Arabian Peninsula State of Oman Plays Role in Middle East

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel made a surprise visit to the Arabian Peninsula Sultanate of Oman Oct. 25-26. It was part of his campaign to gain support from Persian Gulf states in Israel’s conflict with Iran. There is now talk about an upcoming visit to Bahrain.

Netanyahu said that Israel has moved closer to the Gulf Arab countries. Iran criticized the visit, saying that Israel was seeking to create divisions among Muslim countries.

Alarm over Iran’s destabilizing activities in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon has sparked behind-the-scenes diplomacy between some Arab states and Israel.

In 1980 Oman became a founding member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, and this little-known nation has long acted as a regional go-between among other countries in the region.

The Israeli leader met with Oman’s long-serving ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, in power since overthrowing his father in a coup in 1970. The two sides discussed ways to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East.

Though the two countries have no formal diplomatic relations, Oman described Israel as an “accepted” Middle East state.

The country hosted secret talks between Iran and the United States in 2013 that paved the way for broader negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

As it retains relations with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel’s enemies, might Netanyahu be seeking Oman’s help in dealing with them, as well as with Syria?

“The visit was symbolic and extraordinary,” remarked Yoel Guzansky, a Senior Researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University and author of The Arab Gulf States and Reform in the Middle East: Between Iran and the “Arab Spring.” Symbolism, he remarked, “is very important in the Middle East.”

Netanyahu’s visit came days after the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was in Oman. Sultan Qaboos has expressed interest in mediating between the Palestinians and Israel, Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, the sultanate’s minister responsible for foreign affairs, told the Manama Dialogue, the annual security conference held in Bahrain.

“We are not saying that the road is now easy and paved with flowers, but our priority is to put an end to the conflict and move to a new world,” bin Alawi told the meeting Oct. 27. In February, he visited Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Bahrain’s foreign minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa voiced support for Oman over the sultanate’s role in trying to secure Israeli-Palestinian peace, while Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir said the kingdom believes the key to normalizing relations with Israel was the peace process.

Following the signing of the Oslo Accords, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin made the first visit by an Israeli leader to Oman in 1994. Two years later, Rabin’s successor, Shimon Peres, met with the sultan. In 2008, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with Omani foreign minister bin Alawi.

From the late 17th century, the Omani sultanate was a powerful state, competing with Portugal and Britain for influence and trade in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.

Omani influence or control extended across the Strait of Hormuz to parts of modern-day Iran and Pakistan. The Pakistani city of Gwadar was an overseas possession of Oman from 1783 to 1958.

An Omani dynasty also ruled the island of Zanzibar and parts of the adjoining east African mainland.

Zanzibar was a valuable property as the main slave market of the Swahili Coast, and it became an increasingly important part of the Omani empire, until the British finally made Zanzibar a protectorate in 1890.

Oman itself came under the defence umbrella of Britain until the 1980s. It also survived a protracted rebellion based in the mountains of the southern province of Dhofar. Between 1963 and 1976 this was the scene of one of the forgotten conflicts of the Cold War.

Oman’s continued importance lay both in its energy reserves and geostrategic location, controlling the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz, through which Persian Gulf oil is shipped.

The British-led Sultan’s Armed Forces, with the help of Iran, finally defeated a formidable Marxist guerrilla movement, supported at various times by neighbouring South Yemen, China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, and Cuba. Some 10,000 civilians died.

Oman today is a relatively stable and developed Middle Eastern country, largely at peace with its neighbours.

How Democratic is the Ivory Coast?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Alassane Ouattara, the president of the Ivory Coast, learned well from his mentor, Félix Houphouet-Boigny, the benevolent dictator who ran the west African country from its independence in 1960 until his death in 1993. Ouattara knows how to play the game.

Not only does he present a positive and welcoming face to the international community and foreign aid organizations, but he also has his chief political opponent, Laurent Gbagbo, languishing in a prison cell thousands of miles away in The Hague, charged by the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity.

Under Houphouet-Boigny, the Ivory Coast became the world’s largest cocoa producer and the country prospered. The strategy of post-colonial elites was to build on the growth of the plantation economy.

Foreign companies were allowed to repatriate most of their profits with laws that facilitated foreign investments, especially French.

As a champion of French foreign policy in Africa, Houphouet-Boigny made the country the largest recipient of French foreign aid during the 1960s. He allowed the French military a base in Abidjan, from which France could project power across its former west African possessions.

But pressure by international donors to reduce state regulation in the coffee and cocoa sectors led to economic downturn. By the end of his rule, what had been called the African miracle was becoming a mirage. And things went downhill politically as well.

In 2000 Laurent Gbagbo won election to the presidency, Ouattara having been disqualified under a recently-passed law that barred anyone whose parents were born outside the country from running. (His came from Burkina Faso.)

This started a five-year civil war in 2002 between northern rebels known as the New Forces and the army. 

The Ivory Coast became divided between north and south, Muslim and Christian, Ivorian and non-Ivorian ancestry, with the northern Muslim Ouattara and the southern Christian Gbagbo bitter rivals for control of the state. 

No presidential election was held again until 2010. This time, Ouattara was able to compete. The predominantly Muslim North supported him, and the mainly Christian south backed Gbagbo.

Ouattara won but Gbagbo refused to step down. Violence ensued, ending in 2011 with the capture and arrest of Gbagbo in Abidjan by pro-Ouattara forces backed by French forces. 

Gbagbo was sent to The Hague that November, charged with various crimes, including murder, rape and persecution of opponents.

With Gbagbo out of the way, Ouattara won a second term in a landslide in 2015, capturing 83.6 per cent of the vote.

Ouattara is clearly favoured by western countries, especially France, which continues to dominate the economy of the country.

He earned a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972, and then worked for the International Monetary Fund in Paris until brought back to the country in 1990 by Houphouet-Boigny to become prime minister.

He was deputy  managing director at the IMF between 1994 and 1999.

Ouattara has been focusing mainly on economic growth, his efforts devoted to raising money and support from international institutions and attract private investment. 

His political project of making the Ivory Coast an “emerging country” by 2020 is a key element in this strategy, which also involves gaining debt relief.

Ouattara was quick to present the country as stable, in a region facing conflict in Mali and tensions in Nigeria with Boko Haram. Indeed, he insists on keeping a French military presence in the country.

To gain favourable opinion abroad, Ouattara claims to be fighting corruption as part of a good governance strategy – though it’s uncertain whether this is actually the case. 

No matter; the buzz words are aimed at those he needs to impress. This is all part of the old Houphouet-Boigny playbook.

As his ideological successor, Ouattara is the Elysée’s man in Abidjan.