this is r t moscow and our top stories tonight in egypt voters queue to cast their ballots in the first parliamentary elections due to continue till march voting takes place protests against the military and warnings of further violence with many calling on people to boycott the election altogether. pakistan is to permanently close a vital military supply route to afghanistan in response to nato deadly air raid helicopter strike killed twenty four pakistani soldiers and triggered anti american rallies across the country sending already strained relations plummeting. and the

kremlin's human rights body says russian lawyers could have been beaten to death in custody two years ago he was being held on suspicion of tax evasion at the time and earlier investigation said he died of a heart condition after being denied medical help. people of all of his guests discuss the controversial role the west played in the arab spring crosstalk on air next. wealthy british science. because. markets weiner scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy in the kinds of reports on r.t. . can. still.

a low in welcome across talk i'm peter lavelle to forgotten spring a state appointed investigation claims bahrain used excessive force as it halted protests led by the shia majority in february and march this report is seen as a final attempt to bring bahrain's increasingly polarized sides together there is little indication of this happening any time soon. and you can. start. to cross out brains quagmire i'm joined by kate hudson in london she is the general secretary of the campaign for nuclear disarmament and birmingham we have peter ere he is a middle east consultant and in prague we cross to mitchell belfort he is the editor of the essential european journal of international and security studies at metropolitan university prague cross-talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want kate i'd like to go to you first in london what do you think about this report a lot of people are calling it

a whitewash while at the same time the regime in bahrain has good made a lot of violations or made against its own people. well i think it presents a number of very interesting issues obviously it's been widely reported here in britain that this is a first so to speak the first time that such a government has willingly and voluntarily opened itself up to scrutiny investigation in this way and of course we have. many pieces of information this absolute discredit to the bahraini regime with heard about killings we've heard about torturing repression and all kinds of revelations so that in itself is a positive step forward that that has happened but i think it does really open the wider question as to whether the government this is commission such a peace is really willing to address all the systemic problems that that report reveals and also to go wider than that and to really address the concerns that the protesters were actually raising the. issues of democracy it's very interesting if

i go to you michel is this report written for external consumption was it written for europe was written for the americans because there is the go she should it's going on with the royal family of brain in the united states for a fifty three million dollars military aid bill that's going through congress i mean quite a few things they do is very coincidental because if the if the recommendations and there seems to be no me within the report to make sure that these recommendations of reconciliation are brought about i mean democratizing the country for example. but i would say for example that it was not made for western consumption at all in fact we can see that the world the royal family and the alpha liefer family has been attempting since two thousand and two really to bridge the gaps between the different segments of society there's been calls for national dialogue there's been attempts at constructing a more i think

a widespread consensus over how the whole range of progress proceed into the future that doesn't mean. all at once all the reforms not only that the report stress but also the reforms that the regime has been attempting to push forward. you know magically appear and you know very easily be adopted by society but i think that's the reports and i think the whole ethos in general are very keen on really building a national dialogue and bringing all segments of society together in a manner or do you think about that peter in birmingham i mean we had the have the saudi troops come in in court what invited in to keep the peace there i mean how can you have some kind of reconciliation when you have a gun to your head. and then you you blame it all on iran ok the report didn't say that and then right after the report says you know we don't see any connection with iran in the royal family said britain well we still think there was i mean what stan reported mean then if he's

a big step to report but they don't accept all of the report. i personally think the report has been doctored somewhat peter as as you get all around the world we've got to with reports and these inquiries really clear the instigators of the problem of any wrongdoing there is no democracy in bahrain as you rightfully said three quarters of the population are shiite and then in the government there are a minority most of the work goes to non shiite workers those that are working are in some cases in acute poverty and then you've got this very elite group including the very rich royal family who have on average i think it's five thousand two hundred rich people in bahrain with an income averaging about four point two million dollars you times that by five thousand told her that's an awful lot of money so there's this disparity this imbalance there is no democracy even

