By KANWAL TARIQ HAMEED
Published: 27 September 2006
A SECRET organisation’s operation to influence the outcome of Bahrain’s parliamentary elections was just the beginning of a five-year subterfuge, says the co-author of the Bandargate report.
Its long-term aim is to control Bahrain’s political, economic and social fabric to suit its own purposes, says deported government consultant Dr Salah Al Bandar.
The elections are just part of the secret organisation’s “five-year plan”, being run by misusing the Central Informatics Organisation (CIO) and its facilities, said the Briton, who is married to a Bahraini.
By KANWAL TARIQ HAMEED
Published: 27 September 2006
A SECRET organisation’s operation to influence the outcome of Bahrain’s parliamentary elections was just the beginning of a five-year subterfuge, says the co-author of the Bandargate report.
Its long-term aim is to control Bahrain’s political, economic and social fabric to suit its own purposes, says deported government consultant Dr Salah Al Bandar.
The elections are just part of the secret organisation’s “five-year plan”, being run by misusing the Central Informatics Organisation (CIO) and its facilities, said the Briton, who is married to a Bahraini.
Dr Al Bandar, who had been working as a strategic planning adviser to the Cabinet Affairs Ministry since October last year, was deported to the UK on September 13.
He was arrested, questioned and put on a plane to London after circulating copies of the 240-page Bandargate report to Bahraini authorities, the British, US and German embassies and local political society heads.
The report charts a money trail which purportedly leads back to a senior government official directly involved in organising the elections.
It alleges that payments totalling more than BD1 million have been made to government employees, members of the local Press, MPs, parliamentary candidates, civil societies, lawyers, bank employees, a Jordanian intelligence team and a Shura Council member.
The report was produced under the banner of the London-registered non-governmental organisation the Gulf Centre for Democratic Development (GCDD), of which Dr Al Bandar is secretary-general.
He says he compiled the report with four other GCDD investigators, while inputs from 13 others, after government employees began confiding in him about “unusual activities” in their offices.
Dr Al Bandar claimed to have received hundreds more pieces of evidence from employees and to have chosen the “most credible”.
“(In the report) the Gulf Centre for Democratic Development says that we would like to uncover a strategic plan to control the output of the coming elections and control at the end of the day, the country,” he told the GDN yesterday.
“This is a five-year plan, it is not something just for the elections – if you look to the appendix of the report we have put the strategic plan of this secret organisation.
“It would like to control the overall period (five years) and not only the political, but the economics, the social, the cultural and even the religious, by converting people from one sect to the other.
“This is a comprehensive plan with a comprehensive organisational structure and very generous funding – I’m glad we managed to uncover the start of it.
“If we waited for the end of it, which is intended in the programme in five years, it could be much worse.”
Dr Al Bandar also raised suspicions over the role of a Gulf financial institution, where one of the accounts used to finance the organisation is based.
The financial institution has BD8 billion invested in construction, business, and higher education projects in Bahrain, he claimed.
Founding members of the financial institution, as well as government officials allegedly heading the “secret organisation”, have known connections to the Muslim Brotherhood (a radical political group), said Dr Al Bandar.
He said the aim of the report was “to provide facts” and it would take the thorough investigation it calls for to be able to fully establish and analyse the wider motives of the organisation.
Dr Al Bandar denied ever being involved in the organisation himself.
He said he was initially hired as a consultant for individuals working to establish a local Arabic language newspaper, between March and September last year, he said.
The paper was later implicated in the GCDD report, which alleged it had received a subsidy of BD100,000 from the alleged organisation.
Dr Al Bandar said he was then approached to work as a strategic planning consultant for the Cabinet Affairs Ministry, where he began work in October last year.
It was not long before people began to come to him, worried about things that were going on in their offices, he said.
“It begins by a person who came in to me, who I had great trust in and he shared with me a concern,” said Dr Al Bandar.
“I noticed there were very unusual meetings in his office. As a consultant I had never been party to this.
“There were meetings and people coming in and going out – and then this guy came to me and he expressed serious concerns.
“It happened in February this year.
“One (employee) with much closer ties to (the senior government official allegedly at the head of the secret organisation) believed that there was something very unusual going on, which was taking (this official) beyond his mandate.
“That was the starting point, on from there, from February we started our investigation.
“People around this secret organisation with very serious concerns started to bring pieces of evidence.”
Dr Al Bandar said it became clear they were looking at “a secret organisation working outside the rule of law”.
“They didn’t approach me because I am a consultant – they came as a group, as individuals, with different pieces of evidence,” he said.
“We put the most credible, most checked information – if I had put every piece of evidence it would have been more than 1,000 pages.
“By the end of July, we combined almost the (whole) body of the document and by
August 15 or 20 I finished the final draft of this report.”
Dr Al Bandar said he was not alone in compiling the report and some of those who helped were still in vulnerable positions, so he had to protect their identities.
“I was given the final responsibility of compiling the report, but there were another 13 people and some of them (who gave evidence) are still in the den of the lion – I have to protect them,” he said.
Dr Al Bandar stressed that he was never directly involved with the alleged secret organisation, or did he do any work for it.
“I’m not taking any salary from that secret organisation, I’m taking salary from the Bahraini government. I take my salary as a consultant to the Minister of Cabinet Affairs and my file is there,” he added.
“I am on the payroll of the government of Bahrain – the secret organisation is working on the payroll of (the senior ranking government official), because he is paying them from his private bank account.”
After sending copies of the report to the Bahraini authorities, which Dr Al Bandar claimed elicited no response, the group decided to approach civil societies and the media.
Dr Al Bandar insisted the motives behind leaking the report were to expose the “secret organisation” and prevent it from pressing ahead with its “dangerous” plans.
“We had decided to distribute it to the Press by September 15, but the acceleration (deportation) on the 13th in fact took the issue out of our hands,” he said.
“This is serious, very dangerous and almost a coup d’etat against the ethos of the national charter and the constitution.
“This is a secret organisation which is working outside the rule of law and it has a very specific organisational set up, which tried by all means to deprive a significant portion of citizens from their rights.
“And at the same time (they) tried really to play not only with the elections, because the strategy of this group is far beyond the elections.
“We see (Bahrain) as being a prototype for what’s going to happen in the region and we don’t want this secret organisation.”
Dr Al Bandar, aged 52, is has been married for 16 years to Bahraini Layla Rajab, who is GCDD president and National Liberal Thought Society president.
He said he submitted the report by hand to Bahraini authorities, to political society heads and the British, German and US embassies.
Dr Al Bandar said he submitted it to authorities in the US and UK because they have vested interests in Bahrain and to those in Germany because it chairs the European Union.
The GCDD was established in Bahrain in October 2002, but could not get registration here. It was registered in London in April 2003.
Dr Al Bandar says he works for the organisation as an unpaid volunteer.
The GCDD has three full-time staff, eight interns and a network of volunteers in the six GCC countries of 94 people.
© Gulf Daily News
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