Page 339 - Bahrain Gov annual reports (V a)_Neat

5

During the Spring of 1955 the H.E.C. began to hold public meetings in mosques ostensibly
on religious occasions but actually to provide a political platform. They issued notices and
pamphlets describing as “traitors” all Arabs who co-operated with the Government, and
ordering members of public bodies to abstain from attending meetings. This was followed by
anonymous threatening letters and telephone calls which became more violent as time passed,
and the Government took no strong action to prevent such activities. Merchants were threat­
ened that their premises would be burned and there were cases of attempted arson. In some
of the villages men were employed to organise cells in support of the H.E.C., who acquired
funds from the public by methods closely resembling blackmail. At the same time the H.E.C.
began to send young men, sons of their supporters, to Cairo, for higher education, in accord­
ance with an arrangement made between themselves and the Egyptian authorities.
In July 1955 the H.E.C. organised the opposition to the Criminal Code, which was about
to be enforced, their real objection was to the sections covering sedition and civil disturbances.
It was known that the Code had been drafted by experts in London and partly as.a result of this
the British Government was attacked for what was described by the H.E.C. as its “crooked
policy.”
In the Autumn of 1955 His Highness announced the formation of the Education and
Public Health Committees, half the members were to be elected and half to be nominated, but
when the elections for the Education Committee were held only three persons were found to be
willing to stand as candidates against the H.E.C. candidates and none of the three was elected.
The proceedings were held up because of the objections which were made by the H.E.C. to the
persons who were nominated by His Highness. When the time arrived for the election for the
Public Health Committee only the H.E.C’s candidates were in the field, the people who would
normally have stood for election preferred to avoid probable unpleasantness by not coming
forward as candidates.
Members of the H.E.C. continued to pay frequent visits to Egypt and the Cairo broad­
casts spoke unceasingly about the affairs of Bahrain. In December Anwar Saadat, Egypt’s
propaganda chief, visited Bahrain and was enthusiastically received by the H.E.C. and their
supporters.
On several occasions, towards the end of the year, His Highness gave audiences to two
members of the H.E.C. in their capacity as ordinary citizens, in an attempt to come to an
agreement over various controversial matters, but their attitude of “all or nothing” made
agreement impossible.
The first two months of 1956 were comparatively quiet. To strengthen the Police the
Government had under consideration a plan for enlisting some police in Iraq owing to the
difficulty of obtaining suitable recruits in Bahrain. This project became known and was
objected to strongly by the H.E.C. who tried to create trouble among the Arab police officers.
On February 28th there was a sit-down strike of workers in a contracting company em­
ployed by the Bahrain Petroleum Company and threats of a general strike, which did not, in
fact, materialise. There was no particular cause for a strike.
On March 2nd, the Rt. Hon. Selwyn Lloyd made a short stop in Bahrain on his way by
air, to the East. On the same day the news of the dismissal of General Glubb by King Hussein
of Jordan reached Bahrain and was widely discussed. In the evening His Highness, accom­
panied by many members of his family and a number of Government officials, drove to the
aerodrome on Muharraq island to meet his guests who were to dine with him at the palace in
Manama. There had been a football match in Muharraq and the streets were crowded. On
the return journey the long procession of slow moving vehicles had to pass a narrow corner at
the Muharraq end of the causeway connecting the two islands. A crowd of men from
Muharraq had collected here and as the leading cars reached the corner there was a hostile
demonstration ; slogans were shouted against the British and the Adviser ; cars, including His
Highness’s car, were kicked and stones were thrown at them, while the people at the back of the
procession were unaware of what was happening. In Manama all was quiet. About half an
hour before the demonstration one of the H.E.C. members had harangued the people at the
comer who were waiting to watch the procession.
When the cars had passed a crowd of bazaar toughs and school boys tried to dig up the
road to prevent vehicles from passing. They were finally dispersed by the Police but no arrests
were made. The Foreign Secretary and his party were able to return, at a late hour, to the
aerodrome to continue their journey. The incident received wide publicity in the world press
and soon afterwards Bahrain was visited by a number of journalists.