The ruling military council is now ready to listen to the demands of the Bedouins, Amirah Ibrahim reports More than a year after the start of the 25 January Revolution the Bedouins in Sinai have seemingly succeeded in forcing the Egyptian cabinet, led by the ruling interim military council, to speak a language they understand. On Tuesday, the government announced it had quashed death sentences issued to three men convicted of involvement in attacks in the Sinai Peninsula after their trials were deemed unfair. Mohamed Gayez Hussein, Osama Abdel-Ghani and Younis Mohamed Elian had been sentenced to death on charges of carrying out the 2004 bombings in Taba and Nuweiba and 2005 bombings in Sharm El-Sheikh which killed a total of 130 people. The three were among thousands arrested by the Egyptian authorities after the bombings. Hundreds remain imprisoned without trial. Documents obtained from the State Security Department which was dismantled following the revolution, showed the department was behind the bombings in Sinai. The unrest in Sinai started with the bombing of gas pipelines to Israel and Jordan. There have been 10 such attacks the past year, after which violent clashes erupted with security forces, policemen and army soldiers. Bedouins attacked the units, killing soldiers while on duty. When an extremist Islamist group demonstrated in a show of force in Arish in April 2011, the Armed Forces launched a widescale military operation in the peninsula not only to derail the group but to show it was in complete control of the country, particularly the border zones. Bedouin tribes then started to protest against what they said was the government's constant ignoring of their problems: being prohibited to possess land, unemployment and poor infrastructure in all the peninsula villages where they live, save Sharm El-Sheikh, Taba and Dahab which are tourist cities. Suspending transportation on highways and main roads within the mountainous area did not work, but repeated criminal attacks, including robbing branches of international banks in Sharm El-Sheikh accompanied by the killing of a French tourist, then kidnapping tourists and foreigners working in surrounding industrial facilities attracted the attention of the ruling military council. Two South Korean tourists and their guide, in addition to an American tourist along with his guide were kidnapped recently. Earlier, 25 Chinese experts working with an Egyptian company were taken hostage by Bedouins. All have been released. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) agreed to scrap the death sentences and that the detained Bedouins be retried. The move is the latest in a series of steps adopted by the ministerial cabinet which received a green light from the SCAF to negotiate peace with Sinai tribes. Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri met on Monday with tribes' heads and sheikhs. El-Ganzouri headed a delegation of a number of his cabinet members to the meeting during which he praised the help of tribal sheikhs in ending the kidnappings of tourists. According to Fayza Abul-Naga, minister of international cooperation, the prime minister agreed to a number of joint steps to reinforce security in North and South Sinai. "There is also an understanding to abrogate sentences passed on 130 Sinai inhabitants and to offer legal help to some 1,800 who are 30 years old or more but were not drafted in the military which is obligatory," Abul-Naga said. Abul-Naga said the government was ready to establish a new authority assigned to carry out a national development project with the help of tribal representatives.
