Word: kuwait
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Nonetheless, Kuwait's recovery could go faster. Part of the problem is that a mere 300,000 of 700,000 Kuwaiti citizens are now living in the country. General Kelly estimates only a third of all civil servants are at their posts. "You don't have the middle management in the ministries," he says. Until recently the government told Kuwaitis displaced by the war to stay away until the country's infrastructure could support them. Last week the policy changed, and Kuwaitis were authorized to start coming home...
...their work. Many of those expatriates may now hesitate to return to the ravaged city, which will lack for some time the creature comforts that once earned it a reputation as the jewel of the gulf. For the Palestinian community, which is credited with actually building much of Kuwait, there is an additional -- and legitimate -- concern: further persecution by Kuwaitis enraged by Palestinian support for Saddam Hussein. Of the 168,000 Palestinians left in Kuwait out of a prewar total of 400,000, about half are expected to emigrate...
Amnesty International reported last week that retribution aimed mainly at Palestinians was continuing and that attacks "appear to be largely unchecked." Since Kuwait's liberation, says the human-rights group, hundreds of people have been arbitrarily arrested, many of them tortured and scores killed. Members of both the armed forces and the underground resistance that flourished during the Iraqi occupation are said to be responsible. Though Kuwaiti officials promised Amnesty International investigators that "those responsible would be brought to justice," the organization accuses the government of according human rights "an extremely low priority...
Government incompetence has also complicated Kuwait's rebirth. U.S. firms ! involved in the reconstruction have complained of long delays in clearing equipment through both Kuwaiti and Saudi customs. The most alarming case of sluggishness has been in extinguishing the more than 500 oil fires set by the departing Iraqis. So far, only 12 have been put out. And of the scores of sabotaged wells that were gushing oil but not burning, only 44 have been capped. The government blames the contractors -- three of them American and one Canadian -- for the slow progress. But the companies complain of cumbersome red tape...
With a view toward running in the country's parliamentary elections, some of Kuwait's key leaders, notably Sheik Saad's closest aide, Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Abdul Rahman al-Awadi, have chosen to stay out of the new Cabinet. They prefer to agitate for democracy from the outside rather than be perceived as defending the status quo. "Whoever accepted a post in this government," says an ex-minister, "is going to have a thankless task." One of the most thankless tasks will be to sell the Kuwaitis on the timing of parliamentary elections. Many hoped the balloting...