Crime of the century; 152 million child labourers

2018-06-14

World spiritual leaders have warned us that those who abuse children or indulge in child labour would and should be thrown into the deepest ocean with a millstone tied rounds their necks. Children are devastatingly honest and innocent that is why the heavenly realms comprise people who have the honesty and innocence of children. Seen in this light many of our leaders -- political, social, business and even religious leaders -- appear to be sadly lacking in honesty, innocence and a spirit of sincere, sacrificial and selfless service to the people, especially those caught in the poverty trap of a wicked world. Therefore such leaders face a fate that is too horrible to be imagined. 

June 12, was the World Day against Child Labour. According to the Indian Express group some 152 million children are caught up in the torture of child labour with some 73 million being forced to get involved in hazardous work. 

The United Nations, which mark this day worldwide is calling for an end to the brutalities of child labour. Despite the efforts made by NGOs and governments, the plight of illegal young labourers is a reality of society that we live in and we need to confront it with all the power at our disposal. 

According to the UN, in 2002, the International Labour Organization (ILO) launched the World Day Against Child Labour to focus attention on the global extent of child labour and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. Each year on June 12, the World Day brings together governments, employers and workers’ organizations, civil society and millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child labourers and what can be done to help them. 

In a message, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder says Children are more vulnerable to risk than adults. It is a priority in the wider ILO campaigns against child labour and for safe and healthy work for youth of legal working age – “Generation Safe and Healthy ”. The child labourers are toiling in mines and fields, factories and homes, exposed to pesticides and other toxic substances, carrying heavy loads or working long hours. Many suffer lifelong physical and psychological consequences. Their very lives can be at risk. 

No child under the age of 18 should perform hazardous work as stipulated in the ILO’s Conventions on child labour, namely the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182). They require governments, in consultation with social partners, to establish and enforce a national list of hazardous work prohibited for children. Ratification of these Conventions by 171 and 181 ILO-member States respectively -- close to universal ratification – reflects a commitment to end child labour in all its forms. It is time to step up action, the ILO says. 
A new ILO report, ‘Towards the Urgent Elimination of Hazardous Child Labour’, finds that certain occupational hazards -- including exposure to psychological stress and to commonly-used chemicals -- are even more serious for children than previously thought. 

Another key finding is that adolescence, as a period of physical maturation, may start earlier and last into the mid-twenties. Within this extended period of growth, children (and young adults), face a range of vulnerabilities that require responses in law and practice. 

In Sri Lanka, child labour may not be as extensive as in many other countries. But sometimes poverty-stricken families who have no means of feeding or giving education or healthcare to their children are forced to send them for household work in the families of rich and ruling elite. Such families need to ensure that the children while helping in the household work are provided education and healthcare facilities. They need to remember that just using or abusing a child is a crime that will bring penalties of hell-fire.   

Iftar & Infitah: Essence Of Muslim Politics And Economy

By Ameer Ali –JUNE 13, 2018

Dr. Ameer Ali

Before JR’s open economy (JR’s version of Anwar Sadat’s infitah or open door policy in Egypt) was ushered in, two issues preoccupied the attention of Muslim Ministers in the country: availability of dates for iftar, a solemn occasion for breaking the fast during Ramadhan, and availability of foreign exchange to travel to Mecca for the annual pilgrimage. Because these two issues consumed the country’s precious foreign reserves, governments of that time had to be economical. Rarely a Muslim Minister spoke or discussed in public about any other issue concerning the Muslim community in those days. Perhaps, Badiuddin Mahmud in Mrs. B’s cabinet was an exception, because he always talked about Muslim education and on one occasion in 1972 he called a special meeting at his residence to which he invited Muslim leaders and spoke to them about the need to change the community’s economic direction from business to other pursuits in the light of his government’s socialist agenda. However, with JR’s open economy dates and foreign exchange are not the issues for ministers to worry about. Post-JR infitah has taken care of them.   

