Al-Thani Family's Qatar History Revisited: Part 5

As the 2017 World Almanac and Book of Facts noted, "military ties" of the U.S. government with the Al-Thani absolute monarchical government in Qatar "have been expanding" and "Camp As-Sayliyah, a base near Doha" in Qatar, "served as a command center for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, March 2003." In addition, "a 10-year defense cooperation agreement" between the Democratic Obama administration and the Al-Thani regime was signed on December 10, 2013. Yet most people in the United States know little about the history of Qatar during the last few hundred years. For example:    

A high percentage of the people who live and work in Qatar have, historically, been foreign nationals rather than full Qatari citizens. As Rosemarie Said Zahlan noted in her 1979 book, The Creation of Qatar:

"Almost half of the population of Qatar immediately prior to the oil era were foreigners--Baharians,Iranians and Africans...The population, which stood at approximately 28,000 in 1939, had probably fallen to 25,000 during the years of World War II...In 1939 roughly half the population lived in Doha, the capital city...Roughly 39 percent of the entire (Qatari) population...in 1939 were foreigners. Of these, 6,000 were Negroes who had been originally slaves; rather than leave Qatar, they continued to live there...The number of Persians who settled in Qatar grew in the 1920s, and by 1939 there were an estimated 5,000 living in Qatar."

By 1977, 64 percent of Qatar's population were foreign national workers, a majority of whom were non-Arab foreigners, including 25,000 foreign workers from Pakistan. In 1970, 83 percent of all workers in Qatari were foreign workers.  According to the 2012 book by Georgia State University Professor of History Allen Fromherz, Qatar: A Modern History:

"...Qatar's population...is now at around 1.7 million, more than 80 per cent of which consists of expatriate workers from around the world, servants and employees of the relatively small...Qatari population of around 225,000...

"In 2009 there were more than 1.2 million males in Qatar compared with some 350,000 females. Most of these males are single...or married men who have left their families...Similarly, non-Qatari females are also predominantly single when in Qatar...The influx of expatriate labor only really began in Qatar in the late 1960s. By the late 1970s, however, the numbers were rapidly increasing...

"...Around 7 out of 8 workers were non-Qatari in 2007. Most laborers are men in their twenties and thirties from South Asia. The number of women brought to Qatar as expatriate workers is much lower...There were only about 30,000 Qataris in the early 1960s...Qatari labor sponsorship law...requires all non-Qataris to be sponsored by a Qatari citizens, who has control over their status, visa, conditions, salary, and potential expulsion..."

Al-Thani Family's Qatar History Revisited: Part 4

As the 2017 World Almanac and Book of Facts noted, "military ties" of the U.S. government with the Al-Thani absolute monarchical government in Qatar "have been expanding" and "Camp As-Sayliyah, a base near Doha" in Qatar, "served as a command center for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, March 2003." In addition, "a 10-year defense cooperation agreement" between the Democratic Obama administration and the Al-Thani regime was signed on December 10, 2013. Yet most people in the United States know little about the history of Qatar during the last few hundred years. For example:   

By the 1940s, the Al-Thani family in Qatar no longer was able to enrich itself by exporting pearls to foreign markets. As Rosemarie Said Zahlan's book The Creation of Qatar observed:

"The pearling...trade was dealt a crippling blow, from which it never recovered, in the 1930s. The international economic depression of 1929, which apparently decreased the demand for luxury items, coincided with introduction into world markets of the Japanese cultured pearl..."

But by granting UK imperialism's Anglo-Persian Oil Company [APOC] a concession in 1935 to exploit and profit from Qatar's then-undeveloped oil resources, the Al-Thani family member who held Qatar's emir position between  1913 and 1948, Abdullah Al-Thani, was able to more greatly enrich the Al-Thani family; as oil began to be discovered and then exported from Qatar after World War II. As Georgia State University Professor of History Allen Fromherz noted in Qatar: A Modern History, by the end of World War II: 

"The entire population of Qatar had fallen to 16,000. Entire villages that had survived for centuries were depopulated as tribes emigrated en masse to neighboring, more prosperous shores. In 1944 only 6,000 fishermen were engaged in the pearl harvest as opposed to 60,000 some 20 years before...

