Month: September 2011
Stand up Egyptian!
Today’s demonstration in Cairo promises to be important. Dubbed “correcting the path,” it aims to convince the army to schedule elections (most demonstrators might prefer after the constitution is written) and to revise the proposed electoral law, which favors the better organized National Democratic Party (Mubarak’s party) and the Muslim Brotherhood. These are concerns the more conservative Islamists do not share, so it will be interesting to see what turnout will be. Tuesday’s confrontation between police and football fans does not bode well. Nor do clashes outside the police academy where Hosni Mubarak is being tried.
Lower ranking officers having recanted their previous depositions to the effect that live ammunition was used on demonstrators, the prosecutors have called the top generals, including Supreme Council of the Armed Forces chair Tantawi. He is expected to appear in court Sunday.
I’ll be trying to join the demonstrators this afternoon and will report on the event. In the meanwhile, here is a take from Mohamed el Deeb, “Stand Up Egyptian”:
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Rebuilding Libya
Ian Ramsey-North, a recent Haverford graduate in poli sci (old school tie binds!), reports on yesterday’s event at the National Press Club, “Rebuilding Libya: A Status Report on the Humanitarian Situation on the Ground.”
Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and International Relief and Development, the discussion concerned recent political, military, diplomatic and humanitarian developments in Libya and the process of stabilization and reconstruction moving forward. The event began with a keynote address by Gene Cretz, US Ambassador to Libya, and continued with a panel discussion between Mark Ward, Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at USAID, and Travis Gartner, Director of Community Stabilization, IRD.
Gene Cretz began by recounting the series of summits, contact group meetings, and international ministerial conferences that facilitated the international community’s increasing confidence in the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC). These culminated in the most recent meeting last week in Paris, following the defeat of Qaddafi’s forces, which was marked by a sense of pride in the international community, TNC and the Libyan people. At the same time, participants were aware of the continuing threat posed by Qaddafi and the myriad challenges presented by Libya’s transition from autocratic rule to democratic governance.
The international community used the Paris meeting to call on:
- All nations to recognize the TNC.
- Meeting participants to unfreeze Libyan assets through the U.N.
- The TNC to honor its stated commitment to human rights, the proper treatment of prisoners and unification of Libya.
For their part, representatives of the TNC:
- Gave moving thanks to the international community.
- Restated their intention to respect human rights and the rights of prisoners.
- Stated that they do not need to be told what to do with respect to unifying their country.
- Claimed they have a clear sense of purpose and understand the problems they must confront.
- Emphasized that they will handle unfrozen funds and humanitarian assistance in a transparent and accountable manner, in accordance with international standards.
Cretz went on to stress that despite the success of the TNC, the NATO mission to protect civilians will continue. On the diplomatic front, efforts will continue to welcome Libya back into community of nations. The TNC will relocate to Tripoli and assume responsibility for national security and the humanitarian needs of the Libyan people “writ large.”
That said, the challenges facing Libya are considerable:
- The TNC must create a new country, not re-create pre-war Libya:
- Internal divisions are deep; Qaddafi took “divide and conquer” to unprecedented heights.
- New government and civil society institutions are needed.
- Previous contracts will be honored, but a process of review and rationalization will be necessary to assess which are really needed.
- The TNC is committed to a democracy:
- Libyans have a sense of what democracy is.
- Democratic practices and sentiments were evident from the early days of rebellion.
While all reconstruction efforts will be Libyan-led, the international community will remain engaged and support TNC efforts, as needed:
- Ian Martin is leading a UN assessment team on the ground right now.
- TNC and US State Department teams have already worked together on post-conflict planning efforts, filling in gaps in each other’s work.
- TNC is interested in training, expertise, and capacity-building, not massive funding handouts.
This process will be Libyan-led. The international community and America can be proud of the role it played in this and can look forward to a continuing role providing support, on Libyan terms.
Mark Ward emphasized that the situation in Libya has not been and is not today a humanitarian crisis. This is due to the exceptional coordination of humanitarian assistance by the Libyan people. The international community played a supporting role in this effort.
After assessing, USAID dispatched a DART to Benghazi. Medical needs were paramount so USAID’s primary focus was on stocking hospitals, medical clinics, and providing sanitation and hygiene kits to internally displaced persons. It also provided $15M in food assistance through the World Food Program and played a role in the evacuation and repatriation of migrants in Libya. NGO’s are now on the ground in Tripoli, monitoring the situation and preparing to meet any emerging humanitarian needs. In addition, the TNC has proved responsive to humanitarian needs, dispatching its own engineers to resolve a drinking water shortage in Tripoli.
