Kuwaiti Emir: Symbol of Hope and Royal Decay : Oil politics: One-family hereditary rule is common in the region. But refugees speak of ‘weakness’ in how things were run and say reform is needed.

Knots of angry, anguished Kuwaitis parade through the streets of Persian Gulf states, European capitals and American cities bearing placard portraits of a smiling man in a flowing white headdress held firm by a doubled black cord.

The bright-eyed, goateed and mustachioed face belongs to His Highness the Emir, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah. He is the symbol of hope for his pillaged, Iraqi-occupied country. At night, resistance fighters defiantly plaster his portrait on walls and utility poles in Kuwait city.

But the 64-year-old Jabbar, ruler of oil-rich Kuwait for the past 23 years, is also the symbol of a system turning sour, according to many Kuwaiti refugees and others in the Persian Gulf states.

One-family hereditary rule, and the oil revenues that made the Sabah sheiks legends of conspicuous wealth in recent decades, is the norm along the western shore of the gulf. In many ways, sheikdoms are family businesses, and highly profitable.

The Kuwaiti monarchy was toppled suddenly by Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion, and since then the emir, his court and most of his senior officials have been living outside the Saudi Arabian city of Taif, their future uncertain.

“The Sabahs must be restored to power,” said a Kuwaiti lawyer who has found sanctuary for his family at a hotel here in the Bahraini capital. “But things will have to change. There was a weakness in the way things were run.”

A Western diplomat with experience in Kuwait said: “If you wanted to do some business in Kuwait, you dealt with the Sabahs. And it’s the same with the Khalifas, the Thanis, the Nuhayans and the Sauds”--the ruling families in Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Except for occasional disputes over oil politics and can-you-top-this competition in building five-star hotels, the Persian Gulf sheiks are fraternal Arabs, walking in the shadow of Saudi Arabia. The clannish Kuwaitis carry a haughty air that offends some of their neighbors, but they are proud of their achievements.

Kuwaitis point out that their country has the gulf’s only constitution and that it was the only one to experiment with an elected parliament (male suffrage only). Jabbar disbanded it four years ago and replaced it last spring with a consultative assembly. Half of its members were appointed, the rest chosen in an election boycotted by Kuwait’s harried pro-democracy movement.

The opposition complains that Jabbar is a distant leader, instinctively peremptory, who has little patience for the give and take of politics.

“The state should be guided by collective decision and not by individuals,” argued Abdul Reda Assiri, former head of Kuwait University’s political science department, now living in the United Arab Emirates. “Its foreign policy and investments should be more inward-looking, as the nation has paid a high price for its profligacy.”

In addition, Kuwait was among the Middle Eastern nations cited by Amnesty International this year as a human rights violator. The charges are minor compared to those leveled against neighbors such as Iraq or Iran. But the London-based human rights organization accused Kuwait in March of holding about 18 Shiite Muslims without trial since September on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. The sheikdom denied the charge and said a panel would be set up to deal with such questions.

A former high Kuwaiti official insisted that the Sabahs have been generous rulers. He referred to a wide range of government-paid benefits, including subsidized housing and free education and medical care.

“Some people say they’re no good,” he said, “but they’re wrong. They didn’t take the money. They gave it to the people.”

The former official--requesting anonymity, as do most Kuwaitis with relatives still in Kuwait--conceded that the welfare state had its faults, that it created a working class of imported foreigners and a younger generation of Kuwaitis who had nothing to do but play.

“We educated our people, but we forgot to train them,” he said. “They came back from school in the States or Europe and sought jobs taken by expatriates. Well, the foreigners didn’t want to lose those jobs. They had the benefits too, and they were pocketing their salaries. They told the Kuwaitis, ‘You don’t have to do anything. We’ll do it for you.’

“That’s one lesson we have learned. We have to do the work ourselves.”

Of the nearly 2 million people living in Kuwait at the time of the invasion, more than half were foreigners. Egyptians were teachers and engineers; Palestinians and Jordanians staffed offices and Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis and other Asians swept the streets, built the roads and tended the children and houses of the middle class and the rich.

The Sabahs had developed a society with themselves at the top. Jabbar has ruled by decree with Parliament disbanded--and foreigners in the middle and at the bottom. Many of the other Kuwaitis, particularly Sabah cousins, had little to do.

“These guys are pampered,” the American wife of a Kuwaiti said. “It’s not good for them, and it’s not good for their marriages.”

The Sabah family has ruled in Kuwait for more than 200 years, in this century alternating the emirship between the descendants of Jabbar and Salem, sons of Sheik Mubarak al Sabah, “Mubarak the Great,” emir from 1896 to 1915.

Oil, discovered in 1938, turned Kuwait from a relatively prosperous trading and pearling port into a gold mine. There were no worries about politics until independence from Britain in 1961. Two years later, the first National Assembly was elected. It lasted 13 years and was dissolved by the ruling Sabah, who said it had “exploited democracy and frozen most legislation in order to achieve private gain.”

The legislature was revived by the present ruler, Jabbar, in 1981, in the perilous months after the outbreak of war between Iraq and Iran, both of which coveted the strategic territory of Kuwait. But parliamentary politics again proved too quarrelsome for the Sabahs, and the assembly was dissolved again in 1986.

“We have always had our differences in Kuwait,” the former official said, remarking on the pro-democracy movement that blossomed in the absence of a legislature. “But we’ve always come out for Kuwait.”

He and other Kuwaitis and diplomats note that the Iraqi regime attempted to draw leading members of the democracy movement into a puppet government after Iraq’s invasion. The leader of the movement, Ahmed Saadoun, a former speaker of the assembly, flatly refused and reportedly was put under house arrest.

The U.N. resolution authorizing the multinational force confronting Iraq has demanded the restoration of the Sabahs, “the legitimate government of Kuwait.” If that happens, some diplomats believe the family’s hold on power may end quickly, although they do not expect an end to the emirship.

“The system would not change,” one said. “The tribes (large, powerful families) are too strong in Kuwait. But the Sabahs might be gone in a few months.”

Other outsiders argue that Jabbar, under pressure for political rigidity, might step aside for his cousin, the popular crown prince and prime minister, Sheik Saad al Abdullah al Sabah, who comes from the Salem line of the family.

Even Kuwaitis agree that if they can get their country back, there will be political changes, with a larger voice for the assembly.

“There will be elections, there will be a parliament,” said the former official, a pro-palace man. “But we want our emir and his crown prince. Everyone wants them back. Even the opposition.”

ONE-FAMILY RULE

The Sabah family, which has ruled Kuwait for more than 200 years, originated in Najd province in what is now central Saudi Arabia. In this century, the emirship has alternated between the descendants of Jaber and Salem, sons of Sheik Mubarak al Sabah, or “Mubarak the Great,” who was emir from 1896 to 1915. Here are the members of the Sabah family who held high government posts when Iraq invaded Kuwait. All have the title of sheik:

Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, emir for 23 years

Saad al Abdullah al Sabah, prime minister, crown prince, heir apparent

Sabah al Ahmed al Sabah, deputy prime minister, foreign minister

Ali al Khalifa al Sabah, oil minister

Jabbar al Mubarak al Sabah, information minister

Salim al Sabah al Sabah, interior minister

Nawaf al Ahmed al Sabah, defense minister

Saud al Nasir al Sabah, ambassador to U.S.

Khalid al Ahmed al Sabah, minister of Amiri Diwan affairs

Nasir al Ahmed al Sabah, minister of social affairs and labor