THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDÁY, FEBRUARY 18, 1956.
1:
*
Veteran foreign affairs reporter Sefton Delmer spends a week-end of Arabian splendour and tells of 'The King & l'
HANDS OFF
I
Riyad, Saudi Arubla, AM spending a week- end of Arabian splen
OFF OASIS, SAYS SAUD,
and you need not worry about oil
The king looked up from sovereignty over this land his soup. "What's an official of my fathers and fore
fathers. [Buraimi.] King spokesman ?" he asked.
dour as guest of the Middle East's most formidable--and most con- troversial figure, Saud of Saudi Arabia.
Like him, I am wearing a brown Arab gown which flows down from my should-
# to my ankles, and white embroidered kerchief on my hand with two gilt cords to keep it on-presents to me from King Saud.
I have gone racing with the king the most royal, most dignifled, and eldest of the three monarchs have me!
Middie East on this trip.
I have watched him dis- tribute 50-guinen watches to a platoon of his paratroops who did an exhibition jump for him.
tall, easy-going, ex- tremely short-sighted pater- familias. King Saud looked like a benevolent eagle as he fuppl his gown and smiled through thick-lensed specta. cles while handing out wrist walch after wrist watch to his sky troops.
[Paterfamilias? I'll say so. At 61 he has 36 sons--Ad uncounted daughters.]
have dined with him among palace notables at a long, glass-covered candle- lit table while a secretary read out a news bulletin and tribesmun bodyguard watched us with hawk-like eyes, his ancient and tradi tional flint-luck gun at the rendy.
H
But, above all, I talked with King Saudat length.
I am the first Briton to do so since the clash be- tween his men and British- officered Arab troops from Muscat ira the Buraimi Oasis four months ago.
His wealth
What news have I got for you from this newly oil-rich rulera monarch reputed to his of spend £50,000,000 £120 million-a-year revenue on supporting what he holds to be an Arab national movement in countries ruled by pro-British and pre- Western Arabs?
I bring you carrot and
u stick.
THE
CARROT is 21 promise from King Saud that if we recognise his; sovereignty over disputed Buraimi he will grant an ail concession there to a British company should we want it.
THE STICK is a stick with which to beat the Western world,
It is a threat that if wel British go on being as un- friendly as King Saud thinks we are now, he will punish the West.
He will exchange' ambas- sadors with Russia, perhaps even accept arms from her. Certainly, he will put his signature to a contract with
One of his £12,000-a-year advisers from Palestine told him. The King got back to his soup looking none pleased,
too
When we had drunk our coffee I followed him into his political office and sut down beside his desk with an interpreter kneeling on the floor between us.
Then King Saud was once more friendliness itself.
Behind me
black- Hast bearded, keen-eyed Yusuf Yasin, his majesty's top political adviser. He is the he told me man who, as
controls himself,
every penny spent politically. He is the real power behind the throne.
Every now and then when I put a more complicated point the king looked up to
"I hope not to have to lay the matter of Buraimi before the Security Council, forces my But if Britain hand I shall not hesitate. The British have prodreed documents to prove
their саче. I have better ones.
"I am keeping them back for the right moment."
1 rather fancy these surprise cocuments aTe tax receipts showing that there were Saudi
PERSLA
SAUDI
ARABIA
BUDAN
GASTE
FLETSIRRA,
Jyuts
Ditfields &
see whether his Syrian-born tax gatherers at Duraimi in the adviser agreed.
Treasured
King Saud begun the con- versation by assuring me he would like to see a resump-
Lion
of the talks between Britain and Saudi Arabia on the restoration of Buralmi Onsis to him.
vosi,
Then King Saut mule his "II of conciliation. Affet Dritah's hostility to the Saudi im te Burajmi stems from a fear that Britain, by so doing, will lose the possibility of oil concessions there, I am ready to set those anxieties at rest.
Yes, just like that he p- ult con- to offer un peared cession without any strings at all.
tion:
1
can
0.1
Stu!!
"It would
matter," he said,
But I take some negotiation. am sure everything could be arranged."
Yumi, who had been koking keener and sercer than ever, nodded to the king. That was THE CARROT.
And now we come to THE
Relations with the STICK. Soviet Union.
"We are one of the few Arab States left," the king saic, "which have no relations with Uie Soviet Union, 1 can amurë you we have no desire for such relations,
Chuckles
"But if Belt persists in her present attitude towards us we shall have no alternative but to reconsider Gur present policy with a view to safeguarding our rights."
