The National Liberation Front -
Bahrain
The National Liberation Front -
Bahrain (جبهة التحرير الوطني - البحرين) is a clandestine Marxist-Leninist
party in Bahrain. It was founded on 15 February 1955, the first left party
in the Arab states of the Gulf region. Among the founder-members were Hassan
Nezam (1922–1958), the principal founder, who was killed in Tehran in 1958
by Savak (this extraordinary activist was also a leading regional figure in
the Tudeh Party of Iran, Khuzestan province, under the name Hassan Dorood);
Erik Mansoorian, who died in Abadan after returning to Iran in 1964; Hassan
M. Saleh (1926–2000), who, from the early 1960s, was in a state of a chronic
mental dysfunction as a result of severe torture; Ali Madan (1932–1995);
Ahmed al-Thawadi, “Saif Bin Ali” (1937–2006); and Ali Dwaigher (born 1930).
In the 1960s and 70s the NLF, headed
by Saif Bin Ali, assisted by Yousif Ajaji (born 1939) and Abdulla Rashid
Binali (born 1935), played a leading part in two major events: the March
Intifada (uprising) of 1965, in which nationalist forces rose up against
British colonialism, and the labour movement of the early 1970s. The first
event led eventually to the independence of Bahrain from British in 1971;
the second event accelerated the move towards a significant improvement in
the political atmosphere and the emergence of the first parliament in the
history of the island and the first constitution (the constitution of 1973).
By the first half of the 1970s the NLF
was the major political force in the country, and following the 1974
parliamentary election it succeeded in having eight members in the first
Bahrain National Assembly (parliament) or 40 per cent of elected MPs (twenty
elected and twenty appointed). In 1976, however, the parliament was
dissolved and the constitution was suspended. The NLF was harshly repressed
by the regime, and many activists and leaders went into exile. The most
severe assault came in the mid-80s, specifically in 1986, with the decision
of the authorities to crush the NLF. Almost the whole clandestine
organisation collapsed, some members died under torture, and a large number
were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment after false and illegal
confessions. Another reason behind this setback was the ultra-leftist policy
that the organisation pursued at that time.
In spite of the unprecedented
political circumstances that faced the surviving activists of the NLF, a
handful of fighters remained, though in different method of activity. One
can see their fingerprints on the events of the 1990s called the
“constitutional movement.”
In the early 2000s, after a reasonable
change in the regime’s policy, exiled leaders were allowed to return to
Bahrain and to work politically. Before the election of 2002 some elements
affiliated to the NLF, in co-operation with other independent activists (leftists
and liberals), launched a legal political body under a new rule governing
the establishment of political associations. In this way the Progressive
Democratic Tribune Association was founded as a leftist progressive
political organisation, but not as an alternative to the NLF. Since then it
may appear that the PDTA has replaced the NLF, a groundless claim for which
there is no documentary evidence. Moreover, the NLF never issued any
statement that it has ceased to exist. The reality is that the NLF continues
to exist and to struggle, though illegal and not openly active, because of
the sensitive transformation period that Bahrain is passing through.
Between 2002 and 2006 the NLF and PDTA
had three members in parliament, including the deputy speaker, Abdulhadi
Marhoon. However, all lost their seats in the election of 2006 when Sunni
and Shi‘a communal “Islamist” forces won almost all seats.
