Morsi’s downfall, carrying posters which explicitly identify him as the reincarnation of the ousted dictator. Some are calling on the military to intervene, at least temporarily, to oversee a transition to democratic rule.

In my book on the psychological aspects of the Arab upheavals,[*] I posed the following question: are dictators, most often characterized by narcissism and other personality disorders, born or are they made? Are they doomed by traumatic childhood experiences and other social conditions to become tyrannical leaders, or are they well-meaning individuals who, once assuming political power, turn into such? Is it the case that ‘power corrupts’?

Egypt, as I witnessed during a recent visit to Cairo, provides a good case study. When he was inaugurated last June, Morsi, a leading figure of the Islamists so long persecuted by Mubarak, enjoyed public support. This was the case despite the fact that the electoral process had not been free from controversy, regarding the procedures leading to the vetting of candidates and the actual voting and tallying.

It did not take long for Morsi to fall from grace, and it was all of his own doing. His first big mistake was to overrule the Supreme Constitutional Court by calling the dissolved parliament back into session. This was the beginning of a continuing challenge to state institutions, the judiciary and military. On 22 November he issued a declaration in which he decreed (à la Mubarak) special powers to the president, i.e. to himself. Thus, all his decisions, decrees, laws etc., were protected from changes or cancellation. He also arrogated the right to take any measures he deemed necessary to protect the revolution. Although public pressure forced him to retract some of these measures, he did not fully receive the message. Instead, he rammed through a constitutional draft put together by an Islamist-dominated rump constituent assembly, announced a referendum and then new elections. Morsi proceeded to fill all possible political as well as civilian positions with people from his party, the Muslim Brotherhood, or, Ikhwan in Arabic. Egyptians call this the Ikhwanization of political and public life and compare it most unfavorably with the nepotism and favoritism characteristic of the Mubarak era. Not only has the Muslim Brotherhood put its people in ministries, but also in leadership positions of businessmen’s associations, religious and civil society organizations, etc. As Mustafa El-Labbad from the Al Sharq Center for Strategic Studies told me in an interview, through this Ikhwanization process, businessmen associated with the Brotherhood are reaping benefits as they did earlier; they are the same ‘compradors, only this time bearded.’

When I asked my Egyptian friends why Morsi was making such egregious errors, jeopardizing the power he and his movement had so long aspired to, the answer I got was: ‘it’s ideological.’ In fact, if these reports are reliable, Morsi’s Brotherhood government would like to introduce a number of demands that can only be understood as issuing from ideological concerns. Among them are the calls for eliminating a traditional Egyptian spring festival, changing the national anthem, removing music from school curricula and the like.
Egyptians of all political tendencies are demanding responsible leadership to lead the country into a new era. This means restoring public order and economic security, and finally introducing institutions of truly representative government. The number of people killed during demonstrations has been rising and the economy is on the verge of collapse. Unless the Morsi regime wakes up to political reality, it will be as readily dispensed with as was the Mubarak regime. Elections called by Morsi for Parliament cannot take place if the opposition, which, though not unified programmatically, represents a secure majority of the population, successfully leads a boycott. And if the economically and politically important governorate of Port Said, which has become a center of protest, refuses to take part, then the elections will be meaningless. Even if the polls were to be held, if only the Brotherhood and other Islamist parties were to take part, and if they were to ‘win’, that would be a Pyrrhic victory, which international bodies would have great difficulty in acknowledging.

