Counterterrorism Trumps Human Rights

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
 
As turbulent a country as ever, in the last six years Egypt has seen an uprising topple a dictator, the election of a Muslim Brotherhood leader to power, and finally a coup that brought a former general into office.

When Barack Obama came to Washington, he promised a “reboot” in relations with Cairo. But the 2011 Tahrir Square Arab Spring that ousted Hosni Mubarak, the election of the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi in 2012, and then the repression that followed in 2013 under Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, cooled relations.

Obama refused to invite al-Sisi to Washington because of concerns about human rights violations and temporarily suspended the delivery of major weapons systems to Egypt after its security forces killed more than 800 protesters in Cairo on just one day on Aug. 14, 2013.

Since then, human rights abuses, including the torture and forced disappearances of critics and opponents, have occured. Some 41,000 people have been arrested.

But a new American president has made it clear that, for him, the fight against Islamic terrorism and security cooperation will take precedence over human right concerns.

The arrival of Egypt’s leader at the White House April 3 underscored the reversal of U.S. policy. As the two presidents faced reporters in the Oval Office, Donald Trump was effusive in his praise of al-Sisi, pledging close cooperation with him on counterterrorism operations and commending his leadership.

Despite lobbying by Coptic Americans, the concerns of Egypt’s Christian Coptic community also got short shrift, though it has been subjected to many terrorist attacks of late, including the suicide bombing of two churches by the Islamic State, killing 48 people, just days after al-Sisi’s visit.

In the aftermath, al-Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency as well as the formation of a supreme council to fight terrorism and extremism in Egypt.

Egypt has been battling IS-affiliated terrorists in the Sinai in recent months and is making this the basis for asking for an increased its share of military aid. This has often meant a push to acquire larger items such as F-16 fighter jets and M1A1 tanks, though these would be of little use there.

 “The counter-terrorism campaign in the Sinai and in Egypt proper has not achieved its objectives, due largely to harsh methods, poor intelligence and the drivers of discontent intensifying,” according to Robert Springborg, an expert on Egypt’s military at Kings College London. “New military equipment will not impact these shortcomings.”

Cairo has also demanded that Western countries take a tougher stance against the Muslim Brotherhood. It wants the United States to designate it as a terrorist organization, something already done by a number of Arab states as well as Russia.

The Egyptian president also met with representatives of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund while in Washington. Egypt has been negotiating billions of dollars in aid to help its ailing economy.

In March, the government cut subsidies for bread, a move mandated by the IMF. As prices rose, bread riots hit a number of major cities. The country’s currency has also been in free fall.

There is anger at the Egyptian military establishment, which controls large chunks of the economy, and has escaped relatively unscathed amid Egypt’s fiscal troubles.

The bottom line is that al-Sisi got what he wanted simply by appearing with Trump. The White House has legitimated his regime. The liberal foreign policy establishment isn’t happy with this turn of events.

An official visit to Washington  by Egypt’s leader “as tens of thousands of Egyptians rot in jail” is “a strange way to build a stable strategic relationship,” Sarah Margon, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, declared in a statement on the eve of the visit.