Interview with Ralph Schoenman, author and political commentator from Berkeley, CA
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, meets with Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa at Sakhir Palace in Manama Saturday, March 12, 2011.
Human rights groups have called on the United Nations to hold an urgent session to address the widespread violations of rights in Bahrain.
Human Rights Watch and the Geneva-based Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said on Wednesday that they are worried about the growing abuses by the Bahraini regime against its citizens who are seeking political reforms and a voice in the government.
Dozens of Bahraini people have been killed and thousands of others injured since February 14, when the public started a popular revolution against the royal family that has been ruling the island for more than 200 years.
In an interview with Press TV, political commentator and the author of Hidden History of Zionism, Ralph Schoenman, discusses the events taking place in Bahrain and the role of the US and Saudi Arabia in the repression of the peaceful protesters demanding the ouster of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.
Press TV: We want to look at the international reaction in particular the United States and Europe’s. It is interesting that first of all, we have a senior advisor to Catherine Ashton who has basically publicly defended Bahrain’s crackdown and has chucked up the deaths as just accidents. And then we have, on the other side, the US reaction that, aside from really not backing the protesters, has urged reforms; but then you have this big news in terms of “you invade Bahrain, we take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.” I am referring to that deal that reportedly has been struck between Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia. Can you explain what is going on?
Ralph Schoenman: Well, the Saudis are the instrument of the US rule in the region and have been a vehicle both in Yemen and of course they are instrumental in Libya, as you indicated, with funds and with special forces conjoining the roles of the SAS and the Central intelligence Agency to capture and abort the uprising that is initiated with the response to the general uprising in Tunisia and in Egypt. With respect to Bahrain, the repressive apparatus of the Al Khalifas has been of course superseded by the invasion by the Saudis although I should say more complemented and intensified but always under the direction of the United States. Robert Gates was in Manama on the eve of the invasion by the Saudis. He met not only with the King, but then with the prime minister of Great Britain and with the head of security. All that was co-ordinated.
What is happening on a daily basis and we have been reporting and constantly bringing before the widest audience in the United States is that people have been targeted for unbridled repression. That means that anybody who is injured, and there are not hundreds but thousands who have been injured, cannot go to a hospital. When they are taken to the hospitals, the ambulances are intercepted and the ambulance drivers and the medical staff are detained themselves, are killed on the spot in many instances. In one hospital, the doctors and nurses were rounded up on the second floor by military and police. Some were taken and disappeared, others were beaten. Those who were not taken down, beaten or dispatched were subjected to having their coordinates remain registered: where they live, where their families are and then rage takes place in those villages.
No day goes by when I did not receive a communication from doctors and from people who are reporting as follows: “This is N. I am sending you an email with a fake name. The situation in Bahrain changes from bad to worse. Yesterday my clinic patients with serious illnesses were taken away. They cannot even go to secondary care hospitals here. They are frightened to go to Salmaniya. The ambulances are controlled by the Bahrain defense forces and accompanied by special police. One of my patients, an 11-month-old child, with severe bronchial asthma, has been unable to get medical attention and the father cannot get him to Salmaniya. Patients with cardiac and respiratory disease are prevented from going in hospitals and when they are in there they are taken out. At this moment, a 19-year-old girl Ayad Alkhamoosi was taken for three days. She was tortured and is in critical condition for the crime of writing a poem at school against Khalifa bin Salman.”
This is every day. As to the workers, you know there is a general strike organized by the general federation of workers trade unions in Bahrain which shut down Alba, the Aluminum Company, and BABCO, the Petroleum Company, associated with Occidental Petroleum and Bahrain Air. That general strike was maintained for nearly two weeks. Since then, the union federation reports that 1300 people have been removed from Alba Aluminum and in fact there is a repression brought against all those who participated in the strike and particularly Shia who are singled out. The [Bahraini] minister of interior and the Saudi officials have overseen this purging operation which is under the control and operation of the Saudi army and security intelligence.
Press TV: Let us talk about the role of the Persian Gulf countries in term of the council that they have called the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council. It appears that maybe the United States has given a free hand to its members in particular Saudi Arabia and of course all these countries that possess military bases, not to mention the aid that they get. Is that how you see it in terms of them having a free hand in this case Saudi Arabia leading the pack?
Ralph Schoenman: The structure of power in the United States is not a mystery. It is extremely clear. One percent of the population owns more that 95 percent of the rest of the population combined. Approximately 5000 people control the commanding heights of the US economy through banking and corporate capital, it is a ruling class and they have an imperium, they have hegemony over 75 percent of the world’s resources. In the Arab east and in the region at large, they maintain these country-selling regimes. The more brutal, the better, because of the alienation of the entire population whose patrimony has been stoned, whose self-determination is destroyed, and whose resources are basically plundered.
Those are the basic dynamics. Bahrain is the cockpit of the US power because the Fleet is based there but in particular the Saudi apparatus has been the linchpin because of the relationship of Saudis to the oil not only in Saudi Arabia but also in adjacent counties. They Israeli invaders stock troops for American imperialism; they do not call the shots; you give the imperialists and the ruling class a pass if you say they do this, simply because the Jews make them do it; that is not the case. The Zionists are funded and armed by them, they stock troops, they create every kind of atrocities to undermine the peoples in the country of the region, without doubt; but they do that as the instrument of US imperialism. Within the context of Bahrain itself, the role of Saudis and the [Persian] Gulf Emirates are the role of counties whose governments are utterly under the control of imperialism. They are country-selling regimes, from Mubarak to the king of Saudi Arabia, to the regime in Yemen, to the regime in Bahrain.
I want to return to the fact that the repression is an all-out assault on the population as such, without any restraint, not even the pretence of allowing the formal protections of entitlement to medical care are allowed. You have the random and continuous seizure of people in their homes and the streets; wherever they are found, they are shot, they are wounded. Every day I am getting dozens of reports which we convert into articles and appeals that have gone around the country; the unions here have taken up the call. I sent you the information about the person who was stabbed with a knife and tortured. He was not given a fair chance. God bless his soul, he was treated like an animal and thrown into plastic bag for garbage. These are among the daily reports that we are receiving.
MN/JM/MGH
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