LuLu supermarket looted in Oman as police disappear and anarchy rules
Posted on 01 March 2011 with 7 comments from readers
Yesterday’s looting of a burning hypermarket in Sohar, Oman’s main industrial city, with no intervention by police or security forces is a worrying new development in the political and social unrest that has spread across the Arab world.
According to well-documented reports on Reuters people just walked into the store and helped themselves all day and took away what they could carry. It was anarchy and chaos rather than any organized activity.
Sohar protests
The looting followed large protests the previous night with government buildings set ablaze and there is a dispute over the number of deaths, with doctors putting the toll as high as six and the health minister claiming one person was dead.
The UAE based LuLu hypermarket chain will not reopen until calm returns to the country, managing director Yousuffali Abdul Khader told Reuters. The store employs some 300 Omanis and 200 expatriate workers now without jobs.
Oman is shocked by this sudden unrest after 40 years of peace and quiet under the generally well respected Sultan Qaboos, installed on his throne by the British in a bloodless coup. Sultan Qaboos responded by reshuffling five ministers at the weekend.
Energy prices
The sultanate is a significant exporter of oil and gas, pumping 885,600 barrels per day in January and anything that threatens possible supply disruptions is bad for energy prices. This is also another of the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries previously thought immune to protests which are also still continuing in Bahrain.
It brings the unrest close to the main energy exporting nations – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE – a disturbing development for those in the West who seem to think calm in the Arab world can be quickly restored after the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya whose civil war seems far from over.
7 Comments posted by readers:
This sounds more like criminal activity rather than something political.
We never saw this in Egypt for example.
Ed Note: the Egyptian National Museum was attacked by looters.
OMAN’S WOES
It is horrifying to read about the protests, violence in Oman, one of the most peaceful, prosperous countries in the Gulf. Oman is to the Gulf region what Goa is to India: a peaceful and welcoming haven. Oman is pretty, well-organized, has excellent infrastructure and the people have always been calm, peaceful, warm and hospitable. The country has fantastic beaches, hotels and restaurants.
Well-wishers of Oman and its wonderful people, like me, can only hope that the current spate of violence will end soon and the representatives of the ruling family and the protestors can sit down and solve their problems.
Across the world, the hiatus between the “haves” and the “have-nots” has been widening. It is indeed true that whilst there is more material wealth in the world, it is not necessarily percolating down the population strata in terms of jobs, opportunities and education. However the remedy to the issue, is dialogue and debate. Violence and destruction of property will not solve any problems.
Looking at the protests and mass rallies in affluent countries like Bahrain and Oman, I shudder to think, of the consequences, if 250 million Indians, who live below the poverty line of 2 USD per day, in desperate slums and villages, decide to take to the streets to protests against poverty, inflation and corruption. Most of the Gulf countries have unemployment allowances and free or subsidized health care/housing. India does not offer these facilities to its citizens.
Rajendra K. Aneja
http://www.marketwatch.com.us Four time bombs that will blow up Wall Street by Paul B. Farrell. Could an oil shock be the one?
The way things are going, I may need to take typing lessons!
You got James Bond’s telephone number, Peter?
There is no evidence that the Musuem in Egypt was attacked by protestors, the looting that occured there was organised, they knew what they were looking for.
It is similar to what happened in Iraq when the ‘Allies’ invaded.
Epypt – Shops and property was protected by protestors – it was shown as Al Jazeera.
People in the muslim world are finally realizing that they have less and less and the crown has all the wealth. My father visited Bahrain twenty years and noticed this as a problem even back then.
You should not be surprised to see this sort of thing happening after 1,000 years of oppression. After all, the current regimes were installed by the colonial powers, and even then when there is a new post-colonial government, the influence, the taint of corruption and lack of governing skill of the locals lend to problems of their own.
They’ve had enough of the puppets of the western world who run their countries at their expense.
Puppets of the western world? That’s funny. Here in America I remember people talking more about how the politicians are the puppets of the rich Saudis and other oil sheiks.
They are nobody’s puppets. They are the friends and members of the super class.