Page 181 - Begrave Thesis_Neat

restaurant known as Oriental Restaurant that led to the causeway leading to

Manama. Contradicting Gault’s testimony, Owen reported that the mob that had

attacked the car had shouted in English and not Arabic. He recounted that

protestors said in rhythmic fashion, ‘Selwyn Lloyd, Bell-er-grave must go! Selwyn

Lloyd, Bell-er-grave must go!’ The crowds later ‘began stamping on the ground,

then the stamping turned into a kind of dance. This was the dam bursting; this was

Arab hysteria’ as Owen observed. 508

Wight-Boycott’s account revealed that although the police were present, they

were helpless to defend the car convoy from the gathered crowd. Athough the

Resident’s car that had carried Lloyd escaped without serious damage, the crowd of

protestors managed to throw sand into the car landing on the lap of Deputy Under

Secretary of State, Sir Harold Caccia. The procession of cars managed to continue,

but with constant ‘stops and starts’. The car carrying the Senior Naval Officer

suffered damage to its bodywork as the mob attacked it. Another car saw a brick fly

into it from a demonstrator, but no injuries were documented. The convoy finally

managed to slip through the demonstrators and cross the causeway to Manama.

Unfortunately the BOAC’s buses that accompanied the convoy were destroyed by

the demonstrators and a failed attempt was made to burn a bus owned by BAPCO. A

Bahraini fire engine was despatched to the scene but was also stoned by the mob.

The demonstrators refused to abandon the scene until police reinforcements

arrived and a confrontation erupted between the two sides with rifle butts used to

508 Owen, The Golden Bubble, 228-29.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 160