A8 Terrace Review — Wednesday, January 23, 1991

Down by the River

watching the issues flow by
Commentary and analysis by Terrace

Review staff and guest writers

THE GULF WAR: HISTORY LED US TO THE LINE,

By Steve Ramzi

ow war has broken out in
N the Middle East, there are

suddenly many experts,
but still few authorities. The fol-
lowing are the facts about the
history of Kuwait and its relation
to Iraq, a history that. has been
distorted by the popular news
media. As it is often said, history
is always written by the winners.

Two important families moved
from inner Najd (now called Saudi
Arabia) around the year 1710 to
southem Iraq due to terrible
droughts in their homeland. Those
families were Al Sabah and Al
Khalifah, and they were accom-
panied by smaller families, which
included the manes Al Zayid, Al
Ghanim, Al Saleh and Al Shamlah.
They chose southern Iraq because
it was an area know for abundant
fresh water, being near rivers.
They settled at Zubair, an Iraqi
city near Basra, and Zubair is still
an Iraqi city — until now, at least.
Some of the group settled at Umm
Qast, also an Iraqi city — until
now.

The Iraqi government of the
time, under the Turkish empire,
allowed them to live there but not
to claim the land. They. agreed to
live as part of the Iraqi people.

Some of the families found water
at Ras Al Ajuzaha, where Kuwait
City stands today. It was then an
area of Iraq under the Ottoman
(Turkish) Empire. There was
another city in Iraq called Kuvwt,

and the settlement was called

Kuwait — "litte Kuwt" —
because of similarities between the
land and the people.

Through the 19th century Kuwait
and the area of resettled tribes
around it in southern Iraq deve-
loped into a trading centre for
pearis, fish, dates and wool. One
family came to dominate all the

AND A DECISION PUSHED US OVER IT

British and took control of the
area. In the end, the behaviour of
the tribes that had settled in
Kuwait toward their host Iraq
could be compared to a guest who,
after being invited into your home,
takes contro! of half of it by force.
A more recent example could be
what the Israelis did to the
Palestinians.

On Jan. 23, 1899, Lt. Col. Mead,
the British officer in charge of
matters in the area, made an agree-
ment with the Al Sabah family that
the British would have all rights of
treaty and trade in the region, with
any action by the family subject to
British ratification. In returm, the
British offered protection to them
and created a small nation. The
Kuwaitis imported thousands of
slaves to work for them and their
interests.

The British treaty blocked the
Russians in their ambitions and
discouraged the Turks from assert-
ing themselves in Kuwait, and it
also discouraged the Germans from
extending the Berlin-Baghdad

railway to the Gulf.
13 family were also refugees
in southern Iraq, and in
1902 Abd-Al- Ibn Saud and his
followers fought the Turks, a battle
that ending with the death of Ibn
Rashid, defenders of the Ottoman
Empire jn the area. They then went
on to defeat the Hashmites in the
area then known as Hijaz. Ibn
Saud was proclaimed king of Hijaz
and Najd, the area now called
Saudi Arabia.

Kuwait became stabilized as a
kaimakam, @ small town under the
jurisdiction of the Iraqi city Basra.
The Turks allowed Al Sabah to

rom 1895 the Al Saud

become a part of the local govern-
ment.

In the now romanticized Law-
rence of Arabia days, the British
aided the Arabs in overthrowing
the Ottoman Empire in the region.

At the end of the first world war,
the United Kingdom High Com-
missioner, Sir Henry .McMahon,
gave the Arabs guarantee of auto-
nomy over their lands. But, at San
Remo, Italy, in the post-war boun-
dary negotiations, the British and
French decided to create a series
of small nations in the area, pro-
bably to weaken and divide the
Arabic people. -

At the Cairo conference in April
1921 Winston Churchill decided
that Faisal should be king of the
state of Iraq. In the following year
Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the
U.K. held a conference to establish
borders between the three coun-
tries, but it failed and there were
no borders until recent times.
Iraqis and Kuwaitis demonstrated
against the division of their coun-
tries, but the British and the Al
Sabah family split the two coun-
tries, creating a series of "neutral
zones" that can still be seen on
maps. ;

There was great political instabil-
ity and intrigue in those times:and
for decades afterward. Saudi Ara-
bian families killed hundreds of
Kuwaitis, eventually occupying 40
percent of their land. Ibn Saud
ruthlessly murdered and deprived
Kuwaitis to entrench his power as
king in the region.

On July 14, 1958, the Iraqis
revolted and killed the British-
appointed king, whom they per-
ceived as a traitor. I remember that
day personally. I saw the dead
king being pulled through the

Steve Ramzi: Terrace resident

has had no communication from -
his family in traq since the—

bombing began.

streets of Baghdad by the neck of
his robe. I remember I had a small
stone and made to throw it at his
body, but my mother stopped me,
saying that we must respect the
dead even if they are traitors.

In 1961 the Iraqi president Abdul
Kariem Kassem took over Kuwait,
but the British stopped him. Iraq
again entered Kuwait in 1969
under president Ahmed Assan Al
Baker, pulling out with the under-
standing that Kuwaitis would res-
pect the border and not raid Iraqi
oil reserves. But when the Iran-
Iraq war began, Kuwait began
pumping oil from disputed areas
on the border. Saddam Hussein
protested to the Saudis and the
United Nations but nothing came

Of it, The additional oil pumped by

Kuwait’s Al Sabah family, coupled
with increases in Saudi production,
had the effect of lowering the
world price of oil and
consequently further weakening
Iraq’s economy. Now Iraq has
reoccupied Kuwait after 150 years.

his crisis could have been
resolved by the Arab
countries, but it seems

that oil is the life blood that flows
in the veins of American politi-
cians. The U.S. interest is well
known, the U.K. interest is well
known, and the complexity of the
situation is compounded by the
animosity between Israel and Iraq.
President Bush’s scenario is
wrong. No blood should be spilled
over cil. In his various capacities
in the U.S. government both before

and during his presidency, Bush
helped the Shah of Iran and then
got rid of him, helped Ferdinand
Marcos and then got rid of him,

helped Manuel Noriega and then.

got rid of him, and now he has
helped Saddam Hussien and is in

the process of getting rid of him..

This is mafia-style. politics. There
is fear expressed about the deve-
lopment of nuclear bombs in Iraq,
yet Israel reportedly already has

156 nuclear weapons of its own. .
The idea of a Middle East peace .

conference is a great idea, and the
U.S. should listen to what 300
million Arabs — and a billion
Muslims — want. Israel, Syria,
Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, the
Palestinian Liberation Organiza-

tion, Jordan and Egypt all have to |

be part of the “peace talks in order
to settle the problem in a parallel
way, .

The occupation of Palestinian

lands will still remain the great

question. When. Egypt and Syria
declared war on Israel in 1967,
Iraq and Jordan didn’t know, the

Palestinians and ali other Middle

East nations were surprised. Egypt
and Syria lost, but how is it that
the Palestinians were made to pay
for it by forfeiting their land? They
want their land back — like the
Lithuanians ~— and they look at
Saddam Hussein as their hero
because they believe no one else
cares about them.

The drums of war reach to
heaven, and as my mother used to
tell me, "Listen son, if Jesus Christ
couldn’t make it in the Middle
East, nobody will and nobody can
until God wills it." I pray for peace
and the hope that the Prince of
Peace Jesus Christ will save us all.

Editor’s note: Steve Ramzi was
born in Baghdad of Arabic and
Greek parents and grew up in the
Tragi city. He has lived and
worked in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria,
Germany, the U.S.A. and Canada.
He travelled to Kuwait in 1962. He
is currently living in Terrace and
works as.a medical diagnostic
sonographer at Mills Memorial
Hospital.

tribes in the area, the family of i

Shaikh Mubarak Al Sabah.

Since 1534 all of Iraq had been
under the domination of the Otto-
man Empire, The Kuwaiti tribes
hated the Turks, as the Saudis did,
and the two groups asked for help
and protection from the British,
who at first refused because the
land was under control of another
government, the Turks.

In 1898 the Russians took action
to establish a warm water port and
naval base on the Persian Gulf —

that was and still is the dream of |

the Russians. So the British
stepped in and struck a treaty of
friendship with Shaikh Mubarak Al
Sabah of Kuwait in an effort to
balance the political developments

they saw from Russian actions in |
the Gulf. Mubarak’s brother was |

murdered by Mubarak’s family

because he opposed
Kuwait from Iraq; 90 percent of

the other Kuwaiti tribes fought
against Mubarak because they
were loyal to Iraq. But the |
Mubarak Al Sabah family were
. gupplied . with arms. from. the

splitting |

"No blood for ail." About 100 Caledonia Senior Sec
at Skeena Junior Secondary signed a petition to be se

a aaa

ondary students took to the streets last Wednesday after lunch and students

nt to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The message from the youths Is clear... -

they don't want war in the Middle East.

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