DUBAI, Dec 13: The crown prince of Dubai told Arab rulers on Monday that they risked losing power if they did not introduce wide-ranging reforms in their countries.
"I say to my fellow Arabs in (power): if you do not change, you will be changed," Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al Maktoum told the opening of a three-day Arab Strategy Forum on "The Arab World in 2020", attended by Arab and world figures.
"If you do not initiate radical changes to restore respect to public duties, uphold the principles of transparency, justice and responsibility, your peoples will resent you, and the verdict of history on you will be severe," he said.But Sheikh Mohammad took an implicit swipe at the United States, which is seen in the Arab world as bent on imposing Western-style reforms. "Reform cannot be realized by foreign projects and ready-made plans. It cannot be realized by tanks and cannons," he said in an apparent reference to the occupation of Iraq.
Sheikh Mohammad is the driving force behind the rapid emergence of Dubai, which is part of the seven-member United Arab Emirates, into a regional business and leisure hub. But as in the rest of the UAE, there are no political parties or elections in Dubai.
Former US president Bill Clinton, one of the leaders attending the forum along with Madeleine Albright, who served as his secretary of state, for his part urged Arab states to "put more visionary people into positions of influence". These "must include women."
Mr Clinton said development could not depend on vision alone but required a complete strategy to implement it. Looking ahead to 2020, he said, Arabs had two scenarios facing them and it was up to them to embark on the right path.
"There is a negative scenario in which the Arab world would be dominated by terrorism, continuing conflict with Israel, no Palestinian state, some countries and terrorist groups seeking weapons of mass destruction, an exploding population ... and resistance to necessary political and social change," he said.
"The positive scenario is an Arab world at peace with Israel, a Palestinian state ... regional cooperation for security against terrorism, an independent Iraq with a representative government and Iran giving up nuclear ambitions."
SAUDI ENVOY: Saudi Arabia's ambassador in London, Prince Turki al Faisal, told the forum that those who oppose reform in his country will ultimately be defeated.
"The internal forces ... that resist change and development and will oppose any form of economic and resultant social change ... will finally submit to the overwhelming calls for development by the majority of the people," he said.
Political reform is one of the main topics of debate at the forum, which is being held in the backdrop of continuing violence in Iraq and a persistent deadlock in the Middle East peace process.
Both Palestinians and Iraqis are preparing for elections next month, the former to pick a successor to the late leader Yasser Arafat and the latter to choose a national assembly and provincial councils.
Saudi Arabia, stung by a string of attacks by presumed Al Qaeda sympathizers since May last year, is taking limited steps toward reform, planning municipal elections starting in February from which women have been excluded.
The US-led invasion of Iraq has undermined Washington's credibility among many Arabs already angry about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what many see as a smear campaign against Muslims after the Sept 11 attacks.
"We understood the anger caused by the criminal and deviant acts ... but we refuse the branding of all Muslims with such acts, portraying them in the ugliest images of backwardness and picturing Islam as contrary to modern civilization," Sheikh Mohammed said. -AFP/Reuters
