Qatar helped Al Qaida target UAE troops in Yemen — diplomat
UAE has evidence that Doha supported other terror groups in Libya, Syria, envoy tells BBC
Atop UAE diplomat yesterday revealed that Qatar helped the Al Qaida terrorist group in Yemen to target UAE forces there.
Omar Saif Gobash, UAE ambassador to Russia, told the BBC yesterday that the UAE Government has evidence that Qatar supported other terror groups in Libya and Syria.
“We were in the process of engaging with Al Qaida [in Yemen]. We have information… that our Qatari allies informed Al Qaida of our precise location and what we were planning to do. Then we received four suicide bombers at our door and we were injured,” he said, adding that the UAE Government has voice and video recordings.
“We have video evidence that we’ve managed to pick up in the field, whether that is in Libya, in Yemen.. [of] people giving instructions, known individuals giving instructions to known individuals in Libya, Yemen and Syria on carrying out certain acts,” he said.
“Everybody knows for the last few years Qatar has had a close relationship with Al Nusra, which is referred to as an Al Qaida affiliate,” the ambassador said. He said the four Arab countries boycotting Qatar — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, stand by the 13 demands that Qatar must stop supporting terrorist and extremist groups, stop meddling in the affairs of other countries and stop the incitement and propagation of hatred. He said the world understands these demands.
Meanwhile, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir said Riyadh will be very patient until Qatar complies with all the demands put forward by the four countries. Doha must stop supporting terror and extremism, he asserted at a press conference in Brussels.
When the Arab bloc severed political and economic ties with Qatar last month, there were immediate, far-reaching consequences: Flights were cancelled and rerouted, shipping routes were closed and airspace was suddenly off-limits to Qatar’s pilots. But the boycott may have the biggest effect on Qatar’s largest — and most overlooked — population: foreign workers, who make up about 90 per cent of the country’s population.
Expatriate workers are on the front line of the Gulf’s diplomatic rift because of the kafala labour sponsorship system. That system makes foreign labourers reliant on their employers for visas, accommodation and even permission to enter or exit the country.
Facing ILO probe
Even under normal circumstances, the kafala system has drawn substantial criticism. Qatar is facing an International Labour Organisation probe into “forced labour” conditions at the stadiums being built for the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Doha. Complaints include illegal passport confiscation, wage theft, substandard worker accommodation and excessive fees from recruiters.
Qatar’s diplomatic crisis has only accentuated the system’s flaws. In one particularly shocking case in June, Qataris who had been working in Saudi Arabia scampered back to Doha without leaving so much as food or water for their South Asian workers, who were stranded without sustenance, their wages or their legal sponsors.
Qatar has supposedly abolished kafala, but experts say its rebranded system still grants employers undue control over employees’ right to enter and exit the country.
Human rights violation
“Companies still have the power to block workers from leaving the country, which is an outright human rights violation, and which drives forced labour,” James Lynch, the deputy director of human rights group Amnesty International, said to the Carnegie Endowment think tank in April.
Migrant workers have other fears beyond abandonment or abuse.
For one, the boycott has precipitated fears of wage delays and job losses. After Saudi Arabia closed Qatar’s only land border, workers braced for a shock to the country’s construction sector. Any pause in the flow of construction supplies and materials leaves the industry reeling and can spell a pause on payments.
“More than 300,000 people and workers have already left Doha, and this process is ongoing. Due to this boycott, most companies are facing material shortages and construction sites are gradually being closed,” said Asrar, a foreign businessman working in Doha’s construction industry. Asrar asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear that talking to the media would jeopardise his immigration status.
“If the situation stays the same for a long period of time, then small companies will be forced to send their employees ‘on vacation’ or cancel their visas,” he said.
Sourav Ahmmad, a 21-yearold Bangladeshi worker in Qatar’s construction sector, said companies are doing exactly that, increasingly limiting the work they offer by extending leave periods from one month per year to five.
As someone who paid more than $4,000 to a recruiter to find a job in Doha, Ahmmad asked: “What’s the benefit if you won’t get any money?”
Food shortages have also made a profound dent in the pocketbooks of workers. Salaries for foreign construction workers in Qatar can be a mere $160 a month.
“Even a 10 per cent increase [in food prices] adversely affects them,” said Vani Saraswathi, a Qatar-based editor for advocacy group MigrantRights.org.
Most labourers, she said, can only allocate up to 200 riyals (about $54) for food. “Anything over that would be unaffordable for them.”
Yet the expectation is that workers must simply ride out the uncertainty. In the aftermath of the boycott, Qatar blocked some migrant workers from obtaining their exit visas or going on annual leave, effectively locking foreign workers inside the country.
Last month, the Philippines — which relies on $7.6 billion in annual remittances from workers in the Gulf - revoked the right of citizens to work in Doha, warning of an impending food crisis.
Growing fear
“If anything happens and they ran out of food and food riots take place, definitely our [workers] will be the first victims,” said Silvestre Bello, head of the Philippine Department of Labour and Employment.
The ban was later lifted, but it underlined the growing fear among migrant-exporting governments that their citizens will bear the brunt of the boycott.
Nepal is also paying close attention. Approximately 400,000 Nepalese work in Qatar, and more than a third of Nepal’s GDP comes from remittances, making the Himalayan country more dependent on expatriate workers’ paycheques.
Up to 800 Nepalese workers a day normally apply to work in Qatar, but that number has dropped by 25 per cent in July.