The Working Group on Egypt sent President Obama a letter on September 24th, roundly criticizing him for meeting with Egyptian President, El-Sissi, on the sides of UNGA. While Coptic Solidarity shares concerns regarding limitations on NGOs, free-speech, and religious minorities, the overall hypocrisy of the letter was astounding.
The letter states “This meeting will be understood around the world, and in Egypt, as a formal blessing for a leader who carried out a military coup against an elected government, who has overseen numerous acts of brutality against his own people, who gained his present office in an election held in an environment deemed to be undemocratic by international observers, and who has pursued a relentless course of domestic repression and persecution of dissent.”
The June 30, 2013 public demonstration, indeed popular uprising, that ousted Morsi is the largest known demonstration in history and was far more “democratic” than the tyranny by which Morsi was ruling. There is no mention of Morsi’s usurping of powers and the systematic manner in which he moved to impose Sharia. There is no mention either of the persecution of minorities such as the brutal beating resulting in the death of 3 Shia Muslim men just prior to his ousting. Given the Obama administration’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership and slow acceptance of the new order brought by the revolution, it is clear that this administration would only meet with El-Sissi out of necessity to discuss the far more urgent national security issues facing US, Egypt and the entire region. It is incredibly short-sighted to condemn the US President for meeting with one of America’s key allies in the region who is most capable and willing to partner in many areas including stopping the advance of ISIS. If El-Sissi does not succeed in stabilizing Egypt, the entire region will become engulfed in much worse turmoil. If the members of the Working Group really care about human rights abuses, what would follow should Egypt succumb to terrorism makes the crack-down on Muslim Brotherhood supporters pale in comparison.
The working group vacuously asserts that ‘violence and terrorism in Egypt has increased since the July 2013 coup.’ Well yes it has…because the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power and immediately went on a rampage to punish Egyptians. Copts paid a heavy price in the burning and destruction of at least 80 Churches and institutions, and hundreds of Christian –owned businesses and homes. These attacks were all committed by the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters. The attacks are not a result of El-Sissi but rather of the supremacist and revengeful mindset of those who were ousted by the People. It is also important to add that Morsi was making efforts in every branch of government to entrench the Muslim Brotherhood’s power and make it impossible to remove them democratically. If the people did not rise up in protest and act when they did, then Egypt would still be ruled by a supremacist, totalitarian ideology, and ethnic, religious, and political minorities would all be persecuted.
Yet another asinine accusation made by the Working Group is that “The post-coup crackdown has left more than 2000 protesters dead—including more than 1000 killed deliberately and systematically on a single day in August 2013, rivaling the Tiananmen massacre.”
The Working Group presents this (exaggerated) data as if the protestors were peaceful and unarmed. Yet, there was ample documentation that these protesters, many of them brandishing the black flags of al-Qaeda (and now of ISIL!) and threatening of a bloodbath should they be disbanded, were kidnapping, raping, and perhaps killing El-Sissi supporters. It is a specious effort to compare armed Muslim Brotherhood supporters to those innocents murdered in Tiananmen. In addition to their violence against other Egyptian citizens these MB protestors made the community unsafe for residents and impeded business in the area. They were given ample warning to disband and refused to do so.
One of the final paragraphs of the letter states "…your meeting with al-Sisi will be understood, and indeed rightly understood, as a sign to Egyptians that the United States has given its blessing to the ongoing massive campaign of repression and human rights abuses."
It is impossible to pass on the irony of this claim. The United States turned a blind eye to the atrocities of Morsi’s regime and was one of its greatest supporters to the extent that US Ambassador Ann Patterson urged Copts to not join in the protests against Morsi. Many Egyptians held signs during those June protests exposing Obama and Patterson’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and how that equated to a support for terrorism in Egypt. The result has been that many Egyptians would – sadly – prefer some temporary curtailing of civil rights (regardless of whether they are all proper and necessary) to the catastrophic consequences of a collapse in public order and to the duplicitous nature of the US administration.
In sum, this statement demonstrates how detached the Egypt Working Group is with the realities and perspective of the majority of Egyptians. It is difficult to grasp how these well-educated, well-informed and influential individuals can be so biased in their judgments.
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LV-AG/CS