UN Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman is expected in Cairo next week for talks with Egyptian officials. He is one of a long line of foreign visitors to arrive in town with mediation plans, or at least ideas, to end the stand-off between supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi and Egypt's new rulers which some key Western capitals, including Washington, fear could undermine Egypt's stability. Like previous foreign visitors Feltman will be on a double assignment as he listens to the views of conflicting protagonists and tries to “talk wisdom” to all parties. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has already called on Egyptian parties to reach a settlement to their political conflict. “I am not sure how much longer it will take to end things but we are keen to pursue political stability and are hopeful to have an inclusive process. We are not planning to exclude the Muslim Brotherhood,” says one government official. He added that during the past few days a key aide to Minister of Defence Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has held several closed meetings with Muslim Brotherhood leaders during which he offered assurances neither the leadership of the organisation nor its members would be subject to prosecution should the sit-ins end and guarantees that neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, would be dissolved. According to sources, negotiations are still under way over the fate of already imprisoned leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, including Mohamed Morsi and Khairat Al-Shater. Pledges and promises to the Muslim Brotherhood will be tested to the fullest after security forces on Wednesday began forcibly clearing the two protest camps in Cairo and Giza, that have been occupied for nearly six weeks by Morsi supporters. As Al-Ahram Weekly went to print, the Health Ministry said at least 15 were killed in the crackdown and 179 wounded. However, the MB put the death toll at 200, citing a makeshift hospital at the Rabaa sit-in. The raid on MB protesters took place after it was widely thought that such action will not be taken because of security concerns. Now, after Wednesday's events, the status of any possible reconciliation is unclear. According to the general guidelines of a reconciliation plan originally proposed by EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton, later developed by US Undersecretary of State William Burns and supported by the foreign ministers of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, MB leaders should be allowed a safe exit to a foreign country — Qatar has offered to play host — along with their families and their money. The scheme was refused by Cairo. Al-Sisi, say Cairo-based Western diplomats, warned foreign interlocutors that the plan could provoke waves of public anger. It is not the only scenario that Al-Sisi, sometimes with the support of civilians within the current ruling system, has turned down. The head of the Armed Forces also refused a proposal made by Gulf states to allow Morsi to publicly delegate his authorities to a prime minister appointed with the consent of the Muslim Brotherhood. “When we allowed intervention by some key world diplomats we did so to reassure the world that we are not undergoing a coup and that the entire Egyptian nation supports the ouster of Morsi. Now nobody in the West is seriously suggesting that what happened between 30 June and 3 July was a coup and we want to fix things so that the country can move on. There are so many things to do and we are being forced to put them all on hold,” said a presidential source. He added that the concern some have expressed over “international intervention in Egyptian affairs” is exaggerated. “We just wanted to reassure the world that things were heading back on a democratic track. We had to show some accommodation of international concerns especially in the wake of the killing of Morsi supporters” in mid-July when the police acted to prevent them extending their disruptive sit-ins. The killing of Morsi supporters prompted criticism from human rights and diplomatic quarters already apprehensive over the arrests of Muslim Brotherhood leaders. “To be quite honest we think that the charges they are facing are for the most part politicised. We have been suggesting the need for inspection, but apparently the Egyptian authorities have not been receptive to demands on the matter,” said a Geneva-based human rights source. Cairo has become less amenable to requests from world capitals for envoys to meet with Morsi and other detained Muslim Brotherhood leaders, government sources say. “We allowed it to end speculation about the fate of Morsi and other members of the arrested leadership and in the hope that the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood would realise that they were mistaken in banking on international powers returning Morsi to the presidential place,” said a presidential source. “It was the Muslim Brotherhood that prompted Western intervention. We wanted them to know that such intervention could never replace the will of the people as demonstrated in the 30 June Revolution.” Muslim Brotherhood figures argue the opposite. They insist that the removal of their president is essentially a Western scheme to undermine the success of political Islam. It is a narrative that official sources descry as fantastical. Egyptian officials speak of “feverish calls” made by Essam Al-Haddad, Morsi's national security adviser, and Rifaa Al-Tahtawi, the ousted president's chamberlain, as they desperately petitioned Western capitals “to dissuade Al-Sisi from acting on the will of the nation”. They also speak of “a wave of incitement” orchestrated by Gehad Al-Haddad against Egypt. “This is what foreign intervention is about,” said one intelligence source. Speaking to the Weekly, Egyptian and European sources offer identical accounts of parallel Swedish and Norwegian efforts weeks before 30 June aimed at persuading Morsi to accommodate some of the demands made by the opposition in the previous six months. Sources say Al-Haddad initially agreed to change both the prime minister and prosecutor-general and revisit the most controversial articles of a constitution that was adopted in 2012 with the support of less than one fifth of eligible voters. In the analysis of European diplomats, what Ashton was trying to do after Morsi was removed is not that different from what the Swedish and Norwegian foreign ministers were trying to do last May: provide the basis for a consensus. Wael Khalil, a Leftist activist, argues foreign mediation is not necessarily a bad idea provided that “nobody is dictating a scheme for the parties to follow.” Political scientist Amr Al-Shobaki argues that it would in the end be better for all parties concerned to try and find a deal based on Egyptian ideas rather than pursue foreign proposals. “Ultimately, it is the Muslim Brotherhood that is to blame for foreign diplomatic presence that has exceeded all bounds,” he says. According to Al-Shobaki, the level of foreign pressure in internal Egyptian affairs goes beyond anything that has been seen since the removal of the monarchy in 1952 when Egypt was still under British occupation. “In the short term this might serve some Muslim Brotherhood objectives, but in the long term it will do considerable harm to the image of an already discredited group that has lost public faith for having failed to run the country and is now seen as the group that is prompting foreign intervention,” argues Al-Shobaki. Hassan Shahin, a leading figure in the Tamarod (Rebel) campaign that spearheaded the 30 June demonstrations, argues that the Muslim Brotherhood will not benefit from any foreign pressure “because we will not let it happen”. “If we find ourselves face to face with a deal that allows a safe exit for the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, as some Western mediators have been suggesting, we will take to the streets again.” “The trouble is that Muslim Brotherhood leaders think everything is about them and the head of the military. They are still making the same old mistake, overlooking the people yet again. But it is the people who decided to remove Morsi. The army could not have changed anything without the will of the people.”
