Bahrain's Formula 1 for failure

Activist Ala’a al-Shehabi is the latest victim of Bahrain’s dictatorship arrested after a series of articles critical of the repressive regime. Al-Shehabi was arrested last week while taking journalists on a trip around the country during the Grand Prix weekend. She was possible arrested while travelling with the Channel 4 News crew led by Jonathan Miller which was filming illegally in hot spot areas before they were arrested and deported.  Al-Shehabi announced her own arrest on Twitter saying “Under arrest. Surrounded by.”  She was unable to complete the sentence because she was surrounded by 11 police vehicles.  There has been no word of any charges laid since the arrest.

Dr. Ala’a al-Shehabi is an economics lecturer, a founding member of Bahrain Watch and an outspoken democracy advocate. Her arrest came a week after she published a piece for Foreign Policy called Hunger, heroism and hope in Bahrain where she wrote about another prominent Bahraini activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. Al-Khawaja was then into his 64^th day of a hunger strike. Al-Shehabi said if he died it could end the regime's efforts to rehabilitate itself. The regime was obviously paying attention. Not only did it arrest her, it also forcibly ended the hunger strike after 77 days by force feeding al-Khawaja who now plans to resume it.

His survival removed another potential embarrassing moment for Bahrain as it dealt with the fall-out from the Formula 1 Grand Prix. Leaving aside the disgrace of Bernie Ecclestone and the sport’s governing body heaped upon motor racing by agreeing for the event to go ahead (exposing once again the oft-repeated lie that sport and politics do not mix), the event did bring some good to Bahrain – it shone a light on the nation’s grievous problems. These problems have only got worse since the regime crushed the Shiite protests in March 2011 with Saudi help and US acquiescence.

A new briefing from the Project on Middle East Political Science called Breaking Bahrain surveys Bahrain’s political stalemate, how it got to this point, and what the future might hold. The briefing said the crackdown torpedoed a political compromise and had wider implications to the region blunting the momentum for change (a strong motivation for Saudi intervention). It also hardened sectarian attitudes between Sunnis and Shiites and exposes US hypocrisy at the same time as it intervened in Libya.

Bahrain’s own Independent Commission of Inquiry report found the Bahraini regime committed wide scale human rights violations during the crackdown. The report documented 35 deaths and found  13 of them were caused by security forces, five more dying of torture and eight more “not attributable to a perpetrator”.  Torture included extremely tight handcuffing, forced standing, severe beatings, electric shocks, burning with cigarettes, beating of the soles of the feet, verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, threats of rape and sexual abuse.

A year on, the Bahraini regime has refused to implement the recommendations of the report. They show no sign of admitting there is a problem and are unwilling to countenance any power sharing. When protests started again on 13 February to mark the one year anniversary, the response was swift and brutal. Police fired teargas and stun grenades at protesters who tried to occupy the old Pearl Square, the demolished rallying point of the 2011 protests.  The Government blamed outsiders for the riots. Field Marshall Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, the Bahrain Defence Forces commander in chief told local press a vast array of countries had “mobilised their media, embassies, agents and fifth columns in the Gulf” against Bahrain’s government.

The Grand Prix gave the regime only brief respite. Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa claimed cancelling the race would have empowered the extremists. But the security blanket Bahrain put on to ensure its “success” fooled no-one inside or outside the kingdom.  The protester Salah Abbas Habib was beaten to death by riot police on the eve of the race while there were more journalists in the country more interested in race issues rather than the race. Formula One is a loss leader for Bahrain costing $40 million to run but supposedly stimulating knock-on effect to other business.  But with the country on the front pages and first five minutes of international news, tourism remains on the nose and investment is seen as too risky. Bahrain’s problems will continue indefinitely in the absence of any serious attempts at political compromise.

Bahrain government continues brutal crackdown

The main Shiite opposition party in Bahrain has said it will boycott the proposed “national dialogue” next month and will also sit out the planned September elections. Al Wefaq leader Shaikh Ali Salman said it was a protest against the government for not doing enough to address Shiite concerns. "There has to be real dialogue that results in political reforms,” Salman said. “We believe the dialogue was a step forward for the country but setting conditions before the process is not acceptable.” Salman told Chinese news agency Xinhua they would not take part in the 24 September elections because the “issues faced by people are more important and are still ignored”. He also said government needed to address the sacking of workers, arrest of doctors and nurses, as well as politicians and other citizens before entering any dialogue. (photo of Shaikh Ali Salman by Hasan Jamali)

The national dialogue forum Salman is referring to starts on Saturday. It is aiming to attract 300 participants bringing together the full spectrum of Bahrain's political, social, economic and rights groups. According to Dubai’s Gulf News (which is distributed in Bahrain), the participation rate of invitees is 94 percent. But Al Wefaq was the big undecided group and suspicious that the too wide variety of issues on the table would diminish the chances of agreeing on real democratisation. Despite being almost ha;f of parliament, it was invited to choose only five representatives to the 300-person conference.

Al Wefaq is Bahrain’s largest party winning 18 of the 40 seats in last year’s parliamentary election. However they are regularly outvoted by a bloc of Sunni parties and independents. In February, all 18 Al Wefaq MPs resigned after police killed seven people in the battle for Pearl Roundabout (now razed and known as Al Farooq junction). The Government crushed the rebellion in March with the aid of troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

On 1 June, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa announced the lifting of a "state of national safety" he had decreed and offered talks. Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Khalifa went to the Oval Office a week later to meet President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to seek support for the national dialogue. Bahrain is home to the US Fifth Fleet so the US has been cautious about overtly attacking the regime despite condemning the security crackdown. The State Department formally welcomed the talks on 15 June. However Assistant Secretary Michael Posner told his Bahraini hosts meaningful dialogue could only take place “in a climate of respect for the freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.”

