Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak, born in 1928, military leader and president of
Egypt (1981- ). He was born in Kafr-al Meselha, the son of an
inspector of the Ministry of Justice. Mubarak was educated at
Egypt's national Military Academy and Air Force Academy and
at the Frunze General Staff Academy in Moscow. Under
Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat, Mubarak served in a
number of military posts, including deputy minister of war from
1972 to 1975; in 1975, he became vice president. After Sadat
was assassinated, on October 6, 1981, Mubarak became
president. He instituted a vigorous economic recovery program;
remained committed to the peace treaty with Israel (signed in
1979); mended relations with other Arab states, which were
damaged after Egypt's peace with Israel; and initiated a policy
he called “positive neutrality” toward the great powers. He was
reelected when his National Democratic Party won the October
1987 elections and was thus able to nominate him as the sole
candidate for president. With serious economic problems and
rising Islamic fundamental opposition at home, Mubarak
continued to seek an end to the stalemate that had developed
between Israel and Arab nations; in 1988 he visited the United
States for talks on that subject. Mubarak, supported the 1990
United Nations (UN) sanctions against Iraq when that country
invaded Kuwait, orchestrated Arab League opposition to the
invasion, committed about 38,500 troops to the anti-Iraq
coalition in the Persian Gulf War (1991), and supported postwar
efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East. Reelected in 1993,
Mubarak cracked down on Muslim fundamentalist opposition
groups after an upsurge in guerrilla violence by Islamic
extremists. Mubarak survived an assassination attempt
unharmed in June 1995 in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
Five of the assailants were killed during or after the ambush and
three escaped to Sudan, which is widely believed to have
sponsored the attack. In November 1995, just before
parliamentary elections, Mubarak's government accused the
Muslim Brotherhood of helping violent Islamic groups. Many of
the Muslim Brotherhood's members were arrested, and several
who planned to run in the elections or monitor them were tried
and sentenced to prison. Critics accused the government of
trying to eliminate even peaceful opponents. In the elections that
followed, Mubarak's National Democratic Party won an
overwhelming victory. Mubarak was elected to a fourth six-year
term in 1999.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.

Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak became president of Egypt in 1981. He was reelected in
1987, 1993, and 1999.
Woodfin Camp and Associates, Inc./Barry Iverson
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.
Vice President Hosni Mubarak succeeded Sadat as president. Mubarak
promised to stress continuity in foreign policy and betterment of
economic conditions in Egypt. One of his first acts was to release the
politicians whom Sadat had jailed. While maintaining Egypt’s close ties
with the United States, Mubarak also pursued closer ties with other Arab
countries and kept his distance from Israel. By 1987 most Arab states had
restored their diplomatic ties with Egypt. Egypt was readmitted to the
Arab League in 1989 and the league's headquarters was moved back to
Cairo.
Within Egypt, the government continued to move away from statecontrolled
enterprises but also curbed some of the excesses of
businessmen and speculators who had taken advantage of Sadat’s infitah
policy. Corruption, even among members of Sadat’s family, was exposed
and halted. Mubarak allowed new political parties to form and eased
some curbs on press freedom, but he maintained the state of emergency
that Sadat had imposed in 1981 to prevent the Islamist groups from
gaining power. Yet the government seemed less able than the Islamists,
who maintained a traditional Islamic social services network, to deliver
medical, educational, and social benefits to poor people. Continued
inequities between a rich and powerful minority and the impoverished
masses appalled most Egyptians.
In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and Mubarak supported the U.S.-led allied
coalition that was formed to reverse the occupation (see Persian Gulf
War). Egypt’s intellectuals widely criticized his support of the coalition,
and many Egyptians sympathized with the Iraqis. Between 1990 and
1997, radical Islamist groups engaged in violent action to overthrow the
government. Members of these groups murdered secular-minded
politicians, a leading secularist writer, Copts, and foreign tourists.
Mubarak himself barely escaped an assassination attempt in 1995. The
government responded by imprisoning or executing numerous radicals.
Economic reforms in the 1990s promoted economic development and
raised Egypt’s per capita income, but the economy stagnated from 2000
to 2002. Afterward the economy picked up somewhat due in part to a
devaluation of the currency in 2003. The peace policy with Israel and
Egypt’s close ties to the United States remained widely unpopular.
Nevertheless, the Egyptian government formally upheld the peace treaty
with Israel and on occasion sponsored meetings aimed at promoting
peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
During the early 2000s Mubarak continued his policies of suppressing
radical Islamists and permitting only weak opposition from other political
parties. He was quick to condemn the September 11 attacks on the United
States, and in the wake of those attacks reaffirmed the importance of his
crackdown on Islamic fundamentalists. In the meantime more moderate
Islamic groups were demanding a more overtly Islamist state based upon
Sharia (Islamic law). Although Egyptian legislation is nominally based
upon Sharia, some would like to see Sharia more rigorously enforced in
practice. Such a policy was opposed by religious minorities, chiefly
Coptic Christians (see Coptic Church); some secular liberals; and also by
the United States. The holding of relatively free elections by Palestinians
and in Iraq in early 2005 led to some publicly expressed Egyptian
sentiment in favor of more democracy at home. As Mubarak’s fourth sixyear
term drew to a close in 2005, some groups called for changes in the
constitution, including a two-term limit on the presidency.
Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., contributed the History section of this article
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.


1981: Egypt
Sadat assassination.
Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat was assassinated in Cairo on October
6, as he watched a military parade marking the anniversary of Egypt's
surprise attack across the Suez Canal opening the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
While Sadat and others fixed their eyes on a display of Mirage jets in the
sky, a small group of men in military uniforms leaped from a truck in the
parade and, with little resistance at first, approached the reviewing stand,
hurling grenades and spraying submachine gun fire. Sadat was rushed by
helicopter to a military hospital, where he died two hours later of multiple
wounds. Several other spectators were reported killed, and more than 20
were wounded. The four assassins were captured at the scene and later
indicted along with 20 others accused of complicity in the assassination.
The government said that the assassins were "closely linked" to a wider
group of conspirators within Takfir Wahigra, a violent Muslim
fundamentalist sect, and that they had sought to set up an Islamic republic
in Egypt. The alleged mastermind of the conspiracy was a former military
intelligence officer named Aboud el-Zoumr; he was arrested after a gun
battle with security officers, at a hideout near the pyramids at Giza. By
November, several hundred Muslim militants also had been arrested in
the investigation, some after grenade and machine gun battles with police.
The government said there were indications that the conspirators received
financial assistance from outside sources, but did not elaborate.
Although Sadat's assassination shocked the world, his security had long
been an object of concern, since his steps to achieve peace with Israel
made him a traitor in the eyes of many Arabs. It was these same steps that
brought Sadat the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize—shared with Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin—and caused him to be regarded by most
Westerners as a statesman of extraordinary stature, boldness, and
flexibility.
He came from humble beginnings. One of 13 children, Muhammad
Anwar al-Sadat was born on December 25, 1918, in a small village in the
Nile delta. His father was a clerk and his mother an illiterate Sudanese. A
devout Muslim, Sadat attended religious schools and entered the Military
Academy in Cairo. After graduating in 1938, he joined a circle of young
officers, also including his mentor, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who plotted
against British rule. He was jailed in 1942 and again in 1944, the second
time for alleged involvement in the assassination of a pro-British
Egyptian aristocrat. Reinstated in the army after his acquittal in 1948,
Sadat joined in the coup that toppled King Faruk and brought Nasser to
power in 1952.
Sadat attracted little attention as Nasser's loyal subordinate and, from
1969, vice-president. When Nasser died and Sadat became president in
1970, he was expected to be a weak interim leader. The new president,
however, gradually began to strike his own course. Turning away from
Nasser's brand of pan-Arabism, he stressed Egyptian nationalism. In a
first step away from close military alliance with the Soviet Union, he
expelled some 20,000 Soviet military advisers in 1972. His surprise thrust
into the Sinai on October 6, 1973, did not lead to victory in the ensuing
Arab-Israeli war, but it helped Egypt regain the self-respect lost by its
quick defeat in the 1967 war and the occupation of the Sinai by Israel.
As a cease-fire in place and two disengagement accords were reached,
with U.S. mediation, after the 1973 war, Sadat developed close relations
with the United States and with then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
and he devoted himself energetically to the goal of peace with his
longtime enemy, Israel. In late 1977, with progress waning, he made a
historic journey to Jerusalem, where he addressed the Israeli Parliament,
calling for peace and, at the same time, a return of occupied territories
and a recognition of Palestinian rights. The next year, when negotiations
bogged down again, he and Begin accepted the invitation of President
Jimmy Carter to meet at Camp David, Md., where the three hammered
out the outlines of an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and a framework for
future talks on Palestinian autonomy. The Nobel Peace Prize followed,
and in March 1979 the peace treaty was signed.
Despite only limited progress in the Palestinian autonomy negotiations
and the continued opposition of most Arab nations to what they regarded
as a betrayal, Sadat persisted in attempting to foster the "peace process"
in the last years of his life. His tendency to follow his own aims,
regardless of controversy, was illustrated by his granting asylum in 1980
to the dying shah of Iran. Like the shah, Sadat encountered opposition
from militant Islamic fundamentalists, whom he tried to suppress in a
crackdown this September. Although he appeared to retain wide
popularity, it was this opposition that apparently led to his assassination.
Aftermath.
On October 8, two days after Sadat's assassination, clashes between
police and Muslim fundamentalists in the southern city of Asyut left more
than 100 dead, according to unofficial estimates. Security was tight at
Sadat's funeral on October 10, which was attended by all three living U.S.
ex-presidents, among other foreign dignitaries, but was not open to
members of the general public. Officials moved quickly to consolidate
power behind Vice-President Muhammad Hosni Mubarak, who was
unanimously nominated for president by a vote of the People's Assembly
(parliament) and won easy approval in a national referendum on October
13. The former Egyptian Air Force commander and close Sadat associate
was sworn in the next day; he repeatedly assured all parties that there
would be no deviation from the foreign commitments agreed to by his
predecessor. (However, in a speech in November, he added that Egypt
was "fully committed to nonalignment and positive neutrality" in foreign
policy.)
Mubarak promptly ordered a roundup of antigovernment dissidents,
supplementing earlier crackdowns ordered by Sadat, and by late October
it was estimated that up to 1,500 people had been arrested since Sadat's
death, many of them associated with fundamentalist Islamic associations
in the universities. As a precaution against further antiregime activity, the
government decreed a period of martial law, to last one year, and severely
limited the size of public assemblies. The government also dismissed
more than 130 members of the Egyptian Army because of "extremist
religious leanings," although officials maintained that the army was
basically loyal, with minimal infiltration by Muslim extremists, mainly in
the lower ranks.
The U.S. government promised to accelerate its delivery of weapons to
both Egypt and the Sudan, and large-scale military exercises involving
the United States and Egypt, as well as other countries in the region, were
launched in November.
Earlier domestic opposition.
