Kuwait City Is Occupied--but Not Conquered

Occupied but not conquered, Kuwait city today is a mixture of stubborn resistance and defiance by its native population, and fear bordering on panic among the Westerners and other expatriates held hostage here by Iraq.

Nine days after Iraq’s tanks and troops invaded, food is still available, but people are aware that the supplies are likely to dwindle fast. Many people also have no way of getting cash, since most banks are still closed. For several days now, there has been little troop or tank presence in the city, with the bulk of Saddam Hussein’s army massed south of here, closer to the border with Saudi Arabia.

Within the city, Iraqi troops are stationed at key government installations and most hotels. Along the Arabian Gulf Street corniche, tanks are placed along the beach with guns facing the sea; anti-aircraft guns face the city.

There are very few checkpoints in the city. Even British and U.S. passport holders are not being harassed. On the whole, Iraqi troops have been courteous and friendly to everyone, including Kuwaitis. For the most part, they appear to be disciplined troops.

Iraqi civilians, seen arriving in convoys of cars and buses on Aug. 4, are starting to set up a civilian administration. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday they called for everyone to return to work. Those who do not, they said, should consider themselves fired.

All Kuwaitis queried said they would refuse to go to work. The response of the large expatriate community in Kuwait, which does most of the work in the country, is not yet clear. Many Filipinos, Egyptians and Pakistanis are trying to leave.

Order to Embassies

Western embassies, in addition to trying to calm their panicked nationals, are now faced with an Iraqi demand, conveyed Thursday afternoon, that they must shut down and report to Baghdad by Aug. 24. Several embassies contacted said they do not know how they are going to respond to this demand.

Outside the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew, people are allowed to travel freely around town. International telephone and telex connections have not been open since early on Aug. 3, the day after the invasion. In some neighborhoods, even local calls are not possible. The U.S. Embassy lost its phones on Aug. 3, but electricity and water are flowing, and gasoline stations are still open.

From the beginning of the invasion, Iraqi troops and tanks have stayed away from the U.S. Embassy, apparently under specific orders not to go near it.

For several nights this week, Kuwaitis went to their rooftops in a number of neighborhoods to shout slogans against the occupation. By far the bravest displays of resistance have been the daily demonstrations begun Aug. 5 by women in several neighborhoods, including Rumaithiya, Jabiriyah, Mushrif and Sabah Salim.

They gather in the late afternoon. Most of the time the women, including teen-agers, wear black chadors. Carrying pictures of their emir and crown prince, along with posters demanding Iraq’s withdrawal, they walk down the main roads for about an hour. The marches have drawn increasing numbers, starting with about 60 women and growing to at least 300.

In recent days, Iraqi troops have been responding more aggressively to these demonstrations--firing first into the air and then at the women. Various sources have reported several injuries during these demonstrations. One Kuwaiti source said four people, including a 16-year-old girl, died of injuries received during a demonstration in Jabiriyah on Aug. 8, but this could not be confirmed.

In the first few days after the invasion, selected Westerners were picked up by Iraqi forces--35 British military advisers taken from their compound, for example, and Americans taken from oil facilities and hotels. While this was going on, however, other Westerners, including Americans, were not bothered by Iraqi troops. The seizure of Westerners appeared to have stopped several days ago.

The situation for Westerners, however, took a drastic turn for the worse on Thursday when the Iraqi liaison with Western diplomats here informed them that citizens of the United States, Canada, Western Europe and Australia would not be allowed to leave Kuwait, and that diplomats of all embassies here must report to Baghdad by Aug. 24. Those who wish to leave the country must then submit their names, and they would be informed within a week of who could leave. Embassies here should do nothing other than ensure the protection of their nationals, the Iraqis said.

Said a Western source: “It’s clear we’re faced with a hostage situation bigger than any previous one.”

There are many Americans living in the U.S. Embassy compound, which includes homes and embassy offices. Hundreds of others are still in apartments throughout the city. They have organized themselves in groups to maintain contact, secure food and fuel and receive messages from the U.S. Embassy.

But many of them are suffering, at best, from cabin fever, and, at worst, from nightmares and terror. One woman, standing in a friend’s kitchen, broke into tears speaking of the possibility of a poison gas attack by Iraqi forces.

Meanwhile, the only way most of them get news is from Cable News Network, via satellite dishes in their buildings.

The perception has now set in that, indeed, it may be a long haul before the Americans and other Westerners here are allowed to leave.

The panic and fear also have spread throughout the non-Western expatriate communities here. There are long lines outside the Indian and Pakistani embassies. But the situation appears to be the worst at the Philippine Embassy where, according to staff members there, 3,000 Filipinos are now living in the embassy’s two buildings.

People are crammed inside, along the stairs, on the roof and in the basement. They are also camped outside in vans, buses and cars. Washing hangs outside the windows. One can barely move inside the main building.

Maids Left Behind

Many of the Filipinos are domestic workers whose Kuwaiti employers fled or sent them to the embassy for protection. A few worked for members of the royal family. They said they and their employers were awakened Thursday by the sound of fighting. “They panicked,” one maid said of her employers. She said they fled in cars about 10 a.m. without packing anything.

One embassy official reported that many of the Filipinos said they have no money. He said he helped them get food on the first few days, “when there were about 300 people” there. But now food is scarce. Those interviewed said they are pooling what money they have to go and buy food, or said friends are bringing it to them.

