Blood for Money – A History of British complicity in Bahrain’s Rights Abusing internal security

The history of British involvement in Bahrain’s internal security
by Marc Owen – 8 August, 2013 – openSecurity

John Yates is only the most recent Briton to be given a public role in Bahrain’s internal security. Since founding the Bahraini police force, the British influence is as strong as ever.

Britain has played a prominent role in protecting Bahrain’s government and its Ruling Family from internal and external threats ever since Bahrain became an informal protectorate in 1861. This protection has ranged from overt strategies, such as direct military intervention, to subtle ones, such as the export of surveillance technologies for use by Bahrain’s Ministry of the Interior. Even after Bahrain’s Independence in 1971, Britain has continued to play an important, albeit less direct role in Bahrain’s internal and external security.

As recently as 2012, an agreement concerning military cooperation was signed between the two countries. In 2011 ex assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police John Yates was brought in to reform the Bahrain police after they brutally repressed the pro-democratic uprising of 2011. But Yates is only the most recent Briton to be given a public role, albeit as a private citizen, since Bahrain’s independence. The British relationship was foundational for Bahrain’s security sector, and is as strong as ever: perhaps less direct, but no less insidious.
From protection to intervention

In order secure their domination of trade routes to India, the British conducted a series of treaties with tribal leaders along the Persian Coast in the 1800s. The first of these agreements was the General Maritime Treaty of 1820, and it recognised the Al Khalifa as the legitimate rulers of Bahrain. A subsequent agreement, the ‘Perpetual Truce of Peace and Friendship’, turned Bahrain into an informal protectorate of Britain in 1861. However, in exchange for control over Bahrain’s foreign policy, Britain were now bound to protect the Bahraini government from external aggression.

Despite the so-called treaty of ‘friendship’, most British administrators despised the Ruling Family, with one official describing them as ‘uneducated, vain, lazy, and inclined to oppress’. Britain’s relationship with the Al Khalifa grew progressively worse in the 1920s, when the Ruling Family’s oppression of the indigenous Shia Baharna increased. Persia, incensed by the maltreatment of their Shia co-religionists, threatened to go before the League of Nations to complain how British protection allowed the Al Khalifas to oppress with impunity.

In an attempt to address this disquiet from Persia, at that time an important ally, Britain took increasing responsibility for Bahrain’s internal security policy, and imposed a number of reforms – including the creation of a police force. Britain also deposed the recalcitrant ruler of Bahrain, Sheikh Isa bin Ali Khalifa, and put Isa’s weaker son Hamad on the throne. Hamad was given a force of mostly Baluchi troops to deter Isa and his allies from engaging in further acts of oppression against the Baharna. This force promised to be a more efficient security solution for the British, whose coercive methods prior to the 1920s revolved around the use of gunboats to intimidate belligerent tribal elements. …more