To the current generation of Muslim Ministers and politicians therefore there is absolutely no populist cause, whether social, economic or political to fight for and win the confidence of the community. The formation of the SLMC was a political stunt which achieved nothing and brought communal disaster. They should thank the militant Buddhist ultra-nationalists for the violence they have unleashed against Muslims because that at least has given these policy bankrupt leaders a photo opportunity in visiting those sites and then to declare over the media that they had taken up the matter with the President and the Prime Minster – end of the story.

Rising unemployment among educated Muslim youth, unbearable family indebtedness due to high cost of living, landlessness and homelessness, family violence, a misogynist marriage and divorce act, substandard education in Muslim schools, the communal and social impact of ultraconservative religious ideologies and so on, are issues that need concerted policies and coordinated strategies to tackle. None of these problems seem to have caught the attention of Muslim politicians. Has any of them taken up any of these issues and spoken in the parliament? Issues like cost of living, unemployment, landlessness and homelessness are common in other communities as well. By championing these causes and suggesting policy measures to tackle them won’t these leaders win the affection of other communities also? At least pne of these ministers seem to have appointed his own think-tank of retired diplomats, educationists and professionals. What has this think-tank done so far?   

What is now happening in the Muslim quarter of local politics is to resort to the old game of betting on the winning horse. The iftar has become an organised ritual tamasha for sitting Muslim parliamentarians and aspiring parliamentarians to hobnob with government and opposition party leaders to prepare the ground for winning positions and favour when the opportunity arrives at the election. They are testing the waters. Muslims started this tamasha and other political leaders are continuing with it with additional fanfare. Actually iftar functions have become mini-festivals to end in the grand festival at the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan.

Read More

On compensation | Kandy: The damage and the distrust

Editor’s Note: These are excerpts from a long-form story on the experiences and reflections of Muslim families in Akurana, Ambatenne, Pallekele, Digana and Katugastota, three months after a series of violent attacks against their communities. Groundviews visited these areas in the first week of June 2018.

AMALINI DE SAYRAH- 06/13/2018

Individuals whose homes and businesses were damaged by Sinhala-Buddhist extremist mobs spoke with increasing frustration of the inadequate State response to the violence. They also outlined the probable causes that would motivate these groups to wreak this violence.

In order to ensure attention to key issues, we are publishing each as an excerpt.

Mr. Jazeel (captured in featured image) walks around his shop, located on the bend near the Akurana bridge, 12 kilometres from the bustling Kandy city. It looks the same as it did on the night of March 7, when a mob set fire to the shop premises and his workshop behind it. Petrol bombs were thrown into his showroom, and the ensuing damage has left the building unsafe for renovation. It needs to be torn down and built again.

‘We received 100,000 rupees from the government in the immediate aftermath, that was all’, he says. This compensation barely covers a fraction of the cost for a single piece of equipment that he would have to purchase, let alone the reconstruction of his entire showroom. To add insult to injury, officials are asking him for bills, blueprints and other documents to help assess the value of what he lost. ‘I tell them “Sorry sir, I wish I could show you all that but I lost it all in the fire’”, Jazeel says.

The Attorney-General’s Department visited to valuate his building, but Jazeel says nothing was put down in writing, and he was not given any concrete idea of when the next round of compensation would be paid. ‘I had a heart attack late last year – all of this isn’t helping with my recovery.’

The skeleton of Fazil’s three-wheeler sits near his home in Ambatenne, 10 kilometres from Kandy and located near a steep bend on the winding hill-country road. He pulls out a wire contraption from what used to be the passenger seat. ‘An umbrella. They set fire to this, set it in the back of the vehicle. The whole hood would catch fire first, and then it all burns.’

‘I’m rebuilding the wall of my house, and replacing all the broken glass. This is with my own personal savings,’ he says. He notes with relief that the mobs didn’t do anything to the small tailor shop attached to his home, aside from breaking the lock. He would have had to replace thousands of rupees worth of equipment and cloth, and would have been left without any source of income.

‘The three-wheeler was my life, it was what helped me support this family’, Fazil says. Though he is frustrated by the destructive mobs that took away his source of livelihood, he is also angered by the inefficiency of State officials, who he believes collectively stand in the way of a swift recovery.