The government of President Sadat had repeatedly been placed on the
defensive by the vociferous responses of the opposition parties to such
events as the Israeli raid on an Iraqi nuclear reactor and Israel's bombing
of Beirut. Al Shaab, the newspaper of the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), the
major opposition party, led a persistent, vituperative attack on the
government for failing to move Israel toward recognition of the Palestine
Liberation Organization and for allegedly granting military base rights to
the United States.
The president attacked the opposition parties on numerous occasions,
accusing them of trying to drag the country back into the political
quagmire of prerevolutionary Egypt. His attacks, originally aimed largely
at the Marxist National Progressive Unionist Party and the disbanded
New Wafd, were extended to include the SLP. In July the government
took action against the directing council of the Lawyers' Syndicate, after
several anti-Camp David statements were made by the syndicate's
president at a meeting of Arab "rejectionists" abroad and published in Al
Shaab. People's Assembly hearings resulted in an order to dissolve the
syndicate's council, and an interim council was set up to take its place.
More significantly, the government encountered growing opposition
among the religious fundamentalists organized in Islamic societies. In a
country strained by rapid economic and social change, these societies
were discovering a large audience among students, civil servants, and
small shop owners. The Islamic societies sought to mobilize public
opinion behind bringing Egypt's laws into conformity with the dictates of
Islam. They also added their strong voices to those of others opposed to
the 1979 peace treaty.
The revival of the Islamic movement was viewed with increasing alarm
by many members of Egypt's Coptic Christian community. Christian-
Muslim tension reached its boiling point in mid-June, when Christian and
Muslim neighbors resorted to violence in a dispute over a piece of land in
a poor district of Cairo. The conflict spread rapidly and engulfed the
entire district, resulting in at least ten deaths and scores of injuries. Some
4,000-5,000 police were dispatched to the scene, and they succeeded for
the most part in confining the fighting to that section of the city. There
were, however, subsequent reports of disturbances in the cities of
Alexandria and Asyut. In Cairo, police were posted in front of all of the
churches, but this precaution failed to prevent an explosion at a church on
August 2, which killed three people and wounded many others.
During the first week of September, President Sadat imposed a severe
crackdown on religious groups and also on the secular political
opposition. More than 1,500 Muslim fundamentalists (especially
members of the militant Muslim Brotherhood), Coptic Christian priests,
politicians (especially members of the SLP), and others were arrested. A
number of Islamic and Christian societies were disbanded. Al Daawa,
newspaper of the Muslim Brotherhood, was among several journals to be
banned; also closed down was the SLP paper, Al Shaab. Pope Shenuda
III, leader of the Coptic Christians, was deposed by Sadat, to be replaced
by a committee of five bishops. The government also announced that it
would assume supervision of the nation's 40,000 mosques and issue
guidelines for excluding political material from sermons. In a three-hour
address to the People's Assembly on September 5, Sadat asserted that his
crackdown was aimed at those directly or indirectly inciting sectarian
strife. He blamed agitators for provoking the Coptic-Muslim riots in June
and castigated the Muslim Brotherhood for fomenting a "jihad," or holy
war, asserting that he had been too lenient with these and other groups
strongly critical of the government. Sadat was also highly critical of
foreign press coverage of the crackdown, and in mid-September he
expelled two foreign correspondents.
A national referendum was called for September 10 in order to marshal
popular backing for the crackdown; according to official results, 99.45
percent of the more than 11 million who cast their ballots expressed
approval of Sadat's hard-line approach.
In a further step, on September 15, the Egyptian cabinet announced the
expulsion of the Soviet ambassador, six of his staff members, two Soviet
journalists, and more than 1,000 Soviet technicians. The Soviets were
accused of trying to "incite sedition and conflicts among Egyptians
through the activities of Soviet intelligence and elements in the Soviet
embassy." The action against the Soviet Union was the strongest taken by
the government since the 1972 expulsion of Soviet military personnel.
International affairs.
During the early part of the year, Egyptian officials were forced to mark
time on their Middle East diplomacy, while a new U.S. administration
came into office and defined its foreign policy and while Israel awaited a
general election. President Sadat took advantage of the lull in diplomatic
activity to address the European Parliament in Luxembourg this
February; there he expressed his support for the European initiative to
secure mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO). However, it was clear that this move by Sadat was
designed primarily to exercise subtle pressure on the incoming Reagan
administration, while Egypt awaited the reactivation of diplomatic efforts.
Meanwhile, several regional conflicts demanded the attention of the
Egyptians. Libya's decisive intervention during late 1980 in the civil war
in Chad alarmed the Egyptian government. Egyptians feared that Libya,
with its huge stockpile of Soviet weapons, might be seeking to encircle
Egypt by using Chad as a base from which to move eastward into the
Sudan. (These fears grew stronger after Sadat's death.) Sadat's repeated
pledges that he would tolerate no such designs on the Sudan obviously
struck a sympathetic chord, for by late March, Egypt and the Sudan had
restored full diplomatic relations. These relations had been damaged by
Egypt's signing of the Camp David peace agreement with Israel; the
reconciliation represented a concerted reaction to a perceived Sovietbacked
threat from Libya, as well as a modest breach in the solidarity of
the Arab "rejectionists" (Arab nations united in opposition to the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty).
Of equal concern early this year was the escalation of tension and fighting
in the Middle East. Syrian forces in Lebanon launched large-scale attacks
against right-wing Christian Phalangists, and Syria installed SAM
missiles in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. There were also repeated Israeli
raids against Palestinian strongholds in Lebanon, and the prospect of a
direct Israeli-Syrian confrontation was raised when Israel began issuing
ultimatums over removal of Syria's SAM missiles.
