Death of Gulf emirate ruler Sheikh Saqr prompts fight over succession
Exiled crown prince Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr al-Qasimi returns to Ras al-Khaimah to reclaim ‘birthright’ from half-brother
· Robert Booth
· guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 October 2010 17.50 BST
Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qassimi, left, the late ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, with his son Sheikh Khalid. Photograph: Nasser Younes/AFP/Getty Images
One of the most bizarre international coup attempts of recent times, whose key players include a family solicitor from Buckinghamshire and an exiled Arab crown prince, entered its endgame today with the death of Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, the world’s longest-serving ruler, who led the Gulf emirate of Ras al-Khaimah (RAK) for 62 years.
Immediately after the 92-year-old sheikh died at dawn, his eldest son, the exiled crown prince, Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr al-Qasimi, re-entered the kingdom and went to the presidential palace in a bid to reclaim what he believes is his birthright from his younger half-brother, who has claimed the crown. It follows an extraordinary two-year public relations and lobbying campaign by the exiled sheikh who employed Peter Cathcart, a partner in a Middlesex family law firm, to co-ordinate a multi-million pound public relations and lobbying budget aimed at returning him to power. Cathcart is better known locally for his enthusiasm for driving miniature steam railway engines and his chairmanship of the parish council.
RAK is the smallest of the seven emirates, but Sheikh Khalid, who has been living in exile in London and Oman, has used Californian PR firms, Washington lobbyists and American ex-special forces officers to claim it has fallen under Iranian influence and that the kingdom was used as a port for smuggling parts for weapons into Iran and had become a "centre of gravity" for "potential terrorist funding for al-Qaida, Taliban, al-Shabaab". The campaign, costing at least £2.6m according to documents seen by the Guardian, also involved lobbying Hillary Clinton and the Israeli ambassador to London and publishing critical reports on the military and political direction of the current regime.
The government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) issued a statement of condolence through the state news agency WAM, which stated that Sheikh Khalid’s younger half-brother, the crown prince Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al-Qasimi, has succeeded as ruler. Sheikh Khalid did not accept the statement and issued a video message asserting his claim to the throne, and shortly afterwards described the UAE report of Sheikh Saud’s succession as unacceptable.
"In honour of my father, I want the constitution on the succession in Ras al-Khaimah to be honoured where the whole family and tribes decide the succession," he said. "I will accept the outcome of a constitutional vote, not a decision taken by others for their own economic benefit … In the coming hours and days, I look forward to meeting with family, friends, members of the supreme council and rulers of the emirates to discuss our shared vision for Ras al-Khaimah and its great people. Until then, we will mourn together as a family, a community and a nation."
Cathcart, who was working at his office in Ickenham, Middlesex, today , did not return calls.
Sheikh Saud announced 40 days of mourning during which flags in the emirate will be flown at half mast and radio stations across the UAE switched to playing recitations of the Qur’an and classical music.
The outcome of the tussle for power will provide a barometer of the direction of the UAE, according to Dr Christopher Davidson of Durham University, an expert in the region. He said the most powerful emirates are the broadly pro-western Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and they should in principle be sympathetic to Sheikh Khalid’s argument about the danger of Iranian influence in RAK. However, they must be careful not to alienate the emirate’s poorer and more Islamist population. For this reason, many observers believe that Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al-Qasimi will prevail.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/27/death-sheikh-saqr-fight-succession-gulf
Emirate leader’s death could end older son’s struggle for power
•UAE’s hereditary rulers confirm Sheikh Saud as emirate’s ruler
•Exiled older son returns to mourn but still asserts his legal right to the throne
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· Robert Booth
· guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 October 2010 15.34 BST
Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, left, the late ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, part of the UAE, with his son Sheikh Khalid before he was deposed as crown prince. Photograph: Nasser Younes/AFP/Getty Images
A multimillion-dollar public relations campaign run from London and California aimed at seizing control of a strategically sensitive Gulf emirate entered its endgame today with the death of the leader of Ras al-Khaimah, Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, the world’s longest-serving ruler.
Sheikh Saqr, 92, passed away at dawn after a long illness, sparking a final struggle between his two sons to succeed him. RAK is the smallest of the seven that make up the United Arab Emirates but is considered its most Islamist, and the Sheikh’s oldest son, Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr al-Qasimi, who has been living in exile in London and Oman, had launched an intense PR and political lobbying campaign suggesting that it has fallen under Iranian influence, as well as stating his case that he is the legitimate succesor. His campaign has featured claims, disputed by RAK, that the emirate has even acted as a port for smuggling parts for weapons into Iran.
Sheikh Khalid hired an English solicitor, Peter Cathcart, to oversee the PR campaign, which involved lobbying Hilary Clinton, the Israeli ambassador to London and publishing critical reports on the military and the political direction of RAK’s leadership.
However, his claim on power received a major setback this morning when the government of the UAE issued a statement of condolence through the state news agency WAM, which stated that Sheikh Khalid’s younger half brother, the crown prince Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al-Qasimi, has succeeded as ruler.
Sheikh Khalid’s response, meanwhile, was to assert his legal right to the throne in a statement and video message, announcing that he would lobby the emirates supreme council, made up of the seven hereditary rulers of the emirates. "In the coming hours and days, I look forward to meeting with family, friends, members of the supreme council and rulers of the emirates to discuss our shared vision for Ras al-Khaimah and its great people," he said. "Until then, we will mourn together as a family, a community and a nation."