‘I’ve been able to rebuild all of this because of people’s generosity,’ says Nizar, whose shop, holding close Rs. 3 million worth of goods went up in flames. He notes that compensation of up to Rs. 500,000 has been received from the Government, but adds that the compensation is inadequate given the extent of damage to some shops. He taps a small table, holding a display of 1 kilogramme detergent packs. ‘This is what I bought with the Rs. 100,000 they gave me’. He shakes his head.

Nizar then walks through the Masjidhul Laafir, the walls of which are still covered in soot from the fires. They are blistered, and the windows that open out to the small balcony are shattered.

‘Money is coming in’ he says; from individual donors, from aid organisations and ‘from Qatar’. A generous person gave them the entire neighbouring space to use as a temporary mosque, where blueprints for a new mosque have already been tacked. ‘Four floors’ he says, ‘it will be bigger than what we had before.’

Some families lost more than others. Samsudeen’s youngest son, Abdul Basith, died of asphyxiation when their shop in Pallekele was set alight. Samsudeen received just Rs. 100,000 as compensation for the devastating loss. Apart from that the family home and shop have been entirely torn down. 

Samsudeen is overseeing reconstruction and worries about his older son, Fayaz, whose skin burned off in large swathes as he tried to escape the burning house. He has a family of three and won’t be able to work for a long time to support them due to the injuries he sustained on that night.

This new house is being built because of the ‘kindness of others’ but Samsudeen says that it doesn’t cancel out the compensation that the government owes him and all those affected in the violence. ‘We are able to build, but they are still responsible for providing compensation for what we lost. That is their duty.’

Read the full story here.

Floods, drought and disasters

Thursday, 14 June 2018

The Yahapalana Government has been singularly unfortunate in having to face many natural and manmade disasters during their regime.Almost every year many citizens have to undergo the consequences of floods in certain parts of the country whereas there has been droughts in other parts of our relatively small country.

In addition, manmade disasters like the Salawa Ammunition dump blast and the Meethotamulla garbage mountain collapse causing serious damages to both people and property have been calamitous.

It is ironical that unusual weather patterns probably due to the phenomenon of climate change has resulted in excessive precipitation causing serious flooding mainly in the so-called wet zone of the country.



Twomajor causes of floods

In my opinion there have been two major causes of floods perhaps dueto unwanted human activities. It is said that the flooding of the large rivers such as the Kelani Ganga, KaluGanga and NilwalaGanga have been further exacerbated by legal and illegal sand mining affecting the river banks of these large rivers.Furthermore, the areas around the river banks which were unexploited earlier and thereby absorb some of the overflow has been developed and inhabited.

The second cause of the flooding has been in and around cities and towns due to unplanned and illegal development projects, once again preventing free flow of water to areas which were available previously for absorption of the overflow which used to flow into large tracts of land which were not built upon and created large unbuilt areas to absorb the overflow.

The present Government and previous governments appears to have accepted these situations as afait accompli and done very little about a permanent solution for these problems which are repeated every year.Huge sums of money have been provided for flood relief and rehabilitation of the people affected by the floods.

I was pleasantly surprised that two politicians,namely,VajiraAbeywardena from the south and Sajith Premadasa, the Deputy Leader of the UNP, who have now articulated the need for providing permanent solutions to the annual flooding phenomenon.

One of the most quoted adages of the great King ParakramabahuI who created the Parakrama Samudra, which when translated into English literally would mean the “Ocean of Parakrama,” was”not even a little water that comes from the rain must flow into the ocean without being made useful to man”.

In his time the wet zone was covered in jungle and inhabited sparsely and therefore flooding in the wet zone I believe was not a relevant issue.However, in the dry zone where our civilisation thrived, rainfall was normally only during the north east monsoon and mainly once a year. Therefore there was a need to save each drop of water andmany great Sinhalese kings built tanks and created the much-exalted hydro irrigation culture.It is said that during Parakramabahu’s time we even exported rice from Sri Lanka.

In the present circumstances, huge volumes of water inundate the land and ultimately flow into the sea without being utilised by our people due to this incessant flooding of the great big rivers which ultimately flow into the sea.

