It’s getting ugly in Bahrain – the BBC is reporting three dead and hundreds injured, as the emir’s security forces disperse thousands of anti-government protesters in Pearl Square in the centre of the capital, Manama.
It’s also getting worryingly sectarian. As the BBC notes in its online report:
Since independence from the UK in 1971, tensions between the Sunni elite and the less affluent Shia have frequently caused civil unrest. Shia groups say they are marginalised, subject to unfair laws and repressed.
Along with Iran and Iraq, Bahrain is one of three Shia-majority countries in the Middle East. There are rumours of Saudi support for Bahraini security forces; the Sunni elite have long been paranoid about a so-called Shia crescent emerging in the region. As the New York Times‘s Nicholas Kristof tweeted earlier:
Witnesses say #Bahrain police cursed Shia as they attacked peaceful demonstrators. I haven’t found 1 Sunni victim.
So what can we do, here in the UK? I have a suggestion. How about we stop arming the Bahraini security forces? Is that such a radical or crazy suggestion, in the midst of all this bloodshed? The Labour MP and former Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane has just sent out a press release stating that:
According to the Department of Business’s report on weapons exports, minister in the third quarter of 2010 agrees to export licences to Bahrain for the equipment listed below:
Q3 2010 Pivot Report
OIEL issued for CS hand grenades, demolition charges, demolition devices, exploding simulation devices, fire simulation equipment for small arms ammunition, illuminators, military devices for initiating explosives, signal flares, signal hand grenades, smoke ammunition, smoke canisters, smoke generators, smoke hand grenades, stun grenades, tear gas/irritant ammunition, tear gas/riot control agents, thunderflashes, training anti-aircraft ammunition, training hand grenades; (Source House of Commons Library)
MacShane says:
William Hague is shockingly complacent about the exports of British weapons used to kill, wound and repress innocent people protesting for their rights in Bahrain. At the very least all these exports should be suspended.
He makes a valid point. I’m not sure what the government’s counter-argument would be!
If I wanted to be mean, though, I might remind Denis that the New Labour government – and Foreign Office – he was part of had no qualms about supplying weapons and training to some of the world’s most repressive governments, including regimes in the Arab world. Plus ça change . . .
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