13th March 2013
When Saudi armored vehicles roared in the early hours of the 14th March 2011 on the causeway between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia the leaders of both countries thought the invasion would be a short-lived episode. The invasion would crush the Revolution that had started one month earlier. That did not happen. What are the implications, consequences and legality of the Saudi intervention in Bahrain?
Professor Madawi Al Rashid – Saudi Arabia local and regional challenges: Thank you for inviting me to share my thoughts about what is going on in the Arab world with specific reference to Saudi Arabia. Let me start first by surveying what has happened over the past two years and focus specifically on Saudi Arabia and its reaction to the Arab uprisings. There were three reactions from Saudi Arabia with respect to the challenging situation in may Arab countries from North Africa to Syria. There are three strategies that the Saudi regime has adopted since 2011. The first one is containment, the second is counter revolution and the third one is revolution.
So Saudi Arabia initially was described as a counter revolutionary force during the Arab uprisings but I think that is not an accurate description. In fact it had these three positions depending on its national interest in the region. So initially obviously Saudi Arabia would have preferred the Arab regimes to stay as they are and it condemned the revolts and their transformative natures. In anticipation of the upheavals that were going to be witnessed in the region they immediately instructed their religious scholars to ban demonstrations and call them fitna (dissent) invoking a long tradition particularly among the Sunnis that prohibits peaceful protest and civil disobedience. The official press highlighted these fatwas of the religious scholars and said they were a way of mitigating against chaos and the uncertainty of the future.
From the very beginning Saudi religious scholars condemned Mohammed bu Azizi when he set himself on fire on 4th January sparking the wide spread revolt in Tunisia that spread across the Arab world. Saudi Arabia immediately offered refuge to President Zine Al Abdine Ben Ali on 14th January 2011 and ignored calls for his repatriation. Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal justified this by invoking Arab hospitality. While Tunisia was important to Saudi Arabia for the security and intelligence links that the Ministry of the Interior in Saudi Arabia established with its equivalent in Tunisia, Tunisia itself is hardly central to Saudi security or influence in North Africa. Tunisia is important for its own people but it is actually more important for Europe than for Saudi Arabia with the exception of these links of Saudi Arabia to the Tunisian regime.
Eventuality the victory of Rashid Al Ghanoushi of the Islamist Al Nahda Party was received with dismay in Saudi Arabia. Ghanoushi had previously been denied entry to the country and remained aloof from the Saudi leadership during the years of his exile here in London. During the uprising his daughter Sumeria attacked Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian rule and its hosting if Ben Ali. After his election victory Ghanoushi denounced the hypocrisy prevalent in countries like Saudi Arabia while explaining his Islamic programme which so far has not made it compulsory for Tunisians to impose Islamic law. He said that Tunisian women who wear the veil do so voluntarily while explaining that in countries where veiling is compulsory women take the first opportunity to remove it – a subtle reference to Saudi Arabia.
When we come the future developments in Tunisia we see that Saudi Arabia through its foreign ministry – the minister Hamadi Jebani did not visit Saudi Arabia till February 2012. Moderate Tunisian Islamism presented a challenge to Saudi Arabia. They said that a country which claims to rule according to Islamic law boasts about Islamic credentials is actually the country which feels threatened by the rise of Islamism in countries like Tunisia and beyond, especially in Egypt.
The official Saudi press offered a platform for Tunisian ancient regime activists to highlight the restrictions in Tunisia. So if you survey the Saudi newspapers and the media you will find that they give a platform to all the critics of the regime in Tunisia today showing how it tends to restrict personal liberties as if in Saudi Arabia those personal liberties are actually respected.
In contrast to that we see that in the case of Egypt the actual challenge was felt by Saudi Arabia given that Mubarak was a close ally of the regime. Saudi Arabia could not offer sanctuary to host the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak although the regime would probably have liked to do so. Mubarak stepped down on 12th February 2011, Saudi Arabia promised the Egyptian armed forces aid worth £4bn. During Mubarak’s initial exile in Sharm Al Sheikh unsubstianted rumours circulated that the Saudis were plotting his escape but nothing happened.