I am not an expert either in irrigation or agriculture but I ask the question, cannot these excess precipitation be diverted into other large water bodies created for this purpose by manmade tanks without flooding the people’s lands and ultimately flowing wastefully into the sea? For instance, the Kelani Ganga is a river which always appears to be having water though may be at different volumes during floods and droughts.The KaluGanga and NilwalaGanga are similar perennial water bodies.Is it not possible to create large tanks like those created by the Sinhala kings on the flat lands of the dry zone to store the excess water during floods?

I believe there has been suggestions for diverting the KaluGanga through a huge network of tunnels to water the dry zone.This would certainly be a mega project which I believe would have to be considered in the long-term so that we could use excess water to promote agriculture in the dry zone.

The other reason for flooding in cities is due to bad planning without proper facilities to drain excess water which falls on our roads.We have observed sometimes that even after a short shower the roads of the capital City of Colombo are often inundated with water.

In this connection, I must appreciate the efforts of the Minister of MegapolisChampika Ranawaka for planning to create two huge tunnels taking excess water away from the city and thereby draining finally into the sea.This is also a mega project and will probably take two or three years to complete as it will require very sophisticated technology of tunnelling under existing major roads which are required to be operational without interruption.Be that as it may, I believe it will be a wonderful solution.

However, recently a highly qualified Engineer wrote an article to the papers expressing the view that such a project would be a total disaster and would only result in a huge amount of foreign exchange being spent in usingsophisticated imported equipment to create these huge tunnels of around three metres in diameter.


Harvesting water

The Israelis who are experts at using every drop of water available will be amused to find that in Sri Lanka there are two major zones, the wet zone which has a precipitation of over 600 inches per year and the dry zone which has less than 600 inches.I believe in Israel there is hardly any rain at all during the year and they have been ingenious in creating novel methods of utilising whatever available water.

Global climate change has serious ramifications, especially for island nations like Sri Lanka.We have witnessed unusual droughts during the last few years with our agricultural community suffering from the lack of the availability of water for cultivation even for three consecutive seasons.

I believe that we should consult the Israelis and obtain their assistance for utilising whatever resources available in the dry zone during protracted droughts.

Secondly the age old technique of harvesting water should be utilised everywhere possible and especially in the dry zone.Rainwater harvesting is the accumulation and storage of rainwater for reuse on-site, rather than allowing it to run off.

Rainwater can be collected from rivers or roofs, and in many places, the water collected is redirected to a deep pit (well, shaft, or borehole), a reservoir with percolation, or collected from dew or fog with nets or other tools. Its uses include water for gardens, livestock, irrigation, domestic use with proper treatment, indoor heating for houses, etc. The harvested water can also be used as drinking water, longer-term storage, and for other purposes such as groundwater recharge.

Rainwater harvesting is one of the simplest and oldest methods of self-supply of water for households, usually financed by the user.

Do justice to dairy farmers…

2018-06-13

The National Farmers' Association carried out a protest outside the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development and Rural Economy today over several demands of dairy farmers. Pix by Damith Wickramasinghe

Cader a Muslim for Hindu affairs and Aluvihara a Buddhist for Christian affairs ! President’s mental disorder further confirmed !!

(Lanka e News -13.June.2018, 7.00PM) President Pallewatte Gamarala who is suffering from a mental disorder and hence  wreaking havoc on the country while also his popularity base has  dropped to to a precarious 4 %   once again proved his mental imbalance when appointing state ministers and deputy ministers yesterday (12)– he committed a most grave outrageous indiscretion   which triggered  bitter  resentment  and disillusionment among the Hindu and Christian communities  in the country.

When making appointments on the 12 th , he appointed a Muslim ,Cader Osman as the deputy  minister of Hindu affairs , and a Buddhist ,Ranjith Aluvihara as the state minister for Christian affairs.

It is an indisputable fact that a Muslim knows nothing about Hindu affairs , and likewise a Buddhist knows nothing about Christian affairs. This has been deliberately done by Gamarala therefore to give a slap in the face of the Hindu and the Christian people living in this country  because there are enough Hindu and Christian MPs who can take over those responsibilities duly.

