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When a ski resort announces it is planning to expand or add any infrastructure to its land there are always questions regarding the environment. Most ski resorts do everything possible to ensure that any construction projects meet environmental policies and guidelines. This process usually takes some time and needs approval from government agencies and sometimes from the local community as well. Often times there are opponents to new construction projects at these resorts with concerns over wildlife, the environment, traffic congestion, and other factors as well. It is part of the process that ski resorts are fully aware of and need to plan accordingly for.
However, that process is not the same in Saudi Arabia as it is in the United States, according to a report from Merlyn Thomas & Lara El Gibaly of BBC News. Thomas and Gibaly reported on BBC News that citizens in Saudi Arabia are being forcefully removed from villages and even killed if they do not leave for the construction of the mega-project of Neom. In the report, BBC News stated that an ex-intelligence officer said “Saudi authorities have permitted the use of lethal force to clear land for a futuristic desert city being built by dozens of Western companies.”
Neom is Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion eco-region and is part of its Saudi Vision 2030 strategy to diversify the kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s economy away from oil. The Line has been pitched as a car-free city, just 200 meters (656 feet) wide and 170 kilometers (106 miles) long— though only 2.4 kilometers of the project are reportedly expected to be completed by 2030. According to the BBC report, the area where Neom is being built has been described as the perfect “blank canvas” by Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. But more than 6,000 people have been moved for the project according to his government and UK-based human rights group ALQST estimates the figure to be higher. The Saudi government and Neom management refused to comment to BBC News.
Exiled Saudi colonel Rabih Alenezi says he was ordered to evict villagers from a tribe in the Gulf state to make way for The Line, part of the Neom eco-project according to the BBC report. The BBC also stated that it has analyzed satellite images of three of the demolished villages: al-Khuraybah, Sharma, and Gayal. The homes, schools, and hospitals in those villages have been wiped off the map according to the BBC report.
The BBC report, states that Colonel Alenezi went into exile in the UK last year and says the clearance order he was asked to enact was for al-Khuraybah, 4.5 kilometers south of The Line. The villages were mostly populated by the Huwaitat tribe, who have inhabited the Tabuk region in the country’s northwest for generations. Col Alenezi said the April 2020 order stated the Huwaitat was made up of “many rebels” and “whoever continues to resist [eviction] should be killed, so it licensed the use of lethal force against whoever stayed in their home,” The BBC said in the report. The BBC did state in the report that it was not able to independently verify Colonel Alenezi’s comments about lethal force.
Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti refused to allow a land registry committee to value his property and was shot dead by Saudi authorities a day later, during the clearance mission, according to the BBC report. Al-Huwaiti had previously posted multiple videos on social media protesting against the evictions. A statement issued by Saudi state security at the time alleged al-Huwaiti had opened fire on security forces and they had been forced to retaliate. Human rights organizations and the UN have said he was killed simply for resisting eviction. But a source familiar with the workings of the Saudi intelligence directorate told the BBC that the colonel’s testimony regarding both how the clearance order was communicated and what it said was in line with what they knew about such missions more generally. They also said the colonel’s level of seniority would have been appropriate to lead the assignment.
The BBC reported that at least 47 other villagers were detained after resisting evictions, many of whom were prosecuted on terror-related charges, according to the UN and ALQST. Of those, 40 remain in detention, five of whom are on death row, ALQST says. Several were arrested for simply publicly mourning al-Huwaiti’s death on social media, the group said. Saudi authorities say those required to move for The Line have been offered compensation. But the figures paid out have been much lower than the amount promised, according to AlQst. According to Colonel Alenezi, “[Neom] is the centerpiece of Mohamed Bin Salman’s ideas. That’s why he was so brutal in dealing with the Huwaitat.”
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Andy Wirth, a former senior executive of Neom’s ski project, told the BBC he had heard about the killing of Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti a few weeks before leaving the U.S. for the role in 2020. Wirth says he repeatedly asked his employers about the evictions but was not satisfied with the answers. “It just reeked of something terrible [that] had been exacted upon these people… You don’t step on their throats with your boot heels so you can advance,” he said in the BBC report.
Displaced villagers were extremely reluctant to comment, fearing that speaking to foreign media could further endanger their detained relatives. The BBC stated that more than a million people have been displaced for the Jeddah Central project in the western Saudi Arabian city which includes an opera house, sporting district, and high-end retail and residential units.
ALQST surveyed 35 evicted people from Jeddah neighborhoods and none say they had received compensation, or even sufficient warning, by local law, and more than half said they had been forced out of their homes under threat of arrest, according to the BBC. Attacks on critics of the Saudi government living abroad are not without precedent: the most high-profile being that of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered by Saudi agents inside the country’s Istanbul consulate in 2018. A damning U.S. intelligence report concluded Mohamed Bin Salman approved the operation. The crown prince has denied any role.
Colonel Alenezi said he has no regrets about his decision to disobey orders regarding Saudi’s futuristic city. “Mohamed Bin Salman will let nothing stand in the way of the building of Neom…I started to become more worried about what I might be asked to do to my own people,” he said in the BBC report.
