Democracy Must Wait Until Kuwait Is Rebuilt, Senators Told

Kuwait’s prime minister told visiting U.S. senators Saturday that democracy will have to wait until security is restored and the country ravaged by Iraq’s invasion is rebuilt.

Sheik Saad al Abdullah al Sabah, who is also the crown prince, said that moving Kuwait toward greater democracy is an “obligation and commitment.”

But he told a 17-member Senate delegation making a one-day visit to Kuwait that the government’s “first priority is the security situation.”

“Then after comes the reconstruction and rebuilding of our country. Then comes work in the political field.”

Many Kuwaitis, especially those who endured the seven-month Iraqi occupation while the government of the ruling Sabah family was in exile in Saudi Arabia, have demanded a rapid move toward parliamentary elections with an enlarged franchise.

The emir, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, dissolved Parliament and restricted press freedom in 1986 after a series of guerrilla attacks amid the Iran-Iraq War.

The government has refused to set a date for elections.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) told the prime minister: “We hope you’ll study freedom and that greater individual freedom will be given to Kuwaiti citizens.”

Saad told Warner: “Maybe you have listened to voices here and there, and these people do not represent the majority of the Kuwaiti people. . . . Our society is not divided into ruler and ruled people.”

The senators earlier flew by helicopter to the occupied Iraqi border town of Safwan, where they met troops and were briefed on the state of a rebellion against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the nearby city of Basra and elsewhere.