"...The 1916 treaty with Abdullah allowed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company [APOC] and the British government to make exclusive claims to potential oil deposits in Qatar. As the pearl industry declined in the 1920s Sheikh Abdullah...was eager to sign an oil agreement with APOC that would allow him to consolidate his position...By 1935...he finally signed the oil concession with APOC...Abdullah received a large payment of 400,000 Indian rupees upon signature of the agreement, with a further 150,000 to be paid to him personally each year. This amount was increased to $300,000 Indian rupees after the sixth year...A political agreement was also signed, securing British control over oil operations in Qatar and increasing British interference in Qatar's internal affairs. Shortly after the concession was signed by APOC, the company was transformed into an affiliate of the Iraq Petroleum Company, similarly controlled by the British, and renamed Petroleum Development Qatar Ltd., the predecessor to Qatar Petroleum..."

(end of part 4)

Al-Thani Family's Qatar History Revisited: Part 3

As the 2017 World Almanac and Book of Facts noted, "military ties" of the U.S. government with the Al-Thani absolute monarchical government in Qatar "have been expanding" and "Camp As-Sayliyah, a base near Doha" in Qatar, "served as a command center for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, March 2003." In addition, "a 10-year defense cooperation agreement" between the Democratic Obama administration and the Al-Thani regime was signed on December 10, 2013. Yet most people in the United States know little about the history of Qatar during the last few hundred years. For example: 


Between 1913 and 1971, Qatar was a colony alone of UK imperialism, within which Al-Thani family members like Abdullah Al-Thani (1913-1948), Ali Al-Thani (1948-1960) and Ahmad Al-Thani (1960-1972) governed as absolute monarchs in support of British  imperialist special economic interests in Qatar. As the 1979 book The Creation of Qatar by Rosemarie Said Zahlan recalled, in the July 19, 1913 Anglo-Turkish Convention, Turkey's "Ottoman Empire renounced all rights to Qatar, thus formally ending their occupation of that country" and "in 1915 the Ottoman's abandoned Doha," Qatar. As a result, "the field" for solo colonial rule of Qatar, utilizing Al-Thani family members as its puppets, "was now open for Britain. A treaty between the UK imperialist government's political representative in Qatar, Percy Cox, and Abdullah Al-Thani was then signed on November 3, 1916, which stated:

"...I, Shaikh' Abdullah, further understand that I will not have relations nor correspond with, nor receive the agents of any other Power without the consent of the High British Government...I also declare that, without the consent of the High British Government, I will not grant pearl-fishing concessions, or any other monopolies, concessions, or cable landing rights, to anyone whomsoever...I undertake to allow the establishment of a British Post Office and a Telegraph installation anywhere in my territory..."

And according to the same book:

"Once the Turkish presence on the eastern coast of Arabia had been removed by the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, Britain could pursue a more forceful policy in Qatar...In March 1926 he [Abdullah Al-Thani] granted an option to the D'Arcy Exploration Company, a subsidiary of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company [APOC)..."

(end of part 3)

Al-Thani Family's Qatar History Revisited: Part 2

As the 2017 World Almanac and Book of Facts noted, "military ties" of the U.S. government with the Al-Thani absolute monarchical government in Qatar "have been expanding" and "Camp As-Sayliyah, a base near Doha" in Qatar, "served as a command center for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, March 2003." In addition, "a 10-year defense cooperation agreement" between the Democratic Obama administration and the Al-Thani regime was signed on December 10, 2013. Yet most people in the United States know little about the history of Qatar during the last few hundred years. For example:

During the pre-World War II historical era of the Al-Thani family's absolute monarchical rule in Qatar, when only the export of pearls was then Qatar's chief money-making export business operation, many of the people who lived in Qatar were slaves of East African family background; and slavery continued to exist in Qatar as late as the 1950s. As Georgia State University Professor of History Allen Fromherz noted in his 2012 book Qatar: A Modern History, "little discussed in Qatar today, slavery existed in Qatar well into the twentieth century" and "it was not until the 1950s that all slaves were manumitted..." In her 1979 book, The Creation of Qatar, Rosemarie Said Zahlan also recalled: 

"...Another large segment of the population were the negroes, descendants of the slaves who had been brought to the Gulf from East Africa during the 19th-century. Over the years, one-third of them had been able to buy their own manumission, primarily through their work in pearling. The rest remained enslaved until the middle of the present [20th] century...Today [in 1979] they are...considered as Qataris...Qatar had an extremely scanty supply of fresh water and consequently could not rely on even a subsistence level of agriculture. The only resource was the sea. It was from the sea that Qataris made their living, exporting their one precious commodity, the pearl.