I asked the king: "What good will diplomatic relations with Russia de Saudi Arabia?" The kung chuckled as he answered; what harm will they do?"
I asked the king what he wits going to do about that rallway contract for Communist Polund.
"I understand," I said, "that ինտ the Syrian Goverment already confirmed the contrvet for their scetion of the route.
"Your najesty. however, is stall holttim uut with your decision-and yours
the main contribution to the cost of the scheme."
That is
the
15
king
I got him to confirm it once
right," more, and then I put my ques-
"How about the Amerleed. "The ques.ton of grant ing the contract to the Poles concesale # Arabia, your majesty? Would is still under consideration. the Aromeo company's conces "What decision we ultimately ston not also apply to Buraim! make in this malterung simi-, the event of Buraimi's er questions dopends on how Arabia?" the West meets our friendly integration in Saud!
The Iding looked quickly approaches," Acroso ip
As he said "similar questions" Yusuf. "Well, of
In
"I greatly treasure traditional friendship with Britain," he said. "I want to see it flourish as of old.
"But that can only be if Britain abundons its hosti- fity to us and recognises our course, this is a delicate he paused meaningly.
BURAIMI-
-isa deseri oasis. Vast oil #applies are belleyed to lie beneath I
The osals was controlled by two Araḥ lands friendly to Britain--Abu Dhabi and Muscat Oman-until 1952. Then Saudi-Arabian forces moved in.
The Saudis were driven out last October by troops of Aba Dbabl and Muscat Oman. These troops were led by British officers.
The
sinailar questions are those Soviet arms deals and Russian trade agreements which today form part of the diplo- matie arsenal of every
when fighting statcomun Western Power,
Árab
О
habitants. Was that the act of a friend? the king asked. We then got on to the Bagdad Pact and the rising In Jordan against it, which Arab nationalists in Jordan as well as British
and American ob- servers there have insisted to me was led by Egyptian agents and financed with Saudi money. But the king. absolutely denied all this.
(The Bagdad Pact is an anti- Commuulsi stance of Brain, Turkey. 1roq, Persin, and Pakistan.]
"The Bagdad Pact," the king sak, "as it stands today is of use only to the enemies of the Arab world. No true Arab will have anything to do with it.
"It will be no surprise to me if there is the same kind of rising in Iraq against the pact and Its British-paid stooges as there has been in Jordan.
Revolt
I
"The rising against the pact in Jordan was the spontaneous revolt of an angry people. swear the most holy oath that I had no hand in it.
"All these reports that 1 sent agents into Jordan and pald people to rise against the pact fabricated by are lies. Lies British officials."
[Memo to General Glubb, in am afraid the king Jordan- means
To be fair to the king and the Saudi Arabians generally yuu must hear what he has to say of the history of what he considers an outrageous breach
Britain, by of friendship
“When
Churchill asked my Jother (King Ibn Saud] to enter the war against Germany my father did so," said the king. "He did so, although there was no treaty binding him to do so, and although he thereby
Legion.1 exposed our country to attack you and your staff in the from all sides.
The king was contemptuously Indignant when I asked him whether the purpose of the recent troop concentrations on the
Jordan frontier was to invade Jordan. He said:
Friendly?
"Was that not the act of a friend? Was that not fidelity? "But how did Britain reward By rejecting our demands us? to recovery of a land that has always
to belonged
UB (Buraini] by breaking of the proceedings in arbitration
when the Geneva would lose.
"By attacking and capturing aur tiny police force in Buraimi and killing some of the in-
EXW
Concluding: A Killer Walks Among You
she
"We would never attack our brother State, Jordan,"
and
When saying goodbye to me the king repeated once more that he would like to see the
traditional old
friendship restored between Britain Saudi Arabia.
"Tell them I would be glad to resume talks about Buraimi.
"But only, mind you, if the British are ready to recognise our rights,"
(COPYRIGHT)
A JEALOUS MAN MURDERED
HIS BRIDE-TO-BE
By VALENTINE
D
DYALL
UNKIRK was over and Britain waited in the blackout be- hind her defended might for what
coastline
come.
The thoughts of soldier and civilian were of the war, of the imminent danger of invasion, and the mathema- tical odds of a bomb falling where they might be.
The blackout did not make fepy castr and in Novem- boppling the country into blackned balore a full day could be lived in daylight.
