Kuwaiti Reformers Hope to Forge Vast Change From Tragedy of War : Politics: Opposition forces are determined to turn their feudal sheikdom into a real democracy after the conflict is over.

The handwriting of the smuggled letter was barely legible, the undisciplined scrawl of a teen-ager. But there was nothing childish in the words, a pledge of determination for the freedom that Kuwaiti opposition leaders say will transform their nation from a feudal sheikdom into a real democracy.

“You can be proud,” the 16-year-old wrote to his parents from the underground, within the resistance movement in Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. “I am a man now and I will never be driven out. We are fighting for freedom and I promise we will be free.”

To Ahmed Nafisi, a spokesman for a growing movement of Kuwaitis who think the Iraqi occupation is a tragedy that can be made into a political blessing, this youth and a few thousand others who stayed behind to fight the invaders are the key and the reason for creating in his tiny desert nation the Gulf region’s first real democracy.

“These people, these boys, have the first right to decide what form of government we will have when we return,” Nafisi said, his dark eyes welling with tears as he held the letter in his hands. “They are the ones who make the sacrifices of the American soldiers worthwhile, and they won’t allow a return to despotism,” even if it means fighting the old rulers.

“These,” he said, “are the people who have been the real government” since the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion and the resulting flight of the regime and family of the emir, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, into luxurious, even decadent exile in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The attitude of the resistance toward the emir and his escaping followers was expressed in another letter from Kuwait, written to an official of the Kuwaiti Embassy here.

“Good food and drink have ruined your life,” the letter said, after recounting how the official had refused the author’s request to enlist in the Kuwaiti exile army because he was not considered loyal to the emir.

Nafisi fled Kuwait a few weeks after the invasion to help organize the exiled opposition. He was once jailed by the emir for his pro-democratic activities, and he was a member of the last elected Kuwaiti Parliament before it was dissolved by Sheik Jabbar. Nafisi said in an interview that the ruling family must accept democracy, or it will “face violence and chaos.”

And although other opposition leaders are more moderate in tone, they, and even some of the emir’s supporters, agree that Kuwait must change politically in the aftermath of the Gulf War.

“Going back to democracy is a must” in postwar Kuwait, said Youssef Jasen, a Kuwaiti businessman now living in Cairo. “The changes were already in the air before this storm, and hidden dissatisfactions are now coming to the surface.”

Echoing Nafisi, Jasen said that “those people who fought and died for their country will have a major role in reshaping Kuwait.” The royal family has made a contract with these people, he said, “a mandatory contract that is not negotiable. They have to follow it.”

In the face of such attitudes, the regime is trying to ease tensions.

“In the future, there absolutely should be and will be a different Kuwait,” said Abdul Razak Kandori, the Kuwaiti ambassador to Egypt.

“There is a government commitment to abide by the constitution of 1962,” he said. That document permitted a limited role for a national legislature but was partially suspended by the emir, who declared that henceforth he would rule by decree.

In an interview in his wood-paneled office at the heavily guarded Kuwaiti Embassy here, Kandori said: “We are all in the democratic camp. But we have to see first what is needed to overcome the effects of the invasion. You can’t have a democracy in a vacuum.”

But it is past time for Kuwait’s ruling family to take genuine steps toward achieving democracy, critics said, angrily reacting to Kandori’s comments, particularly those about the 1962 constitution. “There has to be specific movement, not just words,” Nafisi said.

One Kuwaiti, who asked not to be identified, observed: “If the (Sabah) family had only lived up to that, they wouldn’t be faced with the prospect of forced change. They’ve made promises before, and they always reneged. This time, they can’t be permitted to do whatever they want.”

Although a hereditary monarchy, the emir’s family has, at times, experimented with limited democracy, including a Parliament; a somewhat free press, and an informal opposition. But the ruling family periodically has suspended the constitution and repressed, often violently, any opposition. The last fully elected Parliament, formed in 1985, was dissolved in 1986, and the emir and his close relatives ran Kuwait by fiat until they fled in advance of the Iraqis.

In the first months of exile, the Sabah family reached out to the opposition to form a common front against the Iraqis; that move also was part of an effort to put a liberal face on the government against those who asked why Western troops should fight and die for despotism.

By promising a return to the 1962 constitution, new elections and other liberal reforms, the emir won the cooperation of many past opponents, including Nafisi, in the early days of exile.

But last month, the regime pulled back on its promises to recall the 1985-86 Parliament and to hold elections within six months of Kuwait’s liberation. It also said it would rule by martial law under the direction of a five-member committee, all members of the Sabah family or close associates.

That is not good enough, say most opposition leaders.

“People already were fed up,” said another Kuwaiti businessman, who like Jasen lives in Cairo. “But they have kept quiet and cooperated since the invasion because (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein was the greatest danger. But that is changing.”

The emir must realize, said Jasen, whose views are considered influential, that “what got the world support” for Kuwait “was the impression that the people were solidly behind him. If he loses that, he could lose the world.”

The Constitutional Movement, the largest of the opposition groups, has refused to take part in an exile council set up by the government until the emir reinstates his democratic commitment. A conference of all such organizations will meet in London next month to decide whether to withdraw totally from any cooperation with the regime.

Speaking by telephone from his office in London, Jasen Qatami, a businessman and a de facto leader of opposition groups there, skirted the issue of using violence if reforms are not made. But he clearly came down on Nafisi’s side when he said martial law, although probably necessary at first, cannot be an excuse to shackle the opposition.

“We don’t want martial law for more than six months,” he said, “and there must be a recall of the 1985 Parliament and a schedule for elections within six months.”

Past the establishment of governmental forms, which Ambassador Kandori dismissed as details, the major, common goal of the opposition is to reduce the personal power of the emir and his family.

As outlined in the 1962 constitution, the Sabah family head will always rule Kuwait, with the crown prince serving as the prime minister. In recent practice, all the key ministries have also been headed by family members.

The old regime “was swollen by mismanagement and corruption,” Nafisi said. “It regressed before because of greed.” The new government “cannot be run by the crown prince,” he said. “Our goal is a constitutional parliamentary democracy. Something like Great Britain is what we envision.”

The implications of this are enormous in Kuwait, which even in its heyday of democratic experiments was hardly recognizable by Western standards as a representative democracy.

The suggested reforms would mean revolutionary changes that go beyond politics to Kuwait’s societal norms. Under the 1962 constitution, for example, only adult males of families that existed in Kuwait before 1921 could vote; just 65,000 people out of a population of more than 2 million fit this description.

Reformists want to allow women to vote, they would lower the voting age from 21 to 18, and they would enfranchise other Kuwaitis now considered second-class citizens.

Another obstacle in the reformists’ path goes beyond the emir and his family.

That opposition, the reformers say, comes, ironically, from the West, including the United States. In the past, U.S. administrations have backed the emir, Nafisi said.

“The Western democracies have a responsibility to see that democracy is installed in Kuwait,” he said. “The United States has to ask itself if it is in their interest to support a feudal monarchy” at a time when anti-Americanism is spreading throughout the region.