The Wall Street Journal-20080116-Politics -amp- Economics- Egypt Reform Advocates Criticize Bush
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Politics & Economics: Egypt Reform Advocates Criticize Bush
CAIRO, Egypt -- President Bush arrives in Egypt today on a Mideast tour in which he has called for political and social change in the region. But democracy advocates here say they have lost faith in Mr. Bush's willingness to promote their cause.
"I have no hope that this visit will result in any progress when it comes to democratization," says Hisham Kassem, an Egyptian human- rights and democracy advocate.
Not so long ago, Mr. Kassem was more optimistic. Mr. Bush had trumpeted the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and popular protests in Lebanon -- which ended Syrian occupation of Lebanon -- as hopeful signs that democracy might one day flourish across the region. But that talk faded as political progress in Baghdad and Beirut faltered. In Iraq, an insurgency and deep sectarian divides have hobbled the government. A bitter political feud among Lebanese politicians has dimmed hopes of progress in that country.
U.S. officials also talked up Egypt, a staunch ally, as a key to spreading democracy across the region. But after a period that saw the introduction of new freedoms, the Egyptian government has been accused of backpedaling.
Now, Mr. Kassem and other advocates for change say Washington's push for democracy across the region is all but dead. And many feel that the lack of meaningful changes illustrates how Mr. Bush's regionwide call for democracy has stalled amid setbacks in Iraq, the new ascendancy of Iran and Mr. Bush's 11th-hour focus on pushing Israeli- Palestinian diplomacy.
"This is an issue that has been completely closed," says human- rights activist Bahey eldin Hassan.
The mood here wasn't always so bleak. In June 2005, Messrs. Kassem and Hassan, along with other reform advocates, sat at a Cairo hotel with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to talk democracy.
Hopes were high. A new reform movement, Kifaya, or "Enough," was breaking political taboos, calling for the end of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's rule. The country was preparing for its first multiple-candidate presidential election. Opposition and independent newspapers were pushing the envelope of acceptable criticism.
"The year 2005 was the best year my generation has seen," says Mr. Kassem, the 48-year-old former publisher of the independent newspaper Al Masry Al Youm. "I am openly saying that without the [U.S.] pressure, there was no way that this progress would have happened."
Not all democracy activists here give as much credit to the U.S., and many say they reject American interference in Egypt's affairs. But others agree that Washington's early push helped create an atmosphere more tolerant of dissent.
Now, Mr. Kassem says he is "furious" at what he sees as the "U-turn" in American policy, accusing Washington of easing its pressure on governments to democratize.
Opposition leader Ayman Nour, who was a distant second to Mr. Mubarak in Egypt's 2005 presidential election, remains in prison on forgery charges that his supporters say are politically motivated. Last year, many members of the Muslim Brotherhood -- an Islamist group and the government's main political opponent -- were arrested. Security forces have cracked down on a number of protests calling for change.
Then last September, an Egyptian court sentenced the editors of four newspapers to a year in prison for defaming Mr. Mubarak and other members of his ruling party. The sentence has been appealed. One of the editors was Ibrahim Essa, who faces separate charges on allegations of spreading rumors about the health of the 79-year-old president.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki says that, despite some issues, the media in Egypt exercise wide freedoms and freely criticize the president. He says Egyptian society is opening up at its own pace, not according to the vision of any outside party. As for the Brotherhood: "It's a banned group. . . . The government will not let them get their way," he says.
Many in the region see the 2006 Palestinian election that brought the militant group Hamas to power as a turning point in the U.S. administration's democracy strategy. Last summer, Hamas violently overran Gaza, effectively splitting the Palestinian territories into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the West Bank, controlled politically by the western-leaning Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Critics say that Washington has chosen traditional alliances with friendly but autocratic Arab regimes over democratic reforms that could give more power to other Islamist groups.
U.S. officials deny that the administration's resolve to promote democracy has wavered. In a speech in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, Mr. Bush touted anew the region's democracy drive. He ticked off signs of progress while criticizing "setbacks," a dig interpreted as aimed in part at Egypt. "You cannot build trust when you hold an election where opposition candidates find themselves harassed or in prison," Mr. Bush said. "You cannot expect people to believe in the promise of a better future when they are jailed for peacefully petitioning their government."
In September, Mr. Kassem was honored by the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, and he met Mr. Bush. By then he had already started to worry that U.S. pressure on the democracy front was easing. Those worries were confirmed, he said, in meetings he had in Washington.
Recounting details of the meeting with Mr. Bush, Mr. Kassem wrote in a newspaper article at home: "Egypt was the least of Bush's interests."
During the same visit, Mr. Kassem started lining up contacts to meet with both the Republican and Democrat presidential candidates, hopeful he might be able to more effectively lobby the next administration. He says he wants to persuade the candidates to adopt the cause of Mideast civil liberties as part of their campaigns.
He also hopes to raise public awareness by talking to more U.S. think tanks and the media, and says he would like to see a new administration exert the sort of pressure Mr. Bush did earlier in his term, both privately and publicly.
"It's in the interest of the American people to have good governance [in the Mideast.] It's a global security issue," he says.