As tensions mounted, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin called for
an emergency summit meeting with Sadat to discuss the situation. The
meeting, held on June 4 at Sharm al Shaykh in the Sinai peninsula, was to
prove acutely embarrassing to Sadat, for just three days later Israeli jets
destroyed a nuclear reactor in Baghdad, Iraq. The Israeli raid against an
Arab nation outraged the Egyptian government and provoked heated
debate in the People's Assembly. However, Egypt was determined to
allow nothing to interrupt movement toward the regaining of the rest of
its lost territories in the Sinai, scheduled to be returned by Israel in April
1982. The Egyptians, therefore, refrained from taking any action beyond
condemnation of Israel before the United Nations Security Council and a
plea for closer U.S. control over Israel's use of American-made weapons.
Many Egyptian officials were disappointed over the reelection of Prime
Minister Begin, shortly before the Sharm al Shaykh meeting, and they
feared that his new coalition government would prove even less willing to
compromise over the Palestinian autonomy issue than its predecessor. As
if to confirm Egyptian fears, in mid-July the Israeli Air Force undertook a
heavy bombardment of Palestinian guerrilla headquarters in Beirut, just
as Egyptian and Israeli diplomats were nearing a final agreement (signed
August 3) over the creation of a multinational peace force, to patrol their
common border after the return of the last occupied territory in the Sinai.
These events made it extremely difficult for Sadat to convince his Arab
brethren that the Camp David agreement amounted to more than a
separate peace with Israel and that the Soviet Union, not Israel, posed the
major, long-run threat to stability in the region.
On August 2, Sadat left Egypt for meetings with British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher in London and then with U.S. President Ronald
Reagan in Washington, hoping to breathe new life into the autonomy
talks. The British joined Sadat in urging both Israel and the PLO to arrive
at a simultaneous, mutual recognition, but the Egyptian president failed to
alter the U.S. policy, which opposed any official contact with the PLO
until it acknowledged Israel's legitimacy.
Sadat kept a promise made at Sharm al Shaykh to meet with Begin in
Alexandria, in late August, and the two leaders at this meeting agreed to a
resumption of Palestinian autonomy talks between their two nations (with
the United States also participating). The talks resumed in Cairo in late
September, and further sessions were held after Sadat's death.
Economy.
Egypt's prospects for economic growth were buoyed by a number of
factors. Egyptians working in Arab oil-producing countries remitted an
estimated $3 billion this year. The newly widened and deepened Suez
Canal, now capable of accommodating supertankers, was expected to
earn about $1 billion in 1981, compared with $660 million in 1980.
Revenues from petroleum production continued to climb, and tourism
remained a major earner of foreign currency.
These sources of foreign exchange were backed up by a continuation of
massive foreign aid from the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and
major international financial institutions. At a meeting held in Aswan, on
January 20-21, foreign creditors expressed confidence in the Egyptian
development strategy and promised to provide aid and loan support of
$2.9 billion over the year. In May, the Reagan administration endorsed a
sharp aid increase to $1.65 billion for the 1982 fiscal year ($900 million
in military aid, $750 million in economic assistance). These factors gave
Egypt a strong balance-of-payments position and put its budget in the
black for the first time in many years.
Much of the improvement could be attributed to Sadat's strategy of
seeking a peaceful accommodation with Israel, recovery of the occupied
territories, and closer ties with the West. However, the economic situation
was still problematic. The government continued to feel politically
compelled to maintain and even increase price subsidies for many basic
commodities, which could cost approximately $3 billion in fiscal 1982.
With the population growing at about 2.8 percent each year, the problem
of employing, feeding, and housing the populace became even more
acute. Also, little progress was being made in attracting significant
foreign investment by large multinational firms.
Under pressure from inflation and other circumstances, the government in
May announced substantial increases in private- and public-sector
minimum wages. The government also promised to focus its economic
development efforts on basic necessities.
A rapid growth in demand for imported consumer goods, combined with
an increase in the number of foreign firms wishing to repatriate capital,
prompted moves by the government in July to reduce the demand for hard
foreign currencies, especially the dollar. The exchange rate was modified
for certain categories of imports, while importers were required to place
initial letter-of-credit deposits in Egyptian currency rather than in dollars.
An accord was signed with the United States in June, allowing Egypt to
acquire U.S. materials and technology for the development of a nuclear
energy program. Earlier, the government had ratified the 1968 nuclear
nonproliferation treaty, obliging itself to refrain from nuclear weapons
development and to allow its nuclear facilities to be inspected by the
International Atomic Energy Agency. The Egyptian government was
hoping to build eight nuclear reactors by the end of the century.
Area and population.
Area, 386,661 sq. mi. (including territory occupied by Israel). Pop. (est.
1981), 43.5 million. Principal cities (1976): Cairo (cap.), 5,084,463;
Alexandria, 2,318,655.
Government.
Republic with unicameral People's Assembly. Pres. and prime min.,
Muhammad Hosni Mubarak.
Finance.
Monetary unit, Egyptian pound. E£1=US$1.23. Budget (1980), E£8,767
million.
Trade (1980).
Imports, E£5,221 million; exports E£2,655 million. Principal imports:
cereals, machinery, minerals, transport equipment. Principal exports:
petroleum, raw cotton, cotton yarn, cotton fabrics.
Education (1978-1979).
Enrollment: primary, 4,387,000; preparatory, 1,547,000; secondary,
928,000; university, 486,000; technical institutes, 40,000.