with their religious beliefs they've had many of their mostly straw it because the government claim they didn't fulfill the correct license and so it goes on this is not democracy ok if i could just go ahead this is crass mark jumping right ahead ok . just by way of response i would suggests that we shouldn't summarize this community of bahrain as being one there are many different groups of shiites and the report itself has indicated and some of those groups of let's say closer with the regime closer with the al khalifa us and others are in opposition so i don't know if this is really a case of one religious group kind of polarized against the other group i think that this is a bit of an exaggeration ok kid i'd like to go to you maybe the conflict is actually more muted more polarized and i do read the response from the from the americans in from the european union to this report here the white house it is

a government upon the government to hold accountable those responsible for. human rights violations and put in place in situational changes to ensure that such abuses do not happen again and then catherine ashton had to say the brainy authority should open a new chapter of national conciliation and all the while they're saying that the regime in syria should disappear it should collapse itself and i'm not going to say the scale of violence is the same but it did the same time there's a level of a park receive here is they're giving a free pass to bahrain for what for what they do to their people but they will certainly not give a free pass to syria it's a park recy. well i think there does appear to be elements of double standards here and i think what some critics. about this this report is really it gives the ruling group the opportunity to kind of what is sticking plaster on the problem somehow and say that they are the people who can provide the way forward towards a fair and democratic bahrain and given their record i think there are very very

serious questions over whether that's possible just to produce a report which does reveals many crimes and misdemeanors but whether they can then be the people who can pave the way forward to a democratic bahrain when they have been guilty of those kinds of episodes i think is a very very serious question ok peter if i go back to you i mean do you think the bahraini authorities are would accept a one person one vote system there because in the u. the royal family would just be voted out of power i mean there are such a small minority of the population and this is one of the biggest differences that we have here and speaking of democracy is just really utter nonsense or maybe it's for fox t.v. consumption but it's certainly not for the consumption of the vast majority of people that live in that tiny country. i don't think that's possible the be a fair voting system in most of the islamic countries talking about the arab spring you've got to understand that the bahrain is just part of the total irish spring we

sure. are not a lot was said there and then of course we had libya you know what happened there was a total regime change in an unjust war took place we saw a year ago almost to the turmoil in egypt which is now returning no democracy there obviously the americans or the west are waiting for a western friendly government to be imposed and this of course sucks up to the israeli situation so that the the border with gaza is controlled by the west and by israel so there's lots of problems and even the small country of kuwait has got a very hidden agenda there which we're not actually seeing in the media yet and of course the whole thing in syria we got another potential libya coming up here and plans are for already in the arab countries to impose a no fly zone over syria where is this going to stop what do you think about it.

surely the the just aspirations of the arab peoples i mean the previous speaker was talking about the lack of democracy that been an uprising in egypt and had been clamped down there was no democracy there and then these developments are part of the process and i believe that it is an inexorable process in which ultimately the arab peoples will achieve the democracy that they aspire to but it's incumbent upon the international community not to back or thora tarion states and not to back. systems they have to be encouraging those states to move towards a democratic process the peoples of the middle east and the peoples of north africa does a democracy no less than the peoples of europe and. america ok michel yes i can use echo were doing it when he was you saying there is little everyone should have the right to democracy except for the palestinians and the people of bahrain ok because these are national security issues of the united states of america and just so what

ok national interests are far more important than values because that's what we have seen. since the beginning of the arab spring well it's firstly i mentioned it's only in saudi arabia i should throw in saudi arabia as well sorry well first i should probably point out that this idea of a wide arab spring is a bit of an exaggeration considering that even in bahrain or in any of the situations in which civil let's say segments of the society have risen up and demanded some kind of civil rights. it's very local their demands are local their demands are not about this is sara lee democracy as such although the democratic process would assist them in achieving that other objectives such as jobs or housing in the case of bahrain when it comes to national security agenda of the west i would say that it's it would also be a bit rich to suggest that the western states are somehow this kind of overpowering

force playing a giant game of chess and in the middle east the middle east has been penetrated the same theory yeah but in not just the west almost every almost every country has been doing it in the middle east the middle east is a penetrated the region it's always going to penetrate that region all right the group we're going to be with international relations when we return from a break after the break we'll continue our discussion on brain state parking. lot. all. whether it's life in the fast lane or the slow but anyway. they shouldn't alongside.

