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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Pilgrimage politics
Would-be Iraqi pilgrims cheered and prayed and thanked God after the Saudi government decided to let them travel to the holy city of Mecca to perform the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrim. But when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein abruptly recalled them a day later, their joy turned into despair and many of them burst into tears as they boarded the buses back home.The drama which unfolded Saturday at the desert crossing point between Iraq and Saudi Arabia showed how tense the relationship between the two Arab countries has become since the 1991 Gulf War.
The Iraqi government said it had been forced to recall the 18,000 pilgrims after Saudi Arabia surrounded them with tanks and other armoured vehicles at the Ar'ar border point.
Iraq sent the pilgrims en masse to the Saudi border after failing to reach an agreement with the United Nations on the funding of the pilgrims, who have virtually no access to foreign currency because of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The UN Sanctions Committee had considered freeing up $2,000 for each pilgrim from the oil-for-food programme, which allows Baghdad to sell oil to finance humanitarian purchases. But the plan collapsed when Iraq demanded that the money be deposited in the Iraqi Central Bank while the committee insisted on a voucher system and travellers cheques.
The manner in which Baghdad dealt with what was a purely spiritual and religious event blended politics with theatrics. The Iraqis surprised the Saudis by camping on their border, staging demonstrations and demanding that they should be given access to the holy sites.
As television crews and reporters were dispatched from Baghdad to the camp at Ar'ar to drum up the pilgrims plight, Saddam's priority was made crystal clear: embarrassing the Saudi government by accusing it of denying the Iraqi pilgrims the means to perform one of Islam's major duties.
What spoiled Saddam's plans was the Saudi government's prompt move to allow all the Iraqi pilgrims in. King Fahd also decided that the kingdom would pay all their expenses during their stay in Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps realising he was in the process of losing out not only to the Saudis but in his entire battle to highlight the sufferings caused by UN sanctions, Saddam recalled the pilgrims and immediately launched a propaganda war against the Saudis.
Iraqi pilgrims pray at Baghdad's Al-Rashid military airport before boarding an Iraqi Airways flight to Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj. Three Iraqi planes flew to Saudi Arabia despite a UN embargo and US protest
(photo: AFP)
Mohsin Fahim Al-Farhood, an adviser at the Iraqi presidential office, said the pilgrims would not accept King Fahd's offer to pay for them and instead demanded that Riyadh unfreeze Iraq's assets in Saudi Arabian banks to allow them to pay for their expenses.
"Iraqis would never accept charity," Al-Farhood told Iraqi television monitored in Cairo. "We returned because we had to defend our honour and dignity," he said.
Al-Farhood, who headed the Iraqi pilgrims, joined a chorus of other officials in accusing the Saudis of harassing the pilgrims by deploying soldiers armed with automatic rifles and other weapons around their camps at the Saudi border point.
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, who also heads the Hajj Supreme Committee, blasted the Iraqi decision to recall the pilgrims, saying that it was politically motivated. "Public opinion in Saudi Arabia, the Islamic and Arab world and the whole world will denounce the behaviour of the Iraqi authorities," Nayef told a news conference in Mecca on Sunday.
Nayef said the pilgrims made an additional demand on reaching Ar'ar: they wanted their expenses paid out of what they claimed were Iraqi funds frozen by UN sanctions in Saudi and other Arab banks. "We made it clear that we don't mind discussing their demands at a government level," Nayef added.
But apparently unwilling to wait that long, the pilgrims packed their bags and left Mecca for the 18-hour bus ride back to Iraq. "It is a shame that a duty established by Allah and incumbent on all Muslims should be used for political purposes," Nayef said.
The short-lived drama again underscored the plight of Iraqis living under sanctions. Saddam tried to exploit the issue further by getting several thousand Iraqis -- who will now be unable to join nearly two million Muslims in the hajj climaxing tomorrow -- angry at the Kingdom. Religious sentiments appear to have become new tools of conflict in the confrontation between Iraq and its neighbours.
