US embassy cable - 04KUWAIT1811

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KUWAIT 001811 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR DRL/CRA, DRL/PHD, NEA/RA, INR/NESA, NEA/ARP 
TEL AVIV FOR DCM LEBARON 
RIYADH FOR TUELLER 
TUNIS FOR NATALIE BROWN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/07/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KISL, SOCI, KWMN, KU 
SUBJECT: (C) HARDLINE ISLAMISTS LASH OUT AT US -- FEELING 
THE HEAT ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS? 
 
REF: KUWAIT 1558 
 
Classified By: CDA FRANK URBANCIC; REASON 1.4 (B, D). 
 
1.  (C) SUMMARY:  An Islamist MP issued a lengthy diatribe 
accusing the US Embassy of interfering in Kuwait's internal 
affairs; he was clearly reacting to the report detailing our 
activities in support of human rights, posted on the DoS 
website.  GOK officials including the Foreign Minister 
quickly denied that the Embassy or the USG was interfering. 
At almost the same time, the Minister of Justice, a Salafi, 
publicly complained that our Human Rights Report contains 
errors.  We reached out to his office, stressing our 
longstanding desire for close cooperation to ensure access to 
all pertinent information.  The Minister reacted positively, 
chairing a meeting in which members of his Human Rights 
Committee vented resentment at perceived interference, and 
stressed that some facts mentioned in the HRR are 
commandments from God and therefore not human rights issues. 
What they did not do was refute the accuracy of our 
description.  Even some Kuwaiti Islamists attribute these 
outbursts to defensiveness brought on by the GOK's fresh push 
in favor of women's political rights.  The accusations of US 
interference are designed to delegitimize what are in fact 
home-grown reform efforts.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2.  (SBU) Much ink has been spilled in the local press this 
week over a lengthy diatribe published June 4 by MP Jassem 
al-Kandari, in which he accused the US Embassy of interfering 
in Kuwait's internal affairs.  He was clearly reacting to the 
report detailing our activities in support of human rights, 
posted on the Department's website.  He made it sound that 
activities commonly undertaken by embassies around the world 
were shocking evidence of cultural imperialism.  Even before 
the Embassy could react, the Foreign Minister rose to our 
defense, denying any interference.  The Minister of Social 
Affairs and Labor did likewise.  On June 7, the Foreign 
Minister told Charge that al-Kandari is very interested in 
the issue of the 12 Kuwaiti Guantanamo detainees; he 
suggested that could be impelling the MP to react negatively 
to USG criticism of other countries' human rights record. 
 
3.  (C) A few days earlier, Minister of Justice Ahmed Baqer, 
a Salafi (and incidentally the only elected MP in the 
Cabinet), publicly complained that the Department's Human 
Rights Report (HRR) contained errors that unfairly cast 
Kuwait in a bad light.  We seized the opportunity to contact 
his office and stress our commitment to making our reports as 
accurate and complete as possible.  To that end, we 
reiterated our longstanding desire for close cooperation with 
all relevant parts of the GOK and Kuwaiti society, to make 
sure we have access to all pertinent information.  The 
Minister reacted positively to this initiative, promptly 
inviting the Charge to a meeting in his office June 5.  To 
our surprise, the Minister was accompanied by his Ministry's 
entire Human Rights Committee.  While characteristically 
gracious throughout, the Kuwaitis were emotionally spun up. 
They viewed our HRR as an implicit criticism of their 
religion and an attempt to pressure them to depart from 
divine commandments -- notably on personal status matters, 
e.g. a woman's share of inheritance is half that of a man, 
and women's testimony counts as half men's. 
 
4. (C) On women's political rights, the Minister admitted 
that good Muslims can disagree.  One of his colleagues 
asserted that this issue had been debated and rejected 
democratically by the National Assembly (conveniently 
ignoring that it is, of course, an all-male institution). 
Besides, he argued, Kuwaiti women are better off without the 
vote than other Arab women who do have the vote but are less 
wealthy and free. Another colleague spoke of different 
concepts of freedom:  what is freedom to Americans is 
licentiousness to Kuwaitis.  The Minister defended 
restrictions on freedom of expression to preserve social 
order and prevent violence.  He did, however, acknowledge 
that our primary TIP concern in Kuwait, the exploitation of 
female domestic servants, is valid; he said he had just 
received an excellent report on this from the Ministry of 
Social Affairs and Labor.  (COMMENT:  We will try to obtain a 
copy.  END COMMENT.) 
 
5. (C) Charge underscored the USG's respect for Islam and for 
Kuwait, a friend and partner.    He explained patiently that 
our reports are descriptive, not prescriptive, and that we 
are committed to correcting any errors that we become aware 
of.  Tellingly, the Kuwaitis' specific complaints tended to 
confirm the accuracy of our report.  A follow-up meeting is 
planned for July, after the Ministry translates into English 
its voluminous (apparently paragraph-by-paragraph) rebuttal 
of the HRR. 
6.  (SBU) On June 6, Minister Baqer told the press the US is 
neither interfering in Kuwait's affairs nor planning to harm 
the country's reputation.  He claimed that the meeting had 
clarified "some factually incorrect information" in the HRR 
(though in fact, the items he cited are factually correct as 
published, e.g. women's inheritance, prohibition on Muslim 
women marrying non-Muslim men). 
 
7.  (SBU) Even some Kuwaiti Islamists attribute the recent 
outbursts against the Embassy to defensiveness brought on by 
the GOK's fresh push to extend political rights to women 
(reftel).  While the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM, 
with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood) is expressing openness 
to the idea of women's rights, and religious Shiites openly 
support such rights, Salafis and most independent Sunni 
Islamists are adamantly opposed on religious grounds; 
traditional tribalists are opposed on cultural grounds. 
 
8.  (SBU) COMMENT: To Kuwaitis who oppose the kinds of reform 
we favor, it seems self-evident that the US is the driving 
force behind those reform efforts.  Even if they could be 
persuaded otherwise, the accusation would still serve their 
purpose:  the best way to delegitimize a home-grown 
initiative is to label it an imposition by the alien 
superpower.  The latest flurry of Islamist protests comes at 
a time when liberal contacts increasingly tell us the 
Islamists have passed their peak.  Other contacts disagree; 
even if it proves true, Kuwait remains a society of 
conservative -- not fanatic, but conservative -- Islamic 
values, and it is only human for at least some Kuwaitis to 
resent being rated by foreigners, some of whose criticisms 
seem to them to reflect disrespect for their religion. 
URBANCIC