Chaos Spreads Through Bahrain and Libya
After Egypt’s uprising, Bahrain, Libya and other nearby regions are following in various degrees of intensity.
In Bahrain thousands of protesters have re-occupied Pearl Square, the main square in the capital Manama, as riot police and government troops pulled out after an order from the ruling family.
The change of heart by the government has followed violent events over the course of the week as protesters occupying the square were fired upon with live ammunition by security forces.
The protests have mainly been driven by the Shia population in the country who have long complained that they are discriminated against. The ruling elite are from a Sunni background.
The Crown Prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, said in a statement on Bahrani TV that “calm is needed at this time” and offered to hold talks with opposition leaders. At the moment, as far as we know, the opposition parties have refused any such meetings.
In Libya there have been protests against the dictator Colonel Gaddafi in the second city of Benghazi. While in the the capital of Tripoli, there have been organised Pro-Gaddafi rallies.
Gaddafi has been in power now for over 40 years and is not likely to give it up easily, already there are reports of almost 100 people killed in the past few days. Footage from inside the country, leaked onto the internet, show the killing of protesters by snipers.
In the last 48 hours internet access has been cut by the government in an attempt to stop co-ordination and control all possible media channels in the country.
We saw in Egypt how this tactic cannot be wholely successful, google helped to setup a text to twitter service for instance, but can have a major impact.
The seat of Gaddafi’s power is in Tripoli and the next few days will be see if any pro-democracy demonstrations spread there. Only then will Gaddafi’s power really be tested.
Photo: Al Jazeera English
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