Kuwait Question: Who Can Stay, Who Must Go?

KUWAIT CITY —  He was born and raised in Kuwait. He married here, had two children and has toiled for more than 10 years at the same cake plant, where he worked his way up to marketing manager.

But Ahmed, whose parents came from Palestine nearly a half-century ago, cannot vote and cannot own real estate in Kuwait. He is not a citizen by Kuwaiti law and has no chance of ever becoming one--nor do his children.

And he is fed up.

“This . . . place, these people. I give everything--everything!”

Ahmed does not want his full name used for fear of retribution. “And I get nothing back,” he said. “I want to get the . . . out of here, go anywhere.”

More than 1 million foreign workers--both skilled and unskilled--fled Kuwait during the Gulf War. Since the war’s end, there have been reports of bloody reprisals against those--mainly Palestinians--who stayed and were suspected of collaborating with the Iraqis.

But thousands of others merely sense that they are no longer welcome here. And many of these, including Ahmed, say they too would like to leave.

Once one of the most pampered societies on earth, Kuwait is clearly at a crossroads as it seeks to reshape its work force and work habits, its economy and the rights it accords permanent residents deemed non-citizens.

“We want to change,” said Salman Abdul-Razek Mutawa, Kuwait’s outgoing minister of planning, his vague statement indicative of the postwar paralysis afflicting Kuwaiti civic life.

Kuwait has many questions to answer, according to Mutawa and others: How large should its postwar population be? Which foreigners may return? Which may stay? And what rights will they have?

How Kuwait’s labor problems are settled will have a major bearing on how quickly the country recovers from seven months of Iraqi occupation--and on how fast it is able to get its devastated oil fields producing once again. Kuwait used to produce a sizable portion of the world’s oil supply; today it produces none.

Kuwait now has between 500,000 and 600,000 people, roughly one-quarter of its population before last Aug. 2, when the Iraqis invaded.

An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Kuwaiti citizens remain abroad. With much of the country still lacking basic services, many are not expected to come back until conditions improve. And of the non-Kuwaitis who streamed out of the emirate during the occupation, most are assumed to be back in their own countries with little expectation of returning.

Though an economic powerhouse, Kuwait existed in relative obscurity until Iraq’s invasion. Just how it handles its sensitive population problems will largely determine the nature of its new postwar society and, undoubtedly, will affect how the world perceives it.

For now, no one seems poised to make the historic choices. The old Cabinet resigned en masse in March and it is unclear when a new one will be installed. Though the ruling emir hinted at reforms in a speech Sunday, government officials say that no decisions of any kind will be made until a new government is seated.

The old Kuwaiti society--the one upended by the Iraqi occupation--resembled an economic caste system. The Kuwaitis essentially managed a work force who did the hands-on work, from sweeping the streets to handling bank credit lines. According to one popular adage here, the only thing Kuwaitis lifted was their money.

Kuwaiti citizens accounted for only 28% of the population and ran virtually nothing on their own--not the power plants, hospitals, oil fields or the small stores downtown.

But now what tugs deeply at the social fabric is the fact that many Kuwaitis, in a surge of postwar nationalism, want to become more self-reliant. Many want to see a Kuwaiti majority in the new Kuwait, envisioning a population roughly half as large as that before the war.

Few expect the old population mix--a diverse stew from more than 100 countries--to return. Besides the many Palestinians and Jordanians, large segments of the work force were Egyptian, Filipino, Indian, Lebanese and Pakistani.

“Once that mix is shaken up, it’s very difficult to return to where it was before,” said one U.S. government analyst.

Talk abounds here, particularly among Jordanians and Palestinians, that official decrees are in the works which will ultimately result in their being evicted from the country.

Some Kuwaitis probably would welcome such an ejection, because Palestinian leaders endorsed the Iraqi invasion and the Jordanian government seemingly acquiesced to it. Many in Kuwait appear willing to disregard the fact that throwing out vital workers might further undermine the economy or unfairly punish the many individuals who did not support Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Dozens of suspected collaborators are reported to have been killed since the Iraqi pullout and hundreds more beaten and tortured.

Mutawa denies that a mass ouster will occur, but he did not dispute the deep personal dislike that many Kuwaitis have developed for Jordanians and Palestinians.

“A Jordanian is a Jordanian is a Jordanian,” he said, citing--though not necessarily agreeing with--what he calls the logic of the Middle East. “If a Jordanian rapes your sister, then all Jordanians are bastards.”

The Jordanians, who numbered about 200,000 here before the invasion, once were considered indispensable.

Consider, for example, the situation at the Commercial Bank of Kuwait, which had 1,250 workers before the invasion. Today, it is limping along with a 137-person staff.

The bank’s general manager, Mohammed A. Yahya, said he can barely guess how Kuwaiti authorities will decide to operate the nation’s economy. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said with a shrug. “It’s a political decision.”

That most of the foreign workers have fled is apparent everywhere.

Hospitals are understaffed, garbage and debris have piled up and most shopkeepers have fled the once-prosperous core commercial area. Meanwhile, Westerners have arrived in droves to help the nation back on its feet.

However, the essential question asked by many advisers on the scene remains unanswered: Who will do the work after we leave?

“If they are going to be in control and not be outnumbered by foreigners, then they are going to have to learn how to be mid-level managers and workers,” said Maj. Edgar Seely, assigned to the U.S. Army civil affairs unit here.

Not unlike the old British upper class, native Kuwaitis combine a questionable devotion to work with a great thirst for luxury, splendor and travel. Servants and expensive cars were in ample supply in a society where oil money abounded.

“We have become spoiled,” said Saeed Shammas, a former diplomat. “Life was too easy for us.”

Some in the business community would clearly be pleased if, as the emirate rebuilds, more Asian workers were allowed into the country and fewer Arabs.

“They have no political ambitions and that in itself is a big plus,” said banker Ali Hamad Bahar.

Also, Asians traditionally have worked for less money than members of other ethnic groups.

As it now stands, foreign workers--even those born in Kuwait--complain that they are treated as perennial outsiders. To be a Kuwaiti citizen, one must prove that his family resided in the emirate for seven decades.

Foreigners are allowed to stay in Kuwait as long as the government renews their employment permits. Complain to a Kuwaiti supervisor about money or working conditions, workers say, and you run the risk of being kicked out of the country with few avenues of appeal.