WATANI International
8 August 2010
Throughout last month, Egyptian authorities have been successively releasing groups of Bedouin tribesmen who had been detained after bombings in Sinai resorts in 2004 and 2006. The move came in the wake of a meeting between Interior Minister Habib al-Adli and Bedouin elders to ease tensions in the area. Adli promised to release only those with no security record or charges of crimes. So far, some 181 Bedouins have been released out of a total of some 420 detainees.
Reducing tension
Among those released was Yahya Abu Naseera, an activist who helped found the opposition party Karama and who was imprisoned in 2008; and Mosaad Abu-Fagr, another activist who was detained in 2007 and who had set up the Wedna Nieesh (We wish to live) blog which demands the rights of the Bedouin. Rights activists had long demanded the release of the 41-year-old Abu-Fagr who had been detained under no specific charge and who was placed in a criminal prison. His release was highly applauded by all, and was seen as a goodwill gesture by the government. Bedouin elders demand that the government should investigate several policemen they say were involved in the killing of three tribesmen in 2007.
The government has been seeking to reduce tension in the Sinai Peninsula, where Bedouin have complained of mistreatment and sporadically clashed with security forces.
While Egyptian authorities accuse the Bedouin of weapon and drug smuggling between Sinai and both Israel and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, the Bedouin complain of neglect by the government and say they do not see the benefits from the booming tourist trade in Sinai. They say tough conditions have led some to resort to smuggling and other criminal activities. But many on the Egyptian street see the smuggling activity as long-standing.
For its part, the Investment Ministry has announced a billion dollar plan to invest in Sinai, including a railway line from Port Said, and a tunnel to run under the Suez Canal at Ismailiya. The oil ministry recently declared it was setting up an oil services company in Sinai, and that half the staff would be hired locally.
Out-of-law activities
The relative isolation of Sinai made it fertile ground for many out-of-law activities over the years. Some were typical, such as cultivating and trafficking drugs, while others catered to modern-day problems such as the smuggling of Africans or Russians into Israel. The Bedouin are natural-born experts of all the desert trails in their homeland, and it was easy for them to conduct such operations. Yet a recent operation which was thwarted by the police exposed the inhumane conditions under which human trafficking is conducted; several Africans were found crammed inside a tank truck, near suffocation. They had their children with them, and the tank also contained weapons.
Sinai has been the scene of all the wars between Egypt and Israel during the last five decades. As such, it literally swims over a sea of weapons and war debris. The Bedouin have become expert at reusing such material, especially explosives. It was these explosives that were used in the terrorist attacks against tourist resorts in Sinai in 2004 and 2006, and that pointed accusing fingers to the tribesmen. Police investigations proved the explosives, preparations, and training for the terrorist attacks had all been done in Sinai which had for some time hosted armed, Qaeda-like Palestinian movements.
In the right direction
Since the majority of the tribesmen detained had been held on charges of cultivating or trafficking drugs, possessing unlicensed weapons, terrorist activities, or human trafficking between Egypt and Israel, the recent modification in the emergency law did not apply to them. The emergency law was extended for two more years last May, but only to be applied in cases of terrorism and drug crimes. With the Sinai detainees thus not eligible for release under the new law, tensions ran high in Sinai; the Bedouins blocked public roads and threatened to blow up the natural gas pipelines that go through Sinai to Israel and Jordan.
Complicating the problem was that many tribesmen who had been indicted in absentia for various crimes had fled into the Sinai desert where it was impossible for them to get caught.
The recent move on the part of the government to seek to dissipate the tension with the Bedouins was thus seen by many observers as a step in the right direction. Experts on Bedouin affairs unanimously agree that problems can best be solved in cooperation with, and in full respect to the tribe elders. It was thus that, through the joint efforts of local politicians, the governors, the security officials and the tribe elders, the last agreement was concluded between the government and the Bedouins. The released detainees are handed over to the elders who have taken it upon themselves to shoulder the responsibility of guaranteeing their good behaviour in the future. Otherwise, a violator stands to bear the worst possible penalty in the Bedouin community, that of tashmees, literally ‘sunning’; that is being left out ‘in the hot sun’, alone, bereft of any protection or support by his tribe.