Blackout. Cover BUT neither war nor fear of
W
behind her was open only 12 inches. derer forced the body through it.......
him.
up
When he went
to the frustrated. She would not notice
third floor she was followed by her murderer. Almost gabbling Then Jackle became engaged. with frustrated fury bo mado told As is so often the case, it was demands of her and sho not to one of her, members, not him to clear off. Before she to one of the gallant officers who could reach the door of her flat paid her court OVLT the bar ho grabbed her,
and counter, or spent his off-duty pushed her against the metal nights dancing with her in the frame of the corridor window. club. She was engaged to a Mr
MacCusworth, an Air, Ministry Harder and harder he pushed Inspector, who was working in until, through the intoxication Birmingham.
of his jealous anger he realised that he had gone too, for
4
A little before she was to He had assaulted her beyond marry Mr
she endurance. MacCusworth
When they found invited a few of her more in- ter she would be taken away to timate friends and favourite hospital. Sho would fell them members to a sort of celebration who her attacker was — sho party.
might die.
To celebrate her approaching IT Was Too Late marriage with those friends who made such a fuss of her-that was too much for a jealous man, HE window. behind her was That night, it was November 2, small opening but he did not
open only 12in. It was 1940, his jealousy drove him on stop to reason. If it was to be
to a madness-to murder.
suicide she could find a bigger He started to forco At ten that night she left the window. club on the second floor of Mitre the timp, but living body, moun- House to attend to the lights of ing and bleeding from the noga that 12in space. In her car parked in the street, be through hind the building.
doing so he caused more damage to her flesh, which was to AFS. men on duty nearby doubly mark her death BOW her do that and two murder. minutes Inter re-enter the build- ing.
The Third Floor
The roof on which her dying body fell should have been brightly lit by the surrounding windows but it was an aren of dark as black na the. tar that CHE did not go straight back 10 covered it. There was no 11- the club. She probably went fuminating break in the black- to the third floor where she had out. Otherwise they might have a-small flat,
seen her while she was s
She might have told She was next been at 10.32 alive. Junt half an hour later. She thom the name of the murderer.
was dying-aplayed and crush- As it was, it was too late. Sher
ed on a first-floor roof some 201
invasion and bombs can cumpletely alter the working of the human mind. Personal and physical emotions still swayed Poland under which hun-men and women in their more - dreds of Communist en- private selves, And with no gineers and technicians one knowing what would happen would enter Saudi Arabia to became, to
next, pleasure and is seeking,
many people, ! patch up the railway that absorbing aim. serves the holy places be- Because men sought pleasure tween Датавсив and and a man was jealous of their
pleasure a woman was killed.: Medina.
and the blackout protected him.
that is in snob valge. It would When the club was closed she Even Brighton, hal pleasure to trud i algehele kinayet
for was a dance teacher, when Mecca of Londoners is a pro-high anking
and was open she was the pen the hands stopped at 10.71. Har AT the inquest later a jury re pact
danco Bibited aran-or the larger
partner
murderer had 10 minutes of that turned i verdiék of insurdeis the members. N of it. There was barbed wire civilians.
*Tacklo Buckley laingly
So everyone was happy, and half-hour in which to send her by some person or persons
known. But the police hostess
to her death,
sure they know who had been popular one, People who still it Jackio pocmed to have a lot. remember her, and remember, of flirtations, what did it matter it might have looked like the jealous Miter, knowing wine Jostens her kindly too, my that she was and if the men made a fuss of suicide, but her chest had been not enough. No one bid ween
What is it?
ค
popular
fifa and
of
all tho
below the windows of her fat was beyond ability to speak, She died almost as they found even to whisper one word..
Motor No One Saw Him her.
Her watch was smashed with
seno
ART-hong-un aghiking, alin, andi-most atirar-, höri-well, it was a part of her crushed" and, there were, bruisés him, no one could i boer" taritza
The bics and there were The news read out by the manglets in town King's Announcer was not exactly propitious to our conversation, scheduled for after dinner. A
"An official spokesman of, the Foreign Office said to day that the British Govern ment refuses to embark on any further arbitration in th Buraimi dispute,"
big on her bocky" " which were the, that he had been anywhere near Faw poople buld have job after all, be but on Jarlown distiche Wisa
But to one man It' did matter," réal, cause of her death and hid grikių Buckley during thoán 10 the prohibited certainly looked, monkeyoung One man who would watch her, been made before the
minutes. "dancing trade Anyway themed, pound com and going "and knew girl
too well that all the men Although no uhan, my hại But if there was one work of little Boom, attractive arid abás
killed there are those who know true love in his fontóuny. Then modern "16ast one gens®
would have liked, to have how and why she wen killed; yaal voordelen: - must by now romuns, officos, and Samale club, Fit was a little
litre House.
Good
Good because
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