The first election resulted, as expected in a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood and for the Salafi party. In a way Saudi Arabia could not longer count on Egyptian backing in the Arab region. The new openness of the Egyptian public sphere, including the media, has ended the silence over the country’s previous subservience to the Saudi agenda. In particular some Egyptian media from the moment of the Arab uprising began to be more open and chose to report openly on those Egyptians who were defying the Saudi presence in Egypt. There were demonstrations in front of the Saudi embassy and calls on Egyptian Foreign Ministry to take action to protect Egyptian citizens in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia had rewarded the Mubarak regime for silencing criticism of Saudi Arabia and for long term intelligence and diplomatic co-operation and also for enjoying Egypt’s support over Iran. Today over one million Egyptians work in Saudi Arabia. That number of Egyptian immigrants in Saudi Arabia would cause a problem if they returned exactly as happened in 1991 when Saudi Arabia expelled over one million Yemeni immigrants for their country’s support (at least in rhetoric) for the regime of Saddam Hussein.
As long as Egypt remains politically weak and economically unstable which is actually the case now, Saudi Arabia could assume or hope that it could bring back Egypt to the Saudi sphere of influence.
Notwithstanding Saudi fears of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt the Saudi regime would try to contain the outcome of the Egyptian revolt through subsidies, backdoor diplomacy and co-operation with the military and intelligence services of Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood itself has made it clear that the organisation does not aim to export the Egyptian revolt to the countries of the GCC and would honour Gulf investment made before the revolution. The Egyptian courts will investigate only suspicious investment made under the Mubarak regime. There was land that was sold to Gulf investors at a very very unfair and they will probably the legal route in order to regain some of their assets.
However the most effective weapons against the development a stable Egypt is in fact to continue to back groups that would destabilise Egypt and one mistake that the people usually make is the assumption that the Saudi regime would always sponsor Salafai groups but this is actually not accurate because the Saudis, given their resources, would back many horses. So it is likely that they would support some Salafi groups but at the same time they would support some of the regime activists who have been allied with the Mubarak regime just in case one group wins. So it is a strategy of subsidising multiple groups in a foreign country in order to come up with a solution or with a positive benefit to the Saudi regime.
Now we come to the third case, I talked about Tunisia and Egypt but let us see what happened in Libya and what the response of Saudi Arabia was at the time. Saudi Arabia initially remained silent on Libya even though it had a very troubled relationship with Gaddafi. But Gaddafi and Libya was not an immediate threat to Saudi Arabia and the uprising promised to remove an arch enemy and that was that while Qatar, the UAE and Jordan nominally participated in the heavy NATO bombing that brought down Gaddafi’s regime.
Saudi Arabia only offered verbal backing. The participation of the Gulf states ensured that the Libyan revolt could be easily contained and Gaddafi’s downfall could only serve Saudi interests. Saudi Arabia had a more menacing uprising to deal with near home and this was in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has always considered Yemen a security threat and has interfered in its local politics since the 1930s. In addition to direct intervention and subsidies to tribal chiefs and activists Saudi Arabia was co-operating with the Yemeni military establishment. It had participated in bombings in Sana’a in 2009 in support of president Ali Abdullah Saleh. It also sponsored Salafi groups and institutions in the heartland of Yemen creating internal tension and schism within that society.
From 2005 Saudi Arabia succeeded in expelling Al Qaeda operatives compounding Yemeni problems with militant Islamism. In January 2011 when the Yemenis took to Tahrir Square in Sana’a to overthrow Salah, Saudi Arabia was alarmed and immediately attempted to control the revolut. Under the umbrella of the GCC, Saudi Arabia designed the Yemeni Accord and I think here we have Yemeni specialists who could tell you more about Yemen then myself. But I will just mention that this guaranteed Salah’s immunity in return for a transfer of power to the vice president.
Salah delayed signing but eventually he was given medical treatment in Saudi Arabia after an assassination attempt and remained there for a while before returning to Sana’a and then going on to the USA for further treatment.