The US role in Libya is now changing from one of humanitarian assistance to stabilization operations, including training for civil society, governance, and media. The TNC is particularly interested in capacity-building for transitional justice mechanisms and messaging/media relations.
Ward concluded by relating his own experience at the recent Paris meeting. It was partiucularly notable that in a donor meeting, a TNC official thanked the international community for freeing frozen assets and then clearly stated that Libya does not want the international community’s money, it only wants its expertise.
Travis Gartner related some of his own experiences working with IRD to provide humanitarian assistance early in the Libyan civil war. He reiterated Libyans’ incredible drive for self-sufficiency, noting that IRD was able to implement large projects in Libya with only one expatriate employee, 3-4 paid staff members, and a large number of community volunteers.
Future collaboration and assistance must incorporate community action, grass roots-level involvement, citizen involvement in decision-making, and capacity-building at the lowest possible level.
Looking forward, security is the most urgent priority:
- De-arming and de-militarizing militias
- Re-vamping military and police forces and getting them back on the streets as quickly as possible
- Addressing divisions
- East/West
- Civilian/Military
- Tribal
Other major concerns include:
- Perceptions of social exclusion
- Frustrated expectations for improvement
- Unemployment
Conclusion: All three participants emphasized a strong Libyan drive for self-sufficiency. Cretz focused on growing international confidence in the TNC during the last 6 months of international diplomatic activity. Ward and Gartner discussed Libyan management of humanitarian relief efforts during the conflict. All three emphasized that future international involvement will be determined by Libyans, with an emphasis on capacity-building and the provision of international expertise in order to fill gaps in Libyan capabilities.
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Land of civilization
That’s what the signs say on the way to Saqqara, where the step pyramid and the artefacts found within, now well-housed and displayed in the nearby museum, suggest that it was true 4500 years ago. But was it really true then, and is it true now?
The children working in the nearby carpet-making “schools” suggest that reality is far from today’s notion of a civilized ideal. Ditto the sad sack villages on the way to and from the ancient glories, where women cover, though full burkha is rare. Egypt is poor and its countryside traditional. It likely was not a lot different in ancient times. Who knows how badly the peasants (modern thinking seems to be that they were not slaves) who built the step pyramid lived? Certainly the ancient Egyptians did not live long: 40 years seems to have been the life expectancy in ancient Egypt, compared to 70 or so today.
Listening to the current (post-revolutionary, appointed) governors of Cairo and its Giza and Kalyoubia suburbs, modern Egypt seems to be facing sharply increased challenges–especially with poverty, jobs, water and sanitation–while resources are declining. Expectations, they said, are high, and needs expanding. The governor of Kalyoubia suggested that the only solution is to be found in captitalizing the intellectual capacity of the population, but the Wharton school graduate didn’t say how he would do it. The governor of Cairo, an engineer with a good degree and distinguished background, sounded less confident.
Laila Takla, a member of the commission preparing the new Egyptian constitution, offered a more upbeat perspective. People to people contacts of the sort promoted by Sister Cities International (the organization whose meeting I am attending in Cairo) promote mutual knowledge, understanding and respect, leading to a culture of peace and justice. This is what is needed, she said: acknowledgement of differences but recognition of equality. Her focus, as in her recent book, was on Christian/Muslim relations. A Christian herself, Takla noted the Muslim misunderstanding of the trinity as referring to more than one God, and Christian misunderstanding of jihad as referring to physical violence rather than inner struggle.
Takla counts herself an activist for citizen-to-citizen diplomacy. The question is whether people like her and those they inspire can help draw on that intellectual capital and contribute to solving the problems the governors face. We’d best hope the answer is yes, because that really would make for a land of civilization.
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“Get up stand up for your rights…
…don’t give up the fight.” That’s what Bob Marley was singing as my cab circled Tahrir square this afternoon to deposit me at the Egyptian Museum.
I’d just come from a conversation with a leader of the revolutionary opposition. He opened by warning me sternly that the West was exaggerating the importance of the Islamists in Egypt. They would gain no more than 3-5 million votes out of 25-30 million, which is the number that can be expected to vote this fall. The revolutionary opposition, trying hard to form a broad coalition to include moderate Islamists, hopes to win a majority, or at least a plurality.