natural science technology updated. the diversity of this land in such a. colorful arctic circle on r.t. . i had to go through a ten year old boy that. we train them how to tell we as officers developed the orders for them to kill. we never explained to them why it's ok. most people at the point of looking down in time to pull the trigger became concious objectors. i don't remember squeezing the trigger and i am i don't remember seeing him go down all i remember is that we shot at him. and so. the other side are soldiers too and soldiers do it so we do and they're trying to

kill us we're trying to kill them and that's just the ugly face a war there's. nothing audible and. i went to the war zone and i started seeing how i need to change. and on the way to do their did not pick up a rival and kill another person that's why i'm applying for concerts and. oh oh oh. oh. slum. welcome back across town people about to remind you we're talking about the

political turbulence in bahrain. you. can't i'd like to go back to you in london here and cross talk we've been covering the end of the new york western neocolonial project in the arab world for more since it all started back in the tunisia but you know yes or no i think we've got a long way to go as a matter of fact i think is it's been pointed out we're going to get just more friendly militaries to the united states but that's not what this program is about how do you stick out prime minister suggested that his success as he considers it considers it in libya actually indicates that the way forward now is for more more intervention ok well good i'm sure all learned more of the western world will learn how to say the word mujahedeen again i'm pretty sure too but let's stay on point here ok. iran has been brought up a lot here and this is a real bogeyman that's being played here because of the sectarian difference in

bahrain here the original report didn't mention or it actually does dismiss that iranian meddling inside the protest movement earlier this year but the royal family continues to do that and it's very interesting how this report comes out when there is this whole drumbeat to war against around with the israelis and members of the american political establishment here i mean unfortunately for the people of bahrain they're still very much upon in this game well yes we we read that with interest over here the report indicated that there was not to mention the. blame this on the right to the. i mean obviously we know we have no prior knowledge here in britain about what's been taking place but it seems if you look at this is . that. there is more than enough for the bahraini people to protest about in their own country of their own volition without any kind of external intervention and i think that has to be the fundamental principle one can speculate and of course as

you said there is the wide. project from some elements of the west. to ratchet up the pressure against iran around the iranian nuclear project so i think what has to look very carefully at those things and not just make wild assumptions about the peter in birmingham do you what do you think about the saudi role in all of this visa v. around here because this is one of the primary reasons they've obviously that saudi arabia sent in forces is that because it's the bahrain is being a very weak link because it borders saudi arabia itself as we go to do this program here the police are starting an investigation into some violence in saudi arabia that is directly related to what is going on in bahrain i mean they see this is a containment ok and they see everywhere ok and this is why this report came out to whitewash the regime to clean the hands of the saudis for their military intervention proxy intervention for the west in bahrain. well the first thing i'd

like to point out is. if iran is involved which is a very good indication there is so what i'm sure that balances out equally with the western involvement with bahrain with the saudis involvement with the kuwaitis involvement. it's all a one sided game here and and i see a situation where america for instance has got its fifth fleet based in bahrain obviously the need to protect that and it's in saudi's interests to keep the shiites and of course the majority of shiites are in iran and the same situation in yemen it's all part and parcel of the same game it's a sort of an east versus west and and the arabic western friendly countries against those that have a little bit more independence like syria and libya of late so it's all part of a geo political plan you've got to understand that this arab spring the financial

collapse of everywhere in the world was an intentional plan by a what i call the new world order it was preplanned in nine hundred ninety one evidence of that by paul wealth of it which was met with general clark in the x. supreme commander of europe and then again ten years later after nine eleven the same general attended the pentagon and there was a clear plan there there were going to dissect the middle east and what countries they would take over libya syria iran was part of that and of course poor little countries like bahrain are right in the middle of this conflict or mitchell what do you think about that i mean there the thing is is it is isis we spoke with kate earlier is that the the west really wants to control what is called the arab spring because they want to have client regimes ok they want to want the although they're willing to let their dictators go because they it's better to rule through a democratic system that appears to be democratic but as long as it's friendly. to

the west as long or you always deliver to the west if it's the right kind of regime there under a different flavor and you don't call it a dictatorship anymore you call it a friendly western democracy that happens to be arab well i think the problem is firstly to bring it back a little bit above or in bahrain is not a major oil producing country so i think that the oil argument is really out of the question when it comes to bahrain when it comes to the other states and i think it's important for us to get out of this kind of archaic discourse about you know the east versus the west of the conspiracy theories that there have been like some kind of division of the middle east planned and pre-planned because all it does is absolve the responsibility from those people firstly who are acting within the state so if we were to take the example of libya by suggesting that the west just wants to open up you know libya and take over to create a plan regime what you're really doing is undermining the legitimacy of those people who fought against gadhafi not just in the last twelve months but in the

last you know forty years and so i think in a bid to do them justice i don't think that these kind of discourses are appropriate yes there is a degree of national interest from external actors just like large powers of interest in states beyond their frontiers i think that is the way international relations actually works but to discredit any kind of a great deal of very very significant intervention from the west into the middle east in a very to clear examples which were absolutely fundamental was the western intervention in iraq in the nine hundred sixty s. and then of course the overthrow of most a decade iran both of which absolutely fundamentally shaped what took place there and those of course were centered around the question of oil but also strategic interests in the cold war period and i think although at the close of the agree that people are out on the most axis and that's the mistake that we could make if

we don't. the arab peoples do have their own agenda and their own aspirations nevertheless foreign powers are very very powerful and have shaped the nature of the regimes in those kind of things i think we called scape from that fact ok peter you want to jump in there because we all agree that the cold war is over but there is a new enemy and that's called iran and so how we started the second part of this program here is that iran plays a very important role here because they do the there is the competition over bahrain and i agree it's not a major oil exporter but it's geographical position is very important when it comes to visa v iran in saudi arabia and then we have a broader route with the sanctions and the drumbeat of war of war against iran so it's it is internationalized very much so. well first of all i'd just like to correct the statement on bahrain yes of course there is not a lot of oil wealth there but but what is vitally important is it is an oil export terminal i was based for

a considerable length of time and it's five clean porton geopolitically for that to be stable so the west a very strong interest in that we come back to iran i've spent again some considerable time into iran. six weeks of late i can't see any issues there because even whilst i was there unknown forces tried to blow up two of the nuclear scientists one was killed the other one got away with it there's intimidation on all sides what you have to understand is the the meltdown of the financial world was created as i said from the the new world order all these countries are a victim to that high unemployment those it even are employed in poverty and there's not a fair distribution of wealth so the people take to the streets which you would expect this is not for regime change this is just their way of protesting but then at this vulnerable time the west of their own infiltrators their secret forces

special services cia m i five all infiltrate into the system and stir the cried up they even provide snipers sometimes to take the innocent victim and then that the crowd then turn against the government this is all orchestrated from the west please understand this i have the evidence in general well i mean you could say ok peter you could you could that's one theory right there but i think everyone it's undeniable that saudi arabia made it very clear to the united states and its western allies if they're going into bahrain if you like it or not we're going to we're going in there because we see it is a threat to our security because i can remember the reactions coming out of western capitals it was this more red face than anything else they didn't like the idea of the way it was done ok but i mean maybe in a broader scheme of things you're right what do you think about that michel because it shows the cloud that the saudis have when it comes to its neighborhood. well there you have your answer it's not external it's not external forces pushing into

saudi arabia it's saudi arabia defining its own national interest it's saudi arabia and iran which are competing with each other for some type of regional hegemon e on the other side of the middle east you have egypt and turkey as well and there has been this kind of miniature great game which is unfolded between these countries as they try to find their own national security interests their objectives and basically to stand on their own two feet in this way and you can see that the obama administration was. i wouldn't say necessarily red faced but the obama administration looked at the situation both in bahrain and saudi arabia and essentially didn't give them necessarily a green light but did want them to sort out their own issues which is why i'm to come back to it the report is a very positive step forward it's behove a nice sorting out of the whole range situation ok i want you kate and i to go to you the last word in the program here do you still see that the only superpower

could still blow up because nothing is really resolved this report. yes i think that that's certainly the case it's my view that you can keep people down you can repress them you can deprive them of their rights only can only ever be a temporary phenomenon and delta macleay the people of that country will have this or do have the same aspirations for democracy as elsewhere we can't see how that will unfold as we can't see how it will unfold in egypt or syria or anywhere else but things are in change things are in flux and democracy and popular representation is the way that it's going. we'll see where it goes for the people of burma many thanks to my guest today in london birmingham and in prague and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember. it.