The Prisoners of St. Helena: Part 3
By BERNARD LEVIN AND I had better make it clear right away that there will shortly be a Part 4, a Part 5 and a Part 6, and indeed as many Parts as may be necessary to bring this squalid episode in British Government cowardice and dis- honesty to a satisfactory conclu- sion.
To begin with, telephone con- tact was made early this week with the Bahrainis on St. Helena. (The two who have been all the time in Bahrain are, of course, incommunicado.) A disquieting state of affairs was revealed in the conversation; they have not heard from their families for some time, and are naturally deeply anxious. It may be that their families have not written; they may have been unofficially 'persuaded' not to write, or formally interdicted from doing so (though it cannot be too often repeated that in the absence of any rule of law in Bahrain over and above the principle of quod principi placuit habet legis vigorem no legal process would have to be gone through in order to stop people writing letters, or indeed to stop them doing anything else, including breath- ing). Possibly, they have written and their letters have been intercepted before leaving Bahrain. Possibly—though this is, I understand, most un- likely—the censorship has been taking place on St. Helena, either through an excess of local zeal or on the suggestion of the Sheikh. And possibly --the most bitter possibility of all—the long separation has taken its toll of memory; the prisoners have now been for over four years thousands of miles away from their homes, in an illegal imprisonment after a 'trial' whose ver- dict was officially announced five days before the 'court' (consisting of the Sheikh's relatives) was even set up. In those circumstances it would be tragic, but not entirely surprising, if family feel- ing had weakened. Though of course all these possibilities do not take into account what is un- fortunately the most likely of all—reprisals against the members of the imprisoned men's families. It is to be hoped that their anxiety will not lead the prisoners to a force-ma/cure expres- sion of willingness to return to Bahrain; though this, of course, would suit the British Govern- ment's book all too well, and enable the Foreign Office to wash its hands, and even to imagine that they would thereafter be clean.
Which brings me back to Mr. Heath's show- ing in the emergency debate in the House just before it rose for the Christmas recess. I pointed out a fortnight ago that two of Mr. Heath's categorical statements in that debate were flatly untrue; he is going to have to answer for that when the House resumes, and subsequent study of his contributions has revealed further matters on which he is going to have to give an account of himself. I refer to a double ambiguity (to use the politest of the words available) in his reply to Mr. Stonehouse's point about the fresh evi- dence that the prisoners' solicitors are seeking, with a view to issuing a new writ of habeas corpus.. The point is a complicated one, but vital. The Colonial Prisoners Removal Act of 1869 (the Act which enables prisoners sentenced in one British Colony to be transported to another to serve their sentences, and which—amended by subsequent legislation—also enables prisoners sentenced in British-protected States to be taken to British Colonies to serve their sentences) only comes into force, according to its own terms, 'as soon as such Order in Council has been pub- lished in the colony to which it relates' (that is, the Order formally signifying that the transporta- tion agreement has been made). Now the relevant Order in Council was published in Bahrain on December 28, 1956. The warrant under which the men were transported was given by Sir Charles Belgrave (then the Ruler's Adviser and since, happily, retired) to the British Resident on December 26; it is therefore arguable that it was entirely invalid, since the Order which validated it was not in force until two days later. But even if this objection cannot stand, there is another, subtler one. The warrant was actually executed (by the prisoners being put aboard HMS Loch Insh) on the 28th; the ship sailed the same day. Now, however, arises the subtler point. The Order in Council was published in Bahrain by being posted on the official notice- board at the British Political Agency. But it has hitherto proved impossible to ascertain the time of day at which the posting took place and the time of day at which the men were taken aboard HMS Loch Insh. Yet this is vital; for if they were put aboard before the posting of the Order in Council, they were put aboard illegally, since the Act which alone could legalise their transporta- tion would not have been in force.
