Bahrain: Divide, Repress And Rule

By Alain Gresh
This commentary was published in Le Monde Diplomatique blog on 20/04/2011

Every night hooded men arrest dozens of people, several opposition leaders have died under torture, and the army goes into the hospitals to arrest doctors and confiscate patients’ medical files (1). The press is controlled, and the main political organisations may now be banned. This political repression is accompanied by a rhetoric that would be termed racist if it were not principally aimed at a sectarian minority, the Shia, who make up 70% of Bahrain’s population.

The leader of the National Unity Gathering, Sheikh Abdalatif Al-Mahmoud, a Sunni and close to Bahrain’s royal family, justified these measures in an interview with the daily Asharq Al-Awsat on 20 March. He said the Shia had planned to seize power through a coup, and this had to be prevented. He sees his Shia compatriots as divided into three categories: those who are working with Iran; those who are waiting to see how the confrontation turns out; and those who support the regime: these, he disclosed, are no more than 20% of the country’s Shia Muslims. Al-Mahmoud went further; he admitted that the majority of Bahrain’s Shia are opposed to the regime. Rarely in Bahrain has a political figure accused the majority of his countrymen of being active or potential agents of foreign powers.

Bahrain consists of a few dozen islands in the Persian Gulf. Its history, proximity to Saudi Arabia and the fact that it is home to the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet and provides many facilities to the US military explain why the crisis is so serious. Two centuries of Persian domination, then colonisation by the British, have left their mark. Unlike the reigning Al-Khalifa family, the majority of the population are Shia. When the British protectorate ended in 1968, Iran wanted to annex Bahrain, but a constitution was drawn up under UN supervision in 1970 and independence proclaimed in August 1971.

Chronic political unrest marks life in Bahrain, which has a vigorous opposition, both radical left and nationalist. The regime grew increasingly repressive, with the dissolution in 1975 of a parliament (part of the Bahrain’s first steps towards democracy) that had been elected only two years earlier, and the discovery of an “Iranian conspiracy” in 1981. In 1985 there was a failed coup.

But the opposition, dominated by Islamists from the 1980s on, did not back down, and was strengthened by Bahrain’s economic problems — especially unemployment which is very high among the Shia — and by sectarian discrimination. It demanded a return to the 1973 constitution, and thousands of Bahraini citizens signed a petition to this effect in 1994. A month later, an intifada erupted and lasted for several years: dozens were killed, hundreds arrested and torture became common.

A new emir, Sheik Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, who came to power on the death of his father in 1999, allowed some degree of democratic opening; he freed political prisoners, permitted exiles to return, recognised the principle of equality among Bahraini citizens, abolished emergency laws and restored freedom of speech. A new National Charter, approved by public referendum in February 2001, cemented national reconciliation.

It did not last. The emir proclaimed himself king in February 2002. Without any consultation, he promulgated a constitution that established a bicameral National Assembly with 40 elected members and 40 appointed by the king. This “constitutional coup” was accompanied by a series of royal decrees limiting political freedom. The main opposition parties (the Islamist al-Wefaq and the leftist al-Waad) found their scope for action restricted. The regime meanwhile pursued a policy of “Sunnisation” of the population, granting citizenship to any Arab or Pakistani national as long as they were Sunni. This led in 2006 to the “Bandargate” scandal, named after the civil servant who leaked the procedure for these naturalisations (2).

Political protestors took to the streets again in 2010. Elections were held in November, with the participation of al-Wefaq (which won 18 out of the 40 available seats). But they were boycotted by the more radical al-Haq and by human rights watchdogs who sought to bridge the Sunni/Shia divide (3). Dissatisfaction grew and on 14 February, in the wake of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Bahrain’s first demonstration against the reigning dynasty took place. One demonstrator was killed, and at his funeral the next day another young man died. In a spectacular gesture, the king apologised for the deaths and the opposition parties, who were demanding democratic reforms and a constitutional monarchy, peacefully occupied the Pearl Roundabout in Manama’s financial district. On the morning of 17 February the army attacked, killing five, some as they slept in their tents. The next day the soldiers withdrew and negotiations between the opposition and the reigning dynasty began.

