Cairo: In the days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with officials in Egypt, the news media here were filled with stories detailing charges of corruption, cronyism, torture and political repression.
And Slackman then fills out his lead: police torture on video, contaminated blood being distributed, journalists getting arrested. He gives Ibrahim Eissa space for a quote on regime duplicity and political tensions, lets Hafez Abou Saada say the usual, and runs through a short list of the kind of reforms instituted since 2005 (back when Condi was making those huffy puffy noises that sounded to some like criticism of beating protestors and fixing elections):
Since then, Egypt’s government has piled up a long list of repressive actions, including ordering the police to block people from voting in parliamentary elections; delaying local elections by two years; imprisoning an opposition leader, Ayman Nour, on charges widely seen as politically motivated; battling with judges who have demanded oversight of elections; and imprisoning Talaat el-Sadat, a member of Parliament and the nephew of President Anwar el-Sadat, for a year in a military jail after he criticized the armed forces on television.
And he twists it closed nicely at the end, juxtaposing the experience of some Wafd members who tried to do something about sewage in their village (you guessed it, friendly visits from security) and Condi’s latest public message to Egyptians:
“I especially want to thank President Mubarak for receiving me and for spending so much time with me to talk about the issues of common interest here in the Middle East,” Ms. Rice said. “Obviously the relationship with Egypt is an important strategic relationship — one that we value greatly.”
Thanks for clearing that up Condi.
The depressing part, however, is the point that Slackman raises in the middle of his article. Shalit’s still walled up in little cell under Gaza somewhere and Fatah and Hamas are going at it like a bunch of well-armed soccer hooligans. So what does Washington have to gain these days in exchange for its complicity in the very public human rights violations of the Mubarak regime? Are they anticipating an imminent need to outsource the questioning of Gitmo releasees to the Lazoughly Interrogation Company?
Ultimately, Condi’s stance looks at best like knee-jerk retrenchment in the face of the utter failure, and at worst like somebody taking comfort in the arms of like-minded friends.
Politics doesn’t always make strange bedfellows, it seems.
This time round, in principle, the Americans are getting “Arab states” to support the new surge initiative in Iraq + support the current Iraqi government, in exchange for promising to do something about Palestine (the clumsily-named “Iraq for land”) approach. I have no idea how Egyptian regime support for Iraq is expected to make any difference. Assume it’s really just about wanting to go back to the comfort of an old, reliable, repressive ally who won’t give them anything to worry about.
I doubt the IHT will be banned – there’s been worse articles out there on Egypt before.
As for what the US gets for coddling up for Egypt, plenty:
– Egypt taking sides with Israel and the US to arm and train Fatah
– Egypt handling the Palestinian issue at the Arab League in the same general direction
– Egypt, with Saudi, providing backchannels to the Syrian regime
– Egypt, with Saudi, trying to mediate in Lebanon, and both are pro-government.
– Egypt giving an ok on the recent Somalia operations
On the other hand, recently Egypt has gotten embarassed by the Israelis, who seem to schedule raids on the West Bank and the announcements of new settlements whenever one of their leader is meeting a foreign leader (e.g. the Olmert-Mubarak meeting earlier this month and Rice’s recent visit to Israel).
Regarding Shalit, the Egyptians have led the mediation for his release. I think the hesitations comes from the Israelis, who are loathe to release over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one man, and Fatah, which does not want Hamas to get a boost if the exchange is successful. Right-wing Israel websites are reporting that Dahlan asked Olmert not to go ahead with the deal.
The article is not in my copy of the paper this morning.
Yeah, I didn’t see it in today’s Egypt IHT either… interesting. The article does beg the question how serious US ever really was in pushing Egypt on the rights issue, Condi’s AUC speech in 05 aside. Some say the shift occurred in the wake of getting Egypt to help out on the whole Gaza disengagement thing. I would question whether it was ever really there.
Anyone know if it’s in the European edition of the paper? (I get the Egyptian one too… which has a different story about the Rice visit, focusing on the Israeli/Palestinian summit agreement.)
What’s the publication deal between the IHT and the Daily Star and the Egyptian censors? Can the censors have an article removed from the IHT before it hits the press?
The IHT has earlier deadlines than the NYT, certainly its Asian editions, and to a lesser extent EUR/ME editions. Their coverage today doesn’t even include the Rice-Gheit press conference, which happened around 5pm. So my guess is that Slackman wrote his article in the evening for the NYT’s late deadlines, while a shorter article on the summit went for the earlier IHT-Egypt deadline.
Be interesting to see if they use his piece tomorrow.
for the record, the article appeared in the Jan. 17 edition of the IHT published in Egypt, page 3.