US cautions Bahrain against crackdowns

Associated Press

TUNIS, Tunisia

The Obama administration on Wednesday sharply warned Bahrain against violent crackdowns on anti-government demonstrators as unrest worsened around the Middle East.

The warning came as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Egyptians to hold true to the ideals of their revolution while she toured Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the symbolic heart of the peaceful uprising that toppled Egypt’s longtime autocratic leader last month.

Carrying a message similar to the one she delivered in Egypt earlier in the day, Clinton arrived late Wednesday in Tunisia, where protesters demanding democratic freedoms inspired reformers around the Arab world. They succeeded in ousting their authoritarian ruler in January.

Clinton was to have meetings with Tunisia’s transitional leaders today, encourage civic leaders to press ahead with calls for change and pledge U.S. support for greater political, economic and social openness.

Clinton’s democracy cheerleading tour to Egypt and Tunisia came as the situation in Bahrain deteriorated with soldiers and riot police expelling hundreds of protesters from a square in Bahrain’s capital, using tear gas and armored vehicles. At least five people were killed Wednesday as clashes flared across the kingdom, according to witnesses and officials.

Bahrain, a strategic ally of the United States because it hosts the Navy’s 5th Fleet, has sought and received hundreds of reinforcements for its security forces from neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, raising fears of an escalation in violence and descent into the near-civil war that is embroiling Libya. Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi have pressed ahead with assaults on opposition-held towns.

In Washington, President Barack Obama called both King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to express deep concern over the violence in Bahrain. He “stressed the need for maximum restraint,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. Obama “also stressed the importance of a political process as the only way to peacefully address the legitimate grievances of Bahrainis and to lead to a Bahrain that is stable, just, more unified and responsive to its people.”

Clinton called the situation “alarming” and said Bahrain and neighbors were on “the wrong track” by trying to quell unrest with troops instead of reform. Bahrain’s majority Shia population has been chafing for years under the absolute rule of a Sunni monarchy and, emboldened by revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, has begun to more forcefully call for changes.

In Egypt, Clinton heaped praise on the anti- government demonstrators whose peaceful protests in Tahrir Square ousted President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11. And she said she hoped people everywhere would look back on the revolt and regard it as “one of the most important historic turning points” in the Middle East.