Meddling Interventionists
Egypt, eager to have the legitimacy of their first real elections validated, invited American groups to come and vet the proceedings. Those same groups have now proven to be a thorn in the side of the current military-led government.Or perhaps they simply present as useful in the sense that they can be accused of fomenting further unrest in the country because of the glacial pace of promised change, and their presence encourages the democracy-besotted protest originators to keep pressing the military.
When all else fails, accuse outside intervention; foreigners whose agenda is clearly inimical to the well-being of the country hosting their presence. There was a time for them to absent themselves and return whence they had come, and they stayed, instead.
Their presence was never seen as such a great irritant with the previous government, which certainly tolerated their presence. But then, that's what $1.5-billion in annual support gets you.
And that $1.5-billion yearly gift still has some resonance.
Egypt is in a very bad place right now, economically. Its tourism industry has flattened. Those in the industry so hugely dependent on foreign visitors eager to see the ancient sites face the prospect of watching as their horses and their camels starve to death. Their owners are penniless; facing the prospect of feeding their children or their animals.
The economy is suffering the effects of foreign investment holding back until it can be assured that stability will result. Matters are at an impasse.
The Muslim Brotherhood, gifted with 47% of the recent votes are poised, alongside the Salafists who received another 22%, to govern. And the freedoms that Egyptians were so passionate about obtaining for themselves with the removal of President Hosni Mubarak, will continue to evade them.
The military government of the former chief of Egypt's defence staff, Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, badly needs a scapegoat, and they've found one in charging U.S. citizens representing the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House alongside the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation, with interfering with Egypt's internal affairs "without a license".
The U.S. is in receipt of formal charges in a document of over a hundred pages, written in Arabic. "We now have a formal charging document. We're working our way through it to understand who is implicated and ... what the expectations are", said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, in Washington.
This is serious stuff. Some of the pro-democracy activists have taken refuge inside the Cairo-based U.S. embassy in fear of arrest. Should those charges stick, and the Egyptian judges are insistent that they will: "Their work constitutes pure political activity and has nothing to do with civil society work", according to Judge Sameh Abu Zeid, they face up to five years in jail.
The raids on the 17 NGO offices constitute an official probe into illegal funding of the protest activists. It is the evil machinations of foreign elements that prodded Egyptian liberal-democrat hopefuls to pursue their agenda of liberty and freedom. And the follow-through is dozens of people referred to trial.
"It is a very large and complicated case involving hundreds of people and organizations, Egyptian and foreign", according to the presiding judge.
Cue the follow-through of that $1.5-billion sledge-hammer.
Labels: Conflict, Egypt, Political Realities, United States
posted by Pieface @ Friday, February 10, 2012
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