The US is going ahead with plans to deliver four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt despite the political unrest in the country, senior American officials say.
With President Morsi Out, Gulf States Open Their Checkbooks
(Leila Fadel, NPR News, Cairo. Transcript provided by NPR, July 11, 2013)
Transcript
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It's been mostly quiet in Egypt today. The military is still looking to arrest more leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood on charges of inciting violence. And the political struggle continues over who will run the country. Much of the public fury that provoked last week's ouster of President Mohamed Morsi was fueled by the country's poor economic conditions. With Morsi out, expectations are high that foreign aid and investment will return; that the economy will turn around and, for average Egyptians, the lights will stay on.
NPR's Leila Fadel sent this report.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: As soon as Morsi was overthrown by Egypt's military, the stock market shot up. And the money from wealthy Gulf States started flowing. The United Arab Emirates pledged a $3 billion aid package, Saudi Arabia five billion, and Kuwait followed with four billion to jumpstart the crippled economy.
It was a quick turnaround from the wealthy Gulf nations, especially for Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who'd viewed the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Morsi belongs, as a threat to their own undemocratic leadership.
HANY GENENA: Both countries are not really comfortable with a movement that may threaten their own stability, as well. So once the Muslim Brothers were out of the scene, it returns to normal basically. They started to cooperate again with the military-backed government.
FADEL: That's Hany Genena, the chief economist at Pharos Holding, a Cairo-based investment firm. He adds that it's likely that Qatar's aid will now peter out. The island Gulf nation had been a huge backer of the Brotherhood and other Islamists, who'd risen up following the 2011 revolts that swept through the region. But it's been losing ground to its Saudi rival and bet heavily on Morsi.
Genena says that Morsi's ouster is great news for the economy. By all indications, he says, things are picking up.
GENENA: Investors are extremely optimistic.
FADEL: In the streets, that same optimism is rampant among the many Egyptians who opposed Morsi's leadership.
(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLES AND TRAFFIC)
FADEL: At a gas station in central Cairo, Mohsen Fahmy waits to fill up his tank. But today, there is no line stretching for blocks.
MOHSEN FAHMY: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: Everything is available now, he says.
Almost overnight, the power cuts and diesel shortages that have plagued Egypt are mysteriously gone. Analysts say it's a sign of just how uncooperative the entrenched anti-Brotherhood bureaucracy was when Morsi was in power. And now that he is out of power, billionaire Egyptian businessmen, like Naguib Sawiris, say they're ready to put money back in Egypt.
Sawiris has long been an outspoken critic of Morsi, and made his fortune under ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
NAGUIB SAWIRIS: People like us who have held back for two years will come back now and we will start with ourselves. We won't wait for others to come. Because if the Egyptians don't invest in their own country, who's going to believe in their country?
FADEL: But not everyone is so optimistic. The country is more polarized then it's ever been and people fear more unrest. Morsi's supporters continue mass protests demanding his reinstatement.
At a Cairo vegetable market, Um Ahmed picks out eggplants for dinner.
UM AHMED: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: We feel worried. We feel threatened, she says. Every day, we hear people are dead, thousands are wounded. We just want peace and safety.
And the excitement will likely wear off, says Michael Wahid Hanna of the Century Foundation.
MICHAEL WAHID HANNA: There's clearly at the moment a kind of irrational exuberance
FADEL: The underlying economic problems are still here, Hanna says; a wasteful subsidy system that needs to be reformed, rising unemployment and corruption that stifles competitive markets. All of these issues that plagued the Morsi government will also confront whoever comes next.
Egypt’s army chief defends Morsi’s ouster
(By Liz Sly, The Washington Post, July 14, 2013)
CAIRO — Egypt’s military chief, in his first public comments since the army ousted President Mohamed Morsi this month, said Sunday that the armed forces have no intention of retaining political power and only stepped in to remove the country’s democratically elected government under the pressure of overwhelming popular demand.
Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, who has taken on the position of defense minister in the still- incomplete government that will serve until new elections are held, also said no party would be excluded from the political process, an apparent reference to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
“Every political force without exception and without exclusion must realize that an opportunity is available for everyone in political life and no ideological movement is prevented from participating,” he told a gathering of army officers, according to the state news agency.
