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Saudi Arabia pays millions to flatter king

Saudi King Fahd, center, and French President Jacques Chirac, second from left, go for lunch in Riyadh during a Nov. 13 meeting to discuss a political settlement in Afghanistan. PHOTO: AFP

Saudi Arabia has launched a multimillion dollar advertising campaign and a new diplomatic offensive to improve its image in the west amid criticism that it is failing to cooperate in the international war against terrorism.

The information ministry in the capital, Riyadh, has shelled out up to US$7 million on lengthy advertisements in newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic hailing King Fahd as a man of peace. The advertisements, dismissed by one senior retired British diplomat as "fawning and Kim Il-Sungish," were met with derision when they were published last week in The Independent, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The 12-page glossy advertisement in The Economist, which ran in all editions across the world, is believed to have cost up to US$900,000 alone.

Under the headline "King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, 20 years of change and continuity," the advertisement said "the greater world" had reason to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the king's accession to the throne. "For two decades he has been the quiet symbol of stability and diplomacy in a region where these virtues have sometimes been in short supply," it said.

Friends and foes of Saudi Arabia were united in pouring scorn on articles in the feature which praised the Saudi king for "caring for land and sea" and acting as "one of the world's great donors."

`Rather Stuffy'

The retired British diplomat, who is sympathetic toward Saudi Arabia, said: "The adverts were a rather stuffy and old-fashioned way of getting their message across. They really are 100 years out of date -- they had a Kim Il Sungish feel to them."

The advertisements were published in the wake of a wave of criticism of Saudi Arabia, particularly in the US, since the Sept. 11 attacks. Relations started to plummet last month when the New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, handed back a US$10 million cheque from a Saudi prince after he criticized US policies in the Middle East. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's criticism prompted the veteran New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to launch a scathing attack on Saudi Arabia.

"To listen to Saudi officials, or read the Arab press," he wrote, "you would never know that most of the hijackers were young Saudis, or that the main financing for Osama bin Laden -- born in Saudi Arabia -- has been coming from other wealthy Saudis, or that Saudi Arabia's government was the main funder of the Taliban ... If you want to do something useful with your US$10 million, then endow an anti-corruption campaign in Saudi Arabia." Matters came to a head at the end of last month when the veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh published an article in the New Yorker which alleged that the CIA had collected damaging details about the Saudi royal family through a series of telephone intercepts.

Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi's effective leader, hit back in a speech on Saudi state television in which he accused the US media of conspiring to damage Saudi Arabia's reputation and to drive a wedge between Riyadh and Washington.

"President Bush phoned me," the crown prince said. "He began the conversation by saying that he was sorry." Bush reportedly told him: "We will not accept this and I will not accept it, and most American people will not accept it."

The rift between America and Saudi Arabia has prompted a radical rethink about how to promote the kingdom in the west. Modernizers believe the adverts have little effect and can be counterproductive.

One member of the Saudi elite said Tuesday: "The adverts are a bit like party political broadcasts in Britain -- nobody takes them seriously."

More Sophisticated

The modernizers highlighted their use of more sophisticated PR last month when they led a delegation of leading Saudi officials and thinkers on a week-long trip to London. Led by Prince Abdullah bin Faisal, the head of the Saudi investment authority, the delegation met senior MPs and briefed journalists.

James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, said: "These people-to-people visits really do work. They generate free media coverage which people take seriously, unlike paid advertising."

Zogby believes such visits are crucial in breaking down the barriers of misunderstanding. "Hundreds of thousands of Americans have worked in Saudi Arabia and similar numbers have defended the country. Yet with all that exchange, which has been to the mutual benefit of each country, we end up with the stark reality that we do not understand each other. This needs an in-depth campaign to promote a deeper understanding."

Saudi modernizers admitted campaigns such as the one that ran last week would continue. "Such advertisements really are a result of bureaucratic habit -- the information ministry has always produced them and will continue to do so," one member of the Saudi elite said.
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