July
16, 2002 8:45 a.m. State
Pressure
The Saudis feel heat over the Roush case, but it's status quo at
the State Dept.
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Saudi government is getting hot under the kaffiyeh these days from all
the media coverage of the Patricia Roush affair, in which an American
woman has been trying for nearly two decades to free her (now adult) daughters
from Saudi Arabia. Adel al-Jubair, the Saudi crown prince's personal emissary,
is said to have called on a top U.S. State Department official last week
to offer a deal the Saudis hope will put the troublesome Roush situation
behind them.
Roush tells NRO a
State Department official phoned her late last week to report that Al-Jubair
told William
Burns, who heads State's Near East Affairs bureau, that the Kingdom
would permit two female officials from the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh to meet
Roush's daughters, Aisha and Alia al-Gheshayan, at a "tea party"
at Alia's villa. In return for the meeting, Roush says, the State Department
would have to guarantee that during the visit, the embassy officials would
take down a statement from the young women stating where they wanted to
live — presumably, in Saudi Arabia — and make it public.
"I asked, 'Did
Ambassador Burns mention that these are two American citizens, and we
want permission for them to come to the United States?' The answer was
no," Roush tells NRO. "Ambassador Burns told [al-Jubair] that
the statement would appear staged. That's all he said."
A State Department
spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny the contents of the conversation
between Burns and al-Jubair, or that the meeting took place. "Because
they have not signed a Privacy Act waiver, we cannot comment on any issues
regarding [Roush's daughters] because they are both adults," the
spokeswoman said.
Roush responded acidly:
"They're not able to sign a Privacy Act waiver because they are being
held by a totalitarian regime."
As those who have
been following this case know, an American court awarded Roush
custody of daughters Alia and Aisha in a 1985 divorce from her husband,
Khalid, who comes from an influential Saudi family. In 1986, Khalid kidnapped
the children and took them to Saudi Arabia. Roush has been trying ever
since to get her children back, with virtually no help from the State
Department, which, in theory, is supposed to work for Americans. In fact,
State has an appalling record of appeasing the Saudis in these matters,
a fact that has been pointed out with prophetic outrage most recently
by the Wall Street Journal editorial page and its editorialist,
William
McGurn.
The al-Gheshayan
girls are now in their early 20s. Alia was married off — "sold"
is Roush's phrase — by her father to a favored family member, and
has had a child. The day before she testified before a House panel this
past June, Roush learned that Aisha had also been married. Their mother
wants the U.S. to issue passports to Aisha, Alia, and their children,
and the Saudi government to give them visas for America, so they can travel
here to say, without Saudi pressure, what their true wishes are regarding
residency.
"This is a cult,"
Roush says, of Saudi society. "My daughters have been held by a cult
for 16 years, and they aren't able to speak the truth freely."
In its public pronouncements,
the State Department has consistently referred to this affair as a child-custody
dispute (chief spokesman Richard Boucher did so as recently as Friday's
press briefing), as if it were a private matter between feuding family
members. The truth is, it has always been a matter of two American citizens
stolen from their mother and their native country, and held incommunicado
in a foreign land. Now that the al-Gheshayan girls are adults, the old
State Department line justifying its inaction is beyond farcical. Let
Congress recognize this for what it is: a hostage situation, perpetuated
by the Saudi rulers, and abetted for 16 years by appeasing American diplomats.
Congress should order
State to deny visas to any Saudi government official until and unless
Aisha and Alia al-Gheshayan, and indeed all American citizens held illegally
in Saudi Arabia, are allowed to return home. It is entirely possible that
those kidnapped as children, but who are now adults, may choose to live
in Saudi Arabia. But that must be their choice, and it must be
communicated in an atmosphere free of coercion. This absurd "tea
party" in Riyadh does not qualify.
Yet the fact that it is even being offered by a top representative of
the Saudi government is a sign that public pressure may be working. Americans
should realize, though, that their own government is a great obstacle
to a just resolution to these cases. As Ali al-Ahmed, the Saudi democracy
activist who runs the Virginia-based Saudi
Institute, tells NRO, "I'm amazed by the way the State Department
has behaved in the Roush case, and several other cases. Is it the U.S.
State Department, or the Saudi State Department?"
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Saudi government is getting hot under the kaffiyeh these days from all
the media coverage of the Patricia Roush affair, in which an American
woman has been trying for nearly two decades to free her (now adult) daughters
from Saudi Arabia. Adel al-Jubair, the Saudi crown prince's personal emissary,
is said to have called on a top U.S. State Department official last week
to offer a deal the Saudis hope will put the troublesome Roush situation
behind them.
