Agencies  --  Arab News

BRUSSELS, 20 February 2004 — Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said yesterday he was skeptical about US efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world and warned against demanding too-quick reforms in the Kingdom.

“We would like to learn from you but we would like you not to impose things on us,” Prince Saud said in a speech at the European Policy Center, singling out the US ambassador to the European Union, Rockwell Schnabel, in the audience several times.

“Even in your schools you prevent the use of the cane to teach students,” he added.

The prince said he was hoping for more information from the Bush administration about reports that it is preparing to launch this June a “Greater Middle East Initiative” modeled on the 1975 “Helsinki pact,” which the West used to press for greater freedoms and human rights behind the Iron Curtain.

“The results on the Soviet Union we all know,” Prince Saud said. “It was broken up, it suffered economic deprivations, its people the unhappiest people for at least two decades.

“So if this is presented as a lure to the Arab countries, we really don’t see much lure in the Helsinki accords.”

US President George W. Bush proposed spending an additional $40 million on pro-democracy programs in the Middle East.

Prince Saud cited homegrown efforts already underway in the Kingdom toward modernization and limited reform, citing statistics showing more females in Saudi high schools than boys today and nearly 1 million Internet connections as examples.

“Saudi Arabia has the largest digital access within the Arab world,” he said.

Prince Saud said the Saudi military had to be called out to protect female students when they were first granted modern education in the 1960s, adding that most of the letters today to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, opposing more rights for women come from women.

He said reforms were being enacted with “deliberate speed,” which he defined as “speed that does not push you to irresponsible actions before people are ready to absorb them, nor delay to the extent that you kill” the reforms.

“Gradual change may seem slow or less impressive to some,” he said. “But if reforms are to endure and be effective, they have to respond to the will of the people and maintain the unity of the nation.”

Meanwhile, an Arab League official said in Cairo yesterday that Arab leaders meeting at a summit next month in Tunis would study US and European attempts to introduce democracy to the region.

“These initiatives and ideas will certainly be on the agenda of the summit” scheduled for the end of March in Tunis, Hesham Yussef, a senior official at the Arab League, said

The different proposals will be “evaluated” by leaders of the 22-member League, according to Yussef, the director of the office of League Secretary-General Amr Moussa.

Arab states could welcome the plans “if they are consulted on and included in” the drafting process, Yussef said.