US embassy cable - 03KUWAIT5373

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KUWAIT 005373 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA DAS LIZ CHENEY AND NEA/PI ALINA ROMANOWSKI 
STATE FOR R-UNDERSECRETARY TUTWILER, ECA FOR A/S HARRISON 
STATE FOR NEA/PPD-TROBERTS, NEA/ARP-CKANESHIRO 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OEXC, KMPI, KU 
SUBJECT: MEPI FUNDING REQUEST--SUMMER CAMP PROGRAM FOR 
KUWAITI STUDENTS 
 
(U) SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED--PLEASE HANDLE ACCORDINGLY 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary:  Post requests MEPI grants totaling 
$150,000 to support two ESL summer camp programs for non- 
elite Kuwaiti youth in the 12-16 age range.  The local 
office of ChevronTexaco has agreed to fund a $75K PAS- 
initiated program that would send 10 Kuwaiti boys to an ESL 
summer camp in the US this July, and post requests a 
matching $75K MEPI grant to fund a similar program for 
Kuwaiti girls in the same age group for August.  We also 
request a second $75K MEPI grant to fund a third group of 
ten students in conjunction with an important Kuwaiti NGO. 
Post believes that according younger, non-elite Kuwaitis in 
the 12-16 age range an opportunity to mix with students of 
diverse religions and national origins in a US environment 
would serve to counter the lessons in insularity and 
intolerance they receive in Islamist summer camps in the 
Gulf, and would have an important multiplier effect on their 
extended clan and school communities.  End summary. 
 
2.  (SBU) Post approached ChevronTexaco with a proposal to 
send ten Kuwaiti boys ages 12-16 from non-elite areas of 
Kuwait to the US for four weeks in July 2004 to participate 
in an English-language summer camp, and ChevronTexaco has 
agreed to fully fund this program with a $75K grant to 
Amideast.  The camp, which is located in Palm Beach, 
Florida, is part of the Global Language Institute run by St. 
Scholastica College in Minnesota and focuses on English 
language training for international students ages 12-17. 
The program will be administered by Amideast in conjunction 
with the Kuwait office of UNESCO.  UNESCO has a program in 
operation in some of Kuwait's public schools that focuses on 
international awareness and cooperation, and can assist in 
getting the word out to the target schools and communities. 
Working with UNESCO will remind our audience that the US has 
rejoined this UN organization and is committed to 
multilateral objectives.  It will also obviate the 
requirement to work through Kuwait's Ministry of Education, 
whose liberal-minded minister is regularly (and falsely) 
accused of seeking reform of the country's educational 
curricula out of pressure from the US Embassy, and who would 
(we think) be hesitant to do anything that could elicit more 
criticism from Islamists in the National Assembly. 
 
3.  (U) Students will be chosen based on the results of an 
Arabic language essay competition on the subject of the 
celebrated medieval Arab historian and thinker Ibn Khaldun, 
who prefigured the western sciences of historiography and 
political science in his works.  The question: "In the 
'Moqadema,' the great Arab historian and thinker Ibn Khaldun 
analyzed the cultures and peoples of his time from a 
perspective of respect and tolerance.  What skills and 
abilities do you think Arab students need today to carry on 
that tradition of understanding and knowledge of other 
countries and regions of the world?"  PAS staff will read 
and grade these essays for the benefit of the selection 
committee, which will be composed of ChevronTexaco, AMIDEAST 
and UNESCO. 
 
4.  (SBU) Post has also been approached by the Kuwait 
Teachers Society (KTS), a 15,000-member organization 
dominated by moderate Islamists, for help in ESL training 
for English teachers and students.  The KTS has expressed 
strong interest in a similar summer camp program in the US 
for ten students, and we think that such a program would 
allow us to enhance our relationship with this important and 
influential educational organization. 
 
5.  (SBU) Goal and justification: In media reports and in 
conversations with mission contacts, moderate Kuwaitis 
increasingly express concern about the influence of 
conservative Islamist ideology on Kuwaiti youth, which is 
manifested through the agency of summer camp programs, 
teacher and peer pressure (as one middle school principal is 
quoted as enjoining her students) "to not imitate the 
Christian west," and promises to university and secondary 
school students of assistance upon graduation from a 
powerful Islamist network.  Newspaper reports allege efforts 
by school administrators to impose the wearing of the 
traditional Muslim headscarf on girls whose parents do not 
want their children to wear such attire, and report Islamist 
ire at mild Ministry of Education plans (as yet unfulfilled) 
to update social science and other curricula by removing 
references to Jews and Christians as enemies who seek to 
impose their beliefs on Muslims.  At the same time liberal 
commentators bemoan the apparent inability of progressive 
elements of Kuwaiti society to offer alternative programs, 
saying that liberals in Kuwait offer much talk but little 
action when it comes to countering organized Islamist 
programming.  Concern is particularly acute for that 
percentage of Kuwait's burgeoning youth population (at least 
52 percent of the population is under the age of twenty, 
according to statistics released last December by the 
Ministry of Planning) enrolled in government schools in the 
less affluent and more conservative districts further away 
from Kuwait City.  In these regions, traditional tribal 
insularity, when combined with a dearth of non-religious 
youth activities, makes fertile ground for conservative 
Islamist political messages. 
 
6.  (SBU) Goal and Justification, continued: Post believes 
that MEPI resources would be well spent in programs focusing 
on non-elite, young Kuwaitis in the 12-23 age range that 
emphasize tolerance, respect for other cultures, the value 
of hard work and other civil society norms.  Among the 
younger segment of this group, we think that a summer camp 
experience in the US is one means of influence in this 
regard.  As the recent Djerejian report points out, English 
language skills are a sought after commodity among young 
Arabs, and PD programs should use our expertise in this area 
to engage audiences who might not be open to other 
programming. 
 
7.  (U) Action requested: We request two grants of $75,000 
each to Amideast to cover two separate summer camps--one for 
10 Kuwaiti girls and one for 10 boys--exactly similar to the 
one being funded by ChevronTexaco.  According to Amideast, 
each of the $75,000 grants would cover all aspects of the 
programs, including: 
 
--Round trip airfare for ten students and two adult Kuwaiti 
escorts 
--Accommodations, meals and excursions 
--Health insurance 
--Administrative costs 
--Pre-departure orientation for students and escorts 
--Meet and greet at US port of entry by AMIDEAST 
 
Post hopes that MEPI funds will be forthcoming for these 
important initiatives.  Thanks and regards. 
 
Urbancic