OMAN: POLITICS AND DEVELOPMENT Also by Ian Skeet MUSCAT AND OMAN: The End of an Era OPEC: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF PRICES AND POLITICS PAUL FRANKEL: Comm on Carrier of Common Sense (editor) Oman: Politics and Development Ian Skeet M MACMILLAN © lan Skeet 1992 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 1992 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Totten ham Court Road, London W1 P OLP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. 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Transferred to digital printing 2000 For the people of Oman and others who have lived and worked there Contents List ofTables ix List ofPlates x Preface xi Glossary and Abbreviations xv Map ofOman xvii PART ONE: SCENES , OMAN 1990 1 Introduction 3 Capital Area 3 Patrol Boats in Port 9 Morning in Musandam 11 Down to Dhofar 13 National Health 14 A Lot of Learning 17 Ibex and Oryx 21 Haydn in Halban 25 Surprises 28 PART TWO : BEHIND THE SCENES - THE CREATION OF OMAN, 1970-90 31 First Things First, 1970-75 33 Background 33 Qaboos takes over 35 Dhofar War 41 Developments in Muscat 52 Second Thoughts, 1975-76 71 Growth, 1976- 90 80 External Affairs 80 The US connection 80 Gulf Cooperation Council 90 Security 97 vii viii Contents Economy and Infrastructure 100 Oil 100 Finance 103 Investment 109 Education and Health 113 Telecommunications 116 Society 117 Participation 117 Law 123 Environment and Heritage 126 Women and Youth 130 The Welfare State 131 PART THREE: TOWARDS 2000 135 Introduction 137 Economy 138 Water 138 Diversification and Jobs 141 Fourth 5-year Development Plan 142 Governance 148 Foreign Affairs 154 Unity 158 Epilogue: 20th Anniversary,November 1990 162 Appendix A: Press Release, 26 July 1970 164 Notes 165 Bibliography 184 Index 187 List of Tables 1. Revenue and expenditure, 1973-75 72 2. Expenditure on defence and national security 98 3. Oil revenues: actual and inflation corrected, 1980-88 102 4. Education statistics, 1980 and 1988 111 5. Health statistics, 1980 and 1988 112 6. Electricity and water statistics, 1980 and 1988 112 7. Regional distribution statistics, by percentage (1988) 113 8. 5-year plans: estimates and actuals 144 9. Third 5-year plan (1986-90), expenditure objectives and outcome, and Fourth 5-year plan estimates 145 10. Development expenditure allocation shares 147 11. Regional investment split: third and fourth 5-year plans. 149 ix List of Plates 1. The Royal Hospital, Muscat: Accommodation Block, by kind pennis­ sion of Wimpey Group Services Ltd. 2. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Muscat, by kind permission of The Fitzroy Robinson Partnership. 3. Rusayl Industrial Estate, Headquarters Building. 4. Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, by kind pennission of YRM Partnership Ltd. 5. Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, by kind permission of YRM Part­ nership Ltd. 6. Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, by kind permission of YRM Part­ nership Ltd. x Preface There are few working Sultans in the world of 1990. In Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said , fourteenth of the Al Said dynasty;' has been ruler for 20 years. In 1970 he took over from his father a country that had oil exports but no other infrastructure. Today that country is liked, admired, worried over, envied and criticised by those who know it and, of course, by those who don't. Its per capita GNP is around $6000 which puts it statistically far ahead of most of tile LDC world, its political voice is firmly independent, its influence, within the limitations of its size, significant. That seems a fine feat for only 20 years of work. In this book I am going to see how a country starts from, as it were, noth­ ing and becomes a respected member of tile international community within 20 years; how a social infrastructure of health, education, communications and economic activity is created from a non-existent base. I also want to find out what tension s this process of development may have created and what problems it has posed for tile future. And, surely, somewhere in this story theremust be lessons that could be useful for other societies in other parts of tile world. Oman, for those who know it, is a happy place in which to live and work or to visit. Situated, coming from the West, at the far corner of tile Arabian peninsula, it is surprisingly scenic, its inhabitants surprisingly different from the Arabs of imagination or the popular press. Oman is, indeed, full of surprises for the visitor. Perhaps its present state of development is surprising also for Omanis if ever they pause to consider tile question. If not surprising, it should at least give those who knew it before 1970 a sense of wonder. Perhaps it does, although I suspect that the pre-1970 era has been relegated to a near mythological past. Grandfathers may visualise it if they dredge their memories, even some fathers and mothers, but tile vast majority of a population, at least half of which is under twenty, have experienced nothing except tile giddy pace of development under Qaboos. They now take for granted what they see as a norm, History is only of passing interest to a few. I am not in this book dealing with Oman's pre-1970 history, although tile fact that it exists and, indeed, has a long pedigree of achievement is important as a factor in moulding the Omani character. The reason for this is tha: I have done it already in a previous book .? To that extent this is a xi xii Preface companion volume to the first. It will, however, be a quite different type of book, primarily because the country itself has been transformed, and the story that is now being told bears no relation to what has gone before. The point is that Oman, for various reasons, preserved characteristics and attitudes that were part Victorian, part semi-medieval, up to 1970 and that in July 1970 it plunged into the twentieth century. This is the story of that plunge. It has not been easy for me to decide how to present the story. It is in principle a slice of history, but the difficulty in producing useful and objective current history is well known. In the case of Oman there are few documents available; worse, where they are known to exist and are self-evidently in the public domain, they are still nearly impossible to obtain. It was only by chance that I was able to find a record of some of the earlier Royal Decrees which were obviously, at the time of their publication, public documents. To find, let alone gain access, to any less public a document - from a Ministry, for instance, or the Diwan - would be virtually impossible. However, although most documents are difficult, if not impossible to come by,3 and there has been only a very limited list of scholarly publications about Oman in books or journals, there is one source of information that is surprisingly complete. The statistics and five-year plans published both in Arabic and English by the Secretariat of the Development Council moe a mine of interest and information. Anyone who wants to understand the growth and development of Oman cannot afford to be without these excellent publications. Naturally, however, they illustrate only part of the story. The other source of information is, of course, people. I have had the good fortune to talk with very many people in Oman both officially and unofficially. They have shared much knowledge with me- and it is largely on the basis of what I have learned from them that I have been able to write this book. There has to be a word of warning, however. Oral evidence, as those who have used, or relied, on it will know, is both useful and dangerous, Useful for the obvious reasons, dangerous because people are often and quite unwittingly unreliable with their memories. I have checked and double checked what I can but it is not always possible to do as much as one would wish. There is a further point. People in general, but in the Arab world more so than in the West, are extremely sensitive to criticism, perceived or real; states even more so. Oman is no exception. I have always made it clear in my interviews that what I hear is off the record and that no quotations or information will be attributable to individual persons. I believe that to be Preface xiii the only practical way in which one can and should operate. It does mean, however, that the historian in oneself is somewhat frustrated. Much as one would like to give specific references for this or that statement it is not possible to do so.