Mark Steel: Rulers who still need our sympathy

The Independent, Wednesday, 23 February 2011

The most worrying side to world events is if Gaddafi and Berlusconi both depart, there'll be hardly any world leaders left to offer Tony and Cherie Blair a free holiday. It only needs Murdoch to be overthrown and the Blairs will have to go to Pontins at Camber Sands.

Luckily, they seem to have instructed the current Government in how to deal with dictators, so the chairman of the parliamentary group that deals with Bahrain, Conor Burns, went on the radio to say that His Royal Highness the King and his son the Crown Prince of Bahrain are committed to democracy. Of course they are. The King believes in one man, one vote – him. They even use the AV system, with the King voting for himself as King, with his son second choice.

Once Mr Burns has had more experience, he might spot that there are clues in the name of Bahrain's rulers as to their preference for a system that isn't all that democratic. Words such as "His Excellency" and "Crown Prince" and "King" suggest they favour a method of rule that doesn't entirely rely on the popular vote, but it takes time to read between the lines like that.

Another clue is that the deputy commander of the armed forces is the Crown Prince, or maybe that is just coincidence and the King's son really was the best man for the job, selected after an exhaustive series of interviews and role-play exercises. And some of the other candidates went home and said: "I think it went quite well, it's down to me and the Crown Prince, so fingers crossed."

Even so, Mr Burns insisted, the King is "trying to reform", and there is a long tradition of undemocratic leaders who have tried the same. Supporters of apartheid, such as Margaret Thatcher, always insisted South Africa was "trying to reform". So was the Shah of Iran, and the Soviet Union and Mubarak, but it is always really hard luck that they never quite get round to it and then they are overthrown before they get the chance. Another phrase Mr Burns used in defence of the King was "this is not Egypt". This is becoming a catchphrase for Western officials backing a regime against protesters, as if they knew all along that Egypt was corrupt, and cleverly disguised their distaste by arming and financing the place, but this regime is lovely and the demonstrators must have made a mistake. If Mubarak had been smarter he would have responded to the protests in Cairo by saying: "What are you doing? This is not Egypt."

Mr Burns insisted that there are elections in Bahrain, which is true, but the royals still make the major decisions, such as whether to shoot people. This presented a problem for the Conservative fan of the King, as his radio interview followed an account from a witness, speaking live from Bahrain, agonisingly describing the killing. So the MP said this account was thoroughly "unreliable". Because the trouble with these reports from protesters and journalists and doctors is that they are actually there, so they don't get a true picture, which is much easier to put together if you're at home in Bournemouth. Mr Burns probably did an extensive search on Google Earth and couldn't see any corpses, so it is obvious that this whole thing was a huge misunderstanding.

Mr Burns saved his best for last. The folly of the protesters, he said, was that the Saudi government might watch and think: "Well if that's the gratitude you get for trying to reform, we won't bother." That's right, you know who's to blame for the dictators in Saudi – the people protesting in Bahrain, the selfish bastards. The sensitive Saudi royals are considering moving towards trying to reform but they're easily startled, so the last thing we need is people complaining about being shot, especially when they're probably making it up.

Next week we'll hear from the Cross-Parliamentary Anglo-al-Qa'ida Friendship Society, who will declare that "Mr Bin Laden is committed to reform but these things take time"

Egyptian Revolution 2011- The Most Dramatic Footage From the 18-day Revo...

How Britain taught Arab police forces all they know

Campaigners raise questions about 'cosy relationship' as death toll mounts

By Jerome Taylor, The Independent Feb 19th 2011

There was growing anger last night over the enmeshed relationship between authoritarian Gulf governments and the British military and police after weeks of democracy protests across the Arab world that met with violent state repression.

As demonstrators in Bahrain and Libya attended funerals and faced armed soldiers yesterday, campaign groups called on the Government to re-evaluate whether Britain should be so heavily involved in the training of Arab police and the military.

In the past two years, British police have helped to train their counterparts in Bahrain, Libya, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Saudi Arabia through schemes run by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), which organises overseas training. At present, there are three full-time advisers working with the Bahraini police, which was heavily implicated in the violent crackdown on protests in Manama this week.

Since the warming of relations between Libya and Britain, officers travelled frequently to Tripoli between 2008 and 2009 to train police, and Britain has authorised the export of tear gas, crowd-control ammunition, small-arms ammunition and door-breaching projectile launchers.

Three years ago, ministers agreed to send Libya vehicles armed with water cannons. There are also unconfirmed reports that riot vans made by British companies have been present during crackdowns in the Libyan city of Benghazi, where scores have been killed.

And there is the long-standing connection between the UK military and Arab regimes that send scores of officers through training at Sandhurst. Five Arab heads of state are Sandhurst alumni, including the King of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad ibn Isa al-Khalifa, who ordered the violent crackdown.

Other Arab rulers who have been through officer training in Britain include King Abdullah of Jordan, the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al-Salim Al Sabah, the Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said al Said, and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

Tom Porteous, the UK director of Human Rights Watch, urged a government review of such close links after the attacks on peaceful protesters in Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.

"It is a real concern and highly symbolic of the cosy and powerful relationship that countries like the UK and the USA have had for many years with these deeply repressive regimes," he said. "The British Government often states that it insists on incorporating human rights elements in its overseas training programmes but when it comes to dealing with protesters, we have seen over the past few weeks how the security forces in many of these countries are unleashed in a particularly brutal way."

An NPIA spokesman said British police have helped to train the Bahrainis in "effective search techniques, tackling cyber-crime, dealing with forensics and evidence gathering", adding "respect for human rights and diversity underpins all NPIA's training and support for overseas police forces".

The MoD said last night that the British military has long-standing "mutually beneficent training programmes" with a host of Middle Eastern countries, adding that the military was still trying to draw up a list of how many officers are involved in training abroad, but declined to comment further.

But Saeed al-Shehabi, a London-based dissident who runs the Bahrain Freedom Movement, said: "The regime in Bahrain has proven that it has no humanity, no respect for human rights or international conventions. British arms are being used for internal repression of peaceful protests. Why is the British Government letting this happen?"

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