Al Khalifa regime prepares bloodbath
By Finian Cunningham – 13 August, 2013 – PressTV

The scene is being prepared in Bahrain for a bloodbath following a hate-filled speech this week by Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman al Khalifa in which he effectively declared war on the population, equating pro-democracy protesters with terrorists and foreign agents.

“This island will burn to a cinder all those who seek to tamper with its security and stability,” said the Khalifa premier. This corrupt ruler should be arrested for inciting mass murder, and yet the British and American government sponsors of the Bahraini regime say nothing of condemnation. Indeed, these Western governments and their silent news media are complicit in the crimes against humanity in Bahrain.

Khalifa bin Salman is the oldest unelected prime minister in the world, holding office since 1971 when the Persian Gulf kingdom was granted nominal independence by Britain. One of the richest men in the world, he is notorious for plundering the oil wealth of the Bahraini people for his own aggrandizement and that of this crony family – all with British and American government approval.

Earlier this month the Western-backed Khalifa regime invoked even more draconian police-state emergency powers via its unelected rubber-stamp parliament. These powers criminalize all public demonstrations and free speech. The regime has thus given itself a legalistic green light to allow its mercenary police to use lethal force against pro-democracy protests, and to carry out mass arrests and disappearances of anyone it smears as “inciting hatred and violence”.

This applies to the majority of Bahrain’s mainly Shia population who for the past two years (and decades before that) have been demanding an elected representative government to replace the Khalifa absolute monarchial dictatorship.

The Khalifa elite is a Sunni clan, originally from Central Arabia, who were imposed on Bahrain’s indigenous population under the British Empire. Since 1783, the Khalifa regime has subjugated the Bahraini people with oppressive laws and all forms of exploitation, while denying their democratic right of national self-determination.

In recent months, the regime has stepped up its brutal repression towards the Shia population – some 70 per cent of nation. House raids by masked plain-clothed paramilitaries have targeted villages across the island hauling off hundreds of civilians to unknown detention centers.

Among those disappeared are human rights activists, citizen journalists, photographers and lawyers, women and children. This targeting is a deliberate state terrorist measure to silence reports of the crimes that the regime is escalating against the populace.

Some of those detained include award-winning photographers Hussain Hubail and Ahmed Humaidan, as well as journalist Mohammed Hassan.

Bahraini legal sources attest that the detainees have been subjected to torture and gross mistreatment. Another unlawfully detained is female peace activist Rihanna al-Musawi. The mother of three has also been tortured, including being stripped naked in front of male guards and beaten. Her abuses include having her head shoved down a toilet.

Bahrain is thus being sealed off from the outside world, with Western complicity, so that the regime can step up its slaughter of innocent civilians.

In tandem, there is evidence that the Khalifa dictatorship is being supervised by Western intelligence in ways to intensify the repression. Britain has always retained a tight relationship with their Khalifa stooges, ever since nominal independence.

This week marks the country’s so-called Independence Day on 14th August, when
British troops vacated the island in 1971. The occasion should really be called Dependence Day because of the parasitic relationship that Britain holds over Bahrain, with the Khalifa regime serving as the local enforcer of British interests against the democratic aspirations of the majority.

Since 1971 to this day, the Khalifa apparatus of repression and torture is maintained through British security intelligence and expertise. The United States is also a guarantor of Khalifa repression through the presence of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet base. But it is Britain that oversees the nitty-gritty of Bahrain’s barbarity. …more