Page 109 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

and they found plants in my garden which they had not got in Baghdad,
on a visit to King Saud of Arabia. The King met us at Dhahran with a
so I gave them an assortment to take to Iraq. We were horrified and
number of his relations and court officials. Among them were Yusuf
grieved when they and many others, including ladies of the Royal
Yasin, a Syrian, who was a powerful influence in foreign affairs, Jamal al
Family, were brutally murdered in July 1958.
Huscini, a relation of the cx-Mufti of Jerusalem, and Rashid Ali, who led
At the end of June there was a fracas between Sunnis and Shias at the
the unsuccessful revolt against the British in Iraq in 1941, now a political
gates of the refinery at Sitra. Trouble started with a squabble about a
exile at the court of King Saud. Contrary to my expectations all three
bicycle among some boys who worked in the refinery. Arabs from a
seemed very friendly disposed towards me.
neighbouring Sunni village came to sec what was going on and the Sitra
We drove to Dammam and were lodged in the house of the Amir,
villagers turned out in force and attacked the Arabs. In the melee one
Saud ibn Jiluwi. My driver was a wild young Bedouin, with long ringlets.
Arab was killed and several people were wounded. The police made a
He drove like a madman, cutting in and trying to get ahead of the other
number of arrests. The culprits were tried in a barrack room at the fort
cars in the procession, singing to the tunes which blared forth from the because the court-room could not hold the number of people who were
A car’s radio, turning round to talk to me, ignoring the road ahead of him. involved. About a dozen men, most of them Shias, were sentenced to
I was given a room to myself in the Amir’s palace; it contained a bed,
varying terms of imprisonment which caused an intensification of Sunni-
nine enormous chairs and two sofas, but no table or mirror or place to
Shia feeling. When the sentences were announced there was an uproar
hang clothes. The sanitary arrangements were primitive. The ‘Royal
among the Shias and next day they held a mass meeting in a mosque
Guards’ were much in evidence; some of them were stationed outside my
opposite the fort.
door. Their bright-blue tunics and blue trousers with a scarlet stripe
I was in my office waiting for a report about the meeting when the
were quite smart, but the effect was marred by untidy Arab headcloths. telephone rang. It was Shaikh Khalifah, who had recently been promoted
My police orderly was very critical of their drill and discipline. In to Director of Public Security, speaking from the fort. ‘Come quickly,*
Bahrain it was I who made arrangements for visits such as ours, so I took he said, ‘the fort is being attacked.’ There were about 300 men in the
a professional interest in the way that things were done in Saudi Arabia.
police; a large proportion were on outpost duty, and there were always
Nobody ever knew what was going to happen next, or when or where! some away on leave so there were only about sixty or seventy men in the
I congratulated myself that our hosts could have learned a lot from us.
fort. As I raced up to the fort I said to myself, ‘More trouble,’ and indeed
On the day before we left, after I had gone to bed, the Shaikh sent
when I got there I found trouble enough.
for me. Putting a dressing-gown over my pyjamas I went to his room,
As I turned in by the eastern gate I saw a great crowd milling around
where I found him with some of the family in solemn conclave, discussing
on the west side of the fort and I heard several shots. The big doors of
how to distribute the lavish largesse which had been given by the King. I
the fort were shut. I shouted and beat on them, but there was such a din
was : told that I was to have a Pontiac car, the one in which I had careered from outside and from the married lines, where the wives and children of
across the desert. When I protested and said that I could not accept it 1 the police were shrieking and screaming, that it was some time before they
was told, firmly, that it would be the height of bad manners to refuse the
% King’s gift. Breakfast next morning consisted of several sheep and a few were opened. When I got in I ran up the steps to the battlements to see
from above what was happening outside. It was too late to do anything.
dozen chickens, imported from America—rather overwhelming in my
Crowds of men were moving away across the open space in front of the
case, as I normally ate a very light breakfast. We left for Bahrain by air, fort towards the town, leaving on the ground two or three bodies. My
taking ten minutes, with a favourable wind, from Dhahran to Muh
arraq first feeling was of fury that the police should have fired, but later, when I
aerodrome.
knew what had happened, I realized that they had some excuse for their
. In March young King Faisal of Iraq and his uncle, Amir Abd-al-Ilah,
visited Bahrain. Maijorie and I had often met the Amir but it was the first action.
.The crowd at the mosque had been stirred up by the speakers who
time that we had met and entertained the King. We found him extremely
told them that the Sitra prisoners were in the fort. Somebody must have
pleasant and easy, he seemed to enjoy wandering round our house and
suggested attacking the fort and freeing them—I was never able to
looking at the books and pictures. He and his uncle were keen g:udcners,
201
200