As Egypt has brought to perfection the art of donor-shopping probably more then any other nation, I guess in the end they’ll find someone stupid enough to pay the bills submitted by the Egyptian army.
In contrast to what appears to be common in other countries, the Egyptian army maintains its monopoly over mine-clearing. Which is why not much has happened until today and which is why most donors rightfully so are reluctant to contribute.
Excerpt from the English translation:
It was not until 1982 that the Egyptian government acknowledged the problem. “It was a question of costs and priorities,” Fathy El Shazly, director of the national northwest coast development program, frankly admits.
He refers to the history of his country, which after the Second World War was first busy gaining independence and then tied up in four wars against Israel. A bit more haste would have been advisable, though.
According to the NGO “Landmine Monitor,” there have been 8,313 mine-related casualties in this region since 1982, including 619 deaths. As can be observed again and again whenever natural disasters or accidents occur, however, the Egyptian government evidently does not place much importance on its own citizens. It has done little to help the victims to date.
The Egyptian army did clear some 3.5 million pieces of ammunition out of the desert between 1982 and 1999, but since then a lack of funds has slowed down their efforts – at least that’s the official line.
Since things are moving much too slowly for the private sector, which has great plans for the region, some hotels and oil companies have begun to remove buried ammunition at their own expense in order to build access roads to their projects.
If Mubarak really a man and care about the Egyptian people, he will force the England and German to remove and clean all this landmines full of ammunition and not at the expense of the Egyptian people!
I don’t quite understand why it’s such a baaaaad thing that the Egyptian army be monopolising, as you say, mine clearance and that donating to the government to clear mines placed by European powers at the time should be so stupid. Should I understand, therefore, that you find both the concepts of sovereignty AND international aid stupid? Should the Egyptian army just shut up and get on with it? Or should the Egyptian government just invite the UN in to do it instead?
Are you censoring the comments or did my comment get lost?
This article is the most preposterous thing I read in long time. Imperial supremacist filth carefully disguised in post modern make up. First, it is not a donation if the UK, Germany, and Italy pay for clearing these mines. They are the ones who planted them in their war that we had nothing to do with.
Your statement “As Egypt has brought to perfection the art of donor-shopping probably more then any other nation, I guess in the end they’ll find someone stupid enough to pay the bills submitted by the Egyptian army.� Has an unacceptable arrogant tune and implies that you do not see that these nations have the responsibility to correct the wrongs they did in Egypt.
Amgad, how many mines laid by Egypt for use against Israel are left in Sinai? If the Egyptian government doesn’t even want to clean up its own mess it can hardly turn around and complain that others won’t either.
These mines became the responsibility of Egypt the second they took sides in WW2.
Issandr, this is an old story also for the relations between Egypt and Italy. During my stay in Cairo (2001-2003), I remember that the question was raised, for the x-time, in occasion of the official visit of the then-president of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, and his visit to El Alamein
I think the author is implying that mine-clearance NGOs would likely do the job faster, more throughly and at less cost than the Egyptian Army. Is that offensive?
Your grandfathers were mean enough to leave the mines and no wonder that the grandsons are mean enough not to pay for clearing them. and You know what; Norway used German POW to clear the minefields and then made them cress cross it to make sure that mines planted by German hands will only take German lives. We would have read this piece of hypocritical shit had your grandfather served the Reich in Norway
we would not
Amgad, how many mines laid by Egypt for use against Israel are left in Sinai? well i do not know. but perhaps they are in a well marked mine fields. so they are not claiming human lives. unlike the death traps in el 3alameen
Reading more in your article made the blood boil in my head. I really would not have been upset that much by an article saying mines are not the problem of Europe go and find a solution you inapt people. But the disingenuous claim that it is written in a good faith and put in a website to “bridge� makes me so angry. Your article is full of hypocritical crap, and if it did any thing, it burned a bridge.
Not that I’m eschewing controversy or anything, but this is not my post — it’s Frederik Richter’s (in answerto Paola’s comment to me.)
But for the record, a few years ago I was talking to the head of a major oil company exploring the Western Desert and they told me that, after years of using a private de-mining service for their purposes, one day a general strolled in and said from now on you will be using the military’s demining service. The operations became twice as expensive and half as fast.
It is fine for the Egyptian military to take over demining. They certainly should have all the skill set necessary, this isn’t rocket science, and Egypt is a country that produces fine engineers. But I do wonder where all that money is going — hospitals to treat people with mining injuries or the pockets of top brass?
And of course Western countries (well, the UK which laid down most of the mines) should pay for the demining, obviously. In fact neither the UK nor Germany never really paid for using Egypt as a base station during WW2, putting Alexandria in particular in great danger, and dragging a country with little interest in the core European conflict into its war.
I also think that Germany, the UK and Italy should pay for the removal of the mines they laid out. But I understand that they’re reluctant to do so under current conditions, i.e. via an army that lacks transparency, to say the least, and that in many ways has been responsible for Egypt’s slow development.
Germany has provided the Egyptian military with a bit of equipment to remove mines, but it largely remained unused, as far as I know.
Serene, I think that international aid is a stupid concept, yes. I think that it maybe is the single most important impediment to development (right after the protection of Western agricultural markets and related issues in international trade of course).
