we write for history, not only to learn from it but to help us not to make the same mistakes.
on the 12th of august 1990, i heard from the bbc news about the arrival of the former iraqi ambassador to kuwait to confiscate the documents from the ministry of foreign affairs, after iraq invaded our homeland.
since i knew him and had enmity with him, i decided to leave the country for fear i may be targeted and i ended up in riyadh, and ‘de facto’ i became head of substances committee and a big crowd of volunteers worked under me.
after two months of exhaustion, work 18 hours a day, and due to the difficult psychological situation of my family, i decided to move to dubai.
i handed over the entire custody and trust to the late hamad al-nakhilan, and i went to our ambassador in riyadh, brother abu wael ‘abdel rahman al-bakr’ and handed over to him the computer in which were all details including the names of all those who were living in saudi arabia and how we spent the eighty million dollars, which i had received from the government of exile in taif to spend on ‘kuwaiti refugees’, including the names of ‘dishonest citizens’ who succeeded in stealing from the committee, through fraud and swearing, and giving wrong information, and thus generous aid received several times, whether through the use of multiple ids or sending wives and children to demand generous aid ... and so on.
the ambassador was shocked by the amount of fraud and forgery to which public money was exposed and the names of persons who were involved in looting the money. i felt he was embarrassed, looking for an answer, and after a moment of silence that seemed long, he took out from his desk drawer a copy of the holy quran and asked me to swear that i do not have a copy other than revealing names!
i refused to swear because the one after me can print whatever he wants, and i promised him that i would not reveal the names of thieves and protect them from being leaked out to others if he promised to disclose it to the government in exile in taif.
i remembered this incident while i was reading the news about our minister of social affairs, maryam al aqeel, who had dismissed the chairman and the treasurer of a cooperative society, holding them responsible for the serious financial fraud in that cooperative society.
i also remembered that it was the thousandth time that a minister or minister of social affairs would be content with just the dismissal of the head or a member of a cooperative society, or dissolving the entire board of directors, and appointing or electing the new board members without punishing those who had looted the money of the cooperative.
what happened with this cooperative and particularly at these difficult circumstances we are going through is very similar to what happened during the abhorrent days of the invasion and occupation, when public money was looted.
we hope her excellency the minister of social affairs will use her powers and refer the president of this society and its treasurer to the public prosecution not only for retribution but also to recover the money of the shareholders that they had stolen so that at least for once it becomes a lesson for others.
i do not know why i remembered the ‘dishonest citizens’ who robbed us in (the riyadh committee), thirty years ago.
if i browse the names, perhaps i will find among the names, after twenty or thirty years, some of them have become mps, ministers, imams of mosques and preachers who have money, prestige and ‘repression’.
note: confused you, rain ... if i keep quiet about you, you will think that you have been given protection. and if i respond to you, i will give you the importance that you do not deserve. neither you nor those who asked you to attack me.