Omar Suleiman (1935 – 2012), the man who stood up to the Islamists, dies
Was it any surprise that the recent death of Omar Suleiman, the former vice president of Egypt and chief of the Egyptian Intelligence Service, should bring together thousands of Egyptians from all walks of life to bid him a last, poignant farewell last Sunday?
If anything, the funeral mirrored the huge divide which today splits Egypt between the proponents of Islamism and those who call for a secular State. Suleiman, who died at 77, had been a zealous patriot and the sworn enemy of Islamists; and it was in this capacity that secular Egyptians mourned his passing away. If the elections which brought in by some 51 per cent of the vote the Muslim Brother Mohamed Mursi as Egypt’s first Islamist president are anything togo by, seculars make up near half of Egyptians.
Military funeral
Suleiman died in the United States on Thursday due to complications from amyloidosis, a
disease that affects multiple organs including the heart and kidneys, three days after he had checked in for treatment at the Cleveland Clinic, a hospital statement said.
Suleiman’s body was flown to Egypt aboard a private jet early Saturday, before the afternoon funeral ceremony at Al Rashdan mosque.
President Mohamed Mursi, a member of Suleiman’s archenemy Muslim Brotherhood (MB), sent a representative to the funeral. The head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi who took over as interim leader when former president HosniMubarak stepped down in the wake of the 18-day revolution, headed the mourners. Current intelligence chief Murad Muwafi also attended.
Surrounded by dozens of military police and officers and thousands of spectators, a horse-drawn cart carried his casket, draped in the military flag, as a military band played Chopin’s Marche Funèbre.
Mourners surged forward to touch his casket to cries of Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest) and national slogans.
Born in July 1935, to a respectable family in the Upper Egyptian town of Qena some 600km south of Cairo, Suleiman graduated from Cairo’s military academy in 1955. He received military training in the then Soviet Union, and was for years a highly enigmatic figure both to theworld at large and at home in Egypt. For almost two decades, Suleiman ran the feared and powerful General Intelligence Service, wielding immense power that was used to crush dissent,
particularly from Islamist groups.
Bid for the presidency
Suleiman was the longtime right-hand man of Mubarak. A fierce opponent of Islamists who
accused him of overseeing ruthless torture during his long tenure as intelligence chief, Suleiman was appointed vice president during the last days of the revolution. Less than two weeks later, on 11 February 2011, he gave the brief televised address that announced Mubarak’s resignation.
After the revolution, Suleiman kept a low profile but emerged again from the shadows to put his name forward for the presidential election. He was disqualified on the grounds that he had failed to present the proper paperwork to stand. Several other candidates were also disqualified, among them the pivotal MB figure Khairat al-Shater.
Given Suleiman’s large following, his bid for the presidency threatened the chances of the Islamists who saw in it an attempt at reviving the old regime. The now dissolved Islamist-majority parliament rushed through legislation to bar him and other former senior Mubarak era
officials from the election. A court struck down the law as unconstitutional.
But his supporters, who chanted against Mursi and the MB during the funeral, saw him as a bulwark against Islamist control of the country.
Since it was highly unlikely that Suleiman would have missed the required paperwork had he been really interested in the presidency, rumours circulated then that he had been persuaded
by the military to nominate himself in order for them to evade any allegation of anti-Islamist partiality once Shater was disqualified. The Islamists had threatened violent unrest in that event, regardless that Shater was not eligible to run since he had received no official pardon for offences he had committed and for which he had partially served a prison sentence. When Suleiman was also disqualified, the Islamists were disarmed; they could not claim the disqualification of Shater was an anti-Islamist move. For anti-Islamists, Suleiman had saved the day.
“End of democracy”
Known for his nerve and solidity, Suleiman has a history of standing up to Islamist fundamentalists. After Hamas—the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood (MB)—won a sweeping majority in the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006. Suleiman was unafraid to announce his opinion: “I know these Brothers [MB] very well; they are brazen liars, and the only language
they use is violence.”
Suleiman was among the first to announce that Islamists had exploited the 2011 revolution to their own end. He said the Islamists had conquered Tahrir Square and were rallying against the regime aided by “outside forces”. He also disclosed that it was the MB who, during the early days of the revolution torched police stations and broke into prisons all over Egypt, setting the prisoners free. The move launched the security breakdown Egypt is to this day suffering from; at the time it was placed to the account of Mubarak and his Interior Minister Habib al-Adly.
According to journalist Mustafa Bakry, Suleiman declared that the era of democracy was over once the MB reached power. He declared he was in possession of a ‘black box’ for every one of them.
Gloating over his death
Suleiman’s unfailing hostility towards the Islamists made them publicly gloat over the news of his death.
The MB scholar Safwat Higazi blissfully announced that Suleiman’s soul must now rot in Hell, and that no prayers should be said for the repose of his soul.
When Mursi refrained from attending Suleiman’s funeral, the Islamist former MP Hilmy al-Gazzar explained it off with: “There is a history of animosity between Mursi and Suleiman; the President is free to take a personal stance.”
On his Twitter account, Essam al-Erian, head of the MB’s Freedom and Justice Party, wrote that Suleiman’s death marked the beginning of the end for Islam’s enemies who will disappear one after the other.
The flagrant Islamist antagonism led Sheikh Alaa’ Eddin Madi Abul-Azayem, head of the Sufi Azmi sect, to accuse the MB of having assassinated Suleiman in complicity with the US. The allegation was widely propagated during Suleiman’s funeral by his mourners, who even warned Field Marshall Tantawi of meeting the same fate.
The black box
Today, as an inundation of facts uncover about the role of the Islamists since, during, and even prior to the January 2011 revolution, many liberals and seculars are starting to appreciate Suleiman’s early foresight. They are now confessing he was a man of sharp and clear vision. They now embrace his view of the Islamists. Yet, as far as the details are concerned, many are asking whether his black box has been forever buried with him.
WATANI International
29 July 2012