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Both Al-Bakir and Belgrave accused Britain of collaboration or sympathising

with the other party. Al-Bakir in his memoir claimed that, on his return to Bahrain

in late September, the Administration offered an open door for negotiations only to

gain time to implement its grand scheme of eliminating the NUC in due course. Al-

Bakir further claimed that the plan to dismantle the Party was devised by the British

Foreign Office itself and that he was misled during negotiations and he had failed to

understand the true intentions of the Administration and Britain. 865 No FO

documents at TNA survive of a grand plot to eliminate the NUC. On the other hand

the Bahrain Government Annual Report for 1956 prepared by Belgrave claimed that

the NUC’s

actions were approved and supported by the British Government and
this impression deterred many of the responsible Arabs who
supported the Government from indicating their disapproved of the
H.E.C. 866

Burrows explained the Residency’s stance towards the two sides in Bahrain

in the Residency’s Annual Report, saying that his policy was to find ‘some common

ground’ between the factions likening the Bahraini Movement to those seen in other

territories under British colonial rule. The intention was to bridge the gap between

the Administration and the reformists ‘using our experience of constitutional

development and administration to guide in the direction of gradual rather than

violent change’. Unfortunately the attempt at holding both the Administration and

865 Al-Bakir, From Bahrain to Exile, 121-22.
866 ‘Government of Bahrain: Annual Report for Year 1956’, 1-111 (4).

© Hamad E. Abdulla 273