Did mourning Mughniyeh awaken sectarianism in Kuwait ?

Did mourning Mughniyeh awaken sectarianism in Kuwait ?

Sunday, 2 March, 2008 @ 7:48 PM

Kuwait- Hundreds of Shiite activists including Bahrainis , Iranians , Kuwaitis and Lebanese took part in a rally last month to mourn slain Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh. This caused an uproar in this nation

where one third of the citizens are Shiite Muslims.

Mughniyeh was assassinated in Damascus, Syria last month and Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of being behind his murder, but Israel denied any involvement. But Mughniyeh’s widow, an Iranian citizen accused Syria of helping the Israelis in assassinating he husband

Now Kuwait wants to deport all the foreigners that participated in the rally

Kuwaiti Interior Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Khaled Al-Sabah declared

“We will deport any foreigner who took part in the mourning rally. This is a decision we will implement and we will not back down,”

The interior minister was not specific on the number of people Kuwait intends to deport , nor when the ministry will start implementing this directive

Last month Four Kuwaiti attorneys filed a lawsuit against two Shiite MPs accusing them of being founders and members of Hezbollah Kuwait .

“We accused them of being founders and members of Hezbollah Kuwait, undermining national unity and declaring loyalty to Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” attorney Dhaidan al-Mutairi said after meeting with the public prosecutor.

The lawsuit named Kuwaiti MPs Adnan Abdul Samad, who spoke at the rally, and Ahmad Lari.

The parliamentary Popular Action bloc, which includes prominent opposition members, said it “utterly rejects and condemns” the participation of lawmakers Adnan Abdul Samad, and Ahmad Lari in the Mughniyeh eulogy which “bloodied the hearts” of Kuwaitis

The parliamentary bloc said on February 20 that it has “expelled the two Shi’ite lawmakers from its bloc for eulogizing Hezbollah’s, Imad Mughniyeh, because they disregarded the feelings of their fellow Kuwaitis.”

MP Abdul Samad described Mughniyah as a hero during his speech at the rally. This has sparked public outrage in a country that considers him a terrorist and holds him responsible for hijacking a Kuwait Airways flight and killing two of its Kuwaiti passengers 20 years ago.

The two lawmakers were only expelled from their bloc but remained in the legislature, although some lawmakers have said the two should resign from the 50-seat house.

Kuwait and sectarianism

Kuwait Interior Minister has informed his Bahraini counterpart Sheikh Rashed Abdullah Al-Khalifa about the participation of some Bahrainis in the mourning rally for Moughniyeh. But then he said “Our Bahraini brothers will always sympathize with us no matter what happens to Kuwait.”

He said he had discussed various security issues concerning Bahrain and Kuwait with Sheikh Rashed “We agreed on the need to reject any phenomenon that will push our nations toward sectarianism. Kuwait abhors discrimination and it will not tolerate any move to put a wall between Sunnis and Shiites. We are all Kuwaitis regardless of our religious or sectarian affiliations,” he added.

The Minister added “we will not allow the incident witnessed in Kuwait over the last few days to disturb our national unity, democratic process and freedom. We will also foil attempts to propagate ideologies that threaten our national unity. Anybody with such ideas should practice his beliefs in other countries as this is totally unacceptable in Kuwait.”

Obviously Kuwait is aware that awakening sectarianism will be bad news for its national unity, specially since it is sandwiched between Iran , Iraq and Saudi Arabia ( see map) . Besides one analyst said ” all Kuwait has to do is look at Lebanon and see what sectarianism has done there to its national unity. This should be the best lesson to Kuwait to steer away from sectarianism “

Lebanon takes issue with Gulf states’ travel warning

By Ferry Biedermann in Beirut

Published: February 29 2008 02:00 | Last updated: February 29 2008 02:00

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Travel advisories issued by Saudi Arabia and two other Gulf countries warning their citizens not to visit Lebanon could have a serious impact on the Lebanese economy, the country’s minister of finance told the Financial Times yesterday.

“Targeting them is not an innocent action,” Jihad Azour said about visitors from the Gulf countries. “I suspect that this could also be to increase the pressure on the Lebanese economy.”

He was speaking in his bureau in the heavily fortified prime minister’s office in central Beirut. Mr Azour and several other ministers have been operating from the relative security of the PM’s office for about a year, since political tensions escalated with the opposition, which is led by the proSyrian and pro-Iranian Hizbollah movement.

The minister said he had requested information on the nature of the threat against Saudi citizens as well as against those of Kuwait and Bahrain, which have also issued travel advisories for the troubled Mediterranean country over the past week. “I didn’t get hard facts showing that those threats are real threats,” he said, but added that for the economy perception counted more than the actual threat level.

Other political sources have said that the Gulf governments are in fact worried about a new confrontation between Hizbollah and Israel. The two sides fought a devastating war in 2006 and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s leader, has sworn revenge against Israel after the killing of top commander Imad Moughniyeh in Damascus two weeks ago. Israel denies involvement in the killing but has increased its level of preparedness.

Saudi Arabian officials have linked the travel advisory to a spike in violent clashes in Lebanon at the beginning of the year, although the violence has abated over the past week, despite continuing political tensions.

Saudi Arabia is a main backer of Lebanon and its anti-Syrian government. Saudi and other Gulf investors are important to the economy, as are tourists from the region.

Mr Azour confirmed that Lebanon had asked Saudi Arabia to deposit another $1bn (£503m, €659m) in the central bank in Beirut in addition to the $1bn that the kingdom deposited during the 2006 war to stabilise Lebanon’s finances. Saudi Arabia had agreed to the request but the details were still being worked out, said the minister.

The request was meant to reassure foreign investors and to address limitations on foreign borrowing, he said. Foreign borrowing needs authorisation from parliament, which is not able to hold regular sessions owing to the political deadlock.