Since the Taba bombings in October, Amira Ibrahim reports, the security clampdown on Sinai's Bedouins has stirred up decades of discontent "I remember how many of my people were forced out of their homes and palm groves in the wake of the 1967 defeat -- to live in makeshift tents, like refugees, suffering shortages in our most basic needs. When we were finally allowed to go home, after the 1973 victory, we had high hopes for everything, we thought our dreams would finally come true -- but look what we have now. No drinking water, no electricity, no jobs. We don't even own our homes or the land we inherited from our forebears," laments Saleh Rashed, chief of the North Sinai tribe of Awlad Said. And his complaints are but a brief wrap-up of a whole saga of grievances expressed since the early 1980s. Discontent has come to a head with the recent government clampdown on Sinai Bedouins following the terrorist attacks on Taba and Nuweiba last October, however, with security forces raiding Bedouin homes and property, and arresting over 3,000 suspects, most of whom remain inexplicably in custody three months after the event -- giving rise to frequent clashes between the Bedouins and security forces. To Rashed this is but an escalation of decades of abuse -- security measures "that do not take into account the fact that Bedouins have suffered for many, many years from negligence and faulty economic and social policy". Many point out that they are deprived of potable water and electricity, not to mention health care and education; this despite official declarations of the intention to settle half a million in Sinai by 2017 at a cost of approximately LE60 billion. "Such plans are ultimately at our expense," Jumaa Sahi Uweid, an Al- Mezeina tribe elder, insisted. "They [government officials] are encouraging people from the Nile Valley to come and work here at a time when we have difficulty earning the bread we survive on -- with our homes and palm groves not even recognised as ours." At a meeting between North and South Sinai tribe elders and local security forces last month, negotiations led to signing Wathiqat Al-'Ahd, a Pledge Document in which Bedouin sheikhs went so far in demonstrating "loyalty and compliance" as to agree to report criminal suspects among their own numbers to the police -- something that goes against the grain of their culture and ethical codes. According to traditional tribal law, all disputes are resolved within the framework of the tribe, but -- so security forces argue -- this system has presented an insurmountable obstacle to their own work in preventing illegal activities like marijuana cultivation and smuggling, rarely anything more serious. "Now," a senior South Sinai official told Al- Ahram Weekly, "each sheikh is responsible for reporting those members of his tribe who engage in criminal or illegal activities. Whether or not the Bedouins will allow the Wathiqah to supplant their age- old ways is as yet unclear. Sallam Gharib, another Mezeina elder and member of Al-Tor Shura Council, argues that the Wathiqah contains nothing new in essence. "We've always reported criminals and dangerous characters who refuse to comply with Bedouin laws to the security forces," he said. "But those who accept our judgement and comply with our laws -- there is usually no reason to report them." Such comments reflect a widespread reservation on the part of the Bedouin community regarding the necessity of such a Wathiqah; in fact the North Sinai Al- Tayaha, for one tribe, refused to sign it. The principal concern -- expressed by Gharib, among others -- is that the Wathiqah would act to "undermine the status of tribe sheikhs and elders in the eyes of the younger generation"; it seems to render redundant a universally accepted system of governance that has proved effective for centuries, preventing the eruption of violence among Bedouins themselves. "We fear that the implementation of the agreement will generate an atmosphere in which vendettas can proliferate, for example," Gharib said. Indeed changes imposed by security forces on traditional governance are already taking their toll. While in the past candidates for the position of sheikh of the tribe were selected by tribal elders and the wise men of neighbouring tribes, Gharib explains, now sheikhs are recommended by the police, who decide solely on the basis of whether or not they have clean criminal and security records. "The old system made for strong, healthy relations among sheikhs and between sheikhs and people. Now the criteria are hardly convincing, especially when you compare them with the criteria of the past: that the man should be educated and knowledgeable, have a vision for his people and a spotless reputation. Relations are thus unlikely to be as strong or healthy." For better or worse the agreement was signed by a majority of tribes, especially in the north, whence terrorists are suspected to originate: Al-Tarabin, Al- Hayouat, Al-Nakhlawiya, Awlad Said, Al-Sowarka and Al-Bayada, as well as South Sinai tribes like Al-Tawara, the largest of all, Al-Juibalia, Al-Hwaytat, Al-Olayqat and Al-Mezeina. The division of the Sinai peninsula into north and south did not occur until 1979, following the peace agreement with Israel, when a presidential decree was issued to this effect. Up until the mid-1980s, northern tribes were by far the richer, dominating the tourism industry on the Mediterranean's famous palm-studded beaches. When tourism moved south, with the government paying attention to such areas as Sharm El-Sheikh, the north was neglected. "Perhaps it was instability on the borders that drove tourism south," Rashed opines. "But at the same time it is painful to realise that the government's attempts to help us in response were at