Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06BANDARSERIBEGAWAN572
2006-11-08 03:39:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Bandar Seri Begawan
Cable title:  

BRUNEI'S HARI RAYA: OPEN TALK AT OPEN HOUSES

Tags:  PREL PGOV ASEC ECON SOCI CVIS MARR PTER PHUM 
pdf how-to read a cable
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DE RUEHBD #0572/01 3120339
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 080339Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3606
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI PRIORITY
RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN 000572 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/MTS, SINGAPORE FOR DAO AND ODC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/06/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV ASEC ECON SOCI CVIS MARR PTER PHUM
BX
SUBJECT: BRUNEI'S HARI RAYA: OPEN TALK AT OPEN HOUSES

Classified By: DCM Justin Friedman, reasons 1.4 (b) & (d)

SUMMARY
-------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN 000572

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/MTS, SINGAPORE FOR DAO AND ODC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/06/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV ASEC ECON SOCI CVIS MARR PTER PHUM
BX
SUBJECT: BRUNEI'S HARI RAYA: OPEN TALK AT OPEN HOUSES

Classified By: DCM Justin Friedman, reasons 1.4 (b) & (d)

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) At this year's Hari Raya open houses -- a custom that
distinguishes Brunei's celebration of the post-Ramadan month
-- Ambassador and DCM heard unusually candid views from
senior GoB officials on issues ranging from royal succession,
bilateral security cooperation, and the status of major
investment projects to education and pension reform. END
SUMMARY.

Hari Raya - Brunei's Open Home Tradition
--------------


2. (U) In Brunei tradition, Muslims from all walks of life
open their homes to family, friends, and strangers alike to
share a meal and some conversation during Hari Raya (a
holiday otherwise known as Eid Al-Fitr in the non-Malay
Muslim world) festivities following Ramadan. The Sultan sets
the model for his country by holding three full days of open
house at the palace. In addition to a VIP reception for
Senior officials and Ambassadors the first day, the Sultan
invites anyone in Brunei to a bountiful, free buffet meal, a
chance for men and boys to shake hands with His Majesty (the
Queen and the Sultan's second wife greet the women),and to
walk away with a box filled with goodies. Every child who
visits also walks away with five Brunei dollars (approx. USD
3.25). This year, the palace recorded over 102,000 visitors;
close to one third of the population of Brunei.


3. (SBU) Although open houses continue for the entire Islamic
lunar month of Shawal (this year October 24 - November 21 in
Brunei),Senior government officials specifically invite to
the diplomatic community to visit their homes - mostly on the
first three days of the month. This celebration is a

caterer's dream as hosts compete to put on the most elaborate
spread of Brunei staples - spicy beef rendang, mango fried
fish, and chicken curry all served with mountains of rice and
noodles. It is also a driver's nightmare as dueling official
vehicles - flags flying - race from house to house to
maximize this opportunity to schmooze the powerful. In the
first twelve days of Hari Raya starting on October 24,
Ambassador Skodon called on 66 Brunei officials (DCM called
separately on 45 with considerable overlap in lists). (The
Ambassador from the Philippines claims the one-day record
this year with 22 calls on the second day of Hari Raya; the
U.S. Ambassador, going for quality over quantity, topped out
at 16 visits in one day.) Amid the over-eating and moving
vehicle violations, considerable useful business can get
done. (NOTE: All names below have been stripped of their
honorific titles for brevity. END NOTE.)

Royal Succession
--------------


4. (C) The Sultan's accessibility and largess in throwing
open the palace to all comers serves a political purpose. By
perpetuating the image of a caring monarch who is close to
his subjects, it reinforces the Sultan's personal popularity
and reinforces the legitimacy of Brunei's absolute monarchy.
Indeed, emboffs heard almost nothing put praise for the
Sultan from those Bruneians whom they met at the open houses,
regardless of their station in local society.