The dynasty seemed divided as to what to do. It tried buying the population off (offering the equivalent of $2,650 to each family), then repression, and then some sought dialogue. The king and the crown prince seemed to favour this approach, while the prime minister, in office for more than 40 years, inclined to a harder line (4). The regime simultaneously played the faith card: tens of thousands of Sunnis demonstrated in support of the monarchy. The opposition was under pressure from more radical elements within its own ranks, but its demands remained fundamentally democratic (5) and non-confessional. Many Sunnis took part in the demonstrations for reform, especially at the start of the movement. The main demand was a constitutional monarchy.

The blow to the movement came, however, from outside the country. Saudi Arabia, which sees itself as a godfather to Bahrain, did not hide its concern at the protests. For Riyadh, the establishment of a democratic regime on its borders (Bahrain is connected to Saudi Arabia by a 26km bridge) was all the more unacceptable because Bahrain is adjacent to the Saudi kingdom’s eastern province – where both its oil resources and its own Shia minority are concentrated – making a democratic regime a dangerous example.

Exasperated by the stalemate in negotiations, Saudi Arabia eventually issued an ultimatum: Bahrain must stop the demonstrations or Saudi Arabia would step in. The Bahraini monarch declared a state of emergency and “at his request”, under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC, consisting of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman) several thousand soldiers from the Desert Shield joint forces invaded the emirate, even though the GCC agreement only allows intervention of this kind in the case of a foreign threat. A violent sectarian crackdown was unleashed on the Bahraini opposition, including Sunnis, and on the majority of the Shia population. The police, all Sunni and many of them naturalised foreigners who regard the Shia as sub-human, exhibited horrific brutality.

The United States was at first concerned at Saudi Arabia’s military intervention — it had tried to broker an agreement between the king and the opposition but Saudi Arabia thwarted the initiative (6) — but then came around to the idea that Iranian interference justified the hard line taken by the Bahraini royal family and by the Saudis. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates’ visit to Riyadh on 6 April confirmed this change of heart. Washington regards its alliance with Riyadh as crucial, but relations had been strained since the US withdrew its support for Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. And the US had already decided to invest more than half a billion dollars by 2015 to double the size of its military base in Bahrain (7).

Suspicions of Iranian interference are probably justified (as are those of Saudi and US interference) and Iran has strongly condemned the Saudi intervention, but reactions have been strongest in Iraq, at both popular and government level. Iraqi and Bahraini Shia have strong ties, and relations between Baghdad and Riyadh were already strained. Saudi Arabia’s intervention therefore risks aggravating tensions between Shia and Sunni Muslims throughout the Middle East — a means of deflecting Arab revolutions from their democratic aims.

REFERENCES & NOTES

(1) See Clifford Kraus, “Hospital is Drawn into Bahrain Strife”, The New York Times, 12 April 2011.

(2) See Alain Gresh, “‘Bandargate’ et tensions confessionnelles”, Nouvelles d’Orient blog, Le Monde diplomatique French website, 19 October 2006.

(3) See Cortni Kerr and Toby Jones, “A Revolution paused in Bahrain”, Middle East Report Online, Merip, 23 February 2011.

(4) See Oliver Da Lage, “Bahreïn: dissenssion chez les Al Khalifa?”, blog, 20 February 2011.

(5) See International Crisis Group report, “The Bahrain Revolt”, 6 April 2011.

(6) Caryle Murphy, “Bahrain becomes flashpoint in relations between US and Saudi Arabia”, GlobalPost, 13 April 2011.

(7) See Alexander Cooley and Daniel H Nexon, “Bahrain’s Base Politics”, Foreign Affairs, 5 April 2011.