BY ROHAN PEARCE
The May 12 terrorist attacks on the al Hamra, Jadawal and Vinnell compounds in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, which killed more than 90 people, were not merely assaults on "symbols" of the imperialist West. The bombers were also intent on weakening the rule of Saudi royal family.
While the timing of the bombings in Saudi Arabia and in other countries — just hours before US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Saudi Arabia — suggested a coordinated assault on US targets, the bombings in Riyadh were targeted at key props of the reactionary regime.
All three Saudi Arabian targets were associated with Saudi Arabia's role as a US client state: residential compounds housing mainly expatriates working in the country, the offices of the Vinnell Corporation and the residences of its employees.
Vinnell, founded in California in 1931, first gained a foothold in Saudi Arabia in 1975. An article by Matt Gaul in the June 1998 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, revealed that it was the culmination of a close relationship between the corporation, the US military and Washington's intelligence agencies. This relationship stretched back to the end of World War II, when the US government used the company to ship supplies to the China's counter-revolutionary party, the Kuomintang.
During the 1950s and '60s, Vinnell constructed US military airfields in Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, Thailand and southern Vietnam. According to Gaul, it was during this period that Albert Vinnell, the corporation's founder, "offered his staff's services to the [CIA], and several CIA agents used employment with Vinnell as cover for operations in Africa and the Middle East".
In Dan Briody's The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group (published by John Wiley & Sons in April), he quotes a former member of Vinnell's board who commented that the corporation had "been a cover for the CIA for decades".
In 1975, Vinnell was contracted to train the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) — the monarchy's key force for repressing opposition to its autocratic rule. A report released on May 19 by human rights group Amnesty International, G8 Arms Exports and Human Rights Violations, noted that, although the US had previously conducted military and police training operations, Vinnell's contract with the Saudi regime was the "first private American company to receive permission from the State Department to run an independent training program for a foreign security force".
'We train people to pull triggers'
A Vinnell employee described the company's role to the February 24, 1975, Newsweek: "We train people to pull triggers."
However, its role is believed to have been much more than that. Referring to the 1979 occupation of the Grand Mosque at Mecca, in which dissidents called for an end to the Saudi monarchy's rule, Gaul notes: "As the Saudi National Guard prepared to storm the mosque, US military personnel and Vinnell employees helped plan the attack. Finally, when the initial attack failed, there were unconfirmed reports that Vinnell 'trainers' were brought in to provide 'tactical support' for the final successful assault."
Between 1992 and 1997, Vinnell was owned by the Carlyle Group — a giant corporation which has had close links to successive US governments. Former government officials associated with the group and its subsidiaries include James Baker (White House chief of staff and defence secretary during US President Ronald Reagan's reign), Frank Carlucci (Reagan's defence secretary and a former deputy director of the CIA) and former US President George Bush senior.
Vinnell's latest owner is Northrop Grumman. Prior to being appointed to his current position in 2001, US Air Force secretary James Roche was the company's corporate vice-president and president of its electronic sensors and systems sector. As a favour to his former employers, Roche awarded the company, along with Lockheed-Martin, the largest Pentagon contract in history.
The May 12 attack was not the first aimed at Vinnell — in November 1995, Vinnell Corp and SANG offices were also bombed. There is no evidence that that bombing was connected to Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, the group blamed for the 9/11 attacks in the US and which the White House has accused of being responsible for the latest attack in Saudi Arabia. Responsibility for the 1995 car bomb was taken by domestic opposition groups: the Tigers of the Gulf, the Islamic Movement for Change and the Fighting Advocates of God.
In 1996, four men were arrested for the bombing. Other than a shared hatred for Saudi Arabia's role as a US client, the only connection to bin Laden was that three of those arrested had fought with the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, the reactionary army funded by the US and Pakistan to fight against the left-wing government of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Bin Laden was one of the many beneficiaries of CIA funding during the Afghan war.
Growing opposition
In terms of Saudi Arabian politics, the May 12 attacks reflect the growing opposition to the ruling royal family since the end of the 1990-91 Gulf War, a product of several factors. Washington has long propped up the Saudi Arabian regime. In return, the US has been able to control the flow and price of oil from the country with the world's largest oil reserves. This has given Washington enormous power over its imperialist competitors in Europe and Japan, who rely heavily on Persian Gulf oil.
The first Gulf War gave the US the opportunity to re-establish a military presence in Saudi Arabia for the first time since 1962, when it closed its bases there. US forces remained there for more than a decade. The presence of US troops, the US-enforced embargo against Iraq and the US-backed Israeli repression of the Palestinian insurgency fuelled opposition to the pro-US Saudi monarchy. So too has the regime's open collaboration with the US and Washington's backing for the autocracy via outfits like Vinnell.
Additionally, argues Joseph McMillan in a paper published by the Pentagon's Institute for National Strategic Studies in November 2001, the monarchy's ability to censor information coming into the kingdom is today far more limited than in the 1980s, leading to a "flood of political discourse" among Saudis.
"In 2001, Saudis got news of the world from 24-hour satellite news channels, such as Qatar's Al Jazeera. They read online editions of Arabic newspapers from London, Cairo and Baghdad and exchanged political views by fax, cell phone and email. When an Arab child is shot in Nablus or suffers malnutrition in Basra, the images are instantly and repeatedly beamed to the Kingdom and throughout the Arab world", noted McMillan.
Since the start of the second Palestinian intifada, in September 2000, Saudi Arabian cities have witnessed the street demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza. This is "something unheard of in the past", writes McMillan.
Poverty
A further factor that is deepening opposition is the economic crisis. According to the International Monetary Fund, the Saudi Arabian economy is shaky. Economic growth slowed in 2000 and 2001. In 2001, non-oil GDP growth was 2.9%, down from 3.9% the year before. According to figures from the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries, GDP per capita dropped from US$15,734 in 1980 to $7861 in 2001 (which included a drop of $16 per capita since 2000).
A May 18 article in the British Observer described how "slums sprout amid the palaces" in Saudi Arabia. "Many poor Saudis see themselves more in league with the poor of Casablanca, Karachi and Chechnya than the 30,000 pampered Saudi princes. Genuine poverty and a growing underclass grip a shrivelling Saudi economy... Its population has exploded 300 per cent since 1973 to stand at 23 million. More than 80 per cent live in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, in packed slums teeming with radicalism."
As political dissent has increased, overtly among sections of the Islamic clergy, and an "underclass" created, the Saudi Arabian ruling class is also more divided. Crown Prince Abdullah has been the de facto ruler since King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, but does not have the same authority as the king.
Abdullah also has to deal with the aspirations of the wealthy elite outside of the royal family, which resents that the capitalists within the family enjoy a privileged economic position. Should these various strands of opposition come together, the monarchy could be in trouble.
From Green Left Weekly, May 28, 2003.
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