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Kuwait
Kuwait -- RECONSTRUCTION AFTER THE PERSIAN GULF WAR
Postwar Society
The invasion and occupation had a transformative effect on virtually
every aspect of Kuwaiti life. Iraqi troops plundered and looted
the city of Kuwait. Iraqi occupation forces, according to reports
of human rights monitoring groups, tortured and summarily executed
those suspected of involvement in the underground opposition movement
that quickly emerged.
In the course of the occupation, more than half the population,
foreigner and citizen alike, fled Kuwait. After the reestablishment
of Kuwaiti sovereignty in February 1991, and the restoration of
basic services soon afterward, the population began to return.
In May 1991, the government opened the doors to all Kuwaiti citizens
who wished to return. The government was far more reluctant to
readmit nonnationals, whom it considered a security risk and whom
it regarded as not needed in prewar numbers owing to the postwar
constriction of the economy. Consequently, relatively fewer nonnationals
were allowed to return. A National Bank of Kuwait report estimated
the total population of Kuwait in March 1992 at 1,175,000 people,
53 percent of whom were Kuwaitis, compared with an estimated 27
percent Kuwaitis of the 2,155,000 population on the eve of the
Iraqi invasion in 1990.
The postoccupation Kuwaiti population differs sharply from that
before the invasion. The population is divided psychologically
between those who experienced the direct horror of the Iraqi occupation
and survived and those who spent the war abroad in what seemed
a relatively comfortable exile to many of those who stayed in
Kuwait. But the shared experience has unified the country in other
ways. Because Kuwait is a small country with large family groups,
almost every Kuwaiti lost family members to the Iraqi forces,
and there is continuing uncertainty over the 600 or more Kuwaitis
that remain prisoners in Iraq. The fate of those who disappeared
is an issue of national concern. Regardless of personal losses
and experiences during the occupation, the society as a whole
has been traumatized by the memory of the invasion and by the
uncertain future. A government led by a ruling family that fled
in the face of the Iraqi danger can do little to dispel this ambient
fear. One expression of the insecurity is a general concern about
lawlessness, both a breakdown in some of the peaceable norms that
had united prewar Kuwait and a breakdown in the government's ability
to enforce those norms owing to the widespread possession of guns
(a result of the war) and the reluctance of a still fearful population
to return those guns to the state. After the initial lawless months
following liberation, the government recovered control of internal
security and reinstituted the rule of law.
The position of nonnationals in postwar Kuwait is very different
from that of citizens. Perhaps two-thirds of the foreign population
fled during the invasion and occupation. Most of those who fled
have not been allowed to return, notably the large Palestinian
population, who, owing to the public support of Iraq by many prominent
Palestinians outside Kuwait, became the target of public and private
animosity in the months after liberation. Before the war, Palestinians
composed Kuwait's largest foreign population, numbering perhaps
400,000. By 1992 that number had fallen to fewer than 30,000.
In the first postwar days, many Palestinians who remained became
victims of private vigilante groups, of which some were apparently
linked to members of the ruling family. Human rights monitoring
organizations such as Amnesty International and Middle East Watch
have reported the murder of dozens of Palestinians and the arrest
and torture of hundreds more. The most dramatic transformation
is the exodus of the bulk of the Palestinian population. The reaction
against Palestinians and other members of groups or states whose
leaders had supported Iraq expressed itself in 1991 in a series
of show trials of alleged collaborators, carried out, according
to international observers and human rights monitoring groups,
with little regard for due process. In the face of international
criticism, the amir commuted the many death sentences, some given
for rather small offenses, that the court had handed down. Trials
that took place in late 1992, however, were regarded by international
human rights groups as being fair and respecting due process.
One of the first policy decisions the government made on returning
to Kuwait was to reduce Kuwait's dependence on foreign labor in
an effort to ensure that Kuwaitis would henceforth remain a majority
in their country. Former foreign workers are unhappy with this
policy, but there is little they can do. Divided between those
who oppose Iraq and those who do not, they pose no unified threat.
Their energy has been dissipated by individual efforts to arrange
to stay. The government and population alike remain deeply suspicious
of the nonnational population.
After the war, the government announced it planned to restrict
the number of resident foreigners, to keep the nonnational population
below 50 percent of the total population, and to ensure that no
single non-Kuwaiti nationality would make up more than 10 percent
of the total population. In December 1991, the government closed
most domestic staff employment agencies and drew up new regulations
covering the licensing of domestic staff. In early 1992, the Ministry
of Interior announced new rules for issuing visas to dependents
of expatriate workers, limiting them to higher wage earners. Looking
further into the future, the government approved a resolution
in March 1992 doubling to US$14,000 the sum given to young men
at marriage in an effort to encourage local population growth.
In June 1992, the government announced it had set aside US$842
million for end-of- service payments to foreigners.
The new policy of limiting the number of foreign workers has
had serious economic consequences. Foreigners represent many of
Kuwait's top technical and managerial workers. The exodus of most
of the nonnational population has created special problems for
an education system that in 1990 was still heavily dependent on
foreign teachers. The direct damage inflicted on school property
and looting by Iraqi forces aggravated the education problem.
Nonetheless, in September 1991 the university and vocational schools
reopened for the first time since the occupation.
The exodus of foreigners also has hampered the health care system,
as did the systematic looting of some the country's modern health
equipment by Iraqi forces. The invasion and war added some new
health concerns, which include long-term deleterious health effects
owing to the environmental damage and to the psychological impact
of the war.
Nevertheless, the same forces that generated a prewar need for
labor remain operative. A number of years are needed to train
Kuwaitis for many of the positions held by foreigners. In the
interim, indications are that the preinvasion shift away from
Arab and toward Asian labor will continue. One small benefit of
the new labor policy is that the government will save some money
on services previously provided to the larger foreign population.
The basic shortage of sufficient quantities of national manpower,
coupled with a political and social reluctance to increase womanpower,
limit the extent to which the government can do without imported
labor.
Data as of January 1993
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