Rattlesnake Ridge      

 
      BFF

“It’s become a nightly duel in Bahrain: Security forces and anti-government protesters waging hit-and-run clashes in one of the simmering conflicts of the Arab Spring. So far, the skirmishes have failed to gel into another serious challenge to the Gulf nation’s Western-backed monarchy after crushing a reform rebellion months ago. But there are sudden signs that Shiite-led demonstrators could be poised to raise the stakes again on the strategic island, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Hundreds of demonstrators Wednesday made their boldest attempt in months to reclaim control of a central square in the capital Manama, which was the symbolic hub of the protest movement after it began in February. Riot police used buses to block roads and flooded streets with tear gas to drive back the marchers before dawn. Hours later, mourners gathered in a Shiite village in another part of Bahrain for a 14-year-old boy they claim was killed by security forces. Clashes flared until early Thursday across the oil hub area of Sitra before the boy’s burial. “Down with the regime,” chanted some of hundreds of people…………Bahrain remains the outlier of the Arab revolts. Its Sunni rulers have managed to hold their ground – and even tighten their grip with military help from neighboring Saudi Arabia……….”

It is not exactly a Battle of Algiers, mainly because the violence is decidedly one-sided. But it is as persistent as the struggle of Algeria, understandably so given that the same principles of equality and justice and freedom are at stake. And it is bloody, involves attacks on civilians and their neighborhoods, and midnight raids, and arrests, and torture, and threats of, and actual, assault on men and women. And so it continues, until the system of Apartheid is dismantled, the original constitution is restored, the foreign mercenaries and occupation forces sent packing. It is a tall order. A tough one for an island that is now effectively a Saudi province.

Cheers
mhg


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