Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05MUSCAT582
2005-04-09 14:55:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Muscat
Cable title:
BIO: SAYYID BADR AL-BUSAIDI, MFA UNDER SECRETARY
how-toThis record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MUSCAT 000582
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR INR/B AND NEA/ARPI
E.O. 12958: DECL: X5
TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL MU
SUBJECT: BIO: SAYYID BADR AL-BUSAIDI, MFA UNDER SECRETARY
Classified By: Ambassador Richard L. Baltimore III.
Reason: 1.4 (b, d).
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MUSCAT 000582
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR INR/B AND NEA/ARPI
E.O. 12958: DECL: X5
TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL MU
SUBJECT: BIO: SAYYID BADR AL-BUSAIDI, MFA UNDER SECRETARY
Classified By: Ambassador Richard L. Baltimore III.
Reason: 1.4 (b, d).
1. (U) Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Humud al-Busaidi
Under Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (since 2000)
Rank: Ambassador
--------------
Personal Data
--------------
2. (U) Born: May 30, 1960; Muscat, Oman.
Married, two daughters.
Education: Master of Letters (MLitt) (Political Philosophy
and Economics),Oxford University
--------------
Career Track
--------------
3. (U) Sayyid Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi joined the Omani
diplomatic corps in 1989 as a First Secretary, tasked with
establishing and running a Political Analysis Office
reporting directly to the Minister. In 1990 he was promoted
to rank of Counselor and then in 1995, by Royal Decree,
attained Ambassador rank. He was appointed head of the
Minister's Department in 1996 and, the following year, added
the responsibilities of Acting Under Secretary and Chief of
the Information Technology Department. In 2000, the Sultan
issued the Royal Decree appointing Sayyid Badr Under
Secretary. Playing an active role in the process that led to
SIPDIS
the establishment of the Middle East Desalination Research
Center (MEDRC) in Muscat (a product of the Track II Middle
East Peace Process),he currently also serves as Chairman of
the MEDRC Executive Council.
--------------
Relations with the Minister
--------------
4. (C) Sayyid Badr is one of the leading minds of the young
generation of top Omani officials. It is a source of some
frustration to him that he serves as deputy to Minister
Responsible for Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin Alawi, one of the
longest serving veterans in the Sultan's cabinet and scion of
the old guard. He has urged the Ambassador to tell the
Sultan things that Badr believes the Sultan's lieutenants may
not be letting him know.
5. (C) Sayyid Badr is almost never seen in the company of
Foreign Minister Bin Alawi. During a January 2004 reception
also attended by the Minister, Sayyid Badr expressed his
surprise to the Ambassador that both were present, indicating
that wires must have gotten crossed. We have rarely observed
that matters raised with the Minister get filtered down to
Sayyid Badr, or vice versa.
6. (SBU) Sayyid Badr is close to another cabinet member,
however. Both he and Minister of Manpower Juma bin Ali
al-Jumaa shared a two-pupil desk as young students in Old
Muscat's historic Saidiyya elementary school.
--------------
Political Views
--------------
7. (C) Badr's political views are strongly moderate. He
hailed actions to take the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar
television channel off the air in late 2004, and frequently
urges the U.S. government to encourage moderates to appear
more often on Al Jazeera. He appreciates USG assistance
programs under the Middle East Partnership Initiative,
particularly in the educational sphere, and is embarrassed
when those efforts come under criticism or resistance from
conservative elements. He is a strong proponent of the value
of visits to Oman by senior U.S. officials. Badr also
champions economic liberalization, having firmly backed
Oman's 2000 accession to the World Trade Organization and its
pursuit in 2005 of a Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. In a
February 2005 address to the Muscat American Business
Council, he urged American businesspersons to share their
impressions of Oman's investment climate with contacts in the
U.S. to spur greater trade. A March 2004 paper he presented
to the Oman Historical Association hailed the "open trade
policies" of the Al Bu Said dynasty stretching back to the
18th Century.