The comments seemed designed to allay growing concerns that Egypt may be slipping back toward military rule as the authorities pursue a nationwide crackdown against the Brotherhood, whose leaders now find themselves jailed or in hiding after their year-long effort to run the country failed.
The United States has backed a call by Germany for the release of Morsi, who has been held without charge since the army detained him on July 3, and some Egyptians have expressed misgivings about the direction in which their country is heading after army soldiers gunned down 51 Muslim Brotherhood supporters at a demonstration last week.
Sissi defended the removal of Morsi, saying the army acted only in response to “the will of the people.” Morsi had rejected the efforts of an envoy sent by the army to persuade him to agree to hold a referendum on his rule, after millions of people took to the streets to demand that he step down, he said.
But, he added, the military’s current role is intended only to be temporary.
“The Egyptian military is preparing to complete its work and is apolitical. It has laid down a future plan which facilitates the right of free choice, and this plan was blessed before the Egyptian people through its main representatives,” Sissi said.
Within hours of his speech, delivered to military officers and reported by state media, the judiciary intensified pressure on the Brotherhood’s leadership by announcing that it was freezing the assets of 14 top Muslim Brotherhood officials accused of inciting violence during the upheaval.
Among them were the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie, who is in hiding, and the deputy leader Khairat El-Shater, who is thought to be in custody.
Tensions have been rising between the military and the Brotherhood, which has vowed to uphold a campaign of protests and civil disobedience until Morsi is reinstated. Fresh marches are planned for Monday, and Muslim Brotherhood supporters are sustaining daily protests at two encampments in the suburbs of Cairo.
Meanwhile, the interim government that will serve until elections are held is starting to take shape. Hazem el-Beblawi, the economist appointed to head a new cabinet, named a former ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmy, as foreign minister. A veteran of the World Bank with a doctorate from Boston University, Ahmed Galal, was appointed finance minister.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, who emerged as a leading figure in the campaign to oust Morsi, was sworn in as vice president, a job he accepted last week after his appointment as president was rejected by the Salafist Nour Party.
Egypt Cabinet has women, Christians; no Islamists
(By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press, July 16, 2013)
Egypt's interim leader swore in a Cabinet on Tuesday that included women and Christians but no Islamists as the military-backed administration moved swiftly to formalize the new political order and present a more liberal face that is markedly at odds with the deposed president and his supporters.
The changes came at a time of deep polarization and violence in Egypt, including new clashes that killed seven people as part of the continuing bloodshed that has marked the days following the armed forces coup that swept President Mohammed Morsi from office and cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt's military already wields great influence behind the scenes, and the army chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who ousted Morsi on July 3, was given a promotion in the Cabinet. He became a first deputy prime minister in addition to keeping his post as defense minister.
For most of the two years since the overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, the country has been split into two camps - one led by Morsi, his Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies, and another led by secular Egyptians, liberals, Christians and moderate Muslims.
The fault lines remain, except that the Islamist camp is no longer in power. It does not include members of any Islamist parties - a sign of the enduring division that follows the removal of Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president.
The interim president's spokesman had earlier said posts would be offered to the Muslim Brotherhood, but the group promptly refused, saying it would not take part in the military-backed political process and would continue protests until the legitimately elected Morsi is reinstated.
"We refuse to even discuss it," a senior official of the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, told The Associated Press. "What is built on illegitimacy is illegal," he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media before the party issued a formal statement on the formation of the Cabinet.
The only Islamist party that supported Morsi's ouster - the ultraconservative Salafi el-Nour party - was not represented and criticized the leadership as "biased," lacking inclusion and repeating "the same mistake the last government was blamed for."
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he had talked with el-Sissi about 10 times in the past week.
"We have encouraged publicly and privately the leaders of Egypt, including the interim president, the interim vice president, and the prime minister in particular, to be inclusive, to bring all political parties in, to allow them to participate in the writing of the constitution and the elections," Hagel told reporters in Florida. "That's the only way it will work. We've been very clear on that."
Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, an economist in his 70s, leads the government of 33 other ministers. Sworn in by interim President Adly Mansour, it reflected the largely liberal, secular bent of the factions who brought millions into the streets at the end of June calling for Morsi to step down and backed el-Sissi's removal of the president.
