The first rule of any peace-keeping force is neutrality, writes Amin Howeidi* President Hosni Mubarak has just inspected Egyptian troops bound for south Sudan where they will assume peace-keeping tasks under the mandate of UN Security Council Resolution 1590. The force includes 1,100 men. It will provide security to refugees, transport supplies and help protect airports, landing strips and bridges. It will also provide medical services and assist in the clearing of landmines. I saw south Sudan when it was under British control, visiting as part of a delegation from the Egyptian Staff College where I taught. We visited Malakal, where we witnessed a scene in which men, in boats and armed with spears, were trying to chase away a band of three elephants that had attacked their village. We toured Turit, where a small lumber factory was located and Juba, where a Sudanese military unit was stationed. While in Juba we heard the first shots fired by the Anyana Movement, which fought for independence of the south in the early 1950s. Egypt is participating in peace-keeping missions in the Western Sahara, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burundi, Georgia and Darfur. It is also expected also to deploy troops along the Philadelphia corridor on the border with Israel. I don't think there is any need to remind those in charge that such peace-keeping activities should not distract us from our defence needs in this volatile region. Egypt is one of the region's key powers and will continue to shoulder its peace-keeping responsibilities. In which regard I have a story to tell you, one that happened more than four decades ago. In December 1963 Sobhi Abdel-Hamid, Iraq's foreign minister, asked President Gamal Abdel-Nasser to send Egyptian troops to Iraq, primarily to help Iraqi President Abdel-Salam Aref, who was facing growing domestic pressures, but also to press the Kurds to reach a peaceful settlement with the government. Cairo had for some time wanted to see an end to the fighting and for the Kurds to be granted some degree of autonomy, and was keen to strengthen Iraq in the face of pressure from Syria's Baath government. Egypt and Iraq, therefore, agreed to station Egyptian troops in Mosul in northern Iraq. I was ambassador to Iraq at the time and against the deployment of Egyptian troops in such an unstable country. I wrote a letter to President Abdel-Nasser expressing my views and added that, should he decide to send troops they should be stationed in Baghdad, where they would be safe from the battles raging between the Kurdish militia and central government forces, and not in Mosul. Cairo agreed and the forces were stationed in Baghdad. As extra assurance I wanted the Iraqis to put down their request for troops in writing. I told the Iraqi foreign minister so and received a written reply specifying the terms of deployment. Even so Colonel Mohamed Majid, Iraqi chief of staff at the time, visited me to discuss the details and argued that Egyptian troops should be sent north and deployed on the front. I told him this was against the agreement. I went to Cairo to brief Abdel-Nasser on the matter before it was too late. I suggested to the president he should write to President Abdel-Salam Aref to clarify the situation, and he gave me a letter to take to Baghdad. In the letter, dated 1 January 1964, Abdel-Nasser said that troops had been sent to Iraq on the understanding that they would not be part of ongoing hostilities. I handed the message to the Iraqi president who read it, understood it and agreed. The Egyptian contingent, as I recall, was under the command of Major Ibrahim El-Arabi, who would later become chief-of-staff of the armed forces. As tensions escalated in Iraq, attempts were made to involve Egypt's troops in the power struggle but our forces remained neutral. Our troops were in Iraq to help the regime as a whole, not to side with one or another faction within the regime. As the pressure mounted I felt it advisable for our troops to leave Iraq and in July 1965 I wrote to Abdel-Nasser asking him to pull out the troops on the pretext that they were needed in Yemen. Cairo refused and the troops remained at Al-Taji Camp in Baghdad. The moral of the story is that in volatile situations peace-keepers must not become involved in domestic politics. It is the job of diplomats to make sure that neutrality is observed. We will always have to send troops abroad, for that is what countries of Egypt's size and stature do. But caution is advised, at all times. * The writer is former minister of defence and chief of general intelligence.
