CARTER'S NEW PLAYMATES IN THE PERSIAN GULF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700042-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: February 23, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

',Irk ,T
Carter e
THE NATION
23 February 1980
Playmates i
The Persian Gull
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700042-9
resident Carter's new commitment to stand by*
Western interests in the Persian Gulf must come
as welcome news to the assorted monarchs and
The lat ergroun paper ramsa gars
(March 5) lists the names of seventy-six people arrested in
thc.latter part of last year for underground political activ-
ities.~Some are radicals influenced by the revolution in Iran,
others are members of a Trades Union Founding Committee
that ha? heen especially active among the workers at the
ALBA aluminum plant, the largest industrial enterprise on
the island. A world that is rightly indignant at Andrei
Sakharov's deportation to a provincial town should also,
spare a thought for -the dozens of people facing a much
worse fate, and without any international protest, in one of
.the countries Carter has now decided to sustain so avidly.
Security in Bahrain is under the command of two long-
standing British counterinsurgency experts, Ian Henderson,
a veteran of the ;Mau Mau campaign in Kenya in- the 1950s,
and Maj. Gen. Jim Bell. But although the Bahrain Defense
Force-the Amir's army-gets its arms from Britain, the
United States has since 1949 operated a naval facility at,
military dictators on whom the beneficence of a
newly assertive U.S. Administration is about to be bestowed. i
Some of these gentry have already attracted the skeptical at-'I
tention of Western observers: neither the monarchy of Saudi
Arabia nor the fervid Islamic generals of Islamabad rated
high on the human-rights scales. Yet there are other less
prominent rulers whose credentials may also bear some ex-
amination in the light of Washington's new claims to be
defending Western values in that region, not least the Amir
of Bahrain, who has proferred hospitality to the U.S. Navy
since 1949, and the Sultan of Oman, who has just last week
opened the door to Uncle Sam with the offer of a military
base.
The Amir of Bahrain may at first sight appear a rather
harmless buffoon. Sheik Isa ibn Sultan al-Khalifa, 46, is
best known for his two favorite pastimes: racing horses and
chasing English stewardesses, whom he invites to a private
beach near his palace from which all Arab women are banned.
His favorite companion is a former air hostess named Mar-
garet who commutes regularly between London and the
Bahraini capital of Manama at the Amir's expense.
But the jolly Amir has a more macabre side, concealed
from many Western visitors by the appearance of prosperity
and the relaxed social atmosphere in the island state.
Bahrain has the longest history of education and also of
political unrest among the Arab Gulf states, and since the
1950s there has been a strong movement among intellectuals
and workers demanding democratic rights. In 1956, 1965
and 1970 the Government had to resort to widespread ar-
rests to preserve the absolute power of the al-Khalifas. After
becoming formally independent of Britain in 1971, Bahrain
tried a limited experiment in democracy.. A draft Constitu-
tion was announced, under which a highly restricted. na-
tional assembly would have come into existence. The
assembly was then duly elected-but only after women had
been- deprived of the vote promised in the Constitution
draft. And when the assembly, at most only a talking shop,
became too critical of the ruling family, it was unceremoni-
ously closed down in August 1975. In the subsequent repres-
sion a number of opposition leaders were shot or tortured to
death by the police.
Bahrain, which serves as the headquarters for its Middle
East Force. The ships of MIDEASTFOR serve not only as
an American presence in the Gulf but also carry out impor-
tant communications and reconnaissance activities. Al-
though the Government occasionally promises to terminate
U.S. occupancy of the base, it has not in fact done so.
Bahrain, a country with an acute demand for liberaliza-
tion, is therefore still ruled by an autocratic Amir, backed by
his British myrmidons. Farther down the Gulf rules Sultan
Qabus of Oman, who was installed by the British intelligence
service in July 1970, in order to replace his stubborn father.
Qabus has never wavered in blocking democracy, refusing
even to allow the kind of token tribal assembly of majlis
that is found in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. He recently
told The Financial Times of London that such assemblies
are "an inefficient and time-wasting way of running a
modern state." The result is that no democratic liberties of
any kind are allowed and Qabus rules without any limits,
flanked by an assortment of relatives and merchants.
Soon after coming to power Qabus began to put distance
between himself and the British, and relations between him
and London are now somewhat strained. The British believe
that Qabus's passionate, unswerving dedication to creating
a modern state (i.e., -his ruthless dictatorship) may generate
new popular opposition. Privately, they scorn his grandiose
self-image as the man whose country guards the lifeline of
the West at the twenty-six-mile Straits of Hormuz.
Qabus, for his part, takes no chances with the British, and
since 1971 he has received a secret subsidy from the Central
Intelligence Agency, channeled through Saudi Arabia,
which enables him to run his own security force independent
of the British, according to a February 3, 1972, ,article in the
authoritative Economist Foreign Report The 4,000-strong
militarized police, used for counterinsurgency operations
alongside the army, is the linchpin of the wary Sultan's
backup self-defense system.
Power in the country is said to lie with three men. T'STAT
:Sultan himself doubles as Prime Minister, Minister of
nr1Pnce nri 11:_ -L?_~-- .- .
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700042-9