Migrant construction workers in Dubai, easily identified by their uniform jumpsuits.
I’ve written about the Gulf before; WaPo published a length piece about the plight of foreign workers, caught between the economic downturn and the legal/political systems of the autocratic Gulf states. These countries’ restrictive labor laws and lax enforcement of labor protections allow abuse to flourish. I wrote about the workers in Qatar here. The working man isn’t really covered here, but I can’t blame WaPo for focusing on the more glamorous side, the glittering towers on the seaside.
Herve Jaubert, a French spy who left espionage to make leisure submarines for the wealthy, was riding high.
Bankrolled by Dubai World, a government-owned conglomerate, he built a submarine workshop on the Persian Gulf, lived rent-free in a villa with a pool and tooled around town in a red Lamborghini. He had two Hummers. He vacationed with local plutocrats.
Jaubert said he heard whispers about Dubai’s darker side — the abuse of desperate laborers from impoverished Asian lands, the jailing of the occasional Westerner who crossed a sheik — but “I brushed it all off. I saw glamour. I saw marble columns, mirrors and money.”
To say nothing of the less fortunate–the non-Westerner working in a Gulf country. But even Western countries are not inclined to criticize the governments of countries that host naval ships or ports or bases (Bahrain, Qatar, Dubai), and the U.S. nearly struck a nuclear deal with Dubai until that unfortunate video of a member of a royal family torturing an Afghani grain merchant.
Today, the former intelligence operative, who fled Dubai last summer in a rubber dinghy, is a wanted man. In June, a Dubai court convicted him in absentia on charges of embezzling $3.8 million and handed down a five-year sentence, plus a big fine. Jaubert, speaking recently at his new home near West Palm Beach, Fla., said he stole nothing and vowed never to set foot in Dubai again. He said he fled because of gruesome threats by interrogators to stick needles up his nose and what he described as constantly shifting, and all bogus, accusations relating to bullets, murder and the finances of Dubai World’s now-defunct luxury submarine subsidiary.
“If I hadn’t escaped, I’d be in the same hell as everyone else,” said Jaubert, one of scores of expatriate business people in this gleaming city-state who have been accused of crimes — and, in some cases, jailed for long periods without being charged.
Jaubert’s troubles began two years ago when Dubai’s then-booming economy was showing the first faint signs of strain. Local stock and property prices have since swooned, and the tempo of arrests for alleged business misdeeds ranging from a dud check — a criminal offense here — to serious fraud has picked up sharply.
Dubai’s government declined to comment on Jaubert’s allegations of mistreatment, but it has targeted what it sees as dodgy dealmakers and deadbeat debtors, and has declared “no tolerance” of “anybody who makes illegal profits.” For many expatriates, however, this smacks of a hunt for foreign culprits to blame for the sheikdom’s sliding economic fortunes.
The last part seems slightly speculative. A massive, widespread boom in wealth hides the drain of corruption, or the flaws of a bad business plan. So perhaps, the crackdown on foreigners is more due to the abating tolerance of the ruling elite for failure. Seriously, the ex-French spy was building luxury submarines … Not the brightest business plan. But also, probably not his idea in the first–more likely an invitation from a more idiosyncratic member of the royal family. And therein lies the scape-goating. It wasn’t the mismanagement of investments by the royalty; it was the corruption brought by foreigners!
More after the jump:
It’s often said that there are, in effect, parallel legal systems in the Gulf states: one for the nationals, and one for the foreigners.
Locals have been picked up, too, and some complain of being unjustly detained. But well-connected Emirati rarely spend long in jail for economic crimes. Wary of debtors’ prison, a growing number of foreigners simply run away.
Good luck with due process if you don’t have citizenship:
A vivid example of this is the plight of Zack Shahin, an American businessman of Lebanese origin. A former Pepsi-Cola executive who headed a Dubai property company called Deyaar Development, he was arrested in March last year in connection with a corruption probe involving the Dubai Islamic Bank. Shahin was held incommunicado for 16 days and was not charged for over a year. A Web site set up by his family in the United States alleged that Shahin had been tortured, and it pleaded for his release. The UAE blocked the Web site. U.S. diplomats asked that the case be handled in “an expeditious and transparent manner,” and complained that a delay in granting access to Shahin violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Early this summer, it looked as if Shahin might finally get his day in court and be allowed to go home to await trial. His family took out an ad praising Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Dubai’s ruler; took down the Web site; and scratched together $1.1 million to meet bail. Just as Shahin was about to be released, state security officers arrived and hauled him away for questioning on new charges. He is still in detention. The bail money has not been returned, his lawyers said. Dubai officials said no one was available to comment on the case.
One of the most insidious aspects of the labor laws in these countries: you often must surrender your passport. It seems spies know how to get around this little problem, though. Pity the average guest worker from Nepal or Sri Lanka.
Fired from Exomos, the submarine company, and unable to get his passport back, Jaubert hatched an elaborate escape plan. He sent his wife and their two boys to Florida. He had diving equipment shipped out from France — broken down into small bits to avoid arousing suspicion. Then, using a phony name, he bought a Zodiac dinghy and sailboat. Using Google Earth, he surveyed the UAE coastline for an escape route. He found an isolated beach and arranged for a friend to take the sailboat out into international waters.
On the eve of his escape, the former spy checked into a hotel near the beach, put on his diving equipment and donned a long abaya, the body-covering cloak worn by strictly observant Muslim women. He said he then went down the beach and swam underwater to a nearby harbor, where the only patrol boat in the vicinity was moored. He clambered aboard and sabotaged the fuel line to make sure the craft could not give chase, he said.
Jaubert then set out to sea in the dinghy to the boat his friend had positioned just outside the UAE’s territorial waters, and they sailed toward India. After eight days at sea, the pair arrived in Mumbai — an account corroborated by his traveling companion. With a new passport issued by the French consulate, Jaubert flew to join his wife in Florida, where he is writing a book he has titled “Escape From Dubai.”
Tags: Dubai, Emirates, Emirati, migrant workers, Qatar, the Gulf, UAE