Women have a somewhat higher profile in the government, with three ministries - including the powerful information and health ministries. Most past governments for decades have had at most only two women.
The Cabinet also includes three Christians, including one of the three women, Environment Minister Laila Rashed Iskander. That is also a first, since successive governments had no more than one or two Christians.
Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, appointed by Morsi, remains in his post, which oversees the police. Nabil Fahmy, who was Egypt's ambassador to the U.S. from 1999-2008 and a nuclear disarmament expert, becomes foreign minister.
In a nod to the revolutionary youth groups that engineered the 2011 uprising and this year's massive protests, Mansour renamed the Justice portfolio the Transitional Justice and National Reconciliation Ministry and gave it to Mohammed el-Mahdi, a career judge.
The groups have been campaigning to bring to justice those responsible for the killings of hundreds of protesters since Mubarak's fall. Reconciliation is a longstanding demand by most political forces to end Egypt's polarization, which often spills over into street violence.
At least three senior figures from the National Salvation Front - the main opposition group during Morsi's year in office - were included in the government. In addition, the new deputy prime minister in charge of international cooperation, Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, is a member of the Social Democratic Party, which is part of the Salvation Front.
Mohamed ElBaradei, one of the Front's top leaders and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has already been installed as Mansour's vice president.
In a first, Mansour also swore in a leading figure in Egyptian soccer as sports minister. Midfielder Taher Abu Zeid starred in Cairo's el-Ahly club and the national team in the 1980s. He was a member of the national squad that won the African Nations' Cup in 1986.
The Cabinet is to run the country during a transition period announced last week by Mansour. The plan includes the formation of panels to amend the Islamist-drafted constitution that was passed under Morsi, then elections for a new parliament and president early next year.
After the swearing-in ceremony, the Cabinet held its first meeting and set the government's priorities as reviving the economy, bolstering public security and improving services, according to a palace statement.
El-Beblawy and his team face the formidable task of showing they are more efficient and resourceful than their predecessors. Egypt's economy has been worsening in the past two years with flight of capital and investors, slumping tourism and high unemployment among its 90 million people.
A $12 billion aid package from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates should help, but harsh reforms - such as lifting or gradually phasing out fuel subsidies - are still needed to put the economy on solid ground.
The new government will also have to tread carefully as it begins to deal with almost-daily street protests and violence by Morsi supporters if it is to revive the vital tourism industry and lure back investors.
Morsi's supporters are holding sit-ins in cities around the country, including two in Cairo. They accuse the military of carrying out a coup that has destroyed Egypt's democracy.
Riots broke out overnight with police firing volleys of tear gas at protesters, who burned tires, threw rocks and blocked traffic on a main road running through the heart of the capital. The Brotherhood said police used birdshot and live ammunition.
At least seven people were killed and 261 injured in the clashes in four different sites in Cairo, according to Khaled el-Khateeb, the head of the Health Ministry's emergency and intensive care department. Four of the seven were killed in fighting between residents and Morsi supporters staging a sit-in near Cairo's main university, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Egypt's state news agency said 17 policemen were injured and 401 people have been arrested.
Violence between Islamists and security forces on July 8 left another 54 people dead - most of them Morsi supporters.-
Tuesday's violence broke out a day after Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, the most senior U.S. official to visit Egypt since Morsi's ouster, concluded talks with Mansour, el-Beblawi and el-Sissi in which he called for the Brotherhood to be included in the political process.
Burns also spoke by telephone with a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters. Ventrell would not identify the Brotherhood representative or give details on the call.
The military has always been in control in Egypt.
Foreign policy decisions are not so black and white.
engineer and JPB,
Foreign policy decisions are not so black and white. There are at least 50 shades of gray.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Foreign_Policy/TruthBehindUSForeignPol.html
The Truth Behind US Foreign Policy
Violence for Power and Profit
by Henry Rosemont, Jr.
Resist newsletter, July / August 1999
...
A closer examination of those policies, however, going back to the end of World War II and even before, reveals a very definite and consistent pattern, but one that is painful for American citizens to reflect upon deeply because of the brutalities committed in our names.
