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Kataro ir Saudo Arabijos konfliktas Prancūzijoje: iš prabangių viešbučių iki #UNESCO

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Conventional wisdom has it that the 'Gulf crisis' began when several Arab countries abruptly cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar in June. But the long-simmering animosity between Doha and its Arab neighbours has been fought for years, mostly in stealth mode, on different battlegrounds around the world. It is safe to say, however, that no country outside the region has reaped the benefits, and felt the heat, of this fratricidal confrontation as much as France, writes Hélène Keller-Lind, a French journalist who has reported on Middle Eastern affairs for over twenty years.

The latest manifestation of the Gulf rivals’ face-off in the French capital erupted during the heated contest to elect the new director general of UNESCO earlier this month. Qatar used its vast public relations arsenal in France to support its candidate, former culture minister Hamad Al-Kawary. The Saudis threw their weight behind their regional ally, Egypt. Facing stiff odds in that race was the former Minister of Culture of France, Audrey Azoulay. But she finally emerged as the victor, partly thanks to her charisma and intelligence that won her the votes of many ambassadors, and partly because of the split in the Arab vote.

But that doesn’t mean Qatari media and its lobbying firepower in France are waning. As French journalist Berengere Bonte revealed in a bestseller earlier this year, Qatar has spent dozens of billions of dollars in the past decade to become an indispensable force on the French political and economic scene.

Bonte’s research showed that many senior French politicians went on multiple luxurious trips to Doha, their business class travel and full-board accommodation at the Ritz Carlton wholly paid for by the Qatari Embassy in Paris. The journalist named ministers, parliamentarians, mayors and senior officials from across the political spectrum who have benefited from the largess of the rulers of Qatar.

French journalists and researchers have identified the former prime minister and foreign minister, Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, as the architect of Qatar’s strategy in France. Often referred to as HBJ, the Qatari politician cum businessman, also ran until 2013 the Qatar Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund. His strategy was based on a multi-billion-dollar shopping spree that allowed Qatar to acquire the emblematic football club, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), and a big chunk of the top companies in France. Qatar was given an unprecedented tax break that drew intense criticism in France. The new President Emmanuel Macron has signaled that he intends to revoke it.

Hamad is no stranger to controversies, of course. Last year the Panama Papers leaks revealed that in 2002 Al Thani acquired a shell company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and three more incorporated in the Bahamas, according to Forbes, which estimates the rapidly-amassed fortune of Al Thani to exceed $8 billion. "The Telegraph" of London quoted in November 2014 a U.S. diplomatic cable sent in May 2008 that hinted at a dispute between the Qatari intelligence agencies and HBJ over the handling of Mohammed Turki al-Subaiy, a Qatari citizen designated by the U.S. and the UN as a terrorist financier. In January 2016, the British press reported that Fawaz al-Attiya, a British citizen and former official spokesperso of Qatar, had brought charges against Hamad bin Jassim, claiming that Al Thani had ordered his imprisonment in Doha for 15 months beginning in 2009 and subjected him to conditions amounting to torture. Qatar claimed diplomatic immunity for HBJ, saying that the former prime minister and billionaire was working as a diplomat at the Qatari embassy in London.

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Evidently, the Qatari strategy of becoming a major player in France required the political and economic undermining of their principal rivals from the Gulf: the Saudis. Back in 2007, when in the immediate aftermath of the election of Nicolas Sarkozy the Qataris were putting their well-orchestrated strategy into action, one of the most visible Saudi business leaders in France was Sheikh Mohammed Al-Jaber, a high-profile businessman and philanthropist. Al-Jaber is the owner of JJW Group, an international private company with principal business interests in acquisition and operation of several hotels and resorts throughout Europe and the Middle East. His name drew attention when the Arab media in 2008 headlined an accord between Al-Jaber and the American fund Starwood Capital to buy a dozen luxury hotels – among them Le Crillon, Hotel du Louvre and Concorde Lafayette in Paris, Martinez in Cannes and Palais de la Mediterrannee in Nice - for a total of €1.5bn.

News of Al-Jaber’s deal with Starwood raised eyebrows in Doha, where the deal was seen as an impediment to Qatar’s own agenda in France. Knowledgeable sources in the French capital told me that the Qataris used the services of Salim Khoury, a Lebanese middleman, to achieve their goal. The sources requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of ongoing investigations.