8. (C) Badr believes firmly in the rule of law. He boasts
that he carries an English and Arabic copy of Oman's
constitution, the Basic Law, with him at all times. During a
cabinet meeting at which Deputy Prime Minister Sayyid Fahd
was introducing a new bill, Badr claimed to have directly
addressed Fahd with proof that it violated the Basic Law;
Fahd was persuaded and withdrew the text. When the foreign
media reported claims by two Omani writers in 2004 that the
Ministry of Information had banned them from publication,
Sayyid Badr personally penned a denial issued by Oman's
Ambassador in Washington. Noting that the Information
Minister denied banning the writers, Badr told the Ambassador
that the writers should sue the Ministry in court if they
believe their rights were violated. Such actions, he
believed, were the best defense against arbitrary government
decisions.
--------------
Unabashedly Ibadhi
--------------
9. (C) Badr welcomed the Sultan's decision soon after his
accession to the throne in 1970 to ban hunting and violent
sports from the public school system he set out to create.
Perhaps reflecting a bias for his Ibadhi faith, Sayyid Badr
admits he studies violent crime statistics provided by the
Royal Oman Police. Among Omani-on-Omani crimes, Sayyid Badr
estimated from the reports that only about 2% of violent
crimes involved Ibadhi Muslims, while the minority Sunni and
Shia Omanis accounted for the rest. He has publicly credited
Oman's Ibadhi traditions as encouraging a modern state "at
ease with a history of diversity" and enjoying "the
enshrinement of equal rights, regardless of race and creed."
He praised the Sultan's effort to "create a culture of peace."
--------------
Personal Interests
--------------
10. (SBU) Something of a renaissance man, Badr is an avid
photographer, particularly of the sunrise over the sea near
his home in Al Bustan. In one meeting, he promised to send
the Ambassador a compact disc of his best photographs. He
has also entertained thoughts of penning a bilingual
autobiography that would focus on both the rule of Sultan
Qaboos and the period preceding it, of which Oman's
overwhelmingly youthful population remains largely unaware.
His government biography also lists music, travel and tennis
among his hobbies.
11. (C) He is fond of recounting the story of how he acquired
his impressive home. Having dreamt of living by the sea
since childhood, Sayyid Badr received a grant of land along
the coast south of Muscat near the present-day Al Bustan
Hotel. The Ministry of Royal Diwan confiscated Badr's land
after deciding it would be the ideal resettlement location
for the village on which the hotel was being built. Badr
resisted, taking his case directly to the Sultan. Offered
compensation by the Sultan, Badr asked for the nearby home of
a British advisor friend that overlooked the sea, to which
the Sultan acquiesced. While the house is by no means
palatial, it is well appointed and has an incomparable view
of the sea.
12. (SBU) He noted that beachgoers often camp on his lawn,
thinking it a public park. Conscious of projecting a
positive image, Badr has been known to serve tea to such
interlopers. In a similar vein, his family adopted a stray
dog that wandered onto the property (not a typical act among
Muslim Arabs). While he would not let them in the house, his
family tended to a litter of puppies that the stray dog had
birthed.
13. (SBU) Badr also possesses a strong interest in history,
and has been a featured speaker at the Oman Historical
Association. While he previously enjoyed the sport of scuba
diving, Badr currently prefers snorkeling and boating.
Sayyid Badr is high-tech savvy, using a PDA device one year
during the Sultan's New Year's horse race to provide
interesting details on the sport and a wide variety of other
topics for the Ambassador.
