Three month state of emergency declared in Bahrain
Posted on 15 March 2011 with 3 comments from readers
With Manama a virtual ghost town and the city divided up by warring gangs of youths, Bahrain today bowed to the inevitable and declared a state of emergency to last three months. Hundreds are reported injured and at least two dead in clashes over the past few days.
However, the reason for the arrival of Saudi and UAE forces remained unclear as the island state has an army of 10,000 men, quite sufficient to impose martial law.
So far the Saudi troops have remained barraked around the royal compound. But protestors were due to march to the Saudi embassy this afternoon to voice their objection to the arrival of their forces, which might trigger some response.
Ghost town
In the city centre shops, hotels, schools and the university are closed with the Pearl roundabout still the opposition stronghold. Residents are very concerned about the arrival of forces from Saudi Arabia and the UAE and are unsure what this means.
Some talk about the Iranian influence on the Shias and a desire to show Sunni solidarity on the government side. But there is a lot of wild speculation in such emotionally charged situations and nobody has made a clear statement of intention yet.
On the other hand, the city cannot be left in its current state of semi-anarchy and shutdown. There is going to have to be action and soon to restore order. What a sorry day for Bahrain.
3 Comments posted by readers:
It sounds to me like Bahrain will become permanently occupied by Saudi forces because as soon as they leave, trouble will start up again. It reminds me of the Brits in Northern Ireland. I didn’t think that I would live to see that one end. It did make a good episode of ‘Miami Vice’. (Has Don Johnson disappeared, or what! Still counting the money after the second police TV show?)
I just read how the IRA had debated blowing up the UK Prime Minister with a car bomb in London, but decided that too many innocent civilians would be killed by such a huge explosion. And that would be bad publicity for them. So they fired 3 mortars, which they fabricated themselves, at #10 Downing Street. It was a close call because one blew up in the back yard. The thing about blowing up ELECTED politicians is that they always have another one, eager to take their place, as head of the very same system. It is like killing ants. You can’t get them all, so you might as well leave them alone and wait for winter, the next election. We have ants imported from South America. They call them ‘fire ants’ for good reason. I’m not sure if they sent them up here as revenge for our constant meddling in their politics, or what. The only defense is a leather shoe with a rough finish. It fools them into thinking that they are stinging a live target as they attack the shoe first (hopefully). Sometimes running over their nest with a heavy lawn tractor wheel also seems to displace them to another location. Gasoline works too, but kills the grass.
Both CNN & Fox TV now report that ALL workers are being evacuated from the stricken Japanese nuclear reactors. When combined with recent reports of loss of coolant at the spent nuclear fuel rod storage areas of reactors #5 & #6, this sets the stage for a Chernobyl sized nuclear catastrophe with the possible release of HUGE amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere. The area around the plant may need to be abandoned for centuries because of plutonium contamination. Spent nuclear fuel is extremely toxic containing a long list of deadly radioactive elements.
MSNBC TV now reports that the evacuation was only temporary. That is very good news.