Political considerations are taking centre stage in Cairo's conflict with Washington over civil groups, notes Gamal Nkrumah As if Egypt's beleaguered post-25 January Revolution military junta-cum-democratically elected parliament didn't have enough on its plate, it is now faced with an outrageous international scandal, threatening the very foundations of Egypt's dubious bedrock alliance with Washington, its chief benefactor. The Egyptian authorities cracked down on civil society groups and detained or are investigating 29 foreign nationals and 14 Egyptians accused of collaborating with international donor agencies against the interests of Egypt. The Egyptian magistrate assigned to investigate civil society groups Ashraf El-Ashmawi charged the targeted non- governmental organisations of receiving illegal foreign funding contravening Egyptian law, a charge the NGOs in question vehemently deny. Director of the prestigious Hisham Mubarak Centre for Human Rights Ahmed Seif El-Islam said that neither the United States nor the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has spelt out the precise problem revolving around the diplomatic fracas concerning Egyptian and foreign civil society organisations active in Egypt. Seif El-Islam warned that human rights groups are especially singled out for retribution. He fears that with the seemingly deteriorating relations between the administration of US President Barack Obama and the SCAF, the row has "nothing to do with the NGOs per se". What is less clear, however, according to him is whether the SCAF wants to exercise a clampdown on civil society groups and whether the Obama administration will give the Egyptian authorities the opportunity to do so. "Both the Obama administration and the SCAF speak in vague terms," Seif El-Islam told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I suspect that the real motive of the Americans is to intensify pressure on the Egyptian authorities, and in particular the SCAF, not to tamper with the interests of the Israelis. The Obama administration's chief interest is to safeguard Israeli interests in the aftermath of the parliamentary elections and the rising political fortunes of the Islamists," Seif El-Islam expounded. On the face of it, the squabble over NGOs in Egypt has nothing to do with regional security arrangements, but in reality there are fierce US behind-the-scenes efforts to enlist the tacit connivance or support of the SCAF. The US Embassy in Cairo released a file containing facts and portfolios on the NGOs in question. "These international organisations participate in purely political activities and not in civil society activities," the Egyptian authorities countered. The Israeli security establishment is growing increasingly concerned that its vital interests are at stake with the Islamists in the region gaining the upper hand in the newly elected legislative assemblies. The Egyptian Armed Forces receives $1.3 billion in annual military aid from the US, and the Israelis and their US benefactors fear that Israel's capacity to defend its interests militarily or otherwise is fast slipping away. It is against this backdrop that Egyptian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Fayza Abul-Naga disclosed her "government's seriousness about discovering some of the civil society groups' plans to destabilise Egypt". Abul-Naga was referring in particular to foreign NGOs. Abul-Naga, widely perceived as the mastermind of the probe into the NGOs' activities, was harshly critical of the evasion of illegal funding restrictions on NGO activities. Egyptian civil rights activists backed by US and other Western diplomats retaliated by reiterating that the Egyptian authorities' clampdown on NGOs must be stopped, one way or another. The Gallop poll supports the minister's prosecution of NGOs. According to the Gallop poll, 74 per cent of Egyptians disapprove of US funding of Egyptian civil society groups. Abul-Naga this week declared that 12 Egyptian NGOs received $5.8 million illegally from abroad and that 14 US-registered NGOs operating in Egypt received $47.8 million and that their activities must cease immediately. She added that these NGOs were not registered in Egypt and therefore are operating illegally. The crisis climaxed when Sam LaHood, one of the 19 American nationals to face criminal charges and a son of US Transport Secretary Ray LaHood, was implicated. The Obama administration hinted that aid to Egypt might be curtailed. Abul-Naga then contended that Egypt would not accept the conditionalities imposed on it by the Bretton Woods institutions, the Washington- based World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. She stressed that Egypt declined a World Bank loan precisely because its terms were deemed incompatible with Egypt's national interests. Raids by the prosecution-general office, police and security and military personnel followed. Egypt's fundamental position, however, towards cultivating close ties with Washington remains the same. "The battle is political. The clampdown is part of a deliberate plot to intimidate dissenters. There is a tug-of-war between the SCAF on the one hand and human rights activists who have been the vanguard of the 25 January Revolution. The purpose of the current campaign against the foreign funding of NGOs is to stop civic groups that advocate against military tribunals. Civil rights groups have openly spoken out against torture and other forms of human rights violations," Seif El-Islam told the Weekly. "The timing of the SCAF and the government of Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri is reprehensible, even culpable. It was, after all, the civil rights groups that popularised the slogan 'Down with military rule'. The authorities are retaliating by creating a credibility gap between the civil rights groups and the Islamist forces. Civil rights groups are dismissed as agents of foreign powers, traitors and decadent liberals," Seif El-Islam extrapolated. "My point is that the SCAF's taunts backfired. Their attempts at intimidation only emboldened the civic groups further, leaving El-Ganzouri's government in limbo." Aida Seif El-Dawla of the Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence concurred. "Our centre is part of a coalition of organisations called the Front for the Defence of Egyptian Protesters. Our lawyers attend interrogations when people are arrested. Other members collect clothes, money and food and take it to the prisons. Since the 25 January Revolution hundreds have been killed. The majority shot with live bullets. Thousands have been injured. Tear gas, snipers and torture are all widespread. Counter-revolutionaries are trying to usurp power. The old guard and tycoons are at work. The old state security apparatus is still in place, supported by the powers that be. So how can they accuse us of being traitors?" In much the same vein, Hafez Abu Seada of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) entreated along cognate lines: "There is an imperative in reforming the penal institution in order to comply with the minimum standards of treating detainees and prisoners. Why should we be criminalised for insisting on justice? Criminal proceedings must not be used against activists." Abu Seada questioned the very logic and legal procedures of NGO registration. "And, at any rate, on what basis are the NGOs registered or their application for registration rejected? According to what laws are the NGOs registered?" While this may sound all very well and good, these are not the main targets of the arrests. It is the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the hidden hands that are the focus of the investigation. They are the primary vehicle for transmitting US foreign policy posing as innocuous-sounding NGOs championing civic rights and democracy building activities, but fulfilling the role once carried out clandestinely by the CIA. Was this, perhaps, what Abul-Naga was alluding to?