--------------
Impressive Pedigree
--------------
14. (SBU) Sayyid Badr's late father, Hamad bin Humud Al Bu
Said, served as Sultan Said bin Taimur's personal secretary,
and stayed on following the 1970 coup to serve Sultan Qaboos
in the same capacity. Hamad bin Humud was elevated to the
rank of Cabinet Secretary in the governmental re-shuffle of
1972. He became Minister of Diwan Affairs in 1974,
essentially fulfilling the role of de facto Prime Minister at
cabinet meetings in the Sultan's absence until 1994. During
Hamad bin Humud's stint in government, he typified the utter
disregard for conflict of interest prevalent at the time. He
obtained loans guaranteed by the Sultan in order to secure
agency contracts from foreign corporations. This privilege
was parlayed into two major corporations he founded:
commercial shopping giant SABCO, and Oman Shapoorji
Construction (OSCO),which won government contracts to build
the palace in Muscat, the Ministry of National Heritage, the
Ministry of Diwan Affairs, the Majlis al-Shura, the stock
exchange, and the commercial SABCO Center. Badr's brother,
Sayyid Khalid, is currently Chairman of SABCO Group and Oman
National Investment Corporation Holding.
15. (C) Sayyid Badr's mother, Zawan bint Hamed al-Nabhani,
hails from one of the most prominent tribes of Oman's
interior that has for generations often found itself in armed
confrontation with the Al Bu Saids of Muscat. Zawan (b.
1940) is still alive, but required extensive cancer treatment
in the U.S. in late 2003 and makes regular check-up visits to
Houston approximately every six months. Sayyid Badr, his
sister Eyman (b. 1975),and brother Aymen (b. 1971),
typically escort Zawan on her medical appointments. Badr
expressed his deep satisfaction with the level of care his
mother received in the U.S.
--------------
Family Life
--------------
16. (C) Sayyid Badr was married at an early age and has two
daughters (born in 1988 and 1990). As of August 2003, Sayyid
Badr was still married to Noora bint Abdullah al-Mawahish,
but there were no signs of a wife during the Ambassador's
lunch at Sayyid Badr's home in January 2005. Badr's eldest
daughter, Salsabeel, is considerably shorter than the younger
daughter. Both speak English without a noticeable accent,
and both are B - B students. Salsabeel is more
science-oriented and hopes to be accepted to Mount Holyoke
College. The younger daughter is drawn to the arts. Badr
was both surprised and pleased to learn that the Embassy
offers free academic advising for persons interested in
studying in the U.S., and that the counselor is an Omani
woman.
BALTIMORE
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR INR/B AND NEA/ARPI
E.O. 12958: DECL: X5
TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL MU
SUBJECT: BIO: SAYYID BADR AL-BUSAIDI, MFA UNDER SECRETARY
Classified By: Ambassador Richard L. Baltimore III.
Reason: 1.4 (b, d).
1. (U) Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Humud al-Busaidi
Under Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (since 2000)
Rank: Ambassador
--------------
Personal Data
--------------
2. (U) Born: May 30, 1960; Muscat, Oman.
Married, two daughters.
Education: Master of Letters (MLitt) (Political Philosophy
and Economics),Oxford University
--------------
Career Track
--------------
3. (U) Sayyid Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi joined the Omani
diplomatic corps in 1989 as a First Secretary, tasked with
establishing and running a Political Analysis Office
reporting directly to the Minister. In 1990 he was promoted
to rank of Counselor and then in 1995, by Royal Decree,
attained Ambassador rank. He was appointed head of the
Minister's Department in 1996 and, the following year, added
the responsibilities of Acting Under Secretary and Chief of
the Information Technology Department. In 2000, the Sultan
issued the Royal Decree appointing Sayyid Badr Under
Secretary. Playing an active role in the process that led to
SIPDIS
the establishment of the Middle East Desalination Research
Center (MEDRC) in Muscat (a product of the Track II Middle
East Peace Process),he currently also serves as Chairman of
the MEDRC Executive Council.
--------------
Relations with the Minister
--------------
4. (C) Sayyid Badr is one of the leading minds of the young
generation of top Omani officials. It is a source of some
frustration to him that he serves as deputy to Minister
Responsible for Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin Alawi, one of the
longest serving veterans in the Sultan's cabinet and scion of
the old guard. He has urged the Ambassador to tell the
Sultan things that Badr believes the Sultan's lieutenants may
not be letting him know.
