Bahrain: The Royals Rule
President George Bush has hailed Bahrain’s progress towards democracy. Yet Bahrain’s emir proclaimed himself king three years ago, promulgated a constitution giving him full powers and has attacked the few remaining civil liberties. Arbitrary imprisonment is commonplace and one of the main human rights organisations has been closed.
THE police officer who took Abd al-Hadi al-Khawaja, vice-president and executive director of the Bahraini Centre for Human Rights (BHRC), into custody in the middle of the night, cautioned him with these words: “You have accused the prime minister of corruption. You are charged with fomenting hate of the regime and broadcasting misleading news. You are under arrest.” There was every likelihood he would spend several years behind bars.
The Bahraini police arrested Khawaja on 24 September 2004. Two days earlier, speaking at a symposium on poverty and economic rights, he had linked Bahrain’s bankrupt economy, increasingly unequal distribution of wealth, government corruption and the predicament of 80,000 people struggling to survive below the poverty line.
Five years ago things seemed quite promising. On 15 February 2001 the new emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, organised a referendum to approve a National Action Charter, which affirmed the political system’s democratic basis, the separation of powers and the supremacy of popular sovereignty. It seemed to mark the end of 25 years of oppression (1) in Bahrain, reputedly one of the Gulf’s worst dictatorships. Security forces had tortured adults and children with impunity, and had fired on unarmed demonstrators with live rounds.
Hundreds of intellectuals and executives had to go into exile. About 1% of the population was in prison; constitutional rights had been suspended since the dissolution of the first elected parliament in 1975.
In an apparent change of course, the new ruler discussed the spirit and terms of the charter with opposition parties. They accepted the monarchy and the hereditary dynasty in power, as well as its far-reaching executive powers. In exchange they obtained guarantees that genuine legislative democracy would be restored. The referendum proved an unexpected success, with 98.4% of the 198,000 voters endorsing the charter.
The purpose of this political opening was to start a virtuous circle in society and government, boosting confidence and foreign investment, give a new impulse to a stagnant service economy and reduce lower-and-middle-class unemployment (15% of the workforce). Restoring constitutional rights had two key aims: to restrict the concentration of wealth, in particular property, in the hands of the ruling caste; and to halt widespread corruption.
More than 200 years after invasion and conquest by the Khalifa family in 1783, many Bahrainis - 65%-70% of whom are Shia Muslims - still feel their country is occupied.
The excitement following the referendum coincided with the release of political prisoners, triumphant return of exiles, proclamation of an end to torture and repeal of the State Security Act (3). Then the government and opposition set about deciding how political parties would work within the limited framework of the 1973 constitution accepted by both sides.
Opposition movements were preparing to celebrate the first anniversary of the adoption of the charter when, on 14 February 2002, the emir proclaimed himself king. The next day, on opening their newspapers, they discovered he had promulgated a new constitution, which had been decided without prior consultation and came into force immediately.
There was no longer any social contract between the monarch and his sovereign people. The constitution set up a parliament, divided into an upper and lower chamber. The 40 members of the Council of Deputies (lower chamber) would be directly elected.
But the king would appoint the 40 members of the Shura Council (upper chamber), an advisory body originally set up in 1992. He would also name the prime minister and cabinet, members of the constitutional court and all judges.
If the two chambers disagreed, the Council of Deputies would not take precedence. In theory the king might require a two-thirds majority in parliament for a law to be passed, thwarting any attempt to introduce new legislation. Lest there be any doubt as to the seat of real power, the king can amend the constitution at will and pass laws by decree.
In the months after the constitutional coup, a series of royal decrees established the rules for future democratic process. They ranged from measures setting electoral boundaries to a ban on any examination by MPs of decisions by the previous government. One decree directly contradicted the UN convention against torture, ratified by Bahrain. It granted immunity from prosecution to police officers and members of the internal security forces who operated torture chambers from 1975 to 1999, and protected them from any applications for compensation by victims or their families (4).
The opposition denounced the award of Bahraini nationality and voting rights to an increasing number of foreigners, especially Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian and Pakistani judges, police officers and civil servants, and people from countries belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (5). It claimed that issuing tens of thousands of passports to grateful Sunnis might upset Bahrain’s sociological and demographic balance (6).
No one was surprised when the two main opposition movements - the National Accord Association (Shia) and the National Democratic Action Society (secular) - and two smaller groups - the Nationalist Democratic Rally and the Islamic Action Association - announced they would not field candidates for the general election in October 2002. They hoped to highlight the constitutional crisis and limit turnout at the election (7).