5. (C) A few Bruneians, however, did reveal some concern to
emboffs about Brunei's future after the current Sultan -- who
has just turned 60 and has ruled for nearly four decades --
departs the scene by choice or natural cause. One Permanent
Secretary in the Prime Minister's office even broached the

SIPDIS
normally taboo subject about how the nature of monarchical
rule could change following the Crown Prince's ultimate
accession to the throne. Referring to the finite nature of
Brunei's oil and gas reserves, the PermSec hinted guardedly
that Brunei's next ruler would not be able to buy the loyalty
of his subjects through lavish social welfare schemes. He
would face hard decisions about how to replace the income
stream from oil and gas, i.e., whether to invest in domestic
economic diversification or in foreign ventures. A
recognition of how complex the situation might become was,
according to this senior official, part of the reason why the
current Sultan was putting in place institutions like the
Legislative Council which would eventually help his son

BANDAR SER 00000572 002 OF 004


govern the country - and, by implication, cause him to be a
less absolute monarch than his father. "The Crown Prince
will take over a different kind of country," this official
told the Ambassador, leaving unspoken the clear implication
that he will perforce be a different kind of ruler.

Bilateral Security Cooperation Praised
--------------


6. (C) We heard repeated praise during our calls for the
strengthening bilateral security relationship. Deputy
Minister of Defense Yasmin, as well as two MoD Deputy
Permanent Secretaries, told us that they were looking forward
to the U.S. proposed PACOM Capabilities assessment and
Defense Resource Management Study (DRMS). While there
remains some confusion at lower levels about the scope and
purpose of these separate studies, there is a strong desire
to use these opportunities to help Brunei achieve the goals
of its defense strategy white paper. (A visit by our
Singapore-based ODC the week after the Hari Raya holiday
helped clarify the goals of the two studies.) Yasmin also
told us that he would be briefing the proposed APCSS seminar
on Civil-Military Emergency Planning and Coordination to the
Prime Minister's office (COMMENT: we interpret this to mean
he will brief Crown Prince Billah, the government lead on
this issue. END COMMENT).


7. (C) Salbiah Sulaiman, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the
Prime Minister's Office told us that our proposed HSPD-6
terrorist information sharing agreement had high level
support and had been staffed out for response from the MFAT.
Police Commissioner Zainuddin Jalani, just back from a visit
to Boston and San Francisco, praised his meetings there with
DS official and displayed a new sensitivity for post's
security challenges in our current chancery.

Mixed Bag on Business Opportunities
--------------


8. (C) Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Permanent
Secretary Lim Jock Hoi, a non-Muslim but fellow attendee at

SIPDIS
open houses, told us that Brunei was actively looking at Free
Trade Area templates in advance of his next meeting with USTR
under our Trade and Investment Framework Agreement. Lim said
that Brunei was looking to the U.S. to send a signal about an
APEC-wide free trade area. (See also septel on GoB's
positions going into the APEC leaders' meeting). Lim also
asked for a "template" of the FTA's the USG is pursuing with
ASEAN, hinting that Brunei might like to move down the
bilateral FTA route at some point in the future.


9. (C) The biggest business news making the rounds during
Hari Raya was word that Brunei Economic Development Board
Chairman John Perry would resign by the end of the year.
Perry told us that he had grown frustrated at the slow pace
of decisionmaking by the GoB on several key projects
requiring long-term agreements on the supply of natural gas -
the proposed Alcoa aluminum smelter being most prominent.
From several sources, we heard that the natural-gas fueled
methanol plant at Sungai Liang - a cornerstone project for
Brunei's plan to expand into downstream industries - would
get the go-ahead in March 2007. However, we were also told
by people in the project contracting chain that no decision
had been made about the necessary infrastructure development
required to support this project and a proposed companion
fertilizer project at the same site. Brunei LNG Director
Fred Smenk, who has an institutional suspicion of these
projects because they would divert some of Brunei's natural
gas production from his company's LNG exports, told us that
no decisions had been made about the required natural gas
supplies. He also noted that it would be very easy to for
his firm to add another LNG line for export production to
absorb the gas proposed for these two projects plus the Alcoa
plant.


