DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Bahrain’s Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, one of the world’s longest-serving prime ministers who has led his island nation’s government for decades and demanded his expulsion in 2011 amid allegations of corruption Were gone. On wednesday He was 84 years old.
Announcing his death, Bahrain’s state news agency said he was receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic in the United States without giving any details. The Mayo Clinic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prince Khalifa’s power and wealth can be seen everywhere in this small nation on the coast of Saudi Arabia, home to the 5th Fleet of the US Navy. His official facial portrait hung on the walls with the ruler of the country for decades. He had his own private island where he met foreign dignitaries, full of marinas and parks with peacocks and dexterity roaming his plains.
The prince represented the old style of Gulf leadership, which supported and favored the Sunni Al Khalifa family. The style will be challenged in 2011 by protests on the island’s Shia majority and others who have protested against the long-running corruption allegations surrounding his rule.
Despite being less powerful and annoying in recent years, his tactics still attracted attention in the state as the new pay generation will now wait for power.
Khalifa bin Salman represented an older guard than just age and seniority, said Christine Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute. “He introduced an old social understanding originally into royal privilege and expressed it through personal endorsement.”
The Royal Court of Bahrain declared a week of official mourning, in which his body was buried after his return. A recitation of Quranic verses was broadcast on state television, showing the prince’s black-and-white imprint.
Prince Khalifa was born in the Al Khalifa dynasty that, for more than two centuries, ruled Berhin, an island in the Persian Gulf, named “two seas” in Arabic. The son of the former ruler of Bahrain, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who ruled from 1942 to 1961, the prince learned to rule his father as the island remained a British protector.
Prince Khalifa’s brother, Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, took power in 1961, and Bahiri served as king when Britain gained independence from Britain in 1971. Under informal arrangements Seth Isa handled the island’s diplomatic and cere formal duties while Prince Khalifa ran the government and the economy.
The following years saw Bahrain grow rapidly as it sought to move beyond its dependence on declining oil reserves. Manama became the UAE’s Dubai at the time, a regional financial, service and tourism hub. The opening of the King Fahd Causeway in 1986 gave the island nation its first land link with its rich and powerful neighbor, Saudi Arabia, and offered an escape for Westerners in the state who wanted to enjoy Bahrain’s drunken nightclubs and beaches.
But Prince Khalifa appeared to be increasingly embroiled in corruption allegations, such as a major foreign corruption practice case against aluminum producer Alcoa for using a London-based intermediary to facilitate bribes for Bahraini officials. Alkova is a U.S. citizen. The government agreed to pay a 384 million fine in 2014 to settle the case.
The US embassy in Manama also had its own suspicions about Prince Khalifa.
Former US Ambassador Ronald E. “I believe that Sheikh Khalifa is not a completely negative influence,” Newman wrote in a cable released by WikiLeaks in 2004. “It has built much of modern Bahrain when it is certainly corrupt.”
Dissatisfaction grew with allegations of corruption, especially among Bahrain’s Shia majority who still complain of discrimination by the government. In February 2011, pro-Arab Spring protests filled the streets and took over the Pearl Roundabout in the capital, Manama, to demand political reform and say more about the country’s future.
While some called for a constitutional monarchy, many pushed for the removal of the longtime ruling prime minister and other members of the Sunni royal family, including King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa.
At one point during the unrest in March 2011, thousands of protesters surrounded the prime minister’s office as officials met inside, demanding that Prince Khalifa step down in the wake of previous deadly crackdowns on allegations of corruption and ousting. Prince Khalifa bought the land on which Bahrain’s Financial Harbor Development sits on a single dinar.
Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, under President Barack Obama, wrote in his memoirs that he had urged the king at the time to ask Prince Khalifa to step down as minister, describing him as “disliked by almost everyone but Shiites in particular.”
Bahraini officials soon crushed the protest with the withdrawal of troops from neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A government-sponsored report on the protests and crackdown later described security forces beating detainees and forcing them to kiss pictures of King Hamad and Prince Khalifa.
In the years that followed, low-level unrest continued, with Shia protesters frequently clashing with riot police. The Bahraini government has been bombed by cold-blooded militant groups backed by Iran, killing and wounding several members of the country’s security forces.
But while other hardline members of the Al Khalifa family actively pushed for confrontations with Shiites, Prince Khalifa maintained contact with those who opposed the government. Although his influence waned, he ousted the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, during the holy month of Ramadan in 2019, despite being among the four Arab nations boycotting Doha in the Bahrain political dispute.
Diwan said Khalifa bin Salman would be able to work with both Sunnis and Shiites, and especially through his ties to Bahrain’s business community. “It brought the same individualistic approach to relations with other Gulf kings, and there was real discomfort from the new politics exemplified by the coarse attacks on Qatari leadership.”
Gradually, however, Prince Khalifa’s influence waned, as he faced unknown health problems. He was hospitalized in November 2015 but was later released. He also traveled to Southeast Asia for medical visits. In late November 2019, he traveled to Germany for unfamiliar medical treatment, staying there for months.
In September, U.S. The Air Force’s C-17 Flying Hospital flew from Germany to Rochester, Minnesota, by Royal Navy aircraft. U.S. And Bahraini officials declined to comment on the flights, while the United States gave the same care to Kuwait’s ruler, Amir, before his death..
Prince Khalifa was married and has three children, Ali and Salman and a daughter Lulwa. Another son, Mohammed, died earlier.
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The report was contributed by Associated Press authors Adam Shrek and Isabel DeBray.
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