When two pension funds under government management went bankrupt in April 2003, an official inquiry was set up. The committee issued a report of its findings, recommending that parliament hear evidence from the three ministers directly concerned. To counter any risk of the personal implication of Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa (the king’s uncle, and prime minister since independence in 1971), the government donated $45m and several plots of land in the capital to the two funds. But not before the speaker of the Council of Deputies and prime ministerial protege, Khalifa al-Dharani, had asked fellow MPs not to rock the boat.
This was a barely veiled reference to the dissolution of the first national parliament after its refusal to pass the State Security Act (8). Nor did the authorities relax their control of political life, maintaining severe restrictions on press freedom and the right of assembly.
Under the circumstances the four main opposition movements had little choice but to react. Encouraged by assurances from sources close to the king, they organised a conference, on the symbolic date of 14 February 2004, to present the work of Arab and European constitutional experts contradicting the official line. The aim of the conference was to attract international attention and frame proposals for restoring dialogue with the regime, in the hope of finding a way out of the constitutional crisis.
But events took a different turn. Only a few hours before the conference was due to start, the authorities announced it had been banned. Members of the dreaded National Security Agency met foreign guests - European lawyers and academics, MPs and representatives of NGOs - at Manama airport and sent them straight home.
With the conference centre no longer available, the 300 Bahraini participants fell back on the Oruba Club, a favourite venue for civic and cultural events over the past 60 years. After two days of discussion they published a declaration that criticised the political deadlock that had gripped Bahrain for two years.
Since the arrest of Khawaja, disbanding of the BHRC, temporary closure of the Oruba, and resumption of arrests during protest demonstrations, the pace of political life in Bahrain has changed. On 21 November a court sentenced Khawaja, considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, to a year in prison. But he was released the same day, thanks to a royal pardon.
The GCC summit in Bahrain in December was a flop, shunned by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah. He was furious about a free-trade agreement with the US (9) and in no mood to receive a lesson from the Khalifa family on how to stay on good terms with Washington. In January the king confirmed the appointment of 10 members of the Khalifa family as ministers (including the prime minister) of the 21 member cabinet.
Then the court opposed the opposition’s traditional right of petition to the sovereign. Its refusal was understandable. The opposition had united and collected 70,000 signatures - a third of all registered voters - to demand that the constitutional law comply with the principles established in 1973.
Building on the success of this operation, the opposition organised a second constitutional conference, and announced it would boycott the next general election unless changes were made to the constitution and electoral boundaries. The government-sponsored press countered with accusations of systematic opposition and anarchy.
Under these conditions the only hope of restoring dialogue between the regime and the opposition is a new law on democratic rights, covering the right to peaceful assembly, freedom of association and the formation of political parties. Though political organisations are currently tolerated, they are denied the status of political parties.
Civil society hopes that the new law will strengthen individual and collective rights, but some people fear that the regime’s old guard will seize the opportunity to make a mockery of King Hamad’s democratic pretensions. No one really knows whether it is the king or his uncle, the prime minister, who has the final word.
With the end of the second Gulf war in 2003 and the worsening crisis in Iraq, the Bush administration proclaimed the strategic necessity of promoting democracy in the Arab world. This initiative, floated by the neo-conservatives, would pave the way for a peaceful Middle East on good terms with the US and Israel. The Arab principalities, sultanates and kingdoms of the Gulf had to stop allowing nepotism, tribalism and sectarian values to govern the allocation of property, investment and jobs in the public or private sector.
Bahrain, the neo-cons argued, would be an ideal test for democratic transformation, its elected bodies exerting almost no real power. Here was a chance for Washington to show what could be achieved.
However, there was no question of upsetting the traditional balance of power, which would risk opening the door to nationalists, communists or Islamic fundamentalists. Nor was there any question of embarrassing the royal family, which had obligingly turned Bahrain into a base for the US navy (10), air force and special forces. The US Army Central Command, now responsible for “shaping the Central Region for the 21st century” (11), is also based in Bahrain.
In September a report by the Defence Science Board (12) questioned this approach and said: “Today we reflexively compare Muslim ‘masses’ to those oppressed under Soviet rule. This is a strategic mistake . . . Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom’ but rather, they hate our policies.”
The board argued that the challenge facing the US was not to put across the right message, but “a fundamental problem of credibility” in the eyes of Muslims. Every day in the media they could see that “American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering”.
It will be difficult to convince public opinion in the Middle East of the sincerity - and the realism - of the Bush administration’s plans to promote democracy, until it is seen to ask as much of its allies, particularly in the Gulf and Egypt, as it demands of Iraq or the Palestinian Authority.
Perhaps that is why the state department explained that talks between the former secretary of state Colin Powell and King Hamad on 29 November 2004 had stressed the importance of progressing with reforms and protecting individual freedom. If such were the case, it would mean the end of the road for Bahrain’s political old guard, worn out and discredited after three decades of oppression and failure.
Marc Pellas
Le Monde Diplomatique