10. (C) In other business news, Deputy Minister of
Communications Yusoff Abdul Hamid told us that all
e-government computer networking contracting decisions had
been suspended. He said that technology specifications of
different Ministries were in conflict and he wanted to force
a single technology on all government agencies for both
interoperability gains and cost savings.


11. (C) Several Ministry of Health officials -- some of the

BANDAR SER 00000572 003 OF 004


more ardent advocates of the e-government program -- told us
of tenders planned or in the works to completely re-equip
Brunei's hospitals and clinics with state-of-the-art lab and
diagnostic equipment. They said that U.S. firms were
well-positioned to take a large share of these tenders -
assuming they bid - as U.S. firms' technologies were regarded
as superior to major competitors from Germany and Japan. We
were told by Min. Health Permanent Secretary Serbini Ali and
the hospital's director that a major expansion of the RIPAS
Hospital would soon be launched.

Education Reform - Target of Opportunity
--------------


12. (C) Minister of Education Abdul Rahman Taib raised his
interest in seeing Brunei educators absorb "American
classroom culture." He would like to send mid-career
teachers and administrators to the U.S. on six to twelve
month programs to train and observe primary and secondary
education in the U.S. He also offered to look again at the
issue of accepting U.S.-trained teachers' credentials for use
in Brunei. Picking up on a theme we've heard from several
sources about growing interest in educational opportunities
in the U.S., Deputy Minister of Education Mohammad asked
about Islamic Studies programs at U.S. universities. We were
also informed that the list of schools to which recipients of
the prestigious Supreme Commander's Scholarship may apply
now, for the first time, includes several U.S. universities.

Financial/Pension Reform - Serious Thinking
--------------


13. (C) Surprisingly, we were asked, unprompted, to discuss
pension reform in the homes of several Deputy Permanent
Secretaries. Ministry of Finance Dep. Perm. Sec. Mohd Rosan

SIPDIS
Yunus -- reportedly the blogger behind
www.bruneiresources.com -- echoed discussions we heard in
several other homes, saying that Brunei would need to raise
the retirement age from 55 (50 for women) to be able to
afford its generous pension program. Yunus expected that
Brunei would implement a small income tax in the coming years
not for the minimal revenue generated, but to create a
stronger sense of ownership and responsibility for the wise
use by the Bruneian people of the public services they now
consume for free.

Other Issues -- Human Rights, Visa Waiver Program
-------------- --------------


14. (SBU) During his open house, Attorney General Kitrani
explained to the Ambassador in some detail the government's
internal procedures for review of detention of individuals
incarcerated without trial under the Internal Security Act.
This information will be incorporated into the Human Rights
Report.


15. (SBU) Minister of Home Affairs Adanan approached the
Ambassador during the Sultan's Open House to ask for a "grace
period" of the suspension of the visa waiver program for
Bruneians issued non-biometric passports after October 26.
The Minister explained that Brunei had finally signed a
contract for production of its new, biometric passports, but
the vendor could not promise delivery before the first
quarter of 2007, at the earliest. The Ambassador told the
Minister that there could be no grace period for enforcing
this legislatively-mandated requirement, but that we looked
forward to restoring full Bruneian participation in the VWP
as soon as possible after the biometric passports were
introduced.

COMMENT
--------------


16. (C) Although we heard some minor grumbling about the
increasing cost and dutiful nature of maintaining Open Houses
that are open to all comers, in general Bruneians appear to
revel in a custom that has become an integral part of their
breaking of the Ramadan fast and which stands in marked
contrast to the usual reserve and formality that
characterizes life in the Sultanate. For diplomats, the Open
House circuit offers an opportunity to engage Bruneians of
all walks of life in an informal, friendly setting; in
addition to covering the points above, emboffs used the
opportunity to advocate for specific U.S. businesses, endorse

BANDAR SER 00000572 004 OF 004


political reform, and cover a wide range of other issues on
the USG agenda. For Bruneians, the Open Houses serve to
solidify their sense of community and shared "Brunei-ness,"
and so bolster the social cohesion that helps maintain
stability in this corner of the Islamic world. END COMMENT.
SKODON