Coll 30/87(2) Part II 'Qatar: Oil Concession - P.C.L.'s Operations.' [‎196r] (394/603)

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(b) Asseverations without corroborative evidence
do not constitute proof, but in this case the/ should
be given consideration when the difficulty of providing
tangible proof is so great, in actual fact, I believe
that the fashts are regarded locally as belonging to
Bahrain. The Foreign Office Legal Adviser "has
reminded us that in these days, In order to keep
islands which you claim, small and uninhabited though
they be, it is necessary to display sovereignty fairly
frequently, and to be able to produce arrangements for
their administration, even if they are only paper
arrangements. merely to put up a flag once is not
enough", vide paragraph 7 of enclosure to India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors.
•:O mp 1 ime j i cary . 1 ip *«o. p .h. 263/1933 dated th e ^7tn
JanuaryBahrain government erected a cairn,
numbered it
records.
and registered the shoal in their land
The Oil Ccmpany which holds the oil concession
over Bahrain sunk, through a contractor, an artesian
well on Deebal, and there is also a well on Jaradeh,
though j do not know its history - the Deebal well
has since been sealed. It is now for the lawyers to
say whether the above amounts to ownership.
(c) possibly Bahrain lime-*carrying boats use them
more frequently than those of Qatar, and certainly
Bahrain fishermen do visit the fashts.
(d) pelgrave's statement is most difficult to
follow. My comment is that the sheikhs of Bahrain
were never Shaikhs of Qatar though the shaikh of
Bahrain asserts that they did maintain an. "aislr"
for a short time on the eastern shores of the
peninsula some 75 years ago. The Shaikhs of Hafdrain
never actually war® Shaikhs of th* whole of the Qatar
peninsula, and r have not been able to confirm this
assertion of the Shaikh of Bahrain.
(e) This is begging the question for It states
what it is required to prove, neverthe!ess no
objection was raised at the time of the sinking of
the well on Deebal which might have been expected
were Qatar at that time a rival claimant to the shoal.
The inclusion of the shoals in the Additional
Area was not commented on at the time of the negotia
tions between the rival companies, though there was
always the reservation that the area was subject to
alteration in the light of sovereign and other claims
should these ever aria®. %t might now b® unreasonable
to say that the shoal belongs to tar, for if it is
excluded from the Additional Area it would go to
petroleum concessions Limited - the loser at the time
of the original’bidding. The shoal has, when all is
said and done, been considered to be within the Leased
Area of the winner - SAPCO - for some ten years. A
change now would, I imagine, entail financial compensa
tion to BAPCO.
(f) I see that the question of ownership was raised
in esidency telegram Wo.338 dated, the 7th of June,
/1940..
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