This was a veiled reference to the many trials and military court proceedings initiated by the government to deal with 500 people arrested since the February protest. On Monday Bahrain launched a mass trial of 28 doctors and nurses accused of joining the protests and spreading “false information” which means talking to foreign media. Another 20 doctors and nurses are accused of an "anti-state plot". On 22 June, a special security court in Bahrain sentenced eight activists and opposition leaders to life in prison on charges of “plotting to overthrow the government”.

Meanwhile a special military court called the Court of National Safety came into being on 12 June to hold the trials of politically motivated cases against opposition members of parliament and a prominent defence lawyer. According to Amnesty International, the courts were put in place to respond to the protests and are presided by one military and two civilian judges. The court sentenced a young activist to a year in prison for charges related to her public recital of a poem critical of Bahrain’s King.

Two Al Wefaq MPs are among those arrested and kept in secret solitary confinement. They have no access to legal representation or family present. Human Rights Watch has called on Bahrain to end the proceedings. “Most defendants hauled before Bahrain's special military court are facing blatantly political charges, and trials are unfair," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The Crown Prince may be sincere in his efforts to promote dialogue, but what good is that while back home the government is crushing peaceful dissent and locking up people who should be part of the dialogue."

Whither Bahrain?

Libya is not the only Arabic revolution where outside forces have intervened; there are also foreign troops on the streets of Bahrain. But unlike Libya, the foreigners in Bahrain have come in on the side of the discredited regime. Occupying forces from Saudi Arabia and the UAE are helping the monarchy put down a rebellion with only a few hypocritical murmurs from the West and no sign of any UN-sponsored intervention in the rebels’ favour. With martial law in place after almost two months of protests, Bahrain has today brushed off a Kuwaiti offer to mediate with the rebels saying it wasn’t necessary. The detested al-Khalifa regime is set on a path of destroying the opposition while hoping the rest of the world is too distracted by events in Libya to do anything about it. (photo:AFP)

The Sunni Al Khalifa tribe has ruled Bahrain for almost 200 years, a rule cemented by British overlords and trade-based wealth in the 1800s. The majority Shia did not share in the general prosperity and remained second class citizens despite the implicit and sometimes explicit support of Iran. The discovery of oil ensured British meddling would continue for much of the 20th century. The struggle for supremacy in Bahraini affairs by both Britain and Iran continued until the country gained full independence in 1971. A 1973 constitution promised free elections (though for men only) but this was thrown out two years later by the then-emir Salman al Khalifa.

In the 1990s opposition forces came together to demand reforms from the ageing emir and a return to the 1973 constitution. For six years the streets were plagued with riots which were met by suppression by the regime The intifada did not end until the death of Salman in March 1999. Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa succeeded his father and immediately promised to carry out political reforms. On 14 February 2001 a referendum to carry out the National Action Charter to return the country to constitutional rule was overwhelming supported by 98.4 percent of the voters. The 2000s saw important progress including the enfranchisement of women and parliamentary elections in 2006 and 2010. But key problems remain including discrimination against the Shia and the all pervasive power of the al Khalifa caste.

Problems of powersharing were thrown firmly into the spotlight after pro-democracy demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt hit the headlines in January. In Bahrain opposition was mobilised to demonstrate on the 10th anniversary of the signing of the National Action Charter on 14 February. Pearl Square in the capital Manama became the epicentre of resistance with protesters calling for political reform and equalisation of the economic benefits of Bahrain’s oil-rich economy. The reaction from the alarmed administration was swift. On 17 February a pre-dawn tank raid on the square killed 5 and injured 230 others. Soldiers placed roadblocks and barbed wire around the centre of town and leaders banned public gatherings.

The effect was to harden resistance. Talk of reform was replaced by talk of overthrow of the al Khalifas. The funerals of the dead turned into shrines of martyrdom with talk of 100,000 on the streets – about one eighth of the country’s population. Unity of opposition forces was marred by sectarian clashes between Sunni and Shia. Meanwhile panicky leadership cadres made some concessions by sacking extremist ministers while still authorising a shoot to kill policy on the streets.

On 14 March, the Emir had enough and called for support from his Sunni allies. Led by Saudi Arabia they answered the call. A thousand Saudi troops and 500 UAE police officers crossed the bridge to Manama. The invaders were part of a deployment by the Gulf Co-operation Council, a six-nation regional grouping of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and UAE. The force immediately set about protecting the oil and gas plants and financial institutions. According to al Khalifa, the troops were there “to look at ways to help them to defuse the tension in Bahrain.” But no one in the country was under any illusion this was anything but an occupation force to crush the revolution.

There was the inevitable bleating from the West but no sign of action to back it up. Hillary Clinton said Bahrain and its GCC allies were "on the wrong track” but mentioned nothing about the 5th fleet that remains in its Bahrain base protecting US oil wealth in the greater region. The Khalifas may not be loved by their subjects but the White House know a Shia government in Manama would not be accommodating to 4,500 US military personnel in the city. The Americans have nailed their colours to the mast. The Fifth Fleet is not there to create disorder but to preserve it. When the regime does fall, as it inevitably will, the Americans can have no complaints when they are kicked out.