Powerless in Jeddah



THE FIRST SIGN that there was any trouble happened the night of my birthday earlier this month. I had just had dinner at the house of friends who live in a building next to mine. We were talking in front of the television when suddenly everything went off: The lights, the air-conditioning and of course, the TV. We were having a brownout, or as they like to say in the Indian Subcontinent, load shedding.

The weather, which had until the first few weeks of May been tolerable, had just turned hot and humid that week. Instead of being bearable, the heat soon made us feel hot and bothered. My Filipino hosts lit candles and we continued chatting a while longer. After 20 minutes it was obvious that this power cut was going to be a long one. Bidding my hosts good night, I returned to my building to see if it was in the dark too. Sure enough it was, and I even found the owner of both buildings standing outside along with several other residents. I asked him what was going on, and he said he didn't know, as the electricity company wasn't answering their phones.

That power cut lasted for about an hour and a half. By the time the lights came back on I had already fallen asleep in my bed. I only got up to switch the airconditioner on and turn several lights off, before falling back asleep.

At first I thought that perhaps the power cut was because of the new buildings that were fast going up in my neighborhood. Could they be hooking up these buildings to the power grid, thus needing to cut the power temporarily while they did so? At 11:30 at night? Not likely!

I thought nothing more of it until last Sunday when suddenly the power went off again at 2:30 p.m. while I was watching TV. I called my friends next door, and they too were having a brownout. Great, I thought, this is my day off and I was missing the weekly omnibus edition of "Eastenders." I called the owner of my building to complain and seek an explanation. He didn't have one except to say that, "the electricity company is nasty." To kill time and take my mind off the heat, I grabbed a novel and began reading. At 4 p.m. the lights came on again.

The next day at work I overheard a colleague say that his wife had just called to complain of a power cut. The time was 2:30 p.m. Finally, I thought, I had found someone else who was also experiencing power cuts, and he didn't live in my district. I wasn't alone!

Sure enough, the Saudi Electricity Co. admitted in a Saudi Press Agency story this week that it indeed was cutting power to certain areas in the whole Western Province for several hours at a time as it didn't have enough capacity to meet increased demand at peak times now that the weather had turned warmer and more humid. It apologized for the inconvenience, and explained that several generators were out of service at its Shuaiba plant.

I find it hard to believe that a country like Saudi Arabia, which has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, can experience power cuts. I experienced the horrible power cuts that the Philippines endured during the early 1990s, and those lasted for hours on end. The Philippines tackled the problem by expanding power capacity, although brownouts do still happen occasionally.

I just thank my lucky stars that I don't live in the southern districts of Jeddah. There the power cuts reportedly lasted from 10 to 24 hours! Imagine that, what horror!

Dollar diplomacy

A FRENCH NEWSPAPER, Le Journal du Dimanche, printed an interesting story this week, claiming that the head of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guards had been paid off by the US Central Intelligence Agency just days before US troops entered Baghdad last April 9. Indeed, the Americans encountered hardly resistance when they entered the Iraqi capital and were never confronted by the Republican Guard. The newspaper said that the Republican Guard chief was flown out of Iraq on a US military plane, presumably with his money, to a US base outside Iraq.

This only confirms previous reports that CIA agents laden with bags stuffed with millions of dollars had likewise bought off opposition to American occupation in Afghanistan by paying off Afghan warlords.

Of course economic aid, or buy-offs to be more blunt, has always been one of the tools used by many nations to achieve foreign policy goals. The US is not alone in literally rewarding its allies with money for supporting American goals. The problem in Iraq and Afghanistan is that all of the payoffs were done secretly, records of which are probably buried in classified CIA budgets.

In the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has brought back a package of at least 365 million dollars in US security assistance after her successful trip to Washington last week.

The aid is mostly to counter the Muslim insurgency in Mindanao, with 47 million dollars going to the Balikatan 03-1 joint military exercises with US troops in Sulu. A further 70 million dollars are earmarked for promoting peace in Mindanao, with 20 million dollars to promote the peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, 20 million dollars for programs for former fighters of the Moro National Liberation Front, and 30 million dollars in economic assistance to Mindanao.

It's nice to see that the Bush administration is willing to commit large amounts of money to help overcome the poverty and the desperation that it breeds in Mindanao. Military might is needed to squash the nasty rebels who kidnap and kill innocent civilians, such as the Abu Sayyaf, but economic development and wealth creation are equally important. The young men of Mindanao must be given the chance to see that working hard and making a gainful living is preferable to the wanton killings of criminal gangs.

Mindanao needs much foreign investment in basic infrastructure and job creation. Previous attempts to pump money into the region, most recently through the administration of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, proved disastrous, with millions of pesos disappearing through sheer corruption into the pockets of local politicians. Hopefully this latest package of US aid will end up benefiting the people of Mindanao and not paying for expensive hotel suites for politicians.

Comments or questions? E-mail the author at manilamoods@hotmail.com. Visit the author's website at http://www.manilamoods.com to read past columns.