The big challenge is the proposed electoral law, which divides Egypt into large constituencies in a system that is 50/50 open and closed list. This will favor larger, better known and better organized forces, like Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The revolutionary opposition favors a closed list system (with smaller constituencies or a proportional system–which or both wasn’t clear to me), with people allowed to vote from abroad. This would mean party lists fixed by party leaders with no voting for individuals. If they don’t get it, the opposition may boycott the elections, which my interlocutor thought would deny legitimacy to the results.
But most of all the revolutionary opposition wants the constitution written before elections. The September 9 demonstration is its remaining best opportunity to force this issue. It was a mistake to allow the army the role it has in the transition process, and now the opposition will have to live with its mistake. But it can still try to get the army to listen to the people–the only way to force it to do that is by returning to Tahrir.
Tahrir seemed to me mostly a construction site these days, which I guess is an apt metaphor for the situation the country is in. I prefer that to the metaphoric museum, whose extraordinary collection of treasures is so shabbily housed, labeled and cared for behind its pretty pink facade that it is hard not to wonder what their eventual fate will be.
I also had to wonder about the fate of the Camp David accords, which aren’t nearly as old and dusty as the artefacts from King Tut’s tomb. My interlocutor thought Camp David unfairly limited the development of Sinai, where Hamas is enjoying free rein and blowing up the gas pipeline that takes Egyptian gas to Israel. Islamist domination of the Sinai would be harmful. The opposition wants to know what secret agreements were made at Camp David and to exert full Egyptian sovereignty in Sinai.
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Egypt reading
I’m heading for Cairo today. Here are some of the more recent short pieces I’ve thought worth reading on the current situation:
1. Chatham House on the political process and how to keep it moving in a democratic direction.
2. RAND on the military’s efforts to maintain its status and power.
3. Sahar Aziz suggesting that the Egyptian military’s attacks on civil society are evidence of heightened civil society effectiveness.
4. Vali Nasr on the sharp decline in Egypt’s economy and what needs to be done about it in light of high unemployment, slow growth and a dramatic youth bulge.
5. Eric Trager on the Muslim Brotherhood’s discipline and unity.
6. Eric Trager and Dina Guirguis, “Egypt’s Revolution Brought to a Halt?” (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3390).
In the books category:
1. Max Rodenbeck, The City Victorious
2. Alaa al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building
3. Rosemary Mahoney, Down the Nile, which a friend just brought by
Her husband has also recommended The Egyptologist.
I’ll be glad to get other recommendations. There’s definitely a Western, secularist tilt to this list so far–I trust I’ll pick up more Egyptian perspective, including Islamist and military views, in Cairo. Starting to make appointments now. Recommendations for that are also welcome!
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Tempest in a tea pot
B92 reports that Pristina and Belgrade have reached agreement on customs stamps and documentation: they will read only “customs of Kosovo,” which is what they have read since independence in February 2008 and contain no symbols.
None of that is very important, however much the press and commentators have gotten excited about it. The key issue is who will be present at the border posts between Serbia and Kosovo to collect customs. Edita Tahiri, the Pristina negotiator, is reported to say it will be Kosovo police and customs, but even that doesn’t quite tell us what we need to know, since that was also the case before the seizure in late July of gates 1 and 31 by Pristina’s special police.
The issue is whether the Kosovo police and customs will actually be people loyal to the authorities in Pristina and therefore willing to enforce its laws and collect the customs duties. I guess we’ll have to wait and see whether that will be the case. We shouldn’t have to wait long. The Serbian negotiator, Boris Stefanovic, expects goods to start flowing across what he would consider the boundary line in 7 to 10 days.
What does this incident tell us about the prospects for Kosovo and Serbia to achieve “good neighborly relations,” which is the European Union’s requirement for all members? It bodes reasonably well, provided the EU keeps the pressure on, as it did in this case. German Foreign Minister Westerwelle and Chancellor Angela Merkel, in visits respectively to Pristina and Belgrade, made it clear that northern Kosovo needs to be reintegrated with the rest, without moving the northern border to accommodate ethnic differences.
While Belgrade still seems far from fulfilling the Westerwelle/Merkel expectation, it ducks the issue and relieves the pressure by resolving the customs issue expeditiously, even if on terms that seem manifestly favorable to Pristina. It is after all far more important for those in Belgrade who want to hold on to north Kosovo to maintain its extensive network of Serbian institutions in the north than to worry about how the customs stamps and documentation read.
If Pristina actually collects the customs duty, that from Belgrade’s perspective will also be a plus, as it will disincentivize the illegal, tax-free trade that has deprived not only Pristina but also Belgrade of revenue. So what we’ve got here is what most negotiators would consider a “win-win” solution, even if the tempest was in a tea pot.
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