The enemies of the government describe the good governance as a cowherd government . If such unbelievable hostile actions are directed against the very people who propelled this government into power , certainly there is a lot of  truth in describing good governance as a ‘cowherd government’ . 

The following State ministers and deputy ministers were sworn in yesterday..

State ministers ..

1.Tourism development and Christian religious affairs – Ranjith Aluvihara

2.Hill country new villages infrastructure facilities and community development – Lucky Jayawardena

Deputy ministers

1.State administration and management and law and order – Nalin Bandara

2.Agriculture-  Angajan Ramanathan

3.Environment- Ajith Manaperuma

4,Internal affairs and Wayambe development – Edward Gunasekera

5.Resettlement , rehabilitation northern development and Hindu affairs – Cader Osman

---------------------------
by     (2018-06-13 14:45:02)

Main suspect in Kataragam Kiriwehera shooting identified

By Yusuf Ariff-June 13, 2018

Police have identified the main suspect in the shooting incident which injured two Buddhist monks including the chief incumbent of the Kataragama Kiriwehera Rajamaha Viharaya.

Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara said that the suspect has been identified as Asela Lakshman Bandara, who had previously worked at the Mahasen Devalaya at the temple as a Kapurala.

Police said that the suspect has fled the area and that investigations are being carried out to apprehend him. Following a search carried out at the suspect’s residence, police had found swords daggers and other weapons.

The chief incumbent of the Kiriwehera Rajamaha Viharaya Ven. Kobawaka Damminda Thero and another monk were injured and hospitalized after being shot at.

The shooting had reportedly occurred at around 10.50 pm last night (12), within the temple premises. It was carried out by three individuals who had arrived in an SUV, which was later found by police.

The monks were rushed to the Kataragama Hospital with gunshot injuries and later transferred to the Hambantota Base Hospital for further treatment.

Ven. Kobawaka Damminda Thero was airlifted and admitted to a private hospital in Colombo today (13).

Four police teams and a police Special Task Force (STF) team have been deployed for the arrest of the suspects involved in the shooting.

No medicine in hospital – no money to get proper treatment

June 13, 2018 

Patients are severely inconvenienced due to the shortage of medicine in the kidney unit in Kandy General Hothe spital say reports.

Medicines prescribed for patients with kidney related diseases are very expensive and as a result they are destitute as they are unable to get proper treatment say patients.

The President of the Welfare Society of Kidney Patients Mr Jayantha Wasalamuni says the inefficiency of health officials and the failure to pay proper attention regarding getting down stocks of needed medicines is the cause for the suffering of these patients and their loved ones.

The patients say immediate mediation of the Minister of Health and relevant officials is needed to bring relief to patients who are in agony due to the unavailability of medicine and proper caretaking.

Gaza’s bloody Monday

Reem al-Sheikh Khalil said her 14-year-old daughter Wesal insisted on going to the protest where she was killed.

 Ashraf AmraAPA images

Hamza Abu Eltarabesh- 13 June 2018

I met Ahmed al-Rantisi in February 2016. He seemed nervous but I wasn’t sure why.

So I asked our mutual friend, Khader, who was with Ahmed at the time. Khader told me that Ahmed was attracted to a young woman we could see walking in the street with her friends.

As Ahmed was too shy to approach the woman, Khader and I went and talked to her. After introducing ourselves, we asked for her address, so that Ahmed could visit her family with a marriage proposal.

It was my only contact with Ahmed.

On 14 May this year, I came home, feeling weary after covering the latest massacre committed by Israel. When I opened my laptop, I saw pictures of Ahmed on the Internet. He was one of around 60 demonstrators killed on that day. He was 27 years old.

Learning that Ahmed was among them saddened me, even though I had just met him once. I began to weep.

The next morning I phoned Khader to console him. Later, we both went to Ahmed’s funeral. The sense of shock among the mourners was almost palpable.

Ahmed did actually marry the woman he was too shy to approach. Her name is Hanan.