What awaits Egypt is something that George Orwell did not contemplate in his fictional scenario: a new revolution. Although it is politically heterogeneous, the opposition can find its unity in a commitment to representative government. Civil disobedience has spread across the country, intellectuals and artists are issuing statements demanding Morsi’s resignation. And the opposition is also wielding that invincible weapon of humor. The most popular weekly television show is ‘The Program’, featuring Bassem Youssef, the Egyptian answer to American political satirist Jon Stewart. Youssef devotes most of his show to biting ridicule of Morsi and the Brotherhood. The 6 April Movement, which was at the forefront of the revolution, launched an initiative to send Morsi to the moon and collected over 20,000 signatures, placing his name on an online competition sponsored by the Axe Apollo Space Academy. Novelist Ibrahim Abdel-Meguid was quoted in Al-Ahram weekly in late February, saying: ‘If he is not getting the message from the demonstrations, and if he is not getting it from the jokes wanting to send him to the moon, then he might get it from the statements addressed to him directly.’ He added: ‘Morsi had his chance, but he failed to make anything of it. His performance shows that he is totally disconnected from what is going on in the country. He must really come from the moon, and he might as well go back there.’

http://www.ithacapress.co.uk/creator/muriel-mirak-weissbach 

Libya's guns, gangs and the liberation of a masculine sickness

In Benghazi or a US suburb, the gun is a devil whispering to masculine hearts. This picture is less about freedom than power

  

Jonathan Jones 

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 February 2013 13.00 GMT

 

Libyans celebrate the second anniversary of the overthrow of Gaddafi. 'At a moment when guns are proliferating dangerously from Sandy Hook to South Africa, here is a photograph of what men see in them.' Photograph: Mohammad Hannon/AP

Are the guns in this photograph weapons or toys? The young men flaunting them look like they could have been playing with plastic guns not so many years ago, but the armoury they display here on the streets of Benghazi in Libya is very real. At a moment when guns are proliferating dangerously from Sandy Hook to South Africa, here is a photograph of what men see in them.

These youths, dressed half militarily, half casually – note the baseball cap, the low jeans – are driving round streets that apart from them, look empty. Well you wouldn't want to risk a stray bullet as these heroes celebrate the second anniversary of the uprising that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. While the khaki- and camouflage-clad pair in the foreground look more or less like some kind of trained soldier with an official role, the car behind them is manned by equally well-armed kids whose dress and behaviour – the hooded youth raises a pistol wildly – is more gangsterish than military.

Why are guns the symbol of freedom at Benghazi's revolutionary celebration? This identification of guns with political liberty is not of course unique to north Africa. Defenders of the gun in the US associate it with citizens' liberties guaranteed by the second amendment to the constitution. They ignore the fact that any such liberties are matched in that venerable document by duties. But whatever you say about it, whatever you claim it means, a gun is fundamentally a piece of power. An armed man is always superior to an unarmed man, said Machiavelli. That is the point of view of the youths in this picture. They may be penniless, hungry, unemployed – who knows – but they possess the most basic form of power: a firearm.

In civil wars and sudden acts of violence, in Syria or an American suburb, the gun itself is an actor, because carrying it is such a temptation. It is a devil whispering to masculine hearts. This picture is about masculinity as much as guns: like a gang, these guys share their knowledge of the gun (if, that is, they do know how to shoot the death sticks they hold). They are bonded by an aura of toughness and strength. The gun freed Libya and it also liberates these kings of the street. It saves them from fear and ensures them respect.

Yet they seem almost strained in their joy. The most professional looking "soldier", on the left, poses with a smile as he rests a machine gun on his shoulder. He seems the most controlled. Yet his companion shakes a rifle in the air and makes a victory sign while yelling, in a way that seems restless, dissatisfied. Is waving a gun aloft enough? Is that all there is? Meanwhile the gangster-style youth behind them seems to be manically aware of his handgun's capacity to cause mayhem. For guns are just props, unless you use them. Their thrill demands ever greater demonstrations of the power they confer. There lies the temptation. This picture shows how societies get sick, when the gun becomes a male accessory.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/19/libya-guns-gangs-masculine-sickness?CMP=twt_gu&goback=.gde_2692730_member_216955786

