The Gulf Crisis and New World Order — Page 64
Third Frid ay Sennon Aug 24, 1990 FREFZING OF ASSETS But their ultimate motives were very pragmatic and it was clear that the best way to benefit from them was to befriend them. They bad them to deposit their entire oil-wealth in their banks and thus derived a two-fold benefit. Firstly, the Western countries got control over huge stockpiles of wealth that benefitted them by boosting their investment capabilities and secondly, they acquired the leverage and power to freeze and seize their assets at the slightest indication of any discord. In normal circumstances, they brag about their standards of trust, but their concept of honesty changes as soon as it affects their interests. They preach that when a citizen of one country goes to another country, he becomes a trust and that there should be no breach of that trust. . . Then what right do they have to seize and seal the assets of a country even in adversarial situations. A country that trusted them in the time of peace and friendship and in accordance with the rules of international monetary system deserves better treatment, even ifit turned out to be an error to deposit its wealth in their vaults. How can they justify the posture of seizing a country's assets for the welfare of humanity. How many Eastern countries there are whose total assets were frozen every time there was an apprehension of war. Even now, Kuwaiti funds have been frozen with the intension of releasing them later on, because of their acknowledged friendship. All the wealth of Iraq in various foreign countries has been seized. These are the intricate forms of deceit. The Western countries skilfully present these injustices before the world in an extremely polished and civilized language! Contrary to this, the ill-fated I slamic nations have always attempted to counter and fight the intelligence of the West with sheer passion and each time the emotions were pitched against intelligence, the emotions were routed and tom to bits, thus further disgracing and humiliating the Muslim world! THE GREATEST BLUNDER The greatest blunder which the Arab world made, and continues to repeat, is the lack of awareness that, in political causes and worldly matters, the reaction ofselfish nations is always the same, irrespective of the differences in their religions. Rather than dealing with these issues at the political level where they belong, the Arabs unnecessarily 64