5. (C) Sayyid Badr is almost never seen in the company of
Foreign Minister Bin Alawi. During a January 2004 reception
also attended by the Minister, Sayyid Badr expressed his
surprise to the Ambassador that both were present, indicating
that wires must have gotten crossed. We have rarely observed
that matters raised with the Minister get filtered down to
Sayyid Badr, or vice versa.
6. (SBU) Sayyid Badr is close to another cabinet member,
however. Both he and Minister of Manpower Juma bin Ali
al-Jumaa shared a two-pupil desk as young students in Old
Muscat's historic Saidiyya elementary school.
--------------
Political Views
--------------
7. (C) Badr's political views are strongly moderate. He
hailed actions to take the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar
television channel off the air in late 2004, and frequently
urges the U.S. government to encourage moderates to appear
more often on Al Jazeera. He appreciates USG assistance
programs under the Middle East Partnership Initiative,
particularly in the educational sphere, and is embarrassed
when those efforts come under criticism or resistance from
conservative elements. He is a strong proponent of the value
of visits to Oman by senior U.S. officials. Badr also
champions economic liberalization, having firmly backed
Oman's 2000 accession to the World Trade Organization and its
pursuit in 2005 of a Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. In a
February 2005 address to the Muscat American Business
Council, he urged American businesspersons to share their
impressions of Oman's investment climate with contacts in the
U.S. to spur greater trade. A March 2004 paper he presented
to the Oman Historical Association hailed the "open trade
policies" of the Al Bu Said dynasty stretching back to the
18th Century.
8. (C) Badr believes firmly in the rule of law. He boasts
that he carries an English and Arabic copy of Oman's
constitution, the Basic Law, with him at all times. During a
cabinet meeting at which Deputy Prime Minister Sayyid Fahd
was introducing a new bill, Badr claimed to have directly
addressed Fahd with proof that it violated the Basic Law;
Fahd was persuaded and withdrew the text. When the foreign
media reported claims by two Omani writers in 2004 that the
Ministry of Information had banned them from publication,
Sayyid Badr personally penned a denial issued by Oman's
Ambassador in Washington. Noting that the Information
Minister denied banning the writers, Badr told the Ambassador
that the writers should sue the Ministry in court if they
believe their rights were violated. Such actions, he
believed, were the best defense against arbitrary government
decisions.
--------------
Unabashedly Ibadhi
--------------
9. (C) Badr welcomed the Sultan's decision soon after his
accession to the throne in 1970 to ban hunting and violent
sports from the public school system he set out to create.
Perhaps reflecting a bias for his Ibadhi faith, Sayyid Badr
admits he studies violent crime statistics provided by the
Royal Oman Police. Among Omani-on-Omani crimes, Sayyid Badr
estimated from the reports that only about 2% of violent
crimes involved Ibadhi Muslims, while the minority Sunni and
Shia Omanis accounted for the rest. He has publicly credited
Oman's Ibadhi traditions as encouraging a modern state "at
ease with a history of diversity" and enjoying "the
enshrinement of equal rights, regardless of race and creed."
He praised the Sultan's effort to "create a culture of peace."
--------------
Personal Interests
--------------
10. (SBU) Something of a renaissance man, Badr is an avid
photographer, particularly of the sunrise over the sea near
his home in Al Bustan. In one meeting, he promised to send
the Ambassador a compact disc of his best photographs. He
has also entertained thoughts of penning a bilingual
autobiography that would focus on both the rule of Sultan
Qaboos and the period preceding it, of which Oman's
overwhelmingly youthful population remains largely unaware.
His government biography also lists music, travel and tennis
among his hobbies.