She is 24 and graduated with a teaching degree from the Islamic University of Gaza, where Ahmed was studying business administration.

Their daughter, Mariam, is less than a year old.

Mariam has just started walking. When I stopped by to see Hanan, Mariam took a few steps towards a photograph of her dad and touched it.

The reminder was painful for Hanan. She apologized for being unable to talk.

In our brief conversation, Hanan recalled her last moments with Ahmed. Before leaving for the Great Return March, Ahmed told her she should go for a walk by the seafront that evening and buy some groceries for Ramadan.

“And he asked me to pray for him,” Hanan said. “I still hear his voice in my head saying that.”

Defying Israel’s orders

Despite his shyness, Ahmed displayed courage in standing up for his people. He was killed after he joined a group of protesters who ventured towards the boundary between Gaza and Israel.

He defied Israel’s orders to stay away from the boundary so that he could demand rights which he had been denied.

Ahmed grew up in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City. Yet his family is originally from Yibna, a village in historic Palestine that was attacked by Israeli forces in June 1948. They fled to Gaza as a result.

Throughout the past seven decades, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly recognized that Palestinian refugees are entitled to go home. The Great Return March has asserted that right, while drawing attention to how Israel violates it.

Ahmed was the son of Mahmoud al-Rantisi, an information technology teacher at the Islamic University of Gaza and a leading member of Hamas.

Ahmed’s connections to Hamas give Israel no excuse for killing him and other unarmed demonstrators. Under international human rights law, it is illegal for Israeli snipers – shielded by two fences – to open fire on protesters.

Anxious

May was an ominous month for Fadi Abu Salmi.

In May 2008, Fadi was badly injured when Israel bombed the Khan Younis area of Gaza. He was standing near his home with some friends when the bombing occurred.

Both of Fadi’s legs were amputated following that attack.

Fadi’s family is originally from Isdud. Now called Ashdod, the port city is a short distance from Gaza. Yet the Abu Salmi family is unable to go back there.

They had to leave after Isdud was attacked by Israeli forces in late 1948.

Thirty-year-old Fadi underscored the family’s roots in Isdud by taking part in the Great Return March on 14 May this year.

“It was like he felt something was going to happen,” said his wife Mona. “He kept telling me to take care of the children and myself. He was worried before leaving the house.”

Fadi Abu Salmi is mourned during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on 14 May.

Ashraf AmraAPA images

Fadi was killed soon after that anxious conversation took place, 10 years to the day after the terrible injuries he suffered to his legs in Khan Younis.

This time he was hit by a live bullet in the chest, while protesting in an area east of Khan Younis.

“My father didn’t do anything wrong,” said Fadi’s 8-year-old son Ziad. “He just wanted to ask for his rights.”

Fadi’s story resembles that of Ibrahim Abu Thurayya.

He, too, was a double amputee – because of an Israeli bombing a decade ago. Abu Thurayya was killed in December 2017 near Gaza’s boundary with Israel. He was protesting against the announcement by President Donald Trump that the US planned to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Like Fadi, Abu Thurayya refused to be silenced by his oppressor. Losing both his legs, he once said, was “not the end of the world and life should go on.”

“She will never come back”

Reem al-Sheikh Khalil tried to stop her 14-year-old teenage daughter Wesal from protesting on 14 May.

Although she had previously permitted Wesal to take part in the Great Return March since it began on 30 March, Reem felt that Monday was different, that the likelihood of Israeli violence was especially high.

“I was not comfortable and worried about her,” said Reem. “But she insisted on going.”

Eventually, Reem agreed that Wesal could participate, on the condition that she was accompanied by her younger brother Mohammed.

Reem asked her daughter to stay away from the boundary.

But after they arrived at the protest, Wesal started running in the direction of the boundary, along with other young people. Soon, she was shot in the head. Mohammed saw that her face was covered in blood. He ran towards her but he was afraid to get too close.

So, he came home, crying and screaming. He told his mother what had happened and they both went to al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza.

This image of Motasem al-Nono beside the body of his brother Motaz was widely shared on social media.