Armed forces (est. 1980).
Army, 320,000; navy, 20,000; air force, 27,000.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.


1982: Egypt
Domestic politics.
President Hosni Mubarak, who came to power in October 1981 after the
assassination of Anwar al-Sadat, moved quickly and firmly during his
first few months in office to reestablish internal political stability. In so
doing, Mubarak concentrated primarily on exhibiting a new style in the
conduct of presidential affairs, while leaving intact the basic outlines of
Sadat's political and economic strategies.
A significant aspect of this change in style was the new president's
treatment of the political opposition. Just six weeks after Sadat's
assassination, Mubarak summoned to his office 31 of the most prominent
leaders of the secular opposition, all of whom were among the more than
1,500 political opponents arrested in Sadat's massive crackdown in
September 1981. After a closed meeting during which Mubarak spoke of
the need for calm, responsible political behavior, the group was freed
from custody.
Beyond this initial act of appeasement, Mubarak repeatedly demonstrated
his desire to preserve good relations with all three opposition parties, by
personally keeping their leaders well informed on major domestic and
foreign policy developments. The president also gradually saw to the
return of two secular opposition newspapers banned under Sadat, the
weeklies of the Socialist Labor Party and the National Progressive
Unionist Party.
Mubarak was more cautious with the religious opposition, still widely
believed to represent the most serious challenge to the regime. Many of
the most prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood organization,
also arrested during the September 1981 crackdown, were released from
prison within the first few months of the Mubarak presidency, but the
organization's journal, Al Daawa, remained closed. The government did
allow more moderate religious elements to publish a new weekly journal,
Al Liwaa al Islaami. However, Mubarak remained quite adamant in his
rejection of any religious-based political organizations.
The release of most of those arrested in September and October 1981 was
shrewdly spread out over the greater part of the next year, with the largest
groups of detainees released in July and August 1982, after being cleared
of involvement in efforts to overthrow the Sadat government. Sadat's
assassins, of course, suffered a different fate. On March 6 a court
sentenced five of the defendants to death, and 17 others were given prison
terms ranging from one year to life. Mubarak ratified the sentences on
March 20, and those given the death penalty were executed on April 15.
The government also kept a sharp eye out for any reemergence of militant
religious groups. On May 8 it indicted some 300 members of Jihad, an
underground organization accused of seeking to transform Egypt, by
violent means, into an Islamic state. Later in the month, members of a
similar organization, Takfir Wahigra, were arrested, and in September
additional members of Jihad were arrested for allegedly planning various
acts of terrorism and sabotage.
Mubarak shuffled the cabinet he inherited from Sadat. On January 2 he
appointed Dr. Ahmed Fuad Mohieddin prime minister. The following
day, Mohieddin introduced a new cabinet, with the most notable changes
occurring in the economic, interior, finance, health, and agriculture
ministries. Two ministers were dropped because of their association with
a former politician convicted of corruption, a clear signal that the new
government was determined to deal firmly with official wrongdoing. The
next step in this series of official power realignments was Mubarak's
election as chairman of the National Democratic Party on January 26.
New economic policy.
In his first major policy speech, delivered on November 8, 1981,
Mubarak concentrated on economic affairs, declaring his eventual goal to
be economic equality and social justice. The government's immediate
economic goals included encouraging savings and investment in
production, ensuring that subsidies on energy and food went only to the
most deserving, streamlining the public sector, reforming import policies,
and providing Egyptians with better housing, roads, sewers, schools, and
food. Egypt restated its commitment to the "open-door" economic policy
introduced by Sadat in 1974 as a means of attracting foreign investment.
Mubarak stressed, however, that the policy should be "productive of what
the majority needs." Critics had complained that the policy had flooded
the country with expensive consumer goods, which only an affluent
minority could afford and which brought wealth only to a few middlemen
and entrepreneurs.
As proof of its seriousness, the government announced in late February a
number of regulations, developed at a national economic conference held
earlier in the month, designed to control imports and tighten foreign
currency regulations. In addition, Prime Minister Mohieddin introduced a
bill in the People's Assembly (parliament) to reorganize the public sector,
which the new government wants to develop as the backbone of the
economy, a significant departure from the private-sector orientation of the
previous government. The challenge of how to reduce subsidies on
energy and food remained a difficult one, since the fear of mass rioting,
such as occurred in 1977, looms over any attempt at substantial
reductions.
Although the government claimed early successes, it remained to be seen
whether its economic policies as a whole would inspire the confidence of
foreign and domestic investors. Many saw the new measures as merely
another shift in policy, offering no assurances of stability for the long
term.
Casting a shadow over all efforts at economic reform was the country's
rapid growth in population, which is increasing at the rate of 1.3 million
persons annually. The population increase continued to put pressure on
Egypt's scarce arable land. The cost of food imports, which meet about
half the country's food needs, is a serious drain on the economy. Oil
production, remittances from Egyptians working abroad, and Suez Canal
fees remained the major sources of foreign capital; earnings from the
export of industrial products continued to decline. On the plus side, a
major oil reservoir discovered in the Western Desert could supply Egypt's
oil needs for 17 years.
Foreign policy.
From the moment Mubarak became president, high priority was given to
assuring other nations that there would be stability and continuity in
Egyptian foreign policy. Such assurances were particularly urgent
because Israel's return to Egypt of the final sector of the Sinai peninsula
(occupied since 1967) was scheduled for April 25, 1982, under the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. It was feared that any sign of political
instability or change in Egypt might jeopardize the plans for Israel's
withdrawal.