Twitter Analysis: Mapping the #feb17 hashtag

Watch Mapping the #feb17 hash-tag in Spotlight

Creative Destruction Triology - By F. William Engdah

Read  Creative Destruction Triology  by F. William Engdah in Suspicious Minds

Moussa Koussa’s secret letters betray Britain’s Libyan connection

Moussa Koussa’s secret letters betray Britain’s Libyan connection
September 3, 2011
Posted in News, Week Commencing August 29 2011 | 00:56

Moussa Koussa, the former Foreign Minister

Messages found in his office show how MI6 gave details of dissident exiles to Gaddafi – and how the CIA used regime for rendition

By Portia Walker and Kim Sengupta in Tripoli

Secret files have been unearthed by The Independent in Tripoli that reveal the astonishingly close links that existed between British and American governments and Muammar Gaddafi.

The documents chart how prisoners were offered to the Libyans for brutal interrogation by the Tripoli regime under the highly controversial "rendition" programme, and also how details of exiled opponents of the Libyan dictator in the UK were passed on to the regime by MI6.

The papers show that British officials actually helped write a draft speech for Colonel Gaddafi while he was trying to rehabilitate his regime from the pariah status to which it had sunk following its support for terrorist movements. Further documents disclose how, at the same time, the US and UK acted on behalf of Libya in conducting negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

With the efforts they had expended in cultivating their contacts with the regime, the British were unwilling, at times, to share their "Libya connection" with the closet ally, the US. In a letter to his Libyan intelligence counterpart, an MI6 officer described how he refused to pass on the identity of an agent to Washington.

The documents, many of them incendiary in their implications, were found at the private offices of Moussa Koussa, Col Gaddafi's right hand man, and regime security chief, who defected to Britain in the days following the February revolution. 

The papers give details about Tony Blair's visit to the Libyan dictator in Tripoli - with the vignette that it was the British prime minister's office that requested that the meeting take place in a tent. A letter from an MI6 official to Mr Koussa stated "No 10 are keen that the Prime Minister meet the Leader in the tent. I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is that the journalists would love it."

The material raises questions about the relationship between Moussa Koussa and the British government and the turn of events following his defection. Mr Koussa's surprising arrival in Britain led to calls for him to be questioned by the police about his alleged involvement in murders abroad by the Libyan regime, including that of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher and opponents of Gaddafi. He was also said to be involved in the sending of arms to the IRA. At the time David Cameron's government assured the public that Mr Koussa may, indeed, face possible charges. Instead, he was allowed to leave the country and is now believed to be staying in a Gulf state.

The revelations by The Independent will lead to questions about whether Mr Koussa, who has long been accused of human rights abuses, was allowed to escape because he held a 'smoking gun'. The official is known to have copied and taken away dozens of files with him when he left Libya.

The papers illustrate the intimate relations Mr Koussa and some of his colleagues seemingly enjoyed with British intelligence. Letters and faxes flowed to him headed 'Greetings from MI6' 'Greetings from SIS', handwritten Christmas greetings, on one occasion, from ' Your friend', followed by the name of a senior British intelligence official, and regrets over missed lunches. There were also regular exchanges of gifts: on one occasion a Libyan agent arrived in London laden with figs and oranges.

The documents repeatedly touched on the blossoming relationship between Western intelligence agencies and Libya. But there was a human cost. The Tripoli regime was a highly useful partner in the 'rendition' process under which prisoners were sent by the US for 'enhanced interrogation', a euphemism, say human rights groups, for torture.

One US administration document, marked secret, says "Our service is in a position to deliver Shaykh Musa to your physical custody similar to what we have done with other senior LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) members in the past. We respectfully request an expression of interest from your service regarding taking custody of Musa".

The British too were dealing with the Libyans about opposition activists, passing on information to the regime. This was taking place despite the fact that Colonel Gaddafi's agents had assassinated opponents in the campaign to eliminate so-called "stray dogs" abroad, including the streets of London. The murders had, at the time, led to protests and condemnation by the UK government.

