Part Five : Egypt 1990-2004
The Mubarak Dynasty
The Gulf War enhanced the role
of Egypt and thrust her onto center stage. Mubarak eagerly
had Egypt contribute
to the military coalition and the primary incentive was
the removal of a lot of Egypt’s debt, which amounted
to $50 billion dollars. The Persian Gulf crisis presented
an opportunity for the nation to seek forgiveness on the
most irksome portion of the debt-$4,550,000,000 in repayments
to the US for military supplies. By mid-November 1990 the
Egyptian daily al-Ahram was reporting that $14 billion
in US military debts and Arab debts had already been written
off.
Despite Egypt’s new authority and prestige, in which
Muabark was permitted to address the European Parliament
on 20 November 1991, a sustained Islamic fundamentalist
uprising did begin mostly in Upper Egypt the following
year. This was the most serious challenge to the government
since the assassination of Sadat and the violence that
year. The banned organization al-Jama’a al-Islamiya
called for the destruction of Egypt’s Pharaonic monuments
as “pagan sites” and claimed resp onsibility
for armed attacks on tourists. The violence was concentrated
in a 210-km (130-mi) stretch of the Nile from al-Minya
south to Sawhaj, about 560-km (350 mi) south of Cairo.
Violence also erupted in the quiet town of Idku (population
250,000), nestled between the Mediterranean and the Nile
Delta, when at least three people were killed in August.
Unlike the troubled province of Asyut in Upper Egypt, where
religious militants and security forces fought almost daily,
sectarian violence was virtually unknown in Idku. The riots
were sparked by reports that a local man had died under
police torture. Hundreds of young men poured into the streets
and set fire to local council offices and other government
property but left shops alone.
Many Egyptians expected rapid
expansion of democracy after the Gulf War, when some
35,000 Egyptians fought alongside
Americans and other Westerners. This did not happen, though
officials insisted in the government media that they were
building democracy and broadening political participation.
Pres. Hosni Mubarak told the semi-official daily al-Ahram
in February 1992, “Constitutional amendments will
not achieve people’s hopes for more jobs, more production,
more income and better services. Amendments are not a priority.”
That same year a significant border dispute with the Sudan
erupted concerning mineral rights in the Halaib triangle
along the Red Sea. Relations, which had traditionally been
strong, were now tense after Sudan granted a Canadian oil
company exploration rights in late 1991. Mubarak had initially
backed the leaders of the military junta in the Sudan when
they seized power in 1988.
Egypt’s hopes of securing a dominant role in regional
affairs through the Damascus Declaration, an alliance of
six Gulf Cooperation Council states, Egypt and Syria, received
a major setback when foreign ministers meeting in September
9-10 in Doha, Qatar, declined to support Cairo’s
suggestion of a permanent rapid deployment force. The strike
force would be composed of troops from all eight states,
but with Egyptian and Syrian troops forming a vanguard.
In 1993 from May 9-16 Mubarak
undertook a tour of the Gulf Cooperation Council states
in an effort to isolate
Iran, which Egypt accused of backing Islamic extremist
groups. He claimed he had details of Iranian “mobilizations” of
warships around Port Sudan, 100 km (160 mi) south of the
disputed Hala’ib border area, and threatened to strike
immediately if the warships used the port. The GCC states,
however, were nervous about offending Iran and declined
to give explicit public support. Mubarak was more successful
in cutting off Persian Gulf state funds for the militants
in Egypt, as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
issued decrees banning governmental Muslim charities from
sending money abroad. In 1997 Iran did send, on May 6,
her Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati on a visit to Egypt
to officially discuss bilateral relations with his Egyptian
counterpart Amr Musa. Unofficially they perhaps discussed
regional concerns and foreign policy agendas to pursue
after the completion of the construction of the base complexes
by Bechtel Group. I assume Egypt gave no serious commitment
realizing that an Islamic world led by Iran would severely
diminish the influence of Egypt. Iran’s envoy may
actually have pointed out that with the support for the
Jihad from other Islamic governments it would be Egypt
who would actually be isolated.
By the late 1990’s the threat from fundamentalist
had greatly diminished yet steps to reduce their influence
increased in the form of arrests. Mubarak was reconfirmed
for a fourth six-year term as president in a national referendum
on 26 Sept. 1999. He was “elected” as the sole
candidate with 93.79% of the total valid votes and was
the longest-serving president since the Egyptian military
took over power from King Farouk in July 1952.
Following the September tragedy
of 2001 Mubarak embarked on a European tour, which included
stops in France, Italy
and Germany. He had long been experiencing more acceptance
in the West than in the Middle East. He spoke of Egypt’s
need to coordinate actions with Western countries to combat
terrorism. The intelligence information provided by the
Egyptian authorities might be very valuable indeed: many
leading members of Iran’s al-Qaeda organization,
including perhaps Ayman az-Zawahiri and Muhammad Atef were
Egyptian.
During nearly all the years of
President’s Mubarak’s
rule he was and still is at the center of the charade of
the Middle East peace process, more recently called a road
map by Pres. George Bush Jr. Last year in June 2003 I attended
a Salon Dinner, sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign
Relations, at the apartment of the Egyptian Consul-General.
He and his Egyptian guest speaker literally laughed at
the “road map to peace.” That same year in
June Mubarak accepted the invitation from French Pres.
Jacques Chirac to attend-along with other heads of state
from Africa, Latin America, and Asia-the Group of Eight
summit of industrialized nations in Evian. That September
Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP)
convened its first annual conference in which Mubarak’s
40-year old son, Gamal Mubarak, head of the NDP’s
Policies Secretariat, had a high profile in the conference.
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