Danny Rubinstein skriver følgende i Haaretz i dag om Arafats nye regjering:
**************************
Sunday, August 16, 1998
=A0
In Arafat's cabinet, more cats to guard the cream
=A0
By Danny Rubinstein
After the new Palestinian cabinet won a vote of
confidence last Sunday, the crisis that had vexed the
Palestinian leadership for nearly a year seemingly
came to an end. Palestinian Authority Chairman
Yasser Arafat immediately left for another
diplomatic mission, as usual, this time to South
Africa, and the various arms of government in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip resumed their routine
activities.What's left from the crisis is a grouping of
28 opposition members within the 88-member
Palestinian Legislative Council, and a large group of
functionaries and activists who learned yet another
dazzling lesson about Arafat's methods.
The history of the crisis is by now well known:
About a year ago there were numerous reports of
corruption and waste in the Palestinian government.
One of the Legislative Council's committees
investigated, confirmed the reports about financial
irregularities, and even named ministers who were
involved. Members of the cabinet then resigned, and
Arafat asked the council to wait until he composed a
new government. The announcement of the new
cabinet was postponed time after time until
Wednesday of last week, when Arafat summoned the
council and read the new lists of ministers.
Most council members were astonished to find that
almost all the ministers suspected of corruption had
not been dismissed. The main change in the cabinet
was adding another 10 ministers and giving three of
the previous incumbents appointments as "ministers
without portfolio." In other words, not a new cabinet
but a bloated version of the old government.
The details are interesting. Most of the new ministers
- 8 out of 10 - are members of Arafat's Fatah
movement and the majority are also members of the
Legislative Council. As least five were considered
members of the opposition to Arafat - until their
appointment.
Arafat's reason for appointing so many ministers
from inside Fatah is that he knows very well that the
real opposition lies inside his own movement and
not in other organizations. The old Palestinian left
has more or less dissolved since the end of
Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe. Leftist
organizations such as the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for
the Liberation of Palestine, as well as the communist
party, have become groups of a few dozens activists
with no support in the street. Arafat calls them
"cardboard" organizations.
The real opposition is in the Islamic front led by
Hamas. Arafat persistently tries to rope them into his
government and they just as tenaciously refuse. The
only people who agree to join are Islamic activists
who have left Hamas. With a nonexistent left, and a
Hamas that Arafat cannot tempt with ministerial
appointments, the only relevant opposition is
internal, inside the Fatah, and it is with them Arafat
has to make a deal.
Of the eight new Fatah ministers five were known
members of the opposition to Arafat, led by Sa'adi
Krunz from Gaza who was chairman of the
committee that investigated the corruption and has
now been named minister of industry.
He was joined by other corruption investigators such
as Yusuf Al Tzafia from Gaza, now minister for the
environment, and Hikmat Zeid from Jenin who was
appointed minister of agriculture. In other words,
three of the seven legislators who decried corruption
in the cabinet were invited to join the same cabinet
and were pleased to comply.
Arafat is well known for this method of inviting
more cats to guard the cream. Two other new
ministers from Fatah also displayed some opposition
in the past to Arafat: Rafik Natshe from Hebron and
Salah Ta'amra from Bethlehem - though the latter
seems somewhat embarrassed by the appointment
and said that he is still thinking whether to accept it.
The appointment of the new ministers crumbled the
opposition within Fatah, and did the same in the
council, since 24 cabinet ministers are also members
of the council.
Arafat has never ruled by creating an aura of fear
around him, and people do not hesitate to criticize
him. But he knows very well how to punish those
who do attack him. The new cabinet included three
ministers without portfolio who had lost their
previous ministerial jobs.
One of these is Sheikh Talal Sidr, a Muslim activist
from Hebron who is not a member of the council and
does not come to its meetings. The two others, who
are better known, got the hint and immediately
resigned.
These are Abed el-Jawad Saleh, the former
agriculture minister, and the former minister of
higher education, Hanan Ashrawi. Both had been at
odds with Arafat in previous years. He appointed
them as ministers to silence them and indeed neither
criticized Arafat or his polices during their terms in
office.
Arafat tried this method of ministerial appointments
to silence criticism with other people like Dr.
Haidar Abdel Shafi, but he has consistently refused
any appointment. Saleh and Ashrawi agreed, and
now Arafat has decided to kick them out.
They voted against the new cabinet last Sunday and
thus joined the opposition in the council. But their
public credibility has been damaged. Arafat showed
them up as loudmouths easily silenced with
ministerial appointments. Who will believe them
now, when they are out of office, and start criticizing
again?
Despite all the maneuvers, about one-third of the
council, 28 members, voted against the new
government. Of these 11 were members of Fatah,
activists who rose to prominence during the Intifada,
like Khatem Abed Kahdr from Jerusalem, Husam
Khader from Nablus, Kedoura Fares from Ramallah
and Jamila Seidam, the widow of a Palestinian
martyr from Khan Yunis.
Most of the other members of the opposition are
independent, mainly from Gaza with some measure
of allegiance to the Islamic Front and Hamas.
The only question is why Arafat needed this
torturous maneuvering. Why did he not simply fire
two or three of the corrupt ministers and appoint a
small efficient cabinet?
All of his old acquaintances know the reason. Arafat
never fires corrupt leaders. Some say that he even
encourages corruption among those around him in
order to make his own lifestyle more prominent.
Arafat is known for a simple, even ascetic existence
with hardly any family life. For most of his life, and
sometimes even today, he slept on a mattress in his
office. He wears the same uniforms, eats simply, is
always at work and has no use for entertainment.
Arafat always kept the financial management of
Fatah affairs to himself and does the same today in
the Palestinian Authority. Beside the usual public
budgets, he always has another private fund with
which he pays for the various needs of the people
around him. These funds are used for both personal
and public purposes. Arafat arranges things in a way
that makes all the people around him financially
dependent upon him. The key to his one-person rule
is financial centralism. In the same way, he is loath
to share information, which he prefers to keep to
himself.
He operated in this fashion in the corruption scandal.
He did not fire the corrupt ministers since his regime
is based on contributions - in other words bribes -
and dispersal of benefits that he can bestow. Rumor
has it that one of the newly-appointed ministers gave
him a few dunams of land in the center of Nablus
before his appointment. He told nobody about the
composition of the new cabinet until he got up on the
council's podium and read the list.
One of his severest critics, Khatem Abed Khader
from Jerusalem, says that the problem is not whether
there is one or many corrupt people but in the lack or
order in the entire system. He says that in exactly the
same way Arafat behaves capriciously with the
money, the heads of the Palestinian security forces
routinely ignore personal human rights.
"We still have rule without law," he says, "and this
is why we will not be able to get to an independent
democratic state."
Most of the council members who voted against the
new government this week would agree with him.
=A9 copyright 1998 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
*******************************************
Hilsen Knut Rognes
- Knut
knrognes@online.no (Knut Rognes)
http://home.sol.no/~knutro