The domestic political situation, however, made it exceedingly difficult
for Mubarak to exhibit no change in foreign policy at all. A crucial factor
in unifying the diverse political parties and movements opposed to Sadat
had been Sadat's failure to respond forcefully to the mid-1981 Israeli air
raids on an Iraqi nuclear reactor and on Beirut. Therefore, although
Mubarak enjoyed relative quiet from the opposition, he needed to show
firmness in responding to any actions by Israel (including, for example,
its invasion of Lebanon in June 1982) viewed as provocative by that
opposition.
Mubarak and his foreign policy advisers showed great skill in steering a
middle course. Although the new president stated in his November 8,
1981, address that Egypt would adhere to a policy of nonalignment, he
hastened to reassure Egypt's Western friends that no drastic change in
foreign policy was being considered. From January 30 to February 8,
1982, Mubarak traveled for a series of face-to-face meetings with major
leaders of the Western world. His tour took him to Rome, the Vatican,
Paris, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Most discussions
focused on continued political and economic support for Egypt, as well as
on the need to work toward a comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
The Western countries reaffirmed their economic aid commitments to
Egypt. The U.S. government granted economic aid for the 1983 fiscal
year totaling $1 billion; approval of $1.3 billion in military aid was
pending late this year.
At the same time, Mubarak took care to at least give the impression that a
slightly different orientation in foreign policy was being considered.
Egypt announced in January that it was ready to resume relations with all
Arab countries, most of which had renounced Egypt in 1979, when Sadat
signed the peace treaty with Israel. In addition, Mubarak declared it
inconceivable that Egypt would undertake any act of aggression against a
brother Arab nation, and in early February the Egyptian border with
Libya (with whom Egypt has long had strained relations and with whom
it fought a brief border war in 1977) was temporarily reopened in a show
of good faith. In June, Mubarak took a major symbolic step toward
improving relations with the Arab world by making a visit of condolence
to Saudi Arabia after the death of King Khaled.
In another slight policy shift, a small group of Soviet technicians was
invited to return to Egypt, although no similar invitation was extended to
the Soviet ambassador. Sadat had expelled some 17,000 Soviet military
advisers and experts in 1972; in September 1981 he had expelled the
Soviet ambassador and more than 1,000 technicians, on the grounds that
the Soviets were trying to "incite sedition." Mubarak's new invitation of
Soviet aid, along with some new pronouncements about the virtues of
nonalignment, gave some reason for optimism to those domestic elements
and Arab nations alienated by the pro-Western orientation of Sadat's
foreign policy.
Finally, Mubarak rejected Jerusalem as the site of a planned meeting with
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in March—a move clearly
designed to please other Arab states and domestic critics, by signaling
Egypt's rejection of Israel's claim to sovereignty over the city. (East
Jerusalem was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, and Arab
nations have insisted on its return to Arab control.) Mubarak's refusal to
visit Jerusalem led to cancellation of his trip to Israel.
Sinai return.
The April 25 return of the eastern Sinai took place as planned, despite
two last-minute obstacles. In the Israeli settlement of Yamit, some 2,000
settlers had to be evicted by the Israeli Army, which then razed the
settlement's buildings.
The second obstacle was a dispute over how the border line would be
drawn on a stretch of beach called Taba, where an Israeli concern was
building a luxury hotel. The day after the April 25 deadline, Egypt and
Israel signed an interim agreement calling for a resolution of the dispute
under Article 7 of the 1979 peace treaty, which prescribes negotiation,
conciliation, or arbitration of such problems. The beach was temporarily
put under the jurisdiction of the multinational force of some 2,500
peacekeeping troops and observers from 11 countries that, under the 1979
treaty, is now stationed in a narrow zone that runs the length of the Sinai's
border with Israel. (The United States provided about half the personnel
for this multinational force.)
Middle East conflicts.
Reverses in its war with Iran led Iraq to reach out in the spring for rapid
military assistance from all possible sources. Given the chance to display
Arab solidarity, Egypt responded positively to Iraq's needs. Further
evidence of a thaw in relations between the two countries came when
direct flights between Baghdad and Cairo were resumed for the first time
since November 1978.
When Israel invaded Lebanon on June 6, to attack Palestine Liberation
Organization strongholds, Mubarak immediately called for a withdrawal
of Israeli forces. As the conflict dragged on, other Egyptian officials
asserted that relations with Israel had been seriously affected but that the
existing peace treaty would not be jeopardized. Egypt worked closely
with the French government to line up support for a proposed UN
Security Council resolution urging a withdrawal of Israeli and Palestinian
troops from Beirut, calling on the PLO and Israel to recognize one
another, and affirming the right of the Palestinians to "self-determination"
(generally considered a diplomatic code word for the establishment of a
national state); the proposal was not put to a formal vote.
Throughout July and August, Mubarak urged U.S. President Ronald
Reagan to pressure the Israelis into a withdrawal and to take advantage of
the crisis to push for a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East. In
early August, by which time Israeli troops had trapped the PLO
leadership and thousands of guerrilla fighters in West Beirut, the
Egyptian government stated that a PLO withdrawal from Beirut would be
acceptable only in the framework of a comprehensive settlement.
The agreement between the warring parties in Lebanon ironed out in late
August by American envoy Philip Habib was obviously not totally
satisfactory to the Egyptians, as PLO forces evacuated Beirut without any
public promises from other parties that this would lead to a larger
settlement. In an effort to keep the pressure on the United States and
Israel to work for a solution to the Palestinian issue, Mubarak called for
the United States to recognize the right of the Palestinians to selfdetermination
and for Israel to halt the establishment of settlements on
the West Bank (an area captured from Jordan in 1967). If these conditions
were not met, he said, it would be "most difficult" to resume the stalled
Egyptian-Israeli negotiations on autonomy for West Bank Palestinians.
