Tag Archives: Bahrain

Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Human Right, Sectarian

Bahrain Uprising: the War on the Al Khawaja Family……….

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“Police detained Bahraini human rights campaigner Maryam al-Khawaja after her arrival in the Gulf country on Saturday, her mother said. Al-Khawaja has dual Bahraini and Danish citizenship. Her mother, Khadija al-Musawi, told The Associated Press that her daughter was refused entry after presenting her Danish passport and a Bahraini identification card, and at one point was surrounded by police. The activist has said she wanted to visit her jailed father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is on hunger strike to protest his detention. Lawyer Mohammed al-Jishi told the AP that prosecutors plan to press charges against al-Khawaja that include insulting the king and police……………”

How can anybody ever ‘insult’ that particular king and police? Is that even possible in this days and age and in that venue?

The father, Abdulhadi Al Khawaja, has been under arrest almost since the beginning of the Bahrain uprising in 2011. He is reported to have undergone torture.  Another daughter was released just recently from prison but faces other charges from the ruling family. She will probably spend more time in prison. This one, Maryam, has been outside Bahrain, traveling for the cause of her country. Most Arab countries like Egypt have banned her from entering their territory, in deference to the Saudi princes and/or local Salafis. Oddly, such is the poisonous sectarian atmosphere encouraged by the Al Saud and other Wahhabi propaganda that some Arabs who have revolted against their own regimes are also against the Bahrain uprising.

She remained outside prison by remaining outside the occupied country. Now she is back home and in prison, arrested upon arrival at the airport, allegedly pending an investigation. She will probably start spending more time in prison as well. At some point the whole family will probably be in a regime prison at the same time.

The Bahrain ruling family is moving fast toward Saudi-ization of its court and legal systems. The room for dissent and criticism is narrowing by the week. As the late Egyptian poet Ahmad Fuad Negm reportedly opined once: “The poor Bahraini. He gets arrested by Pakistani or Jordanian policemen, he is tormented by Syrian or Jordanian interrogators, and he is tried and sentenced by an Egyptian judge. He, the accused native is the only Bahraini in the courtroom“. Or something to that effect.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Bahrain, Space

Inspired Thoughts: Bahrain PM Not Going to Mars…………

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“Building the nation, consolidating its landmark achievements and safeguarding its security and stability require all Bahrainis to join ranks and stand united against whoever seeks to target its safety and sovereignty, His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa said…….. This came as HRH Premier received at the Gudaibiya Palace today a number of MPs, Municipal Councils’ members, clerics, scholars, intellectuals, media persons, businessmen and scores of citizens representing all segments of the Bahraini society…………..Businessmen and traders praised HRH Premier’s recent fruitful visit to Saudi Arabia, citing the smooth flow of lorries through the King Fahad Causeway. Those present extended sincere congratulations to HRH Premier for his safe return home, noting that his return has filled the hearts of the citizens with joy and happiness. They lauded his constant keenness to advance the nation in all fields……………”

Wow. Remember when I post a few weeks ago a report about the UAE sending (actually buying, or was it renting?) a mission to Mars? I was told by someone that they were thinking of a manned mission to Mars. That is when I thought right away of his highness the prime minister of Bahrain (PM in power for some 43 years, about, oh, 35 years longer than Iraq’s Al Maliki, about thirty years longer than Bashar Al Assad, about two years longer than the late Muammar Gaddafi, about 15 years longer than Joe Stalin).