The Yemeni uprising was too complex for the Saudis to micro manage. The demonstrators were aware of the Saudi intervention supporting old the Yemeni tribal groups and military figures. On one occasion they chanted that they would come to Bahrain clearly denouncing Saudi intervention and reminding the Saudis that the Yemen would not be so easy to dominate.
At the time of just finishing my talk and writing it it seems that Saudi Arabia succeeded in preventing the worse political climate. Hadi was elected president in 2012 but the previous Yemeni regime remains intact. I cannot see that anything has changed in Yemen. In addition to the troubled border area between Yemen and Saudi Arabia the Al Qaeada threat and the Houtis in the north, Saudi Arabia wanted to maintain its influence in Yemen by promoting a counter revolution disguised as negotiations.
It is only in Bahrain that Saudi Arabia pursued direct military intervention rather than negotiation or back door diplomacy and co-optation for its own internal reasons. Saudi Arabia was determined to preserve monarchies in the GCC states and score a victory over Iran in Bahrain. On 14th February protesters marched to Pearl Square in Bahrain where the security forces struggled to control the situation. The GCC states forged a policy to thwart the revolt and support the Sunni Al Khalifa rulers. This swift response confirmed Saudi Arabia as a counter revolutionary force in the region.
The Bahraini government continues to cement its GCC connections and tries to equip the confederation of Gulf states. It is the only GCC state that calls for a quick confederation or some kind of stronger connections with other GCC states. Kuwait is definitely hesitant and has not expressed any kind of desire to enforce further unity between the Gulf States. Oman has also remained aloof and did not want to get more entrenched in GCC politics. The UAE has certain problems with Saudi Arabia, especially economic ones over a common currency and a central Gulf bank that was proposed as the UAE wants it be based in Dubai and Saudi Arabia wants it to be based in Riyadh and that is what very difficult to see how the other GCC countries with the exception of Bahrain called for greater unity with regimes. I think the best critique came from the head of the dissolved Kuwaiti parliament, Sadoun, who said that we cannot be in further unity with unelected parliamentary systems, meaning Saudi Arabia.
In 2011 during the GCC summit King Abdullah announced that they should move towards this co-operation and change it into a union and Bahrain agreed enthusiastically. In contrast the Kuwaitis rejected that. The rulers of Bahrain continue to claim that the revolt was driven by an Iranian conspiracy to undermine Sunni rule, a line which appeals to the Saudi regime. Yet all Bahraini reports dismiss any kind of connections with the outside world, especially Iran. Saudi Arabia now moved into Bahrain for two reasons. One of them is to prevent the downfall of the Al Khalifas because it would have been the first precedent in the Gulf where the monarchy is no longer there. And you only need to have one falling and possibly the fear of the domino effect in the region might start. That was the first major concern.
The second is domestic and this has to do with the Saudi internal situation. Only 16kms separate Bahrain from the oil fields of Saudi Arabia and with a population in the eastern province that has a concentration of Shia. These have had historic kinship and economic political and social connections. As predicted after the Bahraini revolt the Saudi Shias started their agitations in the eastern province. One could argue that Saudi Arabia has actually succeeded in enforcing a sectarian rift between the majority in Saudi Arabia and the Shia minority in the eastern province and in Bahrain. And it served its purposes to present the Bahraini uprising as a Shia uprising backed by a foreign country, Iran, in order to gain some kind of internal legitimacy. The Saudis have struggled for almost three decades to present themselves as the defenders of Sunni Islam and as the eternal situation was shifting in Saudi Arabia we witnessed over the last two years more mobilisation among the Sunnis. The latest was in the heartland of Wahabi Islam in Qasim and Bureida where there is a serious mobilisation by different groups calling for rights and the rights or political prisoners. In order to suppress that revolt the sectarian discourse, the sectarian agitation is extremely important.