One letter dated 16th April 2004 from UK intelligence to an official at the International Affairs Department of Libyan security, says: "We wish to inform you that Ismail KAMOKA @ SUHAIB [possibly referring to an alias being used] was released from detention on 18th March 2004. A panel of British judges ruled that KAMOKA was not a threat to national security in the UK and subsequently released him. We are content for you to inform [a Libyan intelligence official] of KAMOKA's release."

Ironically, the Libyan rebels who have come in to power after overthrowing Colonel Gaddafi with the help of the UK and NATO have just appointed Abdullah Hakim Belhaj (please check spelling), a former member of the LIFG, as their commander in Tripoli.

Other material highlights the two-way nature of the information exchange. One document headed "For the attention of the Libyan Intelligence Service. Greetings from MI6 asks for information about a suspect with the initials ABS [full name withheld from publication for security reasons] travelling on Libyan passport number 164432.

"This remains a sensitive operation and we do not want anything done that might draw S's attention to our interest in him. We would be grateful for any information you might have regarding S."

One of the most remarkable finds in the cache of documents is a statement by Colonel Gaddafi during his rapprochment with the West during which he gave up his nuclear programme and promised to destroy his stock of chemical and biological weapons.

The Libyan leader said "we will take these steps in a manner that is transparent and verifiable. Libya affirms and will abide by commitments... when the world is celebrating the birth of Jesus, and as a token of contribution to a world full of peace, security, stability and compassion the greater Jamhiriya renews its honest call for a WMD free zone in the Middle East and Africa."

The statement was, in fact, put together with the help of British officials. A covering letter, addressed to Khalid Najjar, of the Department of International Relations and Safety in Tripoli, said "for the sake of clarity, please find attached a tidied up version of the language we agreed on Tuesday. I wanted to ensure that you had the same script."

When Libya's high command expressed worries about how abandoning their WMD arsenal would leave them vulnerable, the UK proposed helping to bolster conventional defences using Field Marshall Lord Inge, a former head of the UK military as a consultant. In a letter from London dated 24th December 2003, a British official wrote: "I propose that Field Marshal Lord Inge, whom you will remember well from September, should visit two or three senior officers to start these talks." 

"No. 10 are keen that the Prime Minister meet the leader in his tent"

*A sizeable amount of correspondence in the cache was devoted to the visit of Tony Blair to meet Muammar Gaddafi in March 2004 at a time when Britain was playing a key role in bringing Libya in from the cold.

The documents show how involved MI6 was with organizing the trip and the role of conduit played by Moussa Koussa. Unsurprisingly for the Blair administration, presentation was seen as of paramount importance.

An MI6 officer wrote to Mr Koussa, saying: "No.10 are keen that the Prime Minister meet the leader in his tent. I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is the journalists would love it. My own view is that it would give a good impression of the Leader's preference for simplicity which I know is important to him. You may have seen very different press conference in Riyadh. Anyway, if this is possible, No.10 would be very grateful."

Colonel Gaddafi, apparently, had wanted to meet the British Prime Minister at Sirte, his birth place. At present the town is under siege from opposition fighters. The MI6 officer states: "No.10 are expecting that the visit will take place in Tripoli and not Sirte. Apparently it is important that the journalists have access to hotels and so on where there may be facilities for them to file their stories to their newspapers."

However, the spies were there to make sure that their and the national interests was being protected. The officer continued, "No.10 have asked me to accompany the Prime Minister so I am very much looking forward to seeing you next Thursday. No.10 have asked me whether I could put an officer into Tripoli a few days before the visit... I think this would give them comfort and everything would work out well."

Colonel Gaddafi had earned his approval from the West partly because of his stand against Islamist terrorism, the shadow of which, after the Madrid bombings, hung over the visit. The letter, dated 18 March 2004, said "No.10 have asked me to put to you their request that there be no publicity for the visit now or over the next few days - that is well in advance of the visit since Madrid, everyone is extra security conscious.

Source The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/moussa-koussas-secret-letters-betray-britains-libyan-connection-2348394.html