Manama, April 15: The United States has collaborated with the deadly crackdown on the popular revolution against Bahrain’s despotic monarchy, says a notable Bahraini human rights activist.
“People in Bahrain think that the US is in one way or another directly complicit in what’s happening in Bahrain,” said Maryam al-Khawaja of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, in a Press TV interview.
Dozens of 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 over 40 years.
Led by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain’s Arab neighbors from the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council deployed troops to the country in mid-March to reinforce brutal armed attacks against anti-government protesters. The reinforcements have reportedly contributed to a major hike in the use of extreme violence against popular protests.
Khawaja said Washington’s complicity with Bahrain’s state violence was shown in remarks by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had “actually said that Bahrain has the sovereign right to invite the [P]GCC troops into the country.”
“But legally and according to the agreement between the [P]GCC countries, these forces are supposed to be used for foreign threats,” she emphasized.
——Agencies