Aid drawn partly from obscure tranche devoted to conflict, stability and security sparks concerns about transparency and Bahrain’s poor human rights record
The government is facing fresh questions about Britain’s aid strategy after it emerged that a controversial multi-million pound programme of support for Bahrain’s security and justice system is being bolstered this year, even as the Gulf state reverses reforms to a key intelligence agency accused of torture.
Data provided under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that Bahraini authorities will this year receive a further £2m of British funding, including aid money drawn from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, a pot of aid money currently the focus of an investigation by UK MPs.
Human rights campaigners have expressed concerns that funding projects through the CSSF raises the risk of UK complicity in abuses, or involvement in the whitewashing of those abuses.
Last year, Britain spent £2.1m on a package of “reform assistance” to the Bahraini security sector, overseen by the Foreign Office. Programmes funded by the CSSF were titled “reform and rehabilitation system” and “sharing UK experience and best practice”, according to details published online by the Foreign Office but subsequently deleted. A £500,000 component listed under the category “public order” has alarmed rights activists, who have been heavily critical of Bahraini riot police’s suppression of pro-democracy activists.
MPs probing the CSSF, a financial pool worth more than £1bn a year, expressed frustration after an evidence session with the national security strategy committee in which they questioned Mark Lyall Grant, the national security adviser to the prime minister. The MPs said he provided scant details about how the money is spent.
During the session, Labour MP Julian Lewis said there was “a high degree of ambiguity” about the status of the fund. He asked: “Shouldn’t we make up our minds … that either the expenditure of £1.1bn in this financial year will be disclosed in full to this committee, or shall we tear up the fiction that we are in any way able to hold you to account as to how you are spending this very large sum of money?”
Lyall Grant replied: “I understand exactly what you’re saying and it may be that if we meet in private then it will be possible to share more information with you.”
The CSSF, which operates in more than 40 countries, is overseen by the National Security Council, a cabinet committee including senior ministers, military chiefs and secret service heads.
The Labour party has claimed that the fund offers further evidence of the “militarisation” of Britain’s development budget, while NGOs have privately expressed reservations about the lack of transparency surrounding how the reserves are spent. One international NGO described the funding as “a black hole”.
The programme was launched in April 2015 to replace a fund known as the conflict pool, which was also subject to accusations of a lack of transparency. The pool was criticised by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact forperforming poorly.
Human rights group Reprieve said of UK aid to Bahrain: “It’s troubling that the government sees fit to keep spending taxpayers’ money on these programmes, given such apparently poor results – and given the clear risk of complicity in abuse. If ministers are determined to wave through more security aid to Bahrain, then they must urgently make that funding conditional on an end to the worst abuses – including the politically motivated use of the death penalty.”
The Bahraini government continues to curtail freedoms of expression, association and assembly and crack down on dissent, according to Amnesty International.
Torture and other abuses remain common, said Amnesty, with authorities frequently using excessive force against demonstrators. Dozens of people have been killed since February 2011, when Bahrain’s Shia majority launched protests aimed at securing a greater political voice in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
Responding during the evidence session to a question from MPs about the assessment of human rights risks in projects in Bahrain, Lyall Grant said: “There will be occasions when the National Security Council decides that we should discontinue a programme. We did that with one of the prison programmes in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, for instance. But in Bahrain those programmes are seen to have some effect and we are continuing with them.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The UK continues to work closely with the government of Bahrain to encourage progress on human rights, which includes building effective and accountable institutions, strengthening the rule of law, and police and judicial reform. Any assistance we give to the government of Bahrain complies with the UK’s domestic and international human rights obligations.”
Fahad A al-Binali, first secretary at Bahrain’s embassy in the UK, said cooperation with Britain had focused on areas of police and security reform as well as the justice system. Bahrain had drawn on the UK’s experience to meet an urgent need to establish institutions that could gain public confidence, he added.
“There is an acknowledgement that more needs to be done, but, at the same time, there is demonstrable evidence from the reports of these institutions that a lot of progress has been made,” said al-Binali.
Sayed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said a new environment for abuse was being created after the Bahraini government moved last week to return the powers of arrest to its National Security Agency. An independent inquiry commission backed by the UK had called for the agency, accused of being central to torture at the height of the 2011 Arab spring protests, to be deprived of those powers.
“We have been saying for a long time now that the UK should suspend its technical assistance to Bahrain until guarantees including the visit by the UN special rapporteur on torture are enforced,” said Alwadaei.
“Without such guarantees, the UK’s work with the ombudsman and police is just window-dressing. The UK continues to be part of the human rights problem in Bahrain, when it should be a part of the solution.”
Kate Osamor, Labour’s shadow international development secretary, said: “The militarisation of the foreign aid budget sets an alarming precedent whereby an increasing proportion of aid money is being delivered to middle-income conflict states. The backdrop to all of this is an ever decreasing level of transparency and oversight.”