The US has intervened well over 100 times in the internal affairs of other nation states since 1945. The rhetoric has been that we have done so largely to preserve or restore freedom and democracy, or for purely humanitarian reasons. The reality has been that our policies have not done so, but on the contrary, have been consistently designed and implemented to further the interests of US (now largely transnational) corporations, and the elites both at home and abroad who profit from corporate depredations. These policies- often illegal, always unjust-have been enormously successful, so long as we ignore the incalculable suffering endured by tens of millions of innocent peoples the world over as the price paid for "success."
Results of Intervention
Lest this claim be dismissed at the outset as too strong, attempt the following: from among our 100-plus interventions, try to find one in which the great majority of the people in the affected states were not far worse off after than before the intervention. Where have freedom and democracy been strengthened rather than stifled? Where have the "humanitarian" efforts been successful?
You need to look at events leading up to this.
Quote:Foreign policy decisions are not so black and white.
That's exactly what they are when it comes to the US, JW.
This bias of yours is the reason that it is impossible to have a normal discussion with you, JTT.
The Truth Behind US Foreign Policy
Violence for Power and Profit
by Henry Rosemont, Jr.
Resist newsletter, July / August 1999
...
When looked at only superficially, US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has seemed directionless at best, inconsistent at the worst. Why do we celebrate the Chinese government one moment, berate it the next? Why did we intervene in Somalia, but not Rwanda? Why Panama but not Colombia, Iraq but not Iran, Kosovo but not Kurdistan? A closer examination of those policies, however, going back to the end of World War II and even before, reveals a very definite and consistent pattern, but one that is painful for American citizens to reflect upon deeply because of the brutalities committed in our names.
The US has intervened well over 100 times in the internal affairs of other nation states since 1945. The rhetoric has been that we have done so largely to preserve or restore freedom and democracy, or for purely humanitarian reasons. The reality has been that our policies have not done so, but on the contrary, have been consistently designed and implemented to further the interests of US (now largely transnational) corporations, and the elites both at home and abroad who profit from corporate depredations. These policies- often illegal, always unjust-have been enormously successful, so long as we ignore the incalculable suffering endured by tens of millions of innocent peoples the world over as the price paid for "success."
Results of Intervention
Lest this claim be dismissed at the outset as too strong, attempt the following: from among our 100-plus interventions, try to find one in which the great majority of the people in the affected states were not far worse off after than before the intervention. Where have freedom and democracy been strengthened rather than stifled? Where have the "humanitarian" efforts been successful?
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Foreign_Policy/TruthBehindUSForeignPol.html
Egypt forms committee to amend constitution
(The Associated Press, July 20, 2013)
CAIRO — Egypt's interim president selected a team of legal experts Saturday to rewrite controversial portions of the Islamist-drafted constitution, as the military-backed leadership moved quickly to try to capitalize on the coup that ousted the country's first freely elected leader.
While supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi still protest in the streets, Egypt's new prime minister called for consensus and participation of all political groups. But Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group officially has refused to negotiate with the new government, saying they are open for talks only after he is reinstated.
The persistent protest and clashes, however, continue to rock hope for stability in the country.
Moves to amend the constitution are the latest push by the country's new leadership to move ahead with a military-backed timetable for a return to democratic rule to Egypt. The drafting of Egypt's constitution was one of the most divisive issues that came to characterize Morsi's first and only year in office.
In his decree Saturday, interim President Adly Mansour appointed the 10-member committee of judges and law professors that will propose amendments to the constitution. They have 30 days to suggest amendments. A second committee, comprised of 50 public figures including politicians, unionists and religious figures, then will have 60 days to review those amendments.
After that, citizens will vote on the proposed amendments in a referendum, according to the military-backed timetable. Parliamentary elections are to follow.
In an interview with Egyptian state television aired Saturday night, Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said it is vital that Islamists take part in the political process, though none of Morsi's supporters are in the new Cabinet he leads.
"We cannot write a constitution when the country is divided. The country needs consensus," he said. "It is important we return to a country of laws."
The Brotherhood say the only legitimate constitution is the one approved in a nationwide vote and ratified by Morsi in December. The military suspended the constitution after the July 3 coup.
El-Beblawi also denied that the country's army chief, Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, was pulling the strings from behind the scenes, saying he only spoke to the interim president regarding the formation of Cabinet.
