ZCZC
BFF-10
SAUDI-DIPLOMACY-CANADA-RIGHTS
After Canada-Saudi row, West confronts risk of speaking up
RIYADH, Sept 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic brawl with
Canada has exposed what Western officials call “new red lines” in their
engagement with the oil-rich kingdom, deterring nations from publicly
criticising its human rights record.
A furious Saudi Arabia last month expelled Canada’s ambassador and froze
all new trade after Ottawa denounced a crackdown on activists in the Gulf
state, in an increasingly combative approach to international censure.
Canada has refused to give ground, vowing to always stand up for human
rights globally, even as diplomats say high-level negotiations are ongoing
between the two countries to resolve differences.
But Canada appears to be standing alone.
“We are coming to terms with the new red lines,” said a Western official,
explaining why hardly any allies have vocally backed Canada’s stance.
“We are trying to understand: Can we still do critical tweets from foreign
ministries in our capitals? What’s going to get you PNG’d?” the official
added, referring to the expelled Canadian envoy being declared persona non
grata by the kingdom.
Major Western powers including the United States — a key ally of Saudi
Arabia — have not publicly asserted support for Ottawa.
Last month, the European Union had planned to release a public statement
effectively backing Ottawa’s position on human rights, a Western source told
AFP.
But the plan was dropped, with European and EU ambassadors instead
delivering a “demarche” — a formal diplomatic note — in a private meeting
with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.
“Western countries will very much be wary of openly criticising Saudi
domestic policy,” Bessma Momani, a professor at Canada’s University of
Waterloo, told AFP.
“The Canadian case has proved that lots of business deals could be lost if
criticism of Saudi Arabia upsets its rulers.”
Spain on Thursday said it will sell 400 laser-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia,
involved in a ruinous bombing campaign in Yemen, after initially blocking the
2015 deal.
The U-turn comes after reports emerged that Riyadh was considering
cancelling a 1.8-billion-euro warship contract with Spain — a deal that
involves 6,000 jobs in a country with one of Europe’s highest unemployment
rates.
– ‘Silence is deafening’ –
Analysts say it illustrates how Saudi Arabia is increasingly using its
economic muscle to quell foreign criticism under its young de facto leader,
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
And it appears to be succeeding.
“The prince has definitely tamped down criticism of Saudi domestic and…
foreign policy particularly with regards to Yemen, since the kerfuffle with
Canada,” said Momani.
“The silence of Canadian allies is deafening.”
The row with Ottawa erupted after an Arabic language tweet on August 5 from
the Canadian embassy in Riyadh — calling for the “immediate release” of
activists jailed in the kingdom — infuriated the Saudi government.
At a press conference last month, Jubeir did not specify the kingdom’s
exact demands for Ottawa, insisting only that Canada’s perceived interference
was a “big mistake”.
Multiple Western officials said Canada was asked to delete that tweet,
which in Arabic is seen to have the potential to go viral in the kingdom, an
absolute monarchy known for its tightly controlled public messaging.
While the message was also tweeted in English, a Western official said the
Arabic version was interpreted locally as an attempt to “communicate
directly” with Saudi people — a serious infraction in the eyes of the
kingdom.
Canada refused to delete it, the sources told AFP, and the embassy’s once
low-profile Twitter account has seen its following jump from a few hundred to
more than 12,000.
The contentious Arabic message has seen thousands of retweets.
– ‘Megaphone to shout criticism’ –
Saudi officials privately insist that polite, closed-door engagement is a
more effective diplomatic tool than public denunciations of the kingdom, long
condemned for its human rights record.
“Using a megaphone to shout criticism may not work,” another Western
official told AFP.
“But who in the (Saudi) government do we talk to about human rights? There
are no clear channels of engagement.”
The Saudi information ministry’s Centre for International Communication did
not respond to a request for comment.
In recent weeks, the kingdom has detained a number of human rights and
women campaigners, some of them accused of undermining national security,
with scant public information about their whereabouts or the legal status of
their cases.
Canada is hardly the first country to be censured for speaking up.
In March 2015, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Stockholm over
criticism by the Swedish foreign minister of Riyadh’s human rights record.
And the kingdom appears to have scaled back its dealings with some German
companies amid a diplomatic spat with Berlin, sources say.
But for Western nations, the choices are clear-cut.
“If the objective is to preserve business contracts then public criticism
is not a means to engage,” said Momani.
“But if the intention is to support political liberalisation and civil
society actors then public criticism is important to signal to domestic
actors and the international community that Saudi policies are unacceptable.”
BSS/AFP/MRI/0842 hrs