11. (C) He is fond of recounting the story of how he acquired
his impressive home. Having dreamt of living by the sea
since childhood, Sayyid Badr received a grant of land along
the coast south of Muscat near the present-day Al Bustan
Hotel. The Ministry of Royal Diwan confiscated Badr's land
after deciding it would be the ideal resettlement location
for the village on which the hotel was being built. Badr
resisted, taking his case directly to the Sultan. Offered
compensation by the Sultan, Badr asked for the nearby home of
a British advisor friend that overlooked the sea, to which
the Sultan acquiesced. While the house is by no means
palatial, it is well appointed and has an incomparable view
of the sea.
12. (SBU) He noted that beachgoers often camp on his lawn,
thinking it a public park. Conscious of projecting a
positive image, Badr has been known to serve tea to such
interlopers. In a similar vein, his family adopted a stray
dog that wandered onto the property (not a typical act among
Muslim Arabs). While he would not let them in the house, his
family tended to a litter of puppies that the stray dog had
birthed.
13. (SBU) Badr also possesses a strong interest in history,
and has been a featured speaker at the Oman Historical
Association. While he previously enjoyed the sport of scuba
diving, Badr currently prefers snorkeling and boating.
Sayyid Badr is high-tech savvy, using a PDA device one year
during the Sultan's New Year's horse race to provide
interesting details on the sport and a wide variety of other
topics for the Ambassador.
--------------
Impressive Pedigree
--------------
14. (SBU) Sayyid Badr's late father, Hamad bin Humud Al Bu
Said, served as Sultan Said bin Taimur's personal secretary,
and stayed on following the 1970 coup to serve Sultan Qaboos
in the same capacity. Hamad bin Humud was elevated to the
rank of Cabinet Secretary in the governmental re-shuffle of
1972. He became Minister of Diwan Affairs in 1974,
essentially fulfilling the role of de facto Prime Minister at
cabinet meetings in the Sultan's absence until 1994. During
Hamad bin Humud's stint in government, he typified the utter
disregard for conflict of interest prevalent at the time. He
obtained loans guaranteed by the Sultan in order to secure
agency contracts from foreign corporations. This privilege
was parlayed into two major corporations he founded:
commercial shopping giant SABCO, and Oman Shapoorji
Construction (OSCO),which won government contracts to build
the palace in Muscat, the Ministry of National Heritage, the
Ministry of Diwan Affairs, the Majlis al-Shura, the stock
exchange, and the commercial SABCO Center. Badr's brother,
Sayyid Khalid, is currently Chairman of SABCO Group and Oman
National Investment Corporation Holding.
15. (C) Sayyid Badr's mother, Zawan bint Hamed al-Nabhani,
hails from one of the most prominent tribes of Oman's
interior that has for generations often found itself in armed
confrontation with the Al Bu Saids of Muscat. Zawan (b.
1940) is still alive, but required extensive cancer treatment
in the U.S. in late 2003 and makes regular check-up visits to
Houston approximately every six months. Sayyid Badr, his
sister Eyman (b. 1975),and brother Aymen (b. 1971),
typically escort Zawan on her medical appointments. Badr
expressed his deep satisfaction with the level of care his
mother received in the U.S.
--------------
Family Life
--------------
16. (C) Sayyid Badr was married at an early age and has two
daughters (born in 1988 and 1990). As of August 2003, Sayyid
Badr was still married to Noora bint Abdullah al-Mawahish,
but there were no signs of a wife during the Ambassador's
lunch at Sayyid Badr's home in January 2005. Badr's eldest
daughter, Salsabeel, is considerably shorter than the younger
daughter. Both speak English without a noticeable accent,
and both are B - B students. Salsabeel is more
science-oriented and hopes to be accepted to Mount Holyoke
College. The younger daughter is drawn to the arts. Badr
was both surprised and pleased to learn that the Embassy
offers free academic advising for persons interested in
studying in the U.S., and that the counselor is an Omani
woman.
BALTIMORE