Awadh bin Bader bin Murie Al-Shanfari: Ambassador Of Oman to Washington

By Andrew I. Killgore

In the world of the imagination, an earthly Eden surely exists, a paradise free of troubles, of ease and innocent pleasure. It may have been near Biblical Ur of the Chaldees, original home of the patriarch Abraham. Or perhaps Dilmun of the ancient Sumerians, a heaven of everlasting youth chronicled in the Gilgamesh epics and now generally identified with the island state of Bahrain.

In the real world, the garden of Eden just may have been beyond the green mountains at the eastern end of Arabia, in the Sultanate of Oman. Few would actually claim that Oman is immune to the problems of the world. Rather, some visitors are likely to conclude from the untroubled personalities of its people and the physical drama of its seas and mountains that Oman is the true Shangri La.

Nature of the Omanis

No one can quite explain the gentle good nature of the Omanis, an amalgam of Arab, east African, Baluchi, and south Asian stock. Perhaps it is part of their trading and seafaring tradition. Or their bridging role between east Africa and the Makran coast of Iran and Pakistan, each former parts of Oman's once far-flung maritime trading empire.

Not surprisingly, the Omani Ambassador to the United States, Awadh bin Bader bin Murie AI-Shanfari, reflects the warm friendliness of his native land. At the end of their first year in Washington, he, his wife, and their three sons and one daughter already have adjusted comfortably to life within Washington's huge diplomatic community.

One reason is that the ambassador first served in the US in the late 1970s. He understands the folkways of the American capital. He also is familiar with the ambassadorial role from his earlier assignments as Oman's Ambassador to Pakistan and to China.

Like many ambassadors in Washington from developing countries, the Omani envoy is a young man, only 44 years of age. While he was studying at Baghdad University in 1970, Sultan Qaboos bin Sa'id took the throne and began to pull Oman out of a long period of diplomatic isolation. After Mr. Al-Shanfari returned to Oman with a law degree and speaking excellent English, he was appointed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1973 and has moved up rapidly.

Oman has a long tradition of diplomatic activity. In the first half of the 19th century, the country's capital was actually moved temporarily from Muscat on the northeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula south to Zanzibar, off the coast of east Africa.

Zanzibar, the fabled "spice island" whence the odor of cloves can be detected 40 miles out to sea when the wind is right, was the locus of a huge east African trading area. The island, now incorporated into Tanzania, left its African flavor on Oman, just as Arab influences are still pervasive in Zanzibar.

Long History of US-Omani Relations

In 1833, when the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, as it was then called, was still an empire, it signed a treaty of friendship and navigation with the United States. One of its sailing ships bore the first Omani representative to the United States, a voyage that was recently reenacted by an Omani "tall ship" manned by Omani naval cadets.

With the gradual loss of its empire, Oman's role in the world declined. In the last two decades, however, following the accession of Sultan Qaboos bin Sa'id, the sultanate has resumed many ties with the outside world, while undertaking a rapid series of domestic reforms and development programs.

Oman's Rapid Development

Internally, there has been an intense concentration on education for both men and women. Primary and secondary schools have been built all over a country which had none before the reign of Sultan Qaboos. An Omani University one year ago opened the doors of a sparkling new campus in an idyllic setting east of the capital. The seat of government, originally based on adjacent twin cities, the political capital of Muscat and the commercial capital of Matrah, has grown explosively into a succession of modern seaside suburbs that now connect what originally were scattered, tiny oases and fishing villages.

Internal development has been greatly facilitated by the discovery and careful exploitation of Oman's petroleum reserves. Although Oman has not yet joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), it now produces more oil than some of that organization's member states. Oman is one of the 22 members of the League of Arab States and also a member of the six-state Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Derailing of Security Threat

Some years ago Oman faced an internal security threat from PFLOAG (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arab Gulf). The threat was eventually turned back with help from military units from Iran, then ruled by the shah, aircraft and pilots from Jordan, and British officers detailed to the sultanate.

Mostly as a consequence of that threat, Oman has considerably built up its own indigenous defense forces. This has also led to low-key but close military cooperation between the United States and Oman, especially since the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, and the buildup of US forces in the gulf during the final year of that war.

Oman is part of the Arab world, and feels and identifies with its problems. But the 1.3 million Omanis also look toward south Asia and east Africa, influenced by both geography and history. Just as Omani ships and ports for so long played a bridging role between all of these areas, its diplomats now effortlessly bridge differences between East and West, and between developed and developing nations.

A conversation with Ambassador Al-Shanfari ranges effortlessly across global, political, social, and environmental considerations, and just as effortlessly avoids confrontation. This does not mean, however, that there are not serious issues that concern both his country and the United States, issues about which his countrymen feel passionately. It means instead that Ambassador Shanfari is a skilled diplomat, a pleasant gentleman, and an Omani.

Andrew I. Killgore is president of the American Educational Trust and publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.