The Qataris knew Khoury from the role he had played in facilitating the controversial acquisition of the Royal Monceau hotel by the Qatari group Diar, an arm of the Qatar Investment Authority. Khoury had been working for years for Rifaat Al-Assad, the uncle of Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad, and knew well the owner of the hotel, Syrian businessman Osmane Aidi, who had close ties to the Assad family.

Khoury was introduced to Al-Jaber in 2007 and was employed by him as an advisor. When Al-Jaber left Paris for a two-month stay in Saudi Arabia in March 2009, Khoury lost almost no time and added an amendment to the exclusivity contract that Al-Jaber had signed with Starwood Capital, accepting on behalf of Al-Jaber to make a further payment of €100 million to the American fund. This was only weeks after the Saudi businessman had paid €50m to Starwood as part of the contract that was valid until March 2010, according to my sources.

As a result of Khoury’s action, and with Al-Jaber contesting the validity of the new amendment, Starwood declared the contract with JJW null and void a year ahead of its legal expiry, and immediately started a series of negotiations with the Qataris that ended in Qatar’s acquisition of some of the group’s best known hotels in France. Qatar Constellations Hotels Group, which bought the hotels, belongs to the Qatar Investment Authority.

The Qataris negotiating the purchase of the hotels from Starwood Capital left Prince Mutaib bin Abdulah of Saudi Arabia to purchase Le Crillon in a bid to gain his favor. Mutaib was rumored at the time to be a likely successor to King Abdullah.

The same sources showed me email correspondence between Khoury and the Chief of Staff of then-Emir of Qatar that went back as far back as 2009. Khoury’s visits to Doha were kept completely secret from Sheikh Al-Jaber, according to the sources. They claim Khoury was working for the Qataris while he was employed by Al-Jaber as his adviser.

One of Qatar’s “best” friends in France and a well-known face in Doha, according to investigative journalist Berengere Bonte, was Patrick Balkany, a close friend of President Sarkozy and longtime mayor of the upscale west Parisian suburb of Levallois. Salim Khoury introduced Balkany to Al-Jaber and encouraged him to enter a project to build two skyscrapers in Levallois. But soon after Al-Jaber signed the contract with the city authorities and made an initial payment of €17 million, Khoury took Mayor Balkany on a visit to Doha coordinated with the office of the Emir of Qatar. Within months he managed to scuttle Al-Jaber’s contract, although the Paris Court of Appeal finally ruled that the amendment to the contract with Starwood Capital was not an authentic document, confirming the Saudi businessman’s claim that Khoury had concocted the amendment without his knowledge.

Al-Jaber was also able to prove that Khoury had also been working against him - while in his employment - in another case involving the Johannesburg-based Standard Bank, which has long-standing ties to the Qatari establishment. As the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai al-Aam reported, the bank initiated contact with Salim Khoury in 2008 and hired him to work for the bank in secret while he was an adviser to Al-Jaber. Khoury’s role as a mole inside Al-Jaber’s business conglomerate caused serious financial damage to Al-Jaber. It may be no coincidence that Standard Bank has close ties with Hamad bin Jassem.

The Qatari plan also included attempts to tarnish the image of Al-Jaber in France, with the ultimate objective of turning French public opinion against Saudi investments in their country. The legal source in London pointed out that a French court ordered the economic monthly Capital to publish an official apology and retract a story on Al-Jaber that relied heavily on Qatari-supplied misinformation on the Saudi businessman. He also noted that through Khoury’s manipulations, Al-Jaber faced false accusations of bribing Patrick Balkany, while he lost millions of euros in that doomed deal. Balkany, meanwhile, continued to be hosted in Doha by his generous Qatari friends years after the aborted deal with Al-Jaber.

Interestingly, investigative journalists in London have discovered that HBJ has also been actively undermining Al-Jaber’s activities in London, including his hotels and his philanthropic works.

As the investigative journalist Berengere Bonte succinctly puts it at the end of the introduction to her book, “How can an old State, heavily indebted, build an adult relationship with another State, infinitely rich and in its adolescence, while the latter has been showering the politicians of the former in gifts for a long time? Welcome to the French Republic of Qatar!”

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