Page 267 - Begrave Thesis_Neat

Embassy in Beirut sent to the Residency in Manama. The publication described Al-

Bakir as being ‘one of the leaders of Bahrain’. 769

Al-Ahram covered in August a press conference held by Al-Bakir in

Damascus. It claimed that, according to Al Bakir, Bahrain’s trade union, (or the

NUC’s version of the union consisting of 8,700 workers) had ‘decided to destroy

completely, within 48 hours of any attack on Egypt, refinery and oil pipes’. Al-

Ahram further claimed that Al-Bakir had indicated that the US and Britain were

working together on establishing bases in Bahrain ‘which will be used for atomic

planes’. When the nationalist was asked about his reaction to the West’s threats

aimed at Egypt, Al-Bakir replied: ‘If any aggression is carried out against Egypt by

anyone, we will immediately destroy the oil refinery, air and naval bases, and all

other British and American establishments’. Another account within the same issue

of the newspaper proclaimed Al-Bakir’s announcement in Damascus of the

establishment of a liberation coalition with the objective of ‘liberating Arab States

from the clutches of Imperialism’. 770

Al-Bakir revealed more about this coalition in his memoir. The objective of

the Movement was to unite other nationalist personalities from other states in the

Arabian Gulf and Peninsula under the umbrella of a ‘Revolutionary Pact’. The

personalities Al-Bakir met were from Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and South

Yemen. An office was established for this mission in Damascus and was named as

the ‘Gulf and South Arabia’. 771

769 TNA, FO 1016/468, Chancery’s British Embassy in Beirut to Residency, 4 August 1956.
770 TNA, FO 1016/468, Translation of Al-Ahram’s News Reports, 26 August 1956.
771 Al-Bakir, From Bahrain to Exile, 119.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 246