Arabs Rise for Rights, Civil Society, Headlines, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa, North America, Press Freedom

Mideast Crackdown Puts U.S. Democracy Line to the Test

Aprille Muscara*

WASHINGTON, Feb 18 2011 (IPS) - As popular protests escalated in some restive Arab countries Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama criticised the regime- sanctioned blood- letting of innocent demonstrators mobilising against government corruption and repression.

“The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries and wherever else it may occur,” Obama said in a statement read by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

“Wherever they are, people have certain universal rights, including the right to peaceful assembly,” he declared. “The United States urges the governments of Bahrain, Libya, and Yemen to show restraint in responding to peaceful protests and to respect the rights of their people.”

In a telephone call with King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa of Bahrain on Friday, Obama “reiterated his condemnation of the violence used against peaceful protesters, and strongly urged the government of Bahrain to show restraint, and to hold those responsible for the violence accountable.”

On Friday, security forces fired rounds, reportedly live, on hundreds of demonstrators near Pearl Square in Manama, the epicentre of Bahrain’s protests, leaving some 50 people wounded, according to officials at its main hospital. Media reports and tweets from people on the ground also claim that a helicopter hovering overhead opened fire on the fleeing crowds.

Many were returning from funerals of fallen protestors, victims of a night-time raid by security forces Thursday, in which those sleeping in Pearl Square were attacked with live fire. Since the demonstrations began Monday, the number killed has reportedly risen to eight, while hundreds have been injured.

Meanwhile, protests continued in Libya, where human rights groups say at least 24 people have died since country-wide demonstrations against longstanding leader Muammar Al- Gaddafi began Thursday.

And in Yemen, capping eight days of violence- wracked demonstrations, at least three protestors were reportedly killed – with a total death toll rumoured to be in the dozens – and scores others injured by autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh’s security forces.

“There is a commonality, clearly, to some of the demonstrations and the unrest we’ve seen, and it’s reflective of a yearning by the peoples of the region, the peoples of these countries, to have a greater participation in the political process in their countries,” Carney told reporters at a briefing Thursday. “And we support that.”

But analysts here also acknowledge the specific and varying contexts of each country witnessing popular uprisings from the Maghreb to the Gulf.

While pro-democracy demonstrators in Tunis and Cairo were received by modest restraint by their respective governments – most observers agree that potential massacres of Tiananmen Square proportions were averted, despite some brutal attacks on protestors – the wave of revolts in neighbouring countries seen since have been marked by unsettling violence.

“One of the big differences between Bahrain and Tunisia or Egypt is that the security forces, when confronted with crowds in Tunisia and Egypt, said ‘those people are us’,” F. Gregory Gause III, political scientist and Gulf expert at the University of Vermont, said in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations Friday.

Manama, with its Sunni minority rule headed by King Hamad bin Isa al- Khalifa, has a 70 percent majority Shia population.

“But when you have this strong sectarian division and the security forces are composed of a minority group, they look at these protestors and say, ‘Those people are them, not us – if they win, we lose,” Gause argued.

The Khalifa family, which has ruled Bahrain for 300 years, has been a longtime U.S. ally, with administration officials praising Bahrain’s modest reforms put in place in the last decade – although advocacy groups remain critical of the regime’s repression of political and social rights.

And with Washington’s fifth fleet – composed of three thousand military personnel, 30 naval ships and 30 thousand soldiers – is based in the small but resource- rich Gulf country, the administration must now walk a tightrope in its condemnation of violence by a key regional partner.

Manama also has the support of its neighbours. On Thursday, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – composed of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – held an emergency meeting and issued a statement of support. “Any threat [to one country] is a collective responsibility,” it read.

Saudi Arabia, just across a causeway to the east, is an especially key ally. Some security forces used to quell demonstrations are rumoured to have been imported from the influential Gulf state.

With protestors now demanding a regime change, observers wonder whether the people power that toppled dictators in Egypt and Tunisia is enough to do the same in the face of the GCC’s collective alliance.

“It certainly has the support of the Saudis, who would see any collapse of the Al Khalifa regime as a serious threat because the Saudis would perceive a Shiite government coming to power and they would see it as being aligned with Iran,” Gauss explained.

“That causeway is there in some large part to facilitate the movement of Saudi security forces if thy think Bahrain is going under,” he said, adding “This is a regime [Al Khalifa’s] that’s proven it’s willing to be brutal to stay in power.”

*With additional reporting by David Elkins.