"The pearling industry was the pivotal point of the economic and social structure of Qatar...The ruler levied a tax on the pearl ships, which, together with customs duties, formed the basis of his revenue...The entire male population probably left the main towns for the pearling banks during the season...

"...Qatar had a large African-population, two-thirds of whom were slaves...Almost half of the pearling population of Qatar were negroes, either slaves or former slaves; it is clear, therefore, that without this substantial addition to the population, the pearling fleet and its products would have been considerably less. Although household slaves also existed, their exact number is difficult to ascertain because they gradually became a part of the families they worked for...

(end of part 2)

Al-Thani Family's Qatar History Revisited: Part 1

As the 2017 World Almanac and Book of Facts noted, "military ties" of the U.S. government with the Al-Thani absolute monarchical government in Qatar "have been expanding" and "Camp As-Sayliyah, a base near Doha" in Qatar, "served as a command center for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, March 2003." In addition, "a 10-year defense cooperation agreement" between the Democratic Obama administration and the Al-Thani regime was signed on December 10, 2013. Yet most people in the United States know little about the history of Qatar during the last few hundred years. For example:

Were it not for the support it received, historically, from the UK imperialist and Ottoman Turkish imperialist governments after 1860, the Al-Thani family might have not become the family which has monopolized political and economic power within Qatar since the late 19th-century. As Georgia State University Professor of History Allen J. Fromherz's 2012 book, Qatar: A Modern History recalled:

"...It could be said that the current power of Al-Thani family...has no fundamental historical precedent outside of British interference...The British and Ottoman powers...were interested in legitimizing Al-Thani rule and ignoring or sidelining the rival claims of other tribes..Qatar is ruled by Al-Thani family...This was not always the case...The power of Al-Thani of Qatar is relatively young. The treaty of 1868 between Muhammad bin Thani and Britain...was the first formal recognition of a Sheikh of Qatar. Until the central prominence of Al-Thani had been established by the treaty the Qatar Peninsula lacked a cohesive independent centre...There was simply no known tradition of monarchy or dynastic successor in Qatar before the treaty of 1868 between Muhammad bin Thani and the British Colonel Pelly...

"Before Muhammad bin Thani consolidated his position in the 1850s, several other tribes and prominent men were the leaders of Bidas (Doha). As even the British acknowledged in several reports, Al-Thani were not always considered the representatives of Qatar...Al Thani did not, according to [Assistant to the India Viceroy Lord Curzon J.] Lorimer, have a deep historic claim to power...Indeed, if authority in Qatar were determined simply by which tribe had been there the longest continuously, power would legitimately not be vested in Al-Thani but in Al-Musallam...The ancestor of the current Emir did not arrive in Qatar from the Jabrin Oasis, and subsequently from Kuwait, until the 1750s...

"The power of Al-Thani would not have been nearly as solidified by the end of the 19th century had it not been for Ottoman interference...It was the British Empire that had first recognized Muhammad bin Thani as the leader of Qatar..."

When the UK imperialist government replaced the Ottoman Turkish imperialist government as the dominant imperial power in the Persian Gulf region during World War I, its 1916 Anglo-Qatari Treaty more tightly consolidated the Al-Thani family's political and economic power within Qatar. As the same book also noted:

"...The Anglo-Qatari Treaty...effectively made Al-Thani the sole legal distributor of arms, thereby giving them sole authority over the weapons and means of warfare...The consolidation in the hands of the Sheikh of the right to purchase weapons substantially bolstered his position...The fourth Article virtually hands over all of Qatar's foreign policy to the British government..."

And according to Qatar: A Modern History,  the Al-Thani monarchical dynasty member who was Oatar's emir in 1916, Sheikh Abdallah was, "given the title of Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the British Empire;" while "the 1916 treaty with Abdallah" also "allowed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company [APOC] and the British government to," not surprisingly, "make exclusive claims to potential oil deposits in Qatar."

(end of part 1)

A People's History of Syria--Part 28--section 2: January to December 2012 Period

A few weeks after armed Syrian rebel groups gained control of Aleppo, Syria on July 18, 2012, a Reuters article by Mark Hosenball, titled “Exclusive: Obama authorizes secret U.S. support for Syrian rebels”, revealed on Aug. 1, 2012 some more details about the U.S. government’s covert and overt support for the armed insurgency in Syria:

“President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, U.S. sources familiar with the matter said.

“Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence `finding,’ broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad…Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined…A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies.

“Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad's opponents.

“This `nerve center’ is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence….Turkish authorities are said by current and former U.S. government officials to be increasingly involved in providing Syrian rebels with training and possibly equipment.

“European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels…Current and former U.S. and European officials previously said that weapons supplies, which were being organized and financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were largely limited to guns and a limited number of anti-tank weapons, such as bazookas….Separately from the president's secret order, the Obama administration has stated publicly that it is providing some backing for Assad's opponents….Recent news reports from the region have suggested that the influence and numbers of Islamist militants, some of them connected to al Qaeda or its affiliates, have been growing among Assad's opponents…”

According to a 2013 Amnesty International human rights group report, in Syria during 2012, “government forces…carried out indiscriminate attacks on residential areas using aircraft, artillery shells, mortars, incendiary weapons and cluster bombs” and “together with their support militias, they arrested thousands of people.” In addition, “at least 550 were reported to have died in custody, many after torture,” others were extrajudicially executed” and “security forces’ snipers continued to shoot peaceful anti-government demonstrators and people attending public funerals.”

But the same 2013 Amnesty International report also noted that in Syria during 2012, the “armed groups fighting against the government also committed gross abuses, including war crimes,” “tortured and/or summarily killed government soldiers and militia members after taking them prisoner and carried out indiscriminate bombings that killed or injured civilians.”

The 2013 Amnesty International report described how the lives of many people in Syria were impacted by the continued foreign government-backed armed revolt against Assad’s Baath regime in 2012:

“…Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes; the UN estimated that over 2 million people were internally displaced and living under conditions of extreme hardship within Syria, and that since the beginning of the conflict almost 600,000 had fled as refugees to neighboring countries, where conditions were often harsh….A bomb attack in the capital Damascus on 18 July, for which the Free Syrian Army [FSA] claimed responsibility, killed the Defense Minister and his deputy, the Assistant Vice-President and the Head of the National Security Bureau. Two days later, armed opposition groups launched an offensive that spread the armed conflict to Aleppo, Damascus and elsewhere….

“Armed groups fighting against the government, including some linked to the FSA, …carried out suicide and other bomb attacks, and at times fired imprecise weapons such as artillery and mortars in densely populated neighborhoods, used inherently indiscriminate weapons such as anti-personnel landmines, and prepared or stored munitions and explosives in residential buildings, endangering civilian occupants…By the end of the year, armed opposition groups were reported to be increasingly threatening and attacking minority communities perceived to be pro-government…

“Government forces and militias routinely used lethal and other excessive force to quell peaceful protests calling for the `fall of the regime’. Hundreds of people, including children and bystanders, who posed no threat to the security forces or others, were killed or wounded by government snipers during protests and public funerals of “martyrs”. ..At least 550 people, including children, were reported to have died in custody, most apparently as a result of torture or other ill-treatment. Many of those who died were suspected government opponents…

“Government forces launched frequent, indiscriminate air strikes against opposition-controlled areas, prompting almost all residents of these areas to flee. Others, particularly those from minority groups, also fled their homes fearing attacks from armed opposition groups. Many camped in the countryside or sought refuge in caves; others went to live with relatives or left the country. Refugees from elsewhere resident in Syria, including Palestinian refugees, faced particular difficulties in accessing safety…By the end of the year, thousands of people were living in camps beside the border with Turkey in dire conditions…”

But the 2013 Amnesty International Report also noted that in 2012, “in February, the government held a referendum on a new Constitution that ended the Baath party’s long monopoly on power, but fell short of opposition demands for sweeping political reforms,” “parliamentary elections were held 90 days later,” and Assad’s Baath regime “announced general amnesties in January and October” of 2012.