best half-hearted, forcing us to so called 'illegal channels' for a living." Not that conditions are much better in the south: aside from individuals who made a break speculating on property, visit any Bedouin tribe on your tour route and you will be witness to appalling living conditions -- shanty towns constructed out of rubbish and sheets of tin right in the middle of the desert -- the traditional camel hair tents having become beyond the means of most. South Sinai has a labour force of 400,000 (expected to rise to 700,000 with vacancies opening up by 2010), but Bedouins make up only a negligible percentage of it; they have been left out of the recent employment spree. "Ask officials," asserted Uweid, "and you will not be given a figure at all. People come from the Valley and take out official documents that make them legal residents of Sinai so that they are given priority when they apply for a house or a job later on -- and they are." Such views are in sharp contrast to the emphatic statements of Ibrahim El- Serfi, the National Democratic Party representative for South Sinai: "The national project to develop Sinai aims to integrate social and economic development," working among the Bedouins themselves, "in the process of promoting tourism as the principal activity of the region". Questioned about the channelling of investments into Sharm El-Sheikh, where "people of the [Nile] Valley" are favoured, El-Serfi insists that "one of our main goals is to distribute social and economic revenue and work opportunities equally among the entire population of Sinai; any charges of discrimination are totally groundless..." El-Serfi points up the project of settling Bedouins, in which the government has already invested an estimated LE1.4 billion to improve amenities and services. Even a cursory tour of the area reveals that electricity is only available through generators or illegal cable connections, however; rubbish collection is nonexistent, and many basic services are lacking. And while the government spent LE204 million on housing in which to settle the population of South Sinai, Bedouins have been declined the right to own the houses in which they live, or the land they cultivate. "The government wants us to pay for what is already ours," Sheikh Hussein Etewi of Al-Tarabeen tribe asserts, "in return for legal papers to establish that we own it. But the Bedouins are not rich enough to afford the prices they ask for. Yet we are not allowed to build, demolish or renovate until we have the 'legal' property papers." The communities in which the government plans on settling Bedouins, he went on, are unsuited to Bedouin nature and tradition: "We cannot live in flats like Valley people. Tribe members live in the same area, but never so close to each other." In Al-Tor, the capital of South Sinai, officials concede that not enough development has taken place, identifying the development of human resources as their main goal. "NGOs could be playing a more significant role," Omayma Khalil, secretary of the Women's National Council at Al-Tor City Council declaims. "They are better equipped to identify the needs of the region and therefore more capable of delivering quality services. It may be the only way to provide Bedouin communities with the services they need." Currently 54 NGOs are working in South Sinai, according to Khalil: "Several of these concentrate on Bedouin communities, particularly in the villages of Abu Swera and Al-Basaysa in Ras Sudr and Nuweiba," respectively. "But the majority of NGOs do not have enough funds -- relying on a LE5,000 annual subsidy from the Ministry of Social Affairs." And while Sharm El-Sheikh has received much government funding, local and foreign investment has receded in major Sinai cities like Dahab and Nuweiba, with the former suffering from land ownership disputes and problems with infrastructure. Nuweiba, among Sinai's most scenic locations, remains in stall as a potential tourist destination. "We have upgraded the port," Yehia Abdel-Khaliq, the mayor of Nuweiba, states. "We have been trying to settle the Bedouins in new communities to involve them in the economic activities, to their own ultimate benefit." But he failed to specify economic activities suggested for developing the area. Little trade passes Nuweiba except during religious seasons -- pilgrims on their way to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj or Omra. Having had little access to education, Bedouins tend to land in one of two vocations, as drivers or excursion guides. Yet even within the confines of these two fields, moves are underway to deprive them of a necessary source of income. Bedouin drivers went on strike three times over the last year alone, protesting government plans to allow wealthy investors to monopolise the private transport business in Sinai. "We haven't been allowed taxi licences since 1998," complained one driver on condition of anonymity, "on the grounds that the government wants to reduce the number of vehicles working in the area. They've also prohibited us from taking tourists outside Sharm El- Sheikh." Swailam Ghanim, a Bedouin taxi driver, agrees: "Last month the authorities approved one investor's plan, licensing 1,000 new taxis to move between the main four cities in South Sinai: Sharm El-Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba and Ras Sudr. And the company will not hire Bedouin drivers for the purpose, no; they will most certainly replace us, depriving us of the chance to practise the only profession we have known." Pressure from the police, limited resources and policies that do not tend to take their well being to heart (they are seldom regarded as more than a security hazard): the Bedouins of Sinai are forced to walk a tightrope to survive.