Actually the mere thought of the Al Khalifa ruling family of Bahrain made me think of space colonization. It was an inspiring thought, inspired by an inspiring elite. I better quit this one while I am ahead.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Bahrain, GCC, Mercenaries, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates

Twist of Fate: Are the Saudis Hiring Foreign Forces to Face Possible Wahhabi Attacks?………

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“Saudi Arabia has deployed thousands of troops from Egypt and Pakistan along its frontier with Iraq, amid fears of invasion by the al-Qaeda splinter group that has declared a radical Islamic state across the border. Panicked by the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), Riyadh has taken the drastic step of calling in military assistance from its close allies ……. Saudi Arabia spent an estimated GBP 35 billion on defense last year……………”

Most Arab regimes spend a lot of money on importing weapons, even though many, nay most of them face no external threat. But their focus is not defense against a foreign enemy. The priority is to keep the regimes, the ruling elites, the oligarchies, in power. The target, especially since the Arab Uprisings in 2011, has been potential domestic unrest.

Foreign mercenaries are not new in the Persian Gulf countries. Bahrain has been notorious for importing some of the nastiest of them from countries like humorless Jordan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq (mainly former Baathists), among others. The rulers of Bahrain, who are also seriously humor-challenged, need mercenaries because they refuse to hire much of their own citizens.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) have often relied on foreign military personnel, but they famously went even more international recently. The ruling potentates went ahead in 2011 and reportedly formed an elite parallel mercenary army organized by former Blackwater officials. The mercenaries are chosen from Colombia, South Africa, Australia, and other places. Colombian media even reported that country was facing a shortage of qualified military officers because of the money offered veterans by the UAE (which has very few citizens among its population).

Saudi Arabia does not face the same population problems as Bahrain or the UAE. About 15 million of its 24 million population are citizens, and thus eligible to serve in the military and security services. Yet their have been reports over the past few years of secret Saudi agreements with governments of Pakistan, Malaysia, and others to supply mercenary forces “when needed”.

Now this new report of Egyptian forces makes some sense. Egypt has a huge reserve of under-employed military personnel (all security personnel are probably needed t home these days). Egypt is not facing any foreign threats, contrary to what local media reports (unless Al Sisi goes foolish and intervenes in Libya). With many of the Muslim Brotherhood opposition either shot by the military or hanged or in prison, they can afford to send a few thousand to Riyadh.

Yet it is highly unlikely that the Al Saud will openly rely on foreign mercenaries. They can’t exactly aspire to become an important regional player and OPENLY depend on foreign mercenaries to defend the regime.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Human Right

The Writing on the Wall in Bahrain: End of the Peaceful Phase of the Uprising?……….

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“Bahrain’s Justice Ministry filed a lawsuit Sunday to suspend the activities of the country’s main Shiite opposition group Al-Wefaq for three months. The move by the government comes after top Al-Wefaq figures met with a U.S. State Department official without a Bahraini government representative present earlier this month. This angered the Gulf country’s leadership, who ordered U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Tom Malinowski to immediately leave Bahrain. The lawsuit, though, makes no mention of the meeting. Instead, Bahrain’s official news agency reported that the ministry is taking Al-Wefaq to court for violating regulations of transparency in their general meetings. The Ministry of Justice said it filed the lawsuit after Al-Wefaq broke the law……………”

This lawsuit is just a formality, the courts usually do whatever the regime wants them to do. The laws, those that are enforced in Bahrain, are enforced by imported mercenaries from foreign places like Jordan and Pakistan and Syria, and the courts are manned by imported Arab judges, mainly Egyptians. We can say the same about the many laws that are broken by the regime. But this case can go either way, depending on what the ruling Al Khalifa family want.

If this happens, as seems now likely, it probably will mark an important watershed in the ongoing struggle of the people of Bahrain against the repression and corruption of the ruling Al Khalifa family. So far the protests of the past three and a half years have been peaceful; all the violence has come from the regime’s security forces, its imported foreign mercenaries, and Saudi forces.

Al-Wefaq, whatever you think of its ideology and leadership, is the largest opposition movement; in fact the largest political bloc. There are other opposition groups, not all of them Shi’a, but all have been decimated. They are all being hunted, with the exception of Wahhabi-ized Sunni Islamist groups who are now closely allied with the ruling family and its tribal allies.