(end of section 2 of part 28)

A People's History of Syria--Part 28--section 1: January to December 2012 Period

According to a Mar.9, 2012 article, titled “The Bloody Road to Damascus: The Triple Alliance’s War on a Sovereign State,” by The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack author and Binghamton University Sociology Professor James Petras, there was “clear and overwhelming evidence” by 2012 in Syria “that the uprising to overthrow President Assad of Syria” was “a violent, power grab led by foreign-supported fighters who have killed and wounded thousands of Syrian soldiers, police and civilians, partisans of the government and its peaceful opposition;" and that “the outrage expressed by politicians in the West and Gulf State and in the mass media, about the ‘killing of peaceful Syrian citizens protesting injustice’” was “cynically designed to cover up the documented reports of violent seizure of neighborhoods, villages and towns by armed bands, brandishing machine guns and planting road-side bombs.” In Professor Petras’s view:

“The assault on Syria is backed by foreign funds, arms and training….An objective analysis of the political and social composition of the principle armed combatants in Syria refutes any claim that the uprising is in pursuit of democracy for the people of that country. Authoritarian fundamentalist fighters form the backbone of the uprising. The Gulf States financing these brutal thugs are themselves absolutist monarchies…The armed groups infiltrate towns and use population centers as shields from which they launch their attacks on government forces. In the process they force thousands of citizens from their homes, stores and offices which they use as military outposts. The destruction of the neighborhood of Baba Amr in Homs is a classic case of armed gangs using civilians as shields and as propaganda fodder in demonizing the government.

"These armed mercenaries have no national credibility with the mass of Syrian people… The kings and emirs of the Gulf States bankroll these fighters. Turkey provides military bases and controls the cross-border flow of arms and the movement of the leaders of the so-called `Free Syrian Army’. The US, France and England provide the arms, training and diplomatic cover. Foreign jihadist-fundamentalists, including Al Qaeda fighters from Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, have entered the conflict…This is an international conflict pitting an unholy triple alliance of NATO imperialists, Gulf State despots and Muslim fundamentalists against an independent secular nationalist regime. The foreign origin of the weapons, propaganda machinery and mercenary fighters reveals the sinister imperial, `multi-national’ character of the conflict….

“…The Western backed militias have seized neighborhoods by force of arms, destroyed oil pipelines, sabotaged transportation and bombed government buildings. In the course of their attacks they have disrupted basic services critical to the Syrian people including education, access to medical care, security, water, electricity and transportation. As such, they bear most of the responsibility for this `humanitarian disaster’…A majority of Syrians prefer a peaceful, negotiated settlement and reject mercenary violence. The Western-backed Syrian National Council and the Turkish and Gulf States-armed `Free Syrian Army’ flatly rejected Russian and Chinese calls for an open dialogue and negotiations which the Assad regime…accepted. NATO and Gulf State dictatorships are pushing their proxies to pursue violent `regime change’, a policy which already has caused the death of thousands of Syrians. US and European economic sanctions are designed to wreck the Syrian economy, in the expectation that acute deprivation will drive an impoverished population into the arms of their violent proxies…”

According to Thomas Plofchen’s May 14, 2014 timeline on The Cairo Review of Global Affairs website, on Jan. 23, 2012 the Al-Nussra Front (Jabbat Al-Nursa)—a Syrian opposition armed rebel group affiliate of the Al-Qaeda group—announced its formation. And in an article by Eric Schmitt, titled “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition,” the New York Times reported the following on June 21, 2012:

“A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.

The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.

“The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks…The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.

“The clandestine intelligence-gathering effort is the most detailed known instance of the limited American support for the military campaign against the Syrian government. It is also part of Washington’s attempt to increase the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria…The United States and its allies have…turned to…aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr. Assad from power.

“…`C.I.A. officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people,’ said one Arab intelligence official who is briefed regularly by American counterparts…The struggle inside Syria has the potential to intensify significantly in coming months as powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters…Spokesmen for the White House, State Department and C.I.A. would not comment on any intelligence operations supporting the Syrian rebels, some details of which were reported last week by The Wall Street Journal…

“The State Department has authorized $15 million in nonlethal aid, like…communications equipment, to civilian opposition groups in Syria…What has changed since March is an influx of weapons and ammunition to the rebels. The increasingly fierce air and artillery assaults by the government are intended to counter improved coordination, tactics and weaponry among the opposition forces, according to members of the Syrian National Council and other activists.

“Last month, these activists said, Turkish Army vehicles delivered antitank weaponry to the border, where it was then smuggled into Syria….The United States, these activists said, was consulted about these weapons transfers….The Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, has recently begun trying to organize the scattered, localized units that all fight under the name of the Free Syrian Army into a more cohesive force…”

(end of part 28--section 1)