Sheikh Saud, RAK’s recognised ruler, has announced 40 days’ mourning, during which flags in the emirate will be flown at half mast and radio stations across the UAE switched to playing recitations of the Koran and classical music. Sheikh Khalid is understood to have crossed into RAK as soon as he heard of his father’s death and is currently at the presidential palace where, according to unconfirmed reports, there is a military presence including armored cars and water cannon.
The outcome of the tussle for power will provide a barometer of the direction of the UAE, according to Dr Christopher Davidson, an expert in the region at Durham University. He said the most powerful emirates are the broadly pro-western Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and they should, in principle, be sympathetic to Sheikh Khalid’s argument about the danger of Iranian influence in RAK. However, they must be careful not to alienate the emirate’s poorer population and that is the reason many observers believe Sheikh Saud will prevail.
The attempt to take control of RAK by Sheikh Khalid has taken some bizarre twists. In Cathcart, he appointed an unlikely figure to lead a coup. The Ickenham based partner in a family law firm is a minature steam railway enthusiast and parish council chairman who lives on the fringes of the west London suburb. However, he emerged as a key player in Sheikh Khalid’s strategy and has been responsible for investing at least $3.7m (£2.6m) of Khalid’s money in a network of highly paid US PR consultants, Washington lobbyists and former US special forces strategists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/27/emirate-leader-dies-exiled-son
Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed al-Qasimi obituary
World’s longest-serving monarch who transformed the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah
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· Jonathan Fryer
· guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 November 2010 18.57 GMT
Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed al-Qasimi in 2003. Photograph: Nasser Younes/AFP/Getty Images
Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed al-Qasimi of Ras al-Khaimah, who has died aged 92, was the world’s longest-serving ruler. He oversaw the transformation of that Arab emirate, strategically located in the north, from a sleepy backwater dependent on a declining pearling and fishing industry into what is today one of the fastest growing and economically diverse parts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
For generations, the al-Qasimi royal family, who were in the 19th century branded as pirates by Britain’s imperial naval commanders, maintained a fierce independence from their neighbours. Saqr agreed only reluctantly to allow Ras al-Khaimah (RAK) to become part of the UAE in 1972. Being linked to larger and wealthier emirates such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai nonetheless proved useful, as RAK failed to discover significant reserves of oil or gas of its own and has therefore at times depended on federal subsidies.
Born in RAK, Saqr was one of the sons of Sheikh Mohammed, who ruled only briefly before being sidelined by the British in favour of his supposedly more compliant younger brother, Sultan. When Sultan was declared ruler in 1921, the whole emirate had fewer than 15,000 inhabitants, no schools and very little infrastructure, other than a small port in a sheltered creek.
Saqr was educated at home by local Islamic clerics, as well as a tutor from the Najd region of Saudi Arabia, becoming a noted scholar in the teachings of the Qur’an and the Hadith, or sayings and deeds of the prophet Muhammad. He also became passionate about history – later teasing British officials about the way London had ordered HMS Liverpool to bombard RAK’s capital in 1819 – and he honed his skills in the traditional sport of falconry.
More than one British official referred to the tenacious Saqr as a "wily old bird" and it was true that he demonstrated considerable political skill, even cunning. After ousting his uncle Sultan in a bloodless coup in 1948, he then set about uniting and winning the loyalty of his emirate’s disparate population, which included fishers, bedouin and indigenous mountain tribes. He also angrily disputed what he said was the illegal Iranian occupation of three islands that had traditionally been under al-Qasimi control.
Thanks partly to exploration fees from foreign oil companies, Saqr was able to fund the establishment of schools for boys and girls, a hospital and the expansion of the port. But the failure to find much oil meant RAK instead relied increasingly on the exploitation of minerals in its Hajar mountains and the production and export of ceramics.
When Harold Wilson’s Labour government started Britain’s withdrawal from East of Suez in the late 1960s, the Trucial States or Arabian Gulf protectorates, which included RAK, decided that they needed to unite if they were to cope with independence. Bahrain and Qatar chose to go their own way, and it took a year to persuade Saqr that RAK should become an integral part of the UAE. These negotiations centred on how much clout RAK would have within the new federation, despite its relative poverty, and most observers agreed that Saqr brokered rather a good deal.
For many years, Saqr, his various wives and a growing number of children inhabited an old fort, which is now an ethnographic museum. He largely eschewed the extravagant trappings of royalty savoured by some of his Emirati counterparts and as he gradually outlived them, he acquired enhanced status in the region. In the 1980s, he handed much of the day-to-day running of RAK to his eldest son, Khalid, who oversaw much of the emirate’s modernisation. It therefore came as something of a shock in 2003 when Saqr replaced Khalid with his younger half-brother, Saud, who has effectively run the emirate ever since. Khalid went into exile in Muscat and Sharjah, but returned to RAK on learning of his father’s death, in order to stake his claim to be the rightful heir.
Saud has been accused by critics of snuggling up too closely to Iran, from which RAK is separated by the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant proportion of the world’s oil tankers pass. As the UAE is one of the US’s closest allies in the region, this has caused certain diplomatic tensions, though how much Saqr was aware of this during his long years of illness is a matter for conjecture.
Saqr is believed to be survived by some of his wives and at least four sons and two daughters.
• Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed al-Qasimi, ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, born 1918; died 27 October 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/sheikh-saqr-bin-mohammed-al-qasimi
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