Amgad, I don’t think its arrogance if I say that Egypt (when I say Egypt I’m referring to the government administration only and not the numerous NGOs and individuals that are doing a fantastic job in their fields in bringing Egypt forward, some of them with foreign financing) has brought the art of donor-shopping to perfection. This observation is based on countless interviews and encounters with both Egyptians and foreigners working in development aid in Egypt.
about your objection to our army’s monopoly on all military matters. Do you really think that our regime will reject a serious offer by any of the states that left these death traps that includes cost control and training measures? Mubarak is your old docile dog in the region. Just do not remove the last piece of cloth covering his ass that is our “national sovereignty�
“The army will hardly be willing to forfeit its authority here when the prospects for acquiring expensive equipment are so enticing� so while having you ass on a cozy chair you can tell the real intentions of our army. Well I have not served in it and there is not a single one among my relatives until the 4th degree who works as an officer in the army. And yet I insist that the army holds supreme unchallengeable control on all military matters including any form of explosive materials. Keeping this authority intact is the only thing I respect in the rule of the corrupt Mubark. Just who the F*** are you to say what the business of our army should be!!!!!!!
“But Germany has nonetheless repeatedly offered Egypt humanitarian assistance, by for example handing over old maps showing where the mines are located, or supplying metal detectors.� How noble of the German race. May I ask you when these maps were handed to Egypt? As you say in your article moving sand made all the maps obsolete and useless soon. So unless the Germans were conscious enough to hand in the maps during say Nuremberg trails, their maps are useless.
“The army will hardly be willing to forfeit its authority here when the prospects for acquiring expensive equipment are so enticing�
You speak about this equipment as if they are super cars or golf gear, that our officers want for themselves. May I remind that this equipment is meant to do a very dangerous job with the purpose of saving human lives. Having the intention of obtaining them form those who put the death traps is legitimate.
Sorry, Issandr. Sorry, Frederik
This is the part that I think is offensive: “As Egypt has brought to perfection the art of donor-shopping probably more then any other nation, I guess in the end they’ll find someone stupid enough to pay the bills submitted by the Egyptian army.” It implies that Egypt has no right in asking for the money needed to remove these mines forced upon her.
Ali got my objection
Tell me, what exactly DOES the Egyptian government do? Taxes aren’t collected, basic laws aren’t enforced, social services are non-existant– it seems the government is merely an over-burdened department of tourism.
I was told a few years ago by a company which does mine clearance that they wouldn’t want the job – it’s too difficult and they would never be able to certify the area (the western desert) as clear of mines. The problem is the shifting sands which make the mines difficult to find. They can get buried quite deep and then, years later, emerge on the surface again.
Thank you for explaining the obvious about international aid. Indeed, that and Western bombs are indeed the biggest obstacles to our survival, never mind development. My original point was actually about your distaste for both sovereignty and the art of donor-shopping, as I think you put it, which is inherently contradictory. Notice that again, you say you have much scorn for aid while several of those NGOs you talk about live on it.
Look, I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that the military give up control of military matters. The military cooperates with and accepts funding from other countries.
I agree with Amgad that the UK and Germany have a special responsibility to do everything they can to remove the mines. Programs can be designed in such a way that the money doesn’t go to golf carts for the brass. And even if some money is siphoned off, in my calculus, a cleared minefield is worth a couple golf carts and a round of drinks for old soldiers.
Clearing the mines, I understand, is difficult, expensive, and dangerous, particularly given the shifting sands of the Western Desert.
Still, the government, preferably with the generous support of the UK and Germany, should:
1) Expand programs to clear the mine fields, or at least to mark them and fence them off;
2) Sign the 1997 treaty to ban landmines (all African states have joined except Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Somalia);
3) Increase assistance to victims.
Egypt is unlikely to join the ban on mines (although morally it should) because mines remain the most cost-effective way to protect one’s borders. Considering it has two crazy states at its borders (Israel and Libya, crazy in different ways) and a failed state at the southern border, I can see why Egypt might be keeping its options open.
This is the same reason the US won’t sign the treaty, more or less.
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Tim, I think that humanitarian de-mining is hardly a military matter.
Anyways, in a country with the political economy of Egypt, the line is hard to draw. For instance, the army is producing 120 million eggs a year.
Is this a military or civilian affair?
The generals argue: we are self-sufficient (thanks to our massive agro-industrial production) so the army is not a burden on the country. That’s their after-Camp David argument to justify the power and money they still enjoy.
I argue: 120 million eggs should be produced by the private sector. This would be more cost-effective and more transparent.
I’m hearing that recently the proceeds of the Safi business (bottle water sold in Egypt) got stolen from inside the Ministry of Defense (or Ministry of Military Production).
This might be just rumours, but it tells you bit how this parallel economic sector functions. And that’s what the army mostly is about, isn’t it?
So I’m maintaining that international donors should be be careful who they give their money to in Egypt.
Herr Richter
You are mixing three things in your post, that should not be mixed.
1- the need to monitor and control donations, your statement “international donors should be be careful who they give their money to in Egypt.� Is 100 percent true, I may even add to it that the least the Egyptian government intervenes between the donors and the projects they sustain the better for the success of these projects.
2- the removal of mines and explosives form the western desert, THE PARACIPAITON OF THE NATIONS WHO FAUGHT IN THIS WAR IS NOT A DONATION, IT IS AN OBLIGATION. If the warring nations see this as a magnanimous act of human solidarity and not a duty to correct some of their past mistakes then I afraid that they have not advanced much from their grandparents who left these death traps. You may have all the rights to decide everything about say the drilling of a well to provide a source of water for the nomads. But your attitude to demining must be different. There must be a sense of responsibility toward this issue
3- the exclusive areas of competency of the Egyptian army, it is frankly non of your business to interfere with what we consider military, what we consider civilian and the civilian matters in which we allow the army to operate. If we decide that mine removal is a competency of the army then you should propose your projects to the army with negotiated cost control and training measures
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070725/ap_on_fe_st/odd_colombia_landmines