The Filipino women, having heard of rapes of some of their countrywomen by Iraqi troops, are terribly frightened. One Filipino man said Iraqi soldiers came into the house where he lived with other Filipinos, stole their money and raped two of the women. I could not find these women. I did interview one woman who said she was ordered to undress by an Iraqi but was saved when a friend came into the room.

The Iraqi presence has made people very fearful of speaking freely on the phone, since it is assumed the lines are tapped.

“Now everyone is afraid to speak, and I hate that,” said one Egyptian working here. “You don’t know who is Iraqi and who is Kuwaiti because everyone is wearing a shirt and trousers,” he added, referring to the fact that many Kuwaitis have discarded their traditional dishdashas in order not to draw attention to themselves.

On Aug. 5, three days after the invasion, 11 young Kuwaiti men met in a home. They were all friends and had been active in the pro-democracy movement before the invasion. They trailed in bleary-eyed for lack of sleep, with three days’ growth of beard. The mood in the room was angry, sullen and shocked.

Like most Kuwaitis, they never dreamed that Hussein would go so far. “I still can’t believe it,” said one 22-year-old. But also, like most Kuwaitis, they had organized to resist the Iraqi occupation, saying they would never accept rule by Baghdad. “It’s Hitler invading Poland,” said another.

It is clear that many Kuwaitis who have not left the country are opposing their occupiers. It also appears that so far there are several centers of opposition, working independently of each other. These include members of the royal family still here and in hiding; some military people; clerics in the mosques; the pro-democracy movement, and women who appear to be spontaneously demonstrating their resistance.

There also has been armed resistance, which is hard to quantify but clearly there.

The evidence of anti-Iraqi feelings has included Kuwaiti flags draped on fences and road signs or hoisted on rooftops. Photographs of the emir and crown prince have been taped to store windows, bank doors, school walls--and they are not always ripped down.

In some neighborhoods heavily populated by native Kuwaitis, such as Rawda and Rumaithiya, anti-Iraqi graffiti have been spray-painted on walls: “Down With Occupation!” “Yes to a Constitutional Kuwait!” and “Death to Saddam Hussein and His Barbarian Armies!”

On the evening of Aug. 7, shortly before dusk, I saw a young boy standing on the roof of a car driven by a family member. He was using spray paint to black out street signs so Iraqi troops could not find their way.

Pamphlets, some of them in English, have been distributed by fax to Western embassies here. One in English spoke thus of Hussein, who is known throughout the Arab world by his first name: “Do not be fooled by Saddam’s Arabism and his love for democracy. . . . What Saddam did? What a Republic he built!!! It is based on terror, kidnaping and killing.”

The Kuwaiti opposition also has begun to publish a four-page newsletter called Samood Eshab, or Popular Resistance. It has been printed twice.

In an interview, a 29-year-old member of the royal family said that “most of the second generation” of the family are still in Kuwait and, like him, in hiding. He said they are in contact with each other and, with some military people, are organizing armed resistance, mostly hit-and-run ambushes of solitary Iraqi soldiers or small groups. There have been reports of Iraqi soldiers shot, but it has not been possible to confirm them.

“We are trying to do what we can,” he said. “Time is on our side.”

Clearly, the wealthy Kuwaitis have lost much already. If the occupation and annexation are not reversed, all their financial assets will be lost. “Everyone is shocked,” said an industrial engineer who has U.S. citizenship because his Kuwaiti father married an American. “But many of them still have not realized what has happened. There are so many millionaires here--and now, they have nothing.”

But even among poor Kuwaitis, anti-Iraqi feelings are strong. In the home of one such family, a 24-year-old man said on Saturday that his family is against the occupation “because we are all one family, Kuwaitis.”

Asked if anyone in the family had gone to work that day, the man’s sister replied: “Who would they work for? The Iraqis? We don’t want them. When the Sabahs (the ruling family) come home, we will go to work.” A small girl in the house said she listens to Kuwait Radio “every day. It comes from Saudi Arabia.”

In another home of a well-known, wealthy Kuwaiti family, the feelings were the same. But in an indication of the fears pervading the city, the family has been sleeping on the first floor of their home, keeping most of the lights out at night. And while I was there, they removed their family name from the front of the house.

Many other prominent Kuwaitis who are not members of the royal family have also gone into hiding, their telephones going unanswered.

Armed resistance by civilians began Aug. 3, the day after the invasion, as small arms were distributed at various sites for civilians. The arms apparently came from military stores or armories that the Iraqis had not discovered.

Stockpile of Arms

At one civilian facility, I saw a stockpile of small arms amassed in a guardhouse by the back door. While I was there, a harried Kuwaiti loaded up his Mercedes-Benz with arms to take to the neighborhood of Kaifan.

Civilian or loyalist resistance remained strong for most of Aug. 3 in Kaifan. One source said armed Kuwaiti men were controlling part of the neighborhood. Iraqis later came in with tanks in response.

The Kuwaitis have put up more resistance than anyone expected--both militarily the first day and politically since then. Their will has clearly not yet been broken. They are helped by the fact that in most of the city the Iraqi troop presence is light. In addition, the Iraqi security apparatus, as of Saturday, had not yet made its full presence felt. Most foreign observers expect this will change once the Iraqis are more firmly in political control.

Despite the unanimous demand among Kuwaitis that the royal family must return, it is already evident that even if that happens Kuwait will never be the same again.

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