Reem searched around the hospital but could not find Wesal anywhere. After about an hour, she heard someone say that there was a girl’s body in the morgue which had not been identified.

“I walked slowly towards the morgue and then I found Wesal on the bed,” said Reem. “I went closer to her, hugged her and cried. I knew that she will never come back. I will miss her.”

Wesal was an ambitious girl who “dreamed of becoming a journalist,” said Reem. “She always stood in front of the mirror acting like a reporter.”

A doctor’s brother

One image that was widely shared on Facebook and Twitter following the 14 May massacre showed Motasem al-Nono beside the dead body of his 30-year-old brother Motaz.

Motasem is a doctor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. On 14 May, he was so busy treating people who were injured that he barely glanced at many of their faces.

“When Motaz arrived at the hospital, other doctors were checking his injuries,” said Motasem. “I saw him while I was walking and felt weird and stepped back. I looked into his face and realized it was my brother. He died within minutes.”

“What kills me is that I was not able to save my brother,” he added. “Israel uses bullets that don’t give people any chance of survival.”

Hamza Abu Eltarabesh is a journalist from Gaza.

How Jordan's economic crisis exposed Saudi Arabia's leadership vacuum

Saudi Arabia did not save Jordan's ailing economy. Kuwait and Qatar did

David Hearst

Wednesday 13 June 2018

Saudi Arabia did not come to Jordan's rescue with a $2.5bn aid package, although King Salman very much wanted to appear as if it had.

What happened was an attempt by King Salman to take the credit for the money that Kuwait had already pledged. What resulted was a scramble by rival Gulf states to support Jordan.

'Substantial financial support'

King Abdullah had sent an envoy to Kuwait, before street protests erupted at rising prices and a planned increase in income tax, a well informed source close to the Jordanian Royal Court told MEE. A Kuwaiti minister of state was in Jordan during the protests, and as a result Kuwait pledged to deposit $500m in the Central Bank of Jordan and promised another $500m in low interest loans. 

The next knock on the door came from Qatar. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, called Abdullah to offer Qatar's "substantial financial support". The call was not announced upon the request of Jordan, which was still hoping for Saudi Arabia to cough up.

Saudi Arabia did not come to Jordan's rescue with a $2.5bn aid package, although King Salman very much wanted to appear as if it had

Today Qatar's foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and the Qatari finance minister have arrived in Jordan to negotiate the aid package. This is the first such visit since Jordan downgraded relations with Qatar as a result of Saudi pressure to enforce the blockade a year ago. 

The Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Qatar decided to support Jordan's economy directly with more than 10,000 jobs, and $500m.

A few hours after the call from Qatar, and possibly because he had got wind of Qatar's move, King Salman called Abdullah. The meeting which followed included the emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, and the emir of Dubai and prime minister of UAE, Mohammed bin Maktoum, who is theoretically second in command after the president.  

King Salman called the de-facto UAE ruler, Mohammed bin Zayed, but he declined to come and the UAE was represented by bin Maktoum. 

In a Saudi sleight of hand, Kuwait's $1bn was included in the total aid package announced by Salman, as if it had been decided in the meeting. In reality, Saudi and the UAE gave less than Kuwait by dividing the remaining $1.5bn between them.

Saudi leadership vacuum

There was, consequently, "a degree of disappointment" in the royal court with Salman's response, because Jordan already had received $1bn from Kuwait and they expected more from Saudi Arabia, particularly as the Saudis had stopped funding Jordan for two years.

What does all this mean?

Firstly, that King Salman was panicked into a reaction once he realised that the vacuum of Saudi regional leadership was being filled by his Gulf rivals. Kuwait has tried and failed to play the role of intermediary in the crisis sparked by the blockade of Qatar by Saudi, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt. But it has also been at loggerheads with Israel and the US over Gaza. 

The Kuwaiti reaction to Jordan is another sign that there is no love lost between it and Saudi

The US blocked a statement calling for an independent investigation of the killings of Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border, which Kuwait, a non-permanent member of the Security Council had written.