On September 1, President Reagan proposed a Middle East peace plan
that included a freeze on new Israeli settlements and a proposal for
Palestinian self-government in the West Bank—but as part of a federation
with Jordan, not an independent state. The initial reaction of the Egyptian
government, announced after a meeting between Mubarak and U.S.
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in Alexandria on September 4, was
to "welcome ... the positive aspects of the initiative" but indicate some
reservations.
During a visit to France later in September, Mubarak also expressed
reservations about an Arab League peace plan which proposed, among
other things, a complete Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territory and
the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem.
Egyptian-Israeli relations were seriously strained by the mid-September
massacre of Palestinians by Christian militia outside West Beirut, which
took place despite the presence of Israeli troops in the city. In what the
Foreign Ministry described as "an expression of resentment," Egypt's
ambassador to Israel was recalled to Cairo—the strongest step taken by
Egypt since the two countries established diplomatic relations in February
1980.
Area and population.
Area, 386,661 sq. mi. Pop. (est. 1982), 44.8 million. Principal cities
(1976): Cairo (cap.), 5,084,463; Alexandria, 2,318,655.
Government.
Republic with unicameral People's Assembly. Pres., Muhammad Hosni
Mubarak; prime min., Ahmed Fuad Mohieddin.
Finance.
Monetary unit, Egyptian pound; E£1 = US$1.22. Budget (1981):
revenues, E£7,886.7 million; expenditures, E£7,145.1 million.
Trade (1981).
Imports, E£6,147.4 million; exports, E£2,263 million. Principal imports:
machinery, foodstuffs (wheat). Principal exports: petroleum and
petroleum products, cotton.
Petroleum.
Oil production (est. 1981), 578,000 barrels per day; proved reserves (est.;
Jan. 1, 1982), 2.93 billion barrels.
Education (1979-1980).
Enrollment: primary, 4,434,557; preparatory, 1,526,462; secondary,
1,010,762; university (est. 1982-1983), 310,000.
Armed forces (est. 1982).
Army, 320,000; navy, 20,000; air force, 27,000.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.

1983: Egypt
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak continued to steer a middle course at
home and abroad as he entered his third year in power, having assumed
the presidency after the assassination of Anwar al-Sadat in October 1981.
In domestic policy, Mubarak sought to eliminate corruption and other
sources of social tension that had marked the Sadat era; at the same time,
he took a cautious but firm approach in dealing with the opposition. In
foreign affairs he tried to enhance Egypt's role in the nonaligned
movement while maintaining good relations with the United States.
Crackdown on corruption.
The government mounted a strong attack on corruption at all levels of
society. Significant progress was made in curbing the hashish trade and
curtailing the black market in foreign currencies, both of which
represented tremendous drains on the economy. The anticorruption drive
also struck several blows in high places.
Among the most prominent victims was Ismat al-Sadat, half-brother of
the late president, who was arrested with three of his sons in October
1982 and charged with fraud and influence peddling. Their activities had
allowed them to amass a fortune estimated at more than $150 million.
The Sadat trial, which kept the Egyptian public spellbound for months,
came to a close in February, with the court finding Sadat and his sons
guilty on several counts of fraud. The accused were sentenced to one year
in detention, and most of their illegally acquired assets were expropriated.
In early August, however, the Supreme Court of Ethics ordered their
release, although it upheld the lower court's decision on impounding their
property. The Sadat trial led to action against other prominent figures in
government and society. Most notably, two government ministers were
dismissed in March for allegedly having used their positions and
influence to further Ismat al-Sadat's schemes.
Domestic opposition.
A major source of trouble to the regime was the increasing desire of the
opposition parties to test the Egyptian president and discover his true
political colors. Mubarak had restored cordial relations with the
opposition parties soon after assuming power, and opposition leaders had
granted the new president a "honeymoon" in return for his political
largesse. But by 1983, they were growing anxious to see if Mubarak was
willing to permit a greater liberalization of the political system.
Thus there were repeated calls in the opposition press for an end to the
emergency laws decreed by Sadat in September 1981, shortly before his
assassination. The laws gave the president wide-ranging powers to detain
anyone suspected of subversive activities and had been used effectively
even after the assassination, especially against the clandestine religious
opposition. Mubarak, apparently seeing no reason to relinquish such a
powerful control mechanism, turned a cold shoulder to opposition
protests on this issue, although in late September two laws were repealed
that involved the banning of demonstrations and the punishment of
people who spread rumors with the aim of harming national unity.
A second, somewhat more aggressive test by the opposition came in late
March, when an important faction within the Lawyer's Syndicate, most of
whose members were associated with the various opposition parties,
forced a showdown with the government, demanding that government
control over the organization be lifted. Mubarak not only ignored the
lawyers' demands but also went ahead and signed into law a new charter
placing the syndicate under even closer government control.
Soon after, Mubarak went on the offensive, attacking the opposition
parties in his May Day speech for their "destructive" criticism of his
government's economic policies. And the People's Assembly in July
passed a law that will disqualify from representation any individual party
failing to win at least 8 percent of the popular vote in a legislative
election. At the time the law was passed, Egypt's opposition parties
together held only 3 percent of the seats in the People's Assembly. A
victory for the opposition came in October, when judges of the Egyptian
State Council overturned a government ruling and declared the New
Wafd, potentially a major opposition force, a legitimate political party.
