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27. In the Kingdom of Tear Gas
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239 27. IN THE KINGDOM OF TEAR GAS GREGG CARLSTROM The talk of the possible renewal of dialogue between the Bahraini government and the opposition so far has just been talk. The reality is that street protests, after simmering in outlying villages for months, have begun to heat up in the capital of Manama. Opposition activists staged a large rally in the first week of April 2012 in support of jailed human rights activist ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Khawaja, whose fifteen-week hunger strike turned him into a symbol of resistance to the government in the eyes of many Bahrainis. Khawaja was arrested a year previous as part of the crackdown on the popular uprising that began on February 14, 2011 and became centered in Pearl Roundabout on Manama’s outskirts . He was moved to a military hospital on April 6 because of his rapidly deteriorating health. The February 14 Youth Coalition also organized almost daily protests against the Formula One auto race scheduled for April 22.The government was eager to hold the race to show that Bahrain’s unrest was in the past; the opposition wanted it canceled. Despite demonstrations numbering in the thousands in the days before the race, Formula One held the event as planned. Violence has escalated on both sides, though the great bulk has come from the state: Security forces fire more and more tear gas at protesters and in villages sympathetic to the opposition, with two thirds of gas-related deaths occurring since November 2011. Some youth activists, meanwhile, are abandoning peaceful tactics in favor of throwing Molotov cocktails at the police (who have repeatedly been caught on video throwing their own petrol bombs back).On April 9,2012 there were reports of homemade bombs going off or exploding accidentally in the village of al-‘Ikr, causing several injuries among riot police. In November 2011, there was a moment of optimism after the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) released its report upon the widespread abuses of the preceding eight months. Despite some flaws, the report was generally a clear-eyed assessment of torture and arbitrary detention by the state, as well as sectarianism and other issues. Activists said at the time that if King Hamad bin ‘Isa Al Khalifa responded with grand gestures, perhaps a general amnesty for political prisoners and a serious offer of dialogue with the opposition, the report could be the starting point for compromise. But that hope was quickly extinguished; the BICI report, like past attempts at reconciliation, seems to have only deepened Bahrain’s stalemate and strengthened the opposition’s determination to press its case in the streets. 240 Opposition “societies” (officially, political parties are outlawed in Bahrain) insist on using the report’s recommendations as a reference point for any dialogue.The government’s inability (or unwillingness) to implement those recommendations is thus yet another obstacle to resumed talks.“The opposition societies are not convinced that the government wants to have a new dialogue,”said Ahmad Ibrahim, a senior member of Wa‘ad, the secular leftist opposition grouping. “If they do, we have a few starting principles…including the BICI recommendations.” On the other end of the political spectrum are hardline Sunni groups angry about even the government’s limited steps to put the BICI’s suggestions into practice. In January, the court of cassation overturned the death sentences against two opposition activists who had been convicted by a military tribunal of killing two policemen.The decision sparked a furious protest; demonstrators hung photographs of the spared men from a mock gallows. Presiding over the impasse—and very much a part of it—are a government and royal family riven by internal feuds, between an erstwhile reformist crown prince, a conservative prime minister, and a king viewed by more and more Bahrainis as impotent and aloof. The Two Seas The report of the National Commission in late March 2012 was,if nothing else,an impressive public relations exercise. The commission, appointed by the king, was created shortly after the BICI report was released.That report contained more than twenty-five recommendations ; the commission was asked to measure the government’s progress toward carrying them out. It was chaired by ‘Ali Salih al-Salih, head of the Shura Council, the appointed upper house of parliament, and opposition forces were skeptical of its integrity. “It will say whatever the regime wants,” said Jawad Fairouz, a former member of Parliament from alWifaq , a Shi‘i Islamist group. And so...