U.S. and Egypt getting back on familiar footing
Despite U.S. concerns about Egypt’s crackdown on dissent, Kerry’s visit seals a return to an old partnership.Kerry seeks repair of frayed Egypt ties
The United States has recently closed ranks with Egypt’s authorities. All but about $78 million of suspended U.S. aid has been restored, despite concerns about mass death sentences for Muslim Brotherhood and other political opponents, the jailing of journalists and the narrowing of free speech under the military-backed leadership that assumed power after a July coup.
Kerry was the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet with President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, the former army chief who easily won election in May. Although he represents a return to elected rule, as the United States had urged, his military ties and crackdown on opponents and others undercut his democratic credentials.
Kerry was urging Sissi and Foreign Minister Sameh Hassan Shoukry to rein in judicial and free speech abuses, U.S. officials said. Kerry met with a representative of an election monitoring group, advocates for women’s rights and mild critics of the government. The group contained none of the fiercest critics or prominent organizations pushing for legal and human rights protections in Egypt, as well as prisoner rights.
Egypt faces simultaneous economic and security crises, with a limping economy, sluggish tourism, high unemployment and the spread of militancy in the Sinai Peninsula, which is flush with heavy weaponry smuggled easily from Libya.
Kerry was arguing that a more politically inclusive and predictable government will stabilize Egypt, soothe international investment fears and attract vital tourism.
Earlier this month, President Obama called Sissi to congratulate him on his election, signaling an end to a period of estrangement and frustration on both sides that dated to the 2011 ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, and the political confusion and dysfunction of the Islamist-backed government that followed.
The army ousted President Mohamed Morsi in a coup in July, and the former Muslim Brotherhood leader remains jailed and largely incommunicado. Hundreds have died in street protests and other violence related to the upheaval.
Analysts and opponents of Sissi contend that his government is throttling opposition even more harshly than Mubarak, who had held power for decades, did. The Muslim Brotherhood political movement was banned under Mubarak and is now banned again. The United States, although never an ally of the movement, is pushing Sissi to ease up on what is widely seen as an attempt to extinguish the group as a meaningful political force.
“We have lots of concerns about a range of issues that are related to the political environment, such as the demonstrations law, the imprisonment of journalists and secular activists, the lack of space in general for dissent, the mass trials and death sentences,” said a senior State Department official traveling with Kerry.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to outline Kerry’s goals ahead of his visit, said there “a few flickering signs of positive movement” from Egypt, including the release last week of an Al Jazeera journalist. There are also encouraging signals that the government will begin to address rampant sexual harassment and sexual violence against women.
Egypt has chafed under the criticism from Washington and the brief suspension of some aid last year.
Egyptian officials in Washington have lobbied Congress, officials and opinion makers to argue that the country is better off and a better partner for the United States with the army back in a dominant role.
But Sissi is also assuming that the spat over money will be short-lived, Egyptian officials and analysts said.“I think that there has been some change in the American perception of what’s happening in Egypt,” said one high-ranking official at Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
U.S. lawmakers may not like Egypt’s political trajectory, in which democracy is taking a back seat to security concerns, he said. But they have no choice other than to accept Sissi as a partner.
Washington is “realizing that the only way to preserve interests is to listen to the people of Egypt, not to ignore it — not to humiliate them and their choices by saying, ‘Morsi was elected,’ ” he said.
Egypt is banking on its strategic value as operator of the vital Suez Canal and enforcer of the 1979 U.S.-brokered peace treaty with Israel, as well as the staying power of a bilateral relationship that has seen billions of dollars in mostly military aid delivered by Washington every year for decades, analysts and Egyptian officials said.
The United States provides about $1.5 billion annually to Egypt, sent in chunks over the course of a year. The Obama administration has requested that $650 million in military aid be spent so far, of which $78 million remains on hold, the State Department said.
Egypt has traditionally been among the biggest recipients of U.S. assistance as a legacy of the 1979 treaty with Israel. Congress has attached new conditions to the aid this year, including requiring evidence that Egypt is maintaining its commitment to a strategic relationship with the United States and meeting its obligations under the peace treaty. Kerry determined in April that Egypt is doing so.
Since the July coup, the military-backed authorities have cast themselves as a leader in the campaign against the militancy, arresting and trying “terrorists” who they say seek to destroy the country. Rights groups have expressed concern that the term has come to stand in for all political opposition or alternative voices, including liberals, university students and journalists.
But Washington also shares Cairo’s desire to control a surge in extremist militancy, particularly in the Sinai, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.
In what appeared to be an attempt to put pressure on Washington, Egyptian officials and pro-government news media have in recent months amplified the hype over a potential Egypt-Russia arms deal, spurring speculation in Cairo that Russian arms could replace U.S. weapons if Washington continues the hold-up.
Both American and Russian analyst have said that’s unlikely — if only because Sissi’s government does not have the cash to pay for the shift.
Billions of dollars in aid from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have kept Sissi’s government afloat in the midst of the worsening economic crisis.
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