So what other avenue will be left for the people of Bahrain to demand their legitimate rights, to regain the old democratic constitution that the rulers have distorted and altered and then distorted the alteration again? The ruling family seems intent on gradually adopting an absolute tribal Saudi model of governance, and it has Saudi forces in its capital to enforce it. That means not only continued corruption and the apartheid policy, but also dwindling freedom of speech and possibly religious freedom.

Given where this is going, what alternative will the people have? You figure this one out, but it looks like the writing is on the wall…………

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Anti-Semitism, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, US Foreign Policy

Human Rights and GCC Bureaucrats: Bahrain Rulers and Mr. Malinowski and Mr. Hood………

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter “The US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has been slammed by GCC Secretary-General Abdullatif Al-Zayani, for his interference in Bahrain’s internal affairs. Al-Zayani voiced his “dismay” over the attitude of Tom Malinowski, who met with only one segment of political society during his official tour of duty to Bahrain this week. “This kind of interference in the GCC’s domestic affairs is a violation of diplomatic norms and the principles of good neighborliness,” said Al-Zayani in a statement. GCC officials said that safeguarding Bahrainis’ rights is the responsibility of its leaders…………”

This Al-Zayani chap said: “safeguarding Bahrainis’ rights is the responsibility of its leaders.” This is like saying that safeguarding the chickens in the coop is the responsibility of the fox. That safeguarding the wounded man is the responsibility of the hungry vultures flying circles over him. The top bureaucrat of the GCC, who is a Bahraini nominee with the right tribal and sectarian credentials, is dutifully angry with Mr. Malinowski. The regime in Bahrain is angry with Mr. Malinowski, as are the Saudi princes and the whole Wahhabi establishment. So he was invited to leave the captive island country in the Gulf. Last time they were angry publicly with a U.S. official, it was an embassy official who talked about ‘human rights’ a couple of years ago. Ludovic Hood was harassed and attacked publicly by regime minions and propagandists for having “Jewish roots” and a “Jewish wife”. Mr. Hood was also charged by regime minions with the standard charge used by the Al Khalifa family against all dissidents: being a supporter of Hezbollah and an enemy of their version of Motherhood and Apple Pie and the Despotic Way of Life.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC, Humor, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

The Case for Splitting the Arab States: Wahhabistan and Huthistan and Rafidhistan……….

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Much has been written and said in the past ten years about the potential for splitting Iraq. The argument is mainly that the sects and ethnic groups cannot reach a deal to remain together peacefully within the British-created borders of Iraq. The Kurds want to split away, they are just waiting for when the moment is right (to quote the famous TV ad). The Sunni southwest region is in many ways more like northern Saudi Arabia than Iraq, at least in a tribal sense. There has also been talk of a split of Syria into Alawi, Sunni, and Wahhabi parts (perhaps a Kurdish one as well). We can extend that to some other Arab states; why only Syria and Iraq and Sudan (as happened a couple of years ago) or Somalia (which is bound to happen)? Let us explore a few other cases:

  • Saudi Arabia: King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud invaded and annexed several regions to his own Nejdi kingdom in the 20th century. His kingdom can now be divided into three states. The Nejd area will form a Wahhabistan which will keep the current name of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (if they don’t like Wahhabistan). The Hijaz will form another state where they all speak the same dialect of Arabic and say things like ‘ya shaikh’ and ‘ikhtishi’ and ‘koweyiss’ (meaning ‘good’). The smallest state will be along the coast of the Persian-American Gulf, where most of the Shi’as live. The southern part will join the next state on my list in northern Yemen.
  • Yemen: the northern most part of Yemen will annex the southern regions that had been usurped by Saudi King Abdulaziz in 1930s. It will be renamed Huthistan. The central part, the rest of the old Yemen will become “Yemen”. Southern Yemen which lost its independence in 1990 to become part of Yemen will regain its freedom and will be renamed the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen Southern Arabia.
  • Bahrain: Shi’as and some others have been in protest mode for more than three years, seeking equality in politics and economics. The Al Khalifa rulers and their tribal and Salafi allies are determined to deny them that right. So why not divide Bahrain into two mini parts: Manama and Muharraq to become one country (perhaps forming one new Saudi province), and the rest, including the neglected villages and townships could become another state of its own. This Shi’a part could be called the Rafidhi State and join the GCC as such. Or maybe it can join the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the eighth emirate. Okay, maybe I will send a text message to the shaikh, sorry king, suggesting it (with a copy forwarded to the Saudi king since it will be his decision to make).
  • Libya: is already divided into at least two parts: let us keep it that way.
  • Morocco: no change, except that the king will have to give up the Sahrawi region.
  • Egypt: Egypt has had nearly the same borders for thousands of years, the only Arab country to have this distinction. There are no major tribes or tribal divisions, although there are now deep religious divisions. So Egypt will probably remain the same: bored to death under a boring military ruler presiding over the same old bureaucracy, but united. The Sinai will remain a wild violent outpost and the south a place of violent clashes among the clans over women and cattle and religion.
  • UAE: the Abu Dhabi shaikhs have got the rest of them by the balls. Only Dubai is rich enough to draw the line.
  • Qatar: maybe it will join Turkey as a new Ottoman outpost.

(The Arab League will them change from a league or 20 some despots to a League of Forty Thieves. And I am almost serious about this, almost).

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, US Foreign Policy

Bahrain: the Usual Arab Tale of Corruption, Repression, and Sectarianism………

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“Black and yellow concrete barricades block the roads entering this wealthy Sunni enclave, where foreign-born Sunni soldiers in armored personnel carriers guard the mansions of the ruling family and the business elite. Beyond the enclave are impoverished villages of Shiites, about 70 percent of Bahrain’s more than 650,000 citizens, where the police skirmish nightly with young men wielding rocks and, increasingly, improvised weapons like homemade guns that use fire extinguishers to shoot rebar.…………. Pearl Square, where demonstrators staged a weekslong sit-in three years ago, has now been turned into a permanent military camp, its namesake statue demolished, in a grim memorial of the day in March 2011 when vehicles and troops from the neighboring Sunni monarchies rolled across the causeway from Saudi Arabia to crush the Shiite-dominated movement for democracy……………”

The turmoil in Bahrain is not just about discrimination and what many locals consider a form of apartheid: all that could be taken care of by an elected parliament, something that Bahrain does not have. Another major motivator is unchallenged corruption by the Al Khalifa ruling clan and their tribal and business partners. Bahrain is a small island country that had an oil boom before the other Gulf countries, even before Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. But the oil resources of Bahrain are limited and there is now less for the ruling oligarchs to control and abuse. A real estate boom tied to the finance and tourism industries made many of the potntates and their cronies rich. But that has slowed down in recent years, forcing the Saudis to encourage a move by some GCC and Arab institutions to Manama.

Now there is intense competition as the rulers use more of their limited resources to import thousands of foreign mercenaries from places like Pakistan, Jordan, Syria, and others to augment the Saudi forces dealing with the continued uprising (now in its fourth year). The fact that the U.S. Fifth Fleet continues to be stationed in Manama is now widely taken as an implicit approval by Washington of the repression: a Saudi military base and an American naval base in the same restless neighborhood may inevitably lead to certain conclusions. There are now signs that some fringe elements of the opposition may be meeting regime violence with their own low-level sporadic violence.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Elections, GCC, Kuwait, Sectarian

Part 2: Kuwait Opposition Issues: Self-Inflicted Wounds and a Vendetta…….