Just a few concluding remarks. It is ironic that a state claiming to rule Islamic principles really fears the power of Islamism both at home and in neighbouring countries. Two regional Islamist trends worry Saudi Arabia. One is the Muslim Brotherhood and the other is the Salafis who have decided to engage in politics through democratic institutions such as for example what happened in Egypt. You may agree or disagree with that but they present us with a model that the Saudis do not want to see.
Saudi salafis, especially the official Salafia, built their reputation and strength on the basis that democracy and elections are all unacceptable. So the Saudi legitimacy is based on appropriating Islamic symbols such as claims that our constitution is the Quran and the application of sharia. Countries where secular dictators have been deposed are now adopting moderate Islamic slogans. Their newly elected parliaments have Islamist majorities drawn from both the brotherhood and the salafis. The Saudi leadership is loosing its unique Islamic credentials as is eager to contain the uprising in such a way as to remain the only Islamic model in the region – so-called Islamic model in the region.
The possibility of neighbouring states combining Islamic politics with democracy threatens the Saudi model and hence seriously alarms the Saudi government. What worries the Saudi regime the most is the transformation that its own Islamists are undergoing. Many Saudi Islamists are now espousing the global discourse in human rights, civil rights and there are many groups working on the ground trying to gain some kind of existence and recognition but unfortunately just on Saturday the leadership of this trend in Saudi Arabia associated with civil and political rights association were sentenced to 10 and 11 years in prison. These are Abdullah Hamid and Hamid Al Kahani.
Just a point about the future. In the near future, Saudi Arabia will face serious upheavals as its own Islamists, liberal activists and also its Shia minority in addition to the unpoliticised citizens continue to demand real political reform at a time when the leadership is concerned about its own succession problems. Saudi Arabia lost several princes over the last two years and it is this transitional period when the divisions within the royal family and the management of the succession is unfolding. We find that the population is developing and empowering itself with the discourse of human rights and civil liberties.
How the Saudi will actually respond to the events in Bahrain I think given the international silence over the situation in Bahrain Saudi Arabia will remain there for the foreseeable future and only if there are some serious changes in Saudi Arabia I can’t see these troops out of Bahrain.
Professor Joshua Castallino: The Saudi invasion from the perspective of international law: I want to start by paying tribute to the people in Bahrain and in countries like Syria who have continued their struggle despite the international communities decision to sometimes ignore the struggles there and really fighting against quite impossible odds. I want to give you an international legal perspective on some of the issues that we are faced with two years ago that continue to this day. Essentially I want to speak to you about five concepts that you will hear about the Saudi action in Bahrain.
The first concept I want to touch on is the concept of sovereignty and what it means, the second is to say a little bit about self determination and what that concept means and how important it is in public international law. I want to address briefly the issue of humanitarian intervention and the reason I do that is because it is often suggested that what took place two years ago was a humanitarian intervention in terms of one Gulf state coming to the assistance of another. I want to tell you what the international legal position is on humanitarian intervention. I want to touch on a fourth concept called the responsibility to protect again which is very similar to the humanitarian law concept and finally I want to talk to you about the right of peace. So these are five international legal concepts that I think we ought to really highlight in the context of understanding the impact of these events of two year ago that continue to this day.
I start with sovereignty because it is a crucial element of the architecture in international law. Sovereignty essentially is nothing other than the right of any government to have complete jurisdiction over the territory it governs. And basically sovereignty is a concept to allow every independent state to stand on its own two feet. In the context of decolonisation one of the real fears as many states in Asia, Africa and Latin America came to independence – one of the big fears that these countries had was interference; interference from powerful states very often powerful Western states who drew their boundaries but also interference from other states nearby who may have had strong interests.
If you remember the United Nations charter it talks about we the people of the United Nations having solemnly urged ourselves to constitute ourselves into an international society. It highlights the principle of sovereignty and really the idea of sovereignty in that context is that we will always oppose the interference by one sovereign state in the affairs of another sovereign states. And that is important to bear in mind.