Having attempted to bully the Gulf Cooperation Council into submission, all Saudi Arabia has succeeded in doing is to split it. Kuwait now is pursuing its own policies with a degree of independence which it did not do before. The same can be said of Qatar. The Kuwaiti reaction to Jordan is another sign that there is no love lost between it and Saudi.

Secondly, it means that King Abdullah, who visited Kuwait on Tuesday, is less tied to Saudi Arabia after this aid package than everyone thinks. The Saudis do not have as much leverage over Amman as the headline figure of $2.5bn suggests. 

Jordan's King Abdullah II (R) meeting with Qatar's Emir Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani during the Arab-African leaders summit meeting in Kuwait City on 19 November, 2013 (AFP)

Yes, there are 400,000 Jordanians working in Saudi and their remittances are worth around 10 per cent of Jordan’s GDP. But Jordan now has other sources of finance, from Gulf states that are closer to the issues that matter to Jordanians than Salman is.

I say Jordanians rather than the king himself, because that too is another factor.

Change the political formula 

King Abdullah understands that his legitimacy does not depend on buying the support of his people. He has to take into consideration the will of his people regarding the political direction of the kingdom more than any time in his reign.

Last week's protests and the continuing friction with the Beni Sakhr tribe, whose leader Fares al-Fayez, was arrested on Saturday after calling for political change, are a warning to the king that he can no longer take the loyalty of his people for granted. Al-Fayez broke the unwritten rule of making a personal attack on the king publicly. 

He not only said he wanted to "change the political formula", he added: "We will not accept you [Abdullah] as a king, prime minister, defence minister, police chief and governor. You are everything. You became a demigod, according to this constitution, and we are slaves."

What Jordanians think matters and this too is a factor limiting Salman's leverage, because as an absolute monarch he has no concept of civic society or public opinion

He also reminded the king that his family came from the land that is now Saudi Arabia. To be more precise, Jordan is all that is left of the kingdom his family once ran. "This is our country and our land. You came from the Hijaz, you, your father and your grandfather. My father welcomed your grandfather. You owe us, we do not owe you."

A demonstrator gestures and shouts during a protest near the prime minister's office in Amman, Jordan, on 5 June, 2018 (AFP)

The veteran political dissident Laith Shubeilat rubbed salt into the king’s wounds by telling the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar that Jordan had been displaced by Saudi as Israel's loyal military servant. 

He said that "Jordan was an Israeli ally with a brigadier general rank, but now it has been downgraded to lieutenant and Saudi Arabia rose to be the general.”

An existential threat

Such bald and open affronts to royal authority are not accidental. They are a reminder to the royal court that public opinion in Jordan cannot be so easily bought off these days. 

What Jordanians think matters and this too is a factor limiting Salman's leverage, because as an absolute monarch he has no concept of civic society or public opinion.

For different reasons, both the East Bank and Palestinian halves of the Jordanian population are dead set against Saudi’s sponsorship of the Israeli demand that Palestinian refugees abandon their right of return.

READ MORE ►

Is the Arab Spring still alive in Jordan?

This alone is being seen as an existential threat to the stability of the Jordanian state. But there are other threats too. The US recognition of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel challenges, to say the least, the Hashemite custodianship of the holy sites in Jerusalem, as well as the Palestinian demand, backed by the Arab League, that East Jerusalem is the capital of a Palestinian state.

Whether he wants to or not, these are not issues on which King Abdullah can bend. His legitimacy depends on his role as custodian of the holy sites more than ever before.

Saudi Arabia has good reason to think that the fresh wave of people power in Jordan could easily migrate across borders. Kuwait and Qatar's growing importance as independent Gulf actors and donors to Jordan also gives King Abdullah the chance to give political reform in Jordan a chance. If he does not take it, the writing is on the wall.

- David Hearst is editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He was chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian, former Associate Foreign Editor, European Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief, European Correspondent, and Ireland Correspondent. He joined The Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Photo:  Jordanian King Abdullah II (1st-R) attending a meeting in Mecca on 11 June with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz (2nd-R), Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (3rd-R) and Kuwait Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah (1st-L) to discuss the economic crisis in Jordan (AFP)