The government carried on with its prolonged investigation of suspected
religious dissidents arrested en masse after Sadat's assassination. As was
the case during the previous year, the state prosecutor periodically
announced the release of scores of people arrested for suspected
membership in one of the radical Islamic organizations. While most of
the 1981 detainees were eventually released without trial, a group of 300
radical Muslims, most of whom were allegedly members of the Jihad
(Holy War) organization, were placed on trial (20 of them in absentia) on
December 4, 1982, on charges of having conspired to overthrow the
government after the Sadat assassination. This trial dragged on for
months, its outcome still unknown by late 1983. In the meantime, internal
security forces at the Ministry of the Interior, in August, arrested another
group of alleged conspirators belonging to the Jihad.
Mubarak used the carrot as well as the stick in dealing with Islamic
sentiment. The government-controlled People's Assembly appeared to be
on the verge of legislating a thorough recodification of Egyptian law on
the basis of sharia, or Islamic law. During Ramadan, the holy month
when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, summer time was suspended so
that the evening mealtime could come more quickly.
Economic pressures.
During a visit to the United States in January, Mubarak reasserted his
government's commitment to Sadat's "open-door" economic policy,
designed to attract foreign investment; at the same time, he stated once
again that he was resolved to use the open-door strategy to establish
productive enterprises in Egypt, rather than to flood it with imported
goods.
Egyptian economic planners were confronted by many of the same old
obstacles to development and a few new ones as well. The chronic
problem of a high population growth rate (nearly 3 percent a year),
combined with a failure to increase agricultural output dramatically,
meant that Egypt had to import half its food, at an estimated cost of $4
billion in 1983. To cover the heavy cost of food and other essential
imports, Egypt has relied in recent years on foreign exchange earnings
from tourism, remittances from Egyptians working abroad, Suez Canal
revenues, and growing oil exports. Tourism was finally rebounding from
the shock waves of the Sadat assassination, and remittances by foreign
workers were expected to remain high. Oil export revenues, however,
were hit by the international economic recession and the related drop in
world petroleum prices. Oil output continued to increase, reaching
500,000 barrels per day. But falling oil prices portended a $500 million
shortfall in 1983-1984 oil revenues, as compared with those projected in
the current five-year development plan. Egypt anticipated a total current
account deficit approaching $3 billion for the 1983-1984 fiscal year;
external debt at the end of the fiscal year 1981-1982 was $22 billion.
Egypt found some relief in its position as one of the world's largest
recipients of foreign aid. It received more than $1 billion in economic aid
from the United States in the 1983 U.S. fiscal year, and a similar amount
was slated for the following fiscal year. (These figures do not include
even larger amounts for military aid.) Egypt also received $750 million in
grants and credits from Western European countries and Japan, along
with support from the World Bank and other international lending
institutions.
Relations in the region.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 severely strained relations
between Israel and Egypt, and three months later, when Israel's Lebanese
allies massacred Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps
outside West Beirut, Egypt recalled its ambassador to Israel. Not until
early March did Egypt resume any diplomatic contact with Israel, and
even then, discussions centered almost exclusively on a boundary dispute
in the Sinai, near Taba. In early April, Egyptian officials stated that there
would be no resumption of talks with Israel on Palestinian autonomy,
broken off at the start of the invasion of Lebanon, unless Israel withdrew
its forces from Lebanon and put a freeze on the construction of new
settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.
Meanwhile, Mubarak proceeded with efforts to promote a more
comprehensive peace in the Middle East. He repeatedly called upon the
leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization to recognize the state of
Israel and thereby remove the major obstacle to recognition of the PLO
by the United States and other Western powers.
Beginning in late 1982 there were signs of improvement in relations with
Arab nations that had broken diplomatic relations with Egypt after its
peace treaty with Israel was signed in 1979. Iraq, to which the Egyptians
had sold arms at a critical time in its war with Iran, edged closer to a full
restoration of diplomatic ties. In late December 1982, Iraq said it did not
oppose resuming ties with Egypt, and early in the following February,
Egyptian officials paid their first official visit to Iraq since relations
between the two countries were broken. In March, Mubarak met
informally with King Hassan II of Morocco and other Arab dignitaries,
when he attended a conference of nonaligned nations in New Delhi.
The already excellent relations between Egypt and the Sudan, one of the
few Arab countries that had refused to join the Arab boycott of Egypt,
were enhanced by the signing and implementation of a "charter of
integration" between the two countries.
The charter, signed in October 1982, called for the creation of three joint
institutions: a Supreme Council, a Nile Valley Parliament, and an
Economic Integration Fund. Mubarak flew to the Sudan on May 23, for
the opening of the Nile Valley Parliament, which was composed of the
speakers of the Egyptian and Sudanese parliaments, along with 30
additional members from each country.
At the same time, relations with another immediate neighbor, Libya, were
at a low ebb. Libya's leader, Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, had long
been suspected of attempts to destabilize the regime of Sudanese
President Jaafar al-Nimeiry and thereby further isolate the Egyptians
within the Arab world; a glaring instance occurred in February, when
Libya appeared ready to provide air support for an attempted coup within
the Sudan by a group of military officers. Egypt responded by dispatching
its own fighter aircraft, to be guided by U.S. Awacs (airborne warning
and control system) planes, to airfields near the Sudanese border; it also
sent a squadron of transport aircraft to Aswan, from which troops could
be flown quickly to Khartoum. However, the coup attempt was crushed
without external assistance, and Libyan planes, according to Mubarak,
were