It is articulated in legal terms in something called Article 2/7 of the United Nations charter which says that nothing contained in the charter will allow a sovereign state to interfere in matters of the domestic jurisdiction of another sovereign. Let us leave sovereignty aside for the moment because sovereignty is essentially a concept which protects governments. What about people? Because you could argue in a sense that if the Bahraini government is a sovereign states and everybody acknowledges that it is then surely the Bahraini government can decide who it wants to invite in at a time of crisis. And that is an argument that is often made to justify Saudi intervention in Bahrain. And that is something I will come back to in a minute.
But I would like to reiterate at this stage that sovereignty needs to be understood in terms of the sovereignty of the government but also in terms of the sovereignty of the people. Different rules apply when there is something of a protest going on when there is really a mass uprising for which you can gain popular support.
If we leave that aside for a second and move to the second concept which is really the notion of the right of self determination. In the creation of international society as we know it now the right of self determination was highlighted as being fundamental. This was the right that allowed us to go from the 51 member states of the United Nations who signed the charter in 1945 to the 200 member states we have now. Self determination was a process through which many peoples throughout the world stood up for their rights, claimed those rights in an international context, gained sometimes implicit and explicit support including the use of armed force to gain their own sovereignty and their own rights.
For me sovereignty is the material issue in Bahrain. What we see across the Arab world starting from Tunisia is the first time that we are listening to the voice of the Arab people. It is a real shame that when we are listening to the voice of the Arab people we are allowing this noise to be drummed out by other voices that don’t speak for the Arab people. Decolonisation was essentially a process through which the colonial states who had a presence in Arab, African, Asian and Latin American lands were asked to leave and abdicate and leave.
What ought to have happened if we follow the United Nations principles was that a true voice of the people ought to have been heard and we should have been able to create independent states. That of course happened in many parts of the world but did not really happen in the Middle East when decolonisation and self determination simply meant the handover of power from one colonial ruler to another non representative ruler. So the key element here is to what extent is the uprising all across the Middle East a cry for self determination, a genuine plea by people to have rights which are due to everyone. For me what we see in the MENA countries is an attempt to give voice to a frustration that exists from people who have been disempowered and excluded from power for a long time. Failing to hear those voices is really akin to saying that self determination does not matter. So me self determination is the second concept to bear in mind.
Following on to the third concept: humanitarian intervention. It is often said at a time of crisis that you need to have your friends beside you to help you get through it. And humanitarian intervention was really a concept that was designed and was existing throughout centuries by which one state would come to the assistance of another when that state is faced with a invasion. Usually humanitarian intervention took place when a foreign government was invading a country and when there was a genuine threat to the lives and livelihood of the population.
Increasingly what has happened is that humanitarian intervention has been used as political motivation to interfere in the sovereign affairs of another state based on real politik and based on the kinds of considerations that the previous speaker highlighted in terms of Saudi Arabian policy. It is really important to distinguish when there is an hour of need and when there is a need to defend the people and when there is quite differently an attempt to further your foreign policy through the invasion of another country. We need to distinguish those concepts because getting that wrong can lead to material consequences.
The United Nations has been greatly concerned about the extent to which humanitarian intervention could be legal. Various different states at various different points have suggested when they have invaded another country is that what they are doing is responding to a humanitarian need. So humanitarian intervention has become a political tool that can be used by the powerful get their political interests.
In the interests of trying to refine this concept further in the international legal community the concept of the responsibility to protect was developed. RTP. Essentially this was the argument that says that the international community has a responsibility to citizens all over the world to protect them from the gross human rights violations that may occur irrespective of whether those violations occur as a result of a foreign invasion or actions by their own state.
The responsibility to protect essentially creates an obligation on the part of international society to take action when there are gross human rights violations at stake. Just to give you an idea of where this responsibility to protect comes from it really emerges from it really emerges it really emerges out of the Rwanda genocide. If you look at the United Nations charter one quick way of explaining it is that it is one way of ensuring that genocide never occurs again. Even the UN charter preamble talks about the scourge of genocide that has twice visited us in our lifetimes and makes a pledge never to let it happen again. That was 1945. But 1945 was not the end of genocide as you well know. Genocide has occurred in many other contexts and the frustration in the 199os when 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda and Burundi and essentially the international community did nothing.
