Page 295 - Records of Bahrain (7) (i)_Neat

Developments in autumn 1956 281

i).
A forecast of future developments must be highly
speculative with such volatile elements in the population and
with the constant possibility that events in Bahrain may bo
decisively influenced from outside as a result of the.present
tension throughout the Middle East, Subject to this

reservation it might be hoped that the tendency for the
Committee to disintegrate and for moderate elements to begin
timidly to rally to the Government v/ould continue. For the
time being, however, it must remain equally possible that
another difficult security situation may arise in Bahrain
cither as a result of the Suez Canal situation or on the

occasion of the return to Bahrain, if this takes place, of
Abdulrahman al Bakir, the former Secretary of the Committee
of National Union, which v/ould no doubt be made the occasion
of a major demonstration by his supporters, or because th*c
Committee feel that their power is declining and that they
must rc-aoscrt themselves by some major looul action or
because of some more or less accidental clash between the

police and the public such as was the immediate cause of the
-
I March disorders. The Coiiimittec would in such circumstances
3 no doubt still be able to call out many of the workers, but
perhaps only for a short period, and they could also bring
ubout outbreaks of hooliganism, particularly in Muharraq. I

would expect that the situation could be got under control
with or without the intervention of the British forces
now in Bahrain, and that if violence had taken place the
Bahrain Government would v/ish finally to suppress the Committee
i
as being responsible and might now be able to do this v/ithout
alienating the majority of the population as would probubly
have ocourrod if they had attempted to do so earlier, in

other words we may, subject to the interimtiora.l situation,
/get