Bahrain National Dialogue to focus on future

The coming months will be crucial in resolving Bahrain's internal strife, and an engaging debate in its National Dialogue process is essential in moving the kingdom forward. With the National Dialogue due to begin deliberations this evening, the spokesman for the government-sponsored initiative granted Gulf News an exclusive interview Since February we have had many unfortunate incidents so now we have reached a stage where we need to move forward and focus on the future," said Eisa Abdul Rahman. "We have to find a solution for the future of Bahrain. Article continues below "But moving forward is also about identifying what went wrong as the kingdom was wracked by its worst bout of political violence and anti-government protests in a decade that left at least 30 people dead, hundreds injured and saw curfew and tough security measures introduced. Those measures were lifted last month. Identifying mistakes "I think the mistakes that were made will be identified by the international independent committee that was formed recently," Abdul Rahman said. "We definitely have a great hope in that. The experts that are on the committee have a high profile in international organisations. They will be able to identity who made mistakes and prevent them from happening again." Abdul Rahman believes that the make up of the National Dialogue is representative of all of the interests of Bahrain. "The way the invitations were composed was to ensure all of the sections of society were represented — 37 per cent went to political societies, 36 per cent to NGOs, 21 per cent to prominent figures in Bahrain, be it businessmen, religious representatives, beside the media representatives," he said. "The circle is much wider than just focusing on a certain sector or society." Abdul Rahman told Gulf News that the National Dialogue has to be inclusive of all areas to ensure it will work. "We didn't want to have a National Dialogue and then discover in a few months that not all the areas of concern were addressed," he said. "It has to be inclusive and transparent." Even though it's only three months since the violence largely ended, he said it is necessary now for Bahrain to move forward. "The reforms in Bahrain began 10 years ago," he said. "The reality is that since the recent incidents, we are moving slowly — we are not at the point where we should be in terms of social, economic and political reforms and it's time now to move forward." But is it realistic to hold a National Dialogue when there's a heavy security presence, razor wire and checkpoints across Manama? "All of the security measures were out in place by the security officials and I cannot comment on their strategy," he said. "What I can comment on is the National Dialogue and we feel that it is time to move forward and define the optimum status for Bahrain which will help improve the environment for all." According to Abdul Rahman, every issue raised by the representative is "on the table". "Nothing has been excluded," he said. All of the participants will have freedom of expression and freedom of opinion with none of the individuals being identified for what they say in the talks. Abdul Rahman said that the international community recognises that it's time to have honest, open discussions in society. "You can't just have your national programmes implemented by one element of society what's the best way forward," he said. "You need to have always an ongoing and inclusive dialogue." He urged the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council to come together and address the challenges that it faces together as one entity. "I'm expressing that opinion as an individual rather than as a spokesperson for the National Dialogue," he said. Engage actively Abdul Rahman also urged opposition parties to engage actively and openly in the process and there is no time frame for the conclusion of the talks. "People recognise there is no other solution to the problems than to participate in the National Dialogue," he said. He also noted that each of the political parties have five representatives each and that proportionally speaking, the highest number of delegates were given to the 18 political societies in Bahrain. "It's not a matter of numbers," he said. "It's a matter of ideas. And how they convince others of their ideas." He said he will view the National Dialogue if there is full implementation of the ideas agreed upon. Abdul Rahman said that he would tell his children in the future that Bahrain has a difficult time. "I will tell them Bahrain had a challenging time," he said. "And I want them to live in Bahrain where all people live together. And I hope that I can tell them that we learnt a good lesson in how people can come together and build a strong nation by identifying issues, finding solutions and accepting those solutions and moving forward as one nation, one Bahrain."