Liberals twice walked out of committees drafting the constitution under Morsi, complaining that the Brotherhood and its allies dominated the process and stifled their suggestions.
Protests over the constitution and the direction of the country turned deadly after Morsi issued temporary decrees in late November that put himself and the drafting committee above judicial oversight. The charter was then finalized in a rushed overnight session and passed in a referendum.
Unlike the previous drafting committee under Morsi, at least 20 percent of the second committee is to be represented by young Egyptians who helped galvanize street movements and women.
Mohammed Abdel-Aziz, a leading figure in the Tamarod petition drive that mobilized the massive street protests that led to Morsi's ouster, said his group has launched a new initiative to collect suggestions from Egyptians on the constitution.
"We want to reach a constitution that is representative of the people's will," Abdel-Aziz told The Associated Press. He declined to comment on which articles the group wants amended.
Meanwhile Saturday, a security official said unidentified assailants threw a bomb at a police station in the governorate of Ismailiya, between Cairo and the volatile northern region of the Sinai Peninsula. Part of the building and a police vehicle were damaged, but no injuries were reported, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
Clashes between protesters and security forces have erupted into violence several times since Morsi's ouster, killing more than 60 people. The most recent incident occurred Friday night in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura when unidentified assailants opened fire at a Brotherhood-led march, sparking a melee that killed three female protesters, authorities said.
The Brotherhood said two were killed by gunshot and one died after suffocating on tear gas. Medical officials said the protesters' bodies were examined Saturday.
The prime minister and Vice President Mohammed ElBaradei condemned the incident in separate posts on Twitter.
The Brotherhood said the killings "shed light on the bloody nature of dictatorship and the police state under a military coup."
Authorities are clamping down on the group, with eight top Islamist figures are under arrest. Prosecutors issued another arrest warrant Saturday for the Brotherhood's top figure, Mohammed Badie, and four others. The latest warrants accused them of inciting violence with police that led to the deaths of seven pro-Morsi supporters in Cairo this week.
Morsi has been held incommunicado at an undisclosed military facility since his ouster. He has not been charged with any crime.
The Brotherhood's television channel and others sympathetic to the group have been taken off the air. On Saturday, security officials said that police raided the Iranian Alalam TV station and arrested its manager. Authorities said the station did not have the proper permits to operate in Egypt. An employee at the station told BBC Arabic that they had applied for permits, but, as has happened with other stations in the past, authorities delayed issuing them licenses to operate.
Rights groups have criticized the clampdown and Morsi's detention, as well as the deaths of dozens of protesters in recent weeks.
In another sign of the interim government's drive to move on with the transition, Jordan's King Abdullah met with the country's president, army chief and other top figures Saturday in the first visit by a head of state to Cairo since the coup. The king's visit highlighted his support of the coup that ousted the Brotherhood from power.
Additionally, Egypt's new foreign minister Nabil Fahmy said Egypt continues to support the Syrian uprising but has no intention of supporting a jihad — or holy war — in the nation. Fahmy said that "everything will be re-evaluated" regarding the country's stance toward Syria. Morsi had severed diplomatic ties with Damascus just weeks before his ouster.
Fahmy also said Cairo is also "seriously assessing" its relations with the Syrian regime's key regional backer Iran. Morsi moved to improve diplomatic ties with Tehran.
"Lest this claim be dismissed at the outset as too strong, attempt the following: from among our [US's] 100-plus interventions, try to find one in which the great majority of the people in the affected states were not far worse off after than before the intervention. Where have freedom and democracy been strengthened rather than stifled? Where have the "humanitarian" efforts been successful?"
Ibid
CAIRO, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Egypt's interim vice president, Mohamed ElBaradei, resigned on Wednesday after the security forces violently broke up protest camps set up by supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Mursi.
In a resignation letter to Interim President Adly Mansour, ElBaradei said that "the beneficiaries of what happened today are those who call for violence, terrorism and the most extreme groups".
"As you know, I saw that there were peaceful ways to end this clash in society, there were proposed and acceptable solutions for beginnings that would take us to national consensus," he wrote.
"It has become difficult for me to continue bearing responsibility for decisions that I do not agree with and whose consequences I fear. I cannot bear the responsibility for one drop of blood."