It is in the context of that, the aftermath of that and the personal responsibility that the Secretary General Kofi Annan felt that this concept of the responsibility to protect RTP was articulated. It said that we can’t simply as an international community stand still and allow and vast number of population, vast number of people to simply be slaughtered by various governments – their own or another for political purposes.
So even though the concept of the responsibility to protect has been framed quite carefully the problem was that is allowed plenty of room for those who wanted to use it in its own guise. So Syria for example used it in Lebanon much before the concept was framed and various other states have tried to use it. And what you have in the Bahraini context is an attempt to suggest that what is in fact happening is a Saudi response to their responsibility to protect Bahrain.
Once again I would stress to you that there is a distinction to be made between protecting a government and protecting a people and that distinction has to be kept uppermost in your mind. This concept of responsibility to protect and humanitarian intervention has never been designed to protect a government and has been designed to protect a people. The UN charter makes it very clear that it is we the peoples of the UN- it is not we the states of the UN – It is we the peoples of the United Nations. So the key in understanding and refuting this argument that what has occurred in Bahrain is an intervention has livened the concept of saying who is this so-called intervention protecting? Is it protecting ordinary Bahraini citizens or is it protecting a government. And that is the point when we need to raise the question and scrutinise these issues in much greater detail.
A final point I want to make to you in terms of international law and its perception is really the notion of the right to peace. The right to peace is not framed in particular legal terms but it forms the undercarriage of everything that is occurring in international society and the attempt to eradicate violence. We as an international society, as an international community have a duty to individuals, to human beings everywhere to try and ensure that we can create peaceful conditions in which they can pursue their lives. We have failed in that particular constraint quite dramatically.
In some instances we see that the right to peace is upheld. Very often it is upheld when it suits the political motivations of the states that want to uphold it. But on other occasions the right to peace is violated and we allow populations and peoples to fall victim to police forces and security forces. Nothing exemplifies this more than the contrasting situations of Bahrain and Syria at the moment.
So in understanding what the right to peace is we really need to understand what the role of protest is. It is very clear that in many societies there has not been a tradition of protest. This is particularly true all across the Middle East where protest has for the last five or six decades been put down very harshly by regimes who are insecure and who see protests as undermining their own power. We need to understand that protest is an important part of political life and an important part of the political process. Unless we understand that particular process and take strong measures to protect protesters and bring them to negotiating tables we will never ever get anywhere near the right to peace.
The fact is that in the last two years what we have seen is growing protest and I want to finish by giving you a bit of context to what I see here. Essentially when I write about these issues I write about them from the perspective of the right to self determination. Essentially I look at the world and the 80 percent of states that have come out of decolonisation and ask the question have they really truly decolonised. Have they truly come out of this process and have we heard the voice of the people.
In the case of some states the answer is yes. Decolonisation did take place and power was handed to the people. In many places, especially in the Middle East that is not the case. We are for the first time hearing the voices of people who have been long disenfranchised. It is vital that we listen carefully as an international community and respond with tact and sophistication to the voices that are going on.
If we end up in a scenario where once again these genuine voices of protest are drowned out by our support for states we will once again lose the opportunity to win the peace. We lost many wars but it is crucial that we win the peace and the only way we can win the peace is to make sure that those who protest tell us and articulate what it is they want are given a fair hearing about what it is they are asking for.
If we allow these peaceful protests, and this is as true in Madrid and in occupy London as it is in Pearl Square. If we drown out the genuine voice of protest and allow power to dictate how the states go forward we will have lost a major historical opportunity to get peace and to get self determination across the world.
So I would urge you to bear in mind these important legal concepts when we think of the events of two years ago. It is really quite shocking that there is so little coverage of the issues of what is happening in Bahrain. I do not need to tell you that this is really a great and gross reflection of the way in which real politik places a role in our understanding of law and our understanding of human rights. I speak to you as an independent observer. I speak to you as someone who believes in the processes of law and believes that the processes of law should be applied equally irrespective of who the perpetrators are.
