Tensions between city council officials, investors and land claimants, argues Pierre Loza, uncover the chaos of the local government in Dahab We would rather die than leave our land and the land of our forefathers." Thus Hamd Mohamed of the Muzayna Bedouin tribe, who have inhabited the Sinai Peninsula for generations. Himself a town council member who owns and runs his own camp, Hamd is no stranger to bureaucracy. But after City Council officials bulldozed their way through his and his neighbours' land in the increasingly lucrative Mashraba area last September, he has come to see local authorities in a negative light: "I've lost LE75,000 in damages; they've uprooted the palm trees, filled up the well; they've even taken away the water pump." While voting at the City Council elections, he was informed that the fence enclosing his land was being taken apart: "I came as fast I could, and I saw the head of the City Council and his people tearing down the fences. As soon as they saw us they went running. I asked if they had an eviction notice permitting them to take such action; they just ran for it." Surveyed in 1983, this land belongs in the claims category -- by living on uncharted land for a sufficient number of years, claimants can buy it at a nominal price from the government -- and Hamd was given receipts validating his payment of LE18 per sq mtr for an area of 800 sq mtrs after claiming it in the same year. "We've lived on the land and had preparatory ownership documents since 1983," he insists. "And we tried many times to register our ownership, but they would always tell us to wait for the urban planning people to get here." By custom investors will compensate both the original Bedouin communities and the Egyptian government for the acquisition of land. To sidestep the Bedouins, according to Hamd, they are now increasingly conspiring with the local authorities to demolish the land they want to buy. Hamd believes his land was sold in April, 2004 to a real estate company owned by the son of the Dahab governorate's former secretary general, Tamer Wagih. For his part Wagih proposes a different sequence of events. His company did buy land to build its third go-cart racing rink in Sinai, he says. "But the land was completely empty when we registered our ownership and completed the building permits in August 2004. It wasn't until construction began that a Bedouin showed up, claiming that it belonged to his grandfathers." To spare himself a time-consuming legal saga, Wagih opted for compensating the famed Sheikh Tuelah of the Muzayna tribe with LE50,000 in the presence of city authorities. Starting construction again, he was then faced with the aforementioned Hamd, who currently resides on the land and is embroiled in a legal battle with him. Wagih dismisses allegations that his father's connections facilitated the land purchase as absurd: "My father's job as the governorate secretary- general had nothing to do with the land dispute, simply because land arbitration was never within his jurisdiction." According to him, indeed, Hamd's documents, which do not specify the location of the land he owns, can only be forged: "Had the Bedouins cooperated with us, they would have reaped many long-term rewards, working with us on everything from real estate development to security..." In other parts of Sinai like Sharm El-Sheikh, Wagih goes on, no such disputes occur. But in Dahab, particularly, the issue has come to be endemic: "The Dahab City Council is fighting land price speculators, who will not put a single brick on top of another. We were planning to complete construction in three months' time; our portfolio attests to our commitment." Yet having paid for the land twice over, Wagih will pay no more. If he fails to acquire ownership rights, he says, he will take his investments elsewhere: "If we Egyptians are unable to invest in our country, how might foreigners fare?" But such is not the end of the story. Hamd's lawyer, Tharwat Sobhi, believes that his client has every legal right to the land: "A presidential decree enforced in the 1980s has allowed Bedouin communities to own lands over which they held sway prior to the 1973 War." Sobhi's client may not have a registered ownership contract, but he can easily prove Hamd's continued residence on the land since 1983: "The law stipulates that for land claims to be legitimate, evidence of habitation must be established -- trees, a home, a well -- which is why the council people filled up the well and uprooted the trees." Sobhi also claims that the land was sold to Wagih at LE54 per sq mtr, which falls far short of the market price of LE100. The problem is further complicated by the fact that many families who built homes and established businesses on lands they bought from Bedouins are also subject to the wrath of the City Council's bulldozers. Haga Eida, a member of the National Democratic Party's Women's Committee, complains that she feels compelled to do everything -- down to buying bread -- in a rush, so that the City Council will not take advantage of her absence to demolish her home: "At one point the City Council head told us we could be buying the land for LE20 a metre; we are willing to pay up to LE30 a metre to get ownership documents." Running back and forth between the Land Survey in Al-Tour and Dahab's City Council, she was given many versions of what needed to be done to register her ownership of the land on which she lives: "I was told by the Survey people that my name was on the map, and the City Council head said this was not true, they were deceiving me. Then he declared that it was up to him whether or not I got official ownership documents. My relationship with the City Council went downhill after that." Discontent, she added, had driven young Bedouins to vote for the Ghad Party candidate in the last presidential elections. Hosni Mahmoud and his seven siblings came to Dahab from Assiut in 1994, having sold his land back home. With the proceeds he bought a 1000 sq mtr plot of land from Sheikh Tuelah of the Muzayna tribe for LE100,000. After building a home and opening a construction business on it, he now faces the threat of eviction -- like many Mashraba residents: "Even if you buy your land from the governorate and decide to build on it, the Bedouins will stop you until you pay them." The situation was exacerbated further when a man and his wife in possession of a contract dated last May and registered a month later, told Mahmoud he was living on their land: "This land is my life. If they take it away from me and my family, we will have nowhere to go." Though Mahmoud is now willing to re-buy the land he currently occupies from the City Council, this may not be feasible in the presence of a third party. Recently transferred to serve on the Sharm El-Sheikh City Council, Mahmoud Eissa is not fondly remembered in Dahab. His term as the head of the City Council has been characterised as overly pugnacious. Yet he insists there is no way it could have been better: "The situation is like me selling you a Pyramid and you buying it. Although we both know that it is problematic, we go through with the transaction based on the off-chance that it may actually work." Eissa believes prices surged after a walkway spanning the length of Asala was built, prompting spurious claims by Bedouin families asserting that the land was part of their tribal inheritance. "There is no such thing as land claim documents any more; all people with valid claims have been issued ownership documents a long time ago. These people are infringing on public property for the purpose of selling it to make a quick profit, simply out of greed," Eissa retorts. Dahab's Investor's Association head, Hassan Abul- Einein, is among those who have suffered the brunt of bureaucracy at first hand. After bidding to build a second gas station in Dahab on land designated by the City Council and laying the foundations for his project, he was told to halt construction by Ministry of Environment officials, who explained that he was building on landslide routes. "On what basis did they issue me a building permit, if I was building on the land slide route?" Abul-Einein asks. Now suing the City Council for damages, he regrets even thinking of investing in Dahab: "If I could just get back the money I invested here, I would get out. Every morning here feels like a slap in the face." Dahab's City Council head has confronted the broadest range of allegations from the auctioning off of government development projects to the frustration of investment efforts. Eisa maintains that allegations of one developer monopolising infrastructure projects have been dismissed by the prosecutors. Yet a politically active local lawyer and one of the official's most effective opponents, Salih Yaseen, throws such a statement into doubt by insisting that technical specifications of infrastructure projects are systematically ignored and auctioning regulations are seldom met: "The developer that he commissioned to upgrade Dahab's sewage network has never done such a job before and this is against the law." This labyrinth of land disputes could have been avoided if there was some degree of coordination between local zoning authorities, the Dahab City Council, Bedouin leaders and investors. A single package could replenish government budgets, compensate the right Bedouins and cater to the financial constraints of investors. But the task is made all the more difficult by the fact that Bedouins can not seem to agree among themselves about land ownership. A local system lacking organisational structure fails to open channels of communication with the relevant parties, adding to the chaos in Dahab. And amid surging land prices and an array of hidden agendas, it is difficult to discern any one truth beyond the need for rigorous organisation.
