Page 153 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

150 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

Mahri tribal confederation for the Dhufaris, and its conviction that the border

should be located much further east than it was. Few of the Dhufaris who
participated in the insurgency did so for ideological reasons: those who were
not conscripted by the PFLO joined for reasons of tribal rivalry, for the chance
to avenge old wrongs and to profit at the expense of their enemies. The seeds of
many new tribal vendettas were sown during the insurgency, and it is far from
unlikely that the fruits of them are being harvested by thefirqat under the guise

of peace-keeping. To what degree the former guerrillas in their ranks have
been purged of their revolutionary sentiments is uncertain. But even without
the stimulus of political ambition or ideology they could still turn against the
government, simply because it is Omani and they are Dhufaris. Or they could
simply shrug off the restraints of duty and responsibility and become little
more than bands of outlaws.
A great deal of money has been poured into Dhufar to improve its economy

and render it politically stable. Qabus ibn Said is moved by ties of blood and
sentiment as well as reasons of state in lavishing such attention upon the
province, for his mother came from the Maashani section of the Qara.
Although Dhufaris constitute no more than a tenth, if that, of Oman’s popu­
lation, almost a quarter of the approximately $i ,750 million spent on develop­
ment in Oman in the years 1971-5 was allocated to Dhufar. The current

five-year (1975-80) development plan envisages the expenditure of 27 per cent
of the budgeted funds upon Dhufar. The principal economic emphasis is being
placed upon the exploitation of Dhufar’s agricultural potential - its climate, its
rainfall and its fertility. The pasturage on the uplands is being improved by the
introduction of better grasses, and similar improvements are being made in
cattle-breeding. There are plans even to raise crops on the uplands, which may
place a dangerous strain upon the region’s water resources.
Yet for all that the Dhufaris have benefited and will benefit from these

various economic measures, their attachment to Oman remains tenuous, their
acceptance of Al Bu Said rule inconstant. Dhufaris are not Omanis. They have
their own identity, their own culture, their own past which stretches back over
two millennia to the ancient kingdoms of Yemen and Ethiopia. As Bertram
Thomas, one of the few Europeans to have ventured among them before e
middle of this century, wrote of them forty-five years ago in his Arabia Fe ix.

The people, composed of warlike and rival tribes, have always found law and

irksome. They love unfettered personal liberty more than life, and glory in
hereditary wars. The alternative of an extraneously imposed authority as in
been acceptable to them only by force, or else as the lesser evil ter pen° n0
exhaustion and, as the lessons of one generation had to be re-learned y t e n ,
dynasty has been able to entrench itself.

As with the other oil states of the Gulf, the story of Oman since
one of lavish expenditure upon development and the rapid grau