Essentially the role of law has always been to try and gain rationality to power. If we allow power to defeat law and if we allow power to defeat rights then we do not have a legal order. For me it is crucial that we maintain an international legal order and it is crucial that the international legal order is upheld in every single case even when the most powerful are involved. So I would urge you to continue protesting and struggling. I wish that international law could give you better weapons and better tools to maintain your struggle. But unfortunately the only thing we can do at this stage is to continue to speak out and highlight violations when they occur. That in and of itself has a value because that in and of itself will tell our offspring and our children and future generations that what occurred and what continues to occur in Bahrain is a shocking violation of public international law and it is the duty of the international community to step up and uphold the laws and order it claims to protect. Thank you.
Jawad Fairooz, former Bahraini MP: Exactly at this moment on 13th March, 2011 Saudi troops starting coming to Bahrain across the King Fahd causeway. It was officially announced on the 14th but I know when it was because we were watching the movement of the troops. It was between 7.15 and 7.30 on 13th March 2011. This invasion is unique in many ways. I can show certain slides to show how it started and the sequence of events and whether or not it was a legitimate invasion. Internationally and even locally within the GCC legislation and the defence agreements was it legal or not?
The geographical location of Bahrain is very important to the international community and to the United States, the UK and definitely for the neighbour of Bahrain Saudi Arabia. In 1986 they built this bridge, causeway between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. This causeway is not just an economic need or requirement for Bahrain. It was more than that. It was a political requirement for Bahrain which we have seen in 2011.
[Slide] This is the first night when the people started to gather around Pearl Roundabout. It was on 15th February. The announcement was that they should get together on 14th February but they couldn’t reach the roundabout. They arrived on the 15th. That was the first night of the Pearl Roundabout. On 17th February they attacked the people who were sleeping in the early morning and they took control. Who took control? The Bahraini defense forces and the police guards with the national guard. They took control of Pearl Roundabout on 17th February 2011. But they could not stay long. Why? Because the people resisted and mobilised themselves once again. They came out in demonstrations on 18th February. They started to mobilise and on the 19th a huge demonstration took place. Tanks were there but they continued going towards Pearl Roundabout. This man shirtless [slide] was martyred when he was directly hit by the defense forces.
I think on that day on 17th February 2011 a decision was taken that the authorities should deal with the crisis – the revolution – according to two plans: Plan A and Plan B. Both plans ran in parallel not in sequence. Plan A was to have contact with the opposition and try to buy time to let them engage in a dialogue with the crown prince. But they were not serious about the dialogue. They wanted to buy time to act on Plan B. Plan B was to let the Saudi troops come in as soon as possible. Everyone knows that you cannot take such an important military decision and implement it right away. I do not think it is logical that on 13th or 14th March 2011 the decision is taken and at the same time all these troops come into Bahrain. It takes a long time to mobilise and make an agreement. The USA and the UK should be informed about this action. Why the USA? Because they have the fifth fleet in Bahrain. The UK because with their contact with Bahrain I think everything was arranged within a month’s time.
When they pulled back from the roundabout exactly on the 19th after this man [slide] had been martyred we could see that the people stayed there from 13th February until 13th March. There was an indication that there was a certain movement there from the security forces and they want once again for the second time to attack the roundabout.
When a certain number of demonstrators gathered near the financial harbour and blocked the area at 5am they were attacked by the security forces and there was a call that everyone should go to Pearl Roundabout and at that point clashes started and the people started going to Pearl Roundabout.
There were clashes on March 13th as the people started gathering at Pearl Roundabout. A person was standing on the stage and addressing and directing all the demonstrators. His name was Hamid Habib. I was next to him on the stage. Around 10.30 all the police forces were on the bridge. Hamid Habib warned the police forces that if they did not leave the demonstrators would try to control the bridge. The police forces and the security forces started leaving the scene.
[slide] Here you can see part of the clashes with the security forces. No military action was taken during this time because there were few security guards. I think they thought it was the right time to ask the Saudis to start coming in. The plan was made earlier, one month back.