      

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As I noted in my last posting (Part 1) the Kuwaiti opposition has long avoided dealing with its
main problem: it is only a partial opposition. So far it has failed to move away from its tribal and Islamist genesis (no pun intended). It has failed to convince
large identifiable and distinct segments of society to join it. It needs to clean house to become a truly broad representative national movement. Its leaders also face several problems of their own making and not related to regime policies:

  • They are heavily lead by tribal and Islamist men whose electoral success is based mainly on a couple of large tribes. That is how most of them win elections: cross-tribal voting is rare. The shift last year to “one-man-one-vote” reduced that effect.
  • They are an extremely reactionary group, which is natural given the tribal, sectarian, and Islamist hue of the bloc. When they gained a majority in the Assembly in 2012 some of their members immediately joined the Saudi Mufti in calling for the destruction of all churches in the Gulf GCC states. They all prepared and voted for and passed a blasphemy law: to make “blasphemy” punishable by death. Presumably “blasphemy” according to the definition of the Wahhabi Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood who control the ‘movement’ (it was fortunately vetoed by the Emir). 
  • They have consistently shown a strong aversion to criticizing the (much) more repressive Saudi and Bahrain regimes. They are against those who would call for the same thing they want for Kuwait: accountability and elected governments in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. That is partly sectarian and partly related to tribal (and possibly some business) connections across the border. They strongly supported the Saudi quasi-invasion of Bahrain to crush the popular uprising.
  • Many of their tribal and Islamist leaders are heavily and proactively sectarian. Their Salafi (and some Muslim Brother) members, a dominant majority of the bloc, called in 2012 when they controlled the Assembly for restrictions of worship on the country’s Shi’a Muslims. That call specifically included stationing government spies inside all Shi’a religious services (no sense of irony here).
  • Their leadership seems fixated on the former prime minister, who has been out of office for two years. However, the alleged documents (partly) shown at last night’s gathering concerned transactions purportedly by the former prime minister. It comes across almost like a personal vendetta between the some of the opposition leaders and the ex-PM. 

GCC, Oman, UAE

Sahel Oman: Coast of Oman and Rewriting History in the Gulf of Mercenaries…….

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Rewriting history and faking history has become a habit in our native region, especially in the Gulf GCC states. But it is a good thing that ‘facts’ are stubborn, mostly. This week’s political noise about an Al-Jazeera documentary film on the Coast of Oman is a good example.

When we were children growing up on the hot shores of the Gulf (Gulf of Mercenaries? Persian-American Gulf?) we knew about Sahel Oman (ساحل عمان) from readings and from family members. We called the whole coast south of Bahrain and Qatar by one name: Sahel Oman (Coast of Oman). We had student colleagues and friends from what is now the UAE and we called them ‘Omani students’: they did not seem to object. Dubai existed as Dubai, a commercial center, as did Al Sharjah and maybe Ras Al Khaimah. Abu Dhabi existed, but barely. We never heard or read about Abu Dhabi or some of the other emirates. Maybe we were ignorant, but we called the region: Sahel Oman. As did the other Arab media whenever they paid attention to the Arab side of the Gulf beyond Bahrain and Kuwait. In those days Bahrain was were the political action and political news were: even then the people were in constant rebellion against the absolute Al Khalifa clan and their British advisers (how some things never change!). Not much has changed in Bahrain: except for the unwelcome intrusion of Saudi troops and other imported foreign mercenaries shoring up the regime.
Now this recent recent documentary film on Al-Jazeera about Sahel Oman has riled up the UAE (mainly Abu Dhabi), and some of their Saudi allies are also making the right supportive noises. Saudi mouthpiece Asharq Alawsat (owned by Crown Prince Salman) had its obedient chief editor blast the film as a Qatari insult to the United Arab Emirates. The film is reportedly non-political, although the Qataris must have suspected that it would upset up the ruling potentates of the UAE who fancy themselves the heirs of the Greek-Persian-Roman-Babylonian-Umayyad-Abbasid empires (now they can add ancient Egypt through their share of the Gulf investment in Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi). 

 

Cheers

mhg[email protected]