Page 87 - Begrave Thesis_Neat

bin Rashid, struggled to persuade the crowd to disperse but with little success and

from then on shots were heard being fired from the crowd, the police lost control

and fired back. The report also specified that four people in total had died, three

arrived dead to the hospital, and one died later of his wounds. Two British

volunteers donated blood for three of the wounded rioters thereby saving their

lives. The Commission concluded that, although the crowds were in an ‘aggressive

and threatening mood’, the police should have used less lethal methods to disperse

of angry mobs. 199

At least three of the four fallen demonstrators lived outside of Manama and

three of the four were younger than twenty-one. 200 In this matter Burrows stated in

his monthly Residency report of the Arab Gulf States under British protection that in

memory of the four killed, photographs of the four were printed in Lebanon, around

1,500 copies, sold at one-eighth of a Rupee per copy to the locals. 201

In the Resident’s view, the Bahraini sectarian tensions should be attributed

to the general attitudes and regional tensions as ‘influence percolates even here

through the Egyptian press and the various Arab radio broadcasts’. 202 Following the

recent trouble the Adviser received a letter from the Ruler on 19 September

199 TNA, FO 371/109813, Commission of Enquiry Report.
200 The identities of the four fallen Bahrainis is as follows: Ebrahim Abdul-Rasool bin Saif, from
Manama, twenty years of age; Mohammed Al-Hajj Khadhem Al-Hajj Ali, from Al-Malikiya, twenty-one
years of age; Ali Ahmed Al-Saeed, from Muqaba, eighteen years of age; and Ali Al-Hajj Hassan Al-Hajj
Abdulla, from Sitra, twenty-nine years of age. See ‘Akhar Uthu Qiyadi ala Qayid Al-Hayat min “Hayet
Al-Itihad Al-Watani”’ [The Last Alive Member of the “National Union Committee”], Al-Wasat, 12
October 2002, 2.
201 ‘Bernard Burrows, Residency’s Monthly Report for September 1954’, in Political Diaries of the
Persian Gulf, vol. 19 1951-1954, ed. R.L. Jarman (London: 1990), 1-6 (5).
202 TNA, FO 371/109813, Burrows to FO, 20 July 1954.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 66