That day an urgent meeting was held in the headquarters of Wifaq (an opposition party) which I attended. This meeting joined the loyal groups and the opposition groups to discuss what they can do, what happened that day and how they can deal with the crown prince efforts to start a dialogue. The opposition stated that any dialogue should guarantee two things; one that the people in the roundabout should be guaranteed that they are safe and they should not be attacked. Secondly that a council would be elected and that there will be a new contractual agreement between the ruling family and the people. But the loyal group did not agree with us. 7.20 to 7.25 when we heard that the Saudi troops were coming to Bahrain the loyal groups were so happy but the opposition were very sad.
[slide] This is the last night in Pearl Roundabout before the attack and before any scene of the Saudi troops coming in.
[slide] This is prince Naif Bin Abdul Aziz. He was the main man in Saudi Arabia was in contact with the ruling family in Bahrain to plan all this occupation of Bahrain and I think he was supporting it so strongly. I think he was behind it.
The Saudis started coming through the causeway. This was reported by the international media. The next day in the early morning of March 16th the authorities in Bahrain announced emergency rule. Around 6am helicopters and military aeroplanes started to attack Pearl Roundabout. The tanks came in and started attacking. They were mobilised from different locations. There were fewer people because martial law was already announced and the people knew that they cannot resist that much and they started leaving the scene.
Instead of protecting the properties the military supported by the Saudi invasion damaged all the cars parked close to Pearl Roundabout. The stage was totally damaged [slide]. Then they cleared the scene. The police forces and the Saudi troops started to demolish Pearl Roundabout. To guarantee that the people would not go back to Pearl Roundabout and resist the presence of the military in the roundabout they attacked different villages in Bahrain so that the people would defend their villages instead of confronting the military presence in Pearl Roundabout.
[slide] In Sitra Ahmed Farhan was martyred. At the same time they started demolishing Pearl Roundabout and all the international media started to cover it. I think somehow they were fair to say that there is a hypocritical democracy in the international community.
Bahrain’s revolution started on the 14th and Libya’s revolution started after two or three days. It was so clear that there is a very ununderstandable way in which they dealt with the Libyan revolution during that time and the way they dealt with the Bahrain revolution. They fully supported the revolution in Libya and they supported the regime in Bahrain which is oppressing the people who demanded their freedom and it was not understandable. The international media made such a clear comparison between how they acted in Libya and how they acted in Bahrain.
Despite the martial law the people did not accept it and started resisting. Many international media covered this. The aim was not just to drive the people away from Pearl Roundabout. It was a certain sectarian attack on all those who are seeking a change in the country, seeking freedom and seeking a real democratic state instead of being under a dictatorial monarchy.
To widen the sectarian divide they started attacking mosques and religious centres [slide] Shia mosques were attacked at more than 40 locations. This was all with Saudi support. Some of the mosques which are 500 years old were demolished although officially they were registered in the records in government that they are legitimate mosques. The people resisted and gathered and prayed at the location of these mosques.
Bassiouni’s report was very important. It showed that if the international community want to put real pressure on the regime they can do so. I believe that the regime did not want the international community to impose an independent commission to find out and to make an inquiry. Yet they accepted under pressure from the United Kingdom and the United States. This is a clear case that if they want to they can put pressure on the Bahraini regime to be more democratic and to hand over the power to the people.
There are some positive aspects of this report. It indicated that there was no intervention from outside countries like Iran in the crisis in Bahrain and secondly all these human rights violations have already been recorded and it was so clear. There was a clear position from the international media. The declaration granting colonial freedom has not been implemented in Bahrain.
Today Bahrain is under the Saudi occupation. All arguments to justify giving up sovereignty to the Saudis have been challenged and invalidated because the people are in the streets daily, they are protesting day by day. The Saudis should withdraw their troops. It is out of the question that even a small number of troops should remain. They claim they are just protecting the major ministries and the major geographic locations in Bahrain. This is totally unacceptable. The Saudis have to apologise and pay compensation for the human and material destruction which they have caused to the people of Bahrain. Thank you very much.
