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Sheikh Ali bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, Sheikh Ali bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa, and the

Director of Customs GWR Smith. Representing the employers were: LA Smith

Personnel Manager of BAPCO holding British citizenship, Mohammed Kanoo a

leading merchant, and SM Uchi, a building contractor. From the elected workers

were Mahmood Al-Alawi, an accounts officer at the Adviserhip (or Adviserate –

Belgrave’s headquarters), Ali bin Sayid Hussein from BAPCO, and Mohammed

Qassim Al-Shirawi. 322 The first meeting of the Bahrain Government Labour

Committee was held on 30 April with Audsley’s presence as work began on the

setting up of a labour code in Bahrain. Burrows requested the FO to send experts to

assist the Committee with its work. 323

Following the establishment of the Labour Committee (and to Burrows’ own

surprise) the HEC ‘gave up its demand for recognition by the Government in return

for being allowed unofficially to nominate the workers’ representatives on the

committee, who were then “elected”’. 324 The latest demand was not met by the

Administration.

On 2 May, Bahrain was due to receive an unexpected visitor from Egypt.

Nasser had recently completed his tour of Asia and to attend the Afro-Asian

Conference, also known as the Bandung Conference, in Indonesia between 18 to 24

April. The Conference was the Egyptian Prime Minister’s first visit abroad. 325 The

Bandung Conference aimed ‘to demonstrate the solidarity of the neutral, non-

322 TNA, FO 371/114587, Gault to Burrows, 28 April 1955.
323 TNA, FO 1016/386, Residency to FO, 27 April 1955.
324 TNA, FO 371/120540, Burrows, The Resident’s Annual Report for the Year 1955.
325 Laqueur, The Soviet Union and the Middle East, 214; and ‘Start of Bandung Conference: An
International Fashion Show’, The Manchester Guardian, 19 April 1955, 1.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 108