Of kings and diplomacy

[Chief Editor]

Of kings and diplomacy


Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:26:00
MICHEL COUSINS | ARAB NEWS




As with any country, so much of the history of Saudi Arabia has been the history of its leaders. Arab News first appeared just a month after the assassination of King Faisal and two months later, on June 19, 1975, the paper led with the news that the regicide had been beheaded in front of a 6,000-strong crowd in Riyadh the previous day.

The reign of King Khaled was a boom time. On the back of much higher oil revenues the Kingdom was able to undertake massive infrastructural developments. These made the headlines and were driven, in no small part, by the future King Fahd who had been named Crown Prince on King Khaled's accession.

It was also a time of intense Saudi diplomatic activity - again, a reflection of Crown Prince Fahd's concerns and his political focus, which were, of course, likewise reported constantly in the paper. There was the continuing support for the Palestinians (then as now under the heel of the Israelis). But there was also war in Lebanon between Lebanese and Palestinians and among the Lebanese themselves, stirred up by outside forces, most notably Israel.

The year 1979 saw revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of neighboring Afghanistan. As high-speed economic development was happening in the Kingdom there was also political ferment throughout the region - and Saudi Arabia devoted a great deal of energy and time trying to pour oil on troubled waters while at the same time being determined to stand up to any perceived Soviet threats and maintain regional stability and security.

For example, there was Crown Prince Fahd's realization that the only way out of the impasse with Israel was a political solution, not a military one. It resulted in his proposals, known as the Fahd Plan, being accepted by the Arab Summit in Fez in 1981. They offered the same land-for-peace deal that is at the heart of the present Arab Peace Initiative first proposed at the Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002 by then Crown Prince Abdullah, which was later re-endorsed by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah at the Riyadh Summit in 2007. Indeed, the Fahd Plan was the foundation of King Abdullah's Arab Peace Initiative.

The Iran-Iraq war that started in September 1980 - and which in terms of numbers of lives lost became the bloodiest conflicts in memory in the region - was another field of attempted Saudi mediation.

Economic development and intensive diplomatic activity saw a constant flow of foreign dignitaries to the Kingdom and visits by Saudi leaders abroad, and all made the front page of Arab News. Some were more high profile than others, such as the state visit by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom in March 1979, or King Khaled's state visit to Germany in June 1980. It was rare for a couple of days to pass without a report in the paper of King Khaled greeting a visitor or holding talks with them.

Following the death of King Khaled on June 13, 1982, Crown Prince Fahd succeeded to the throne while Prince Abdullah became Crown Prince Abdullah.

By the time he died 23 years later, King Fahd had become the pillar of political reference, not just in Saudi Arabia but also within the entire Middle Eastern political firmament and beyond.

For the overwhelming number of Saudis King Fahd had been the only monarch they had ever known - not such a strange situation given that at the time some 70 percent of Saudis were under 17 years of age.

Throughout those 23 years, King Fahd worked continuously for peace and stability around the region - and Arab unity of action - and was rarely out of the limelight. Pictures and reports of him meeting with visiting foreign leaders and officials, overseeing meetings of the Council of Ministers or the Shoura Council or attending summits abroad were a constant feature of the paper.

Sometimes there were two or even three separate stories a day in which King Fahd figured.

On Sept. 21 1981, then Crown Prince Fahd was in Algiers. Algeria stood with Saudi Arabia as one of the seven states mandated by the 1981 Arab Summit to explain and promote the Fahd Plan to the UN Security Council. The following day his talks with President Chedli Benjadid were reported in detail alongside another article in which the king called for Arab solidarity for the sake of the Palestinians. Unity of Arab purpose was a particular quest of King Fahd and it regularly made the headlines. Just a week later, on Sept. 28, 1982, the headline was "Fahd urges Muslim unity to face enemy" - a call to Muslim pilgrims at Mina during the annual Haj pilgrimage to stand together and help the Palestinians following the massacres at Shatila and Sabra camps in Lebanon a few days earlier, and to support what he called the "holy struggle" against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Elsewhere on the front page that Tuesday there were Eid Al-Adha messages from the king to other Arab and Muslim leaders at the time. Ironically it was also reported that a message of thanks had been sent to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev for his Eid greetings to the king.

Until the state of his health started to fluctuate in the late 1990s, there was rarely a day when King Fahd did not feature, usually on the front page. This was no obsequiousness. It was a simple reflection of his hands-on involvement in government.

They were momentous times - they saw the humiliating withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan in 1988, for which Saudi Arabia had worked hard. Yet it left the country open to civil war and its eventual takeover by the Taleban.

The following year, there was the collapse of the communism in Eastern Europe presaging that of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end to the Cold War. They were, to quote Dickens, the "best of times and the worst of times."

There was liberation for so many peoples in Europe after decades of oppression, but not elsewhere. The promise of a new world order with no more divisions between East and West proved as illusory as peace in Afghanistan. While for some, to continue with the Dickens quote, it was "the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair" for others. There was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the first Gulf War. The following decade and a half continued to be a time of crisis that required all of Saudi Arabia's diplomatic skills. The collapse of Yugoslavia and the massacres of the country's Muslims; the continued absence of any solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem despite all the efforts and hopes; the 1993 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which forced 300,000 from their homes; the 1996 attacks in which 154 Lebanese civilians died in Israeli bombing raids; and numbers of smaller Israeli attacks in the following years all tested the Kingdom's geopolitical horse-trading skills.

Amid the rise of Al-Qaeda, the 9/11 attacks in the US and the terrorist attacks in the Kingdom there were a few bright spots, such as the 1989 Taif Accord, which finally brought Lebanon's civil war to an end, and the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990.

But King Fahd's reign, while seeing peace, prosperity and growth at home saw so much conflict all around, culminating in 2003 in the invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein - a still unfinished business. It called for constant Saudi diplomatic efforts at the highest levels to try and ensure regional calm.

Day after day, Arab News recorded Saudi Arabia's efforts at trying to maintain peace and stability in the region, which drew in not just King Fahd, but also the then Crown Prince Abdullah, especially when he had to stand in as regent for the ailing monarch.

The succession of Crown Prince Abdullah to the throne following the death of King Fahd on Aug. 1, 2005, changed little in the way events and personalities were covered in Arab News.

The only big change since then has been the new oil boom, which has enabled renewed massive investment in infrastructure.

New economic cities, new universities and new industries - they have made up much of the news in the past five years. But, as with Saudi diplomatic policy, they are driven from the top. It is hardly surprising then that, when written about, their stories are yet again the stories of the country's leaders.