A vital, though complicated, point. And the prisoners' legal representatives have been trying for some time to get the relevant information out of the Colonial Office, so far without success. It is true that there may be no record of the time the notice was posted at the Political Agency, but whether there is such record or no could obviously be found out immediately, and it is pertinent to wonder why it has not been. And the other half of the delay is more surprising still; for the log of HMS Loch Insh must contain an entry recording the arrival on board of the prisoners, and since so far as I know HMS Loch Insh has not been sunk it should not be too diffi- cult—or too prolonged—a business to find out what it says. The suspicion grows that the Colonial Office is simply stalling (though it had better be said now, in the most unpleasant terms possible, that if the relevant pages of the ship's log are found, unbeknown to the captain, to have gone the same way as the missing builders' time- sheets in the Evans-Christie case, there is going to be an almighty row).
Anyway, Mr. Heath was pressed on this point. His reply was: It has taken time to obtain the information because most of it was not in this country. It had to be sent for and it has been difficult to obtain, but I give an undertaking that as much as possible of this information when obtained will be given to the legal advisers of these men.
This statement is not only ambiguous; it is ludicrously self-contradictory. 'It has taken time to obtain the information' means that the information has at last been obtained; 'It had to be sent for and it has been difficult to obtain' means the same. But 'this information when obtained' means that it has not. Well, has it or hasn't it? And whether it has or whether it hasn't, hy has it been difficult to obtain? As I have pointed out, the log of HMS Loch Insh is pre- sumably consultable, if necessary by the revolutionary device of wireless telegraphy; and the knowledge of whether or no the time of promulgation in Bahrain of the Order is obtain- able (even if not the information itself) is similarly simply available. So the suspicion grows that Mr. Heath, too, is stalling, and if he is it is not too difficult to imagine why. But a worse ambiguity occurs further along in that same passage, when he says, 'as much as possible of this information when obtained will be given to the legal advisers of these men.' Does 'as much as possible' mean—as it should—as much as can be obtained? Or does it mean as much as Mr. Heath thinks right and proper for the men's legal advisers to be told? On a strict construction of the passage it cannot mean the former; but Mr. Heath's language throughout this deplorable business has been, like his whole attitude to it, so slipshod, lazy, muddled and contradictory that he may have meant that. If not, he had better be told now that any attempt to plead 'the public interest' for a cover-up at this stage in the proceedings is going to fail.
Finally, the light relief, provided—as it has been ever since the business blew up—by Sir Charles Belgrave. In a letter to the Times Sir Charles said that he had been telephoned, after the debate in the House had been reported, by a Bahraini (who Sir Charles claims is 'an ardent nationalist and a personal friend of one of the prisoners). Sir Charles's Bahraini was 'intensely indignant,' he says, at the suggestion that the prisoners, if sent back to Bahrain, might be ill- treated, even killed. 'Do these people think that Bahrain is a savage country, like the Yemen?'
Whether Bahrain is a savage country, like the Yemen, is a point that will bear much discussion; no doubt Sir Charles would not agree that a country which decides on a conviction five days before a trial is ipso facto savage, and no doubt he is quite happy about the whereabouts and fate of the St. Helena prisoners' families, who have not written for so long. But it should be pointed out that the part of Bahrain where such prisoners are kept is a barren prison island named Jidda, consisting largely of high steep cliffs and enormous yellow rocks split by earthquakes. The only vegetation is in the garden of a house erec- ted for Sir Charles Belgrave by long-term con- vict labour, as a private retreat from the lively affairs of Bahrain during his long tenure of office there. (He called it, I might add, 'Devil's Island,' and he should know.) Sir Charles also knows that there is at least one previous case of a prisoner being shot while attempting to escape, as the say- ing is. Incidentally, Sir Charles Belgrave has written a good deal about this business in this place and that; it is noteworthy that at no time has he asserted that the prisoners were guilty of the crimes alleged against them. This could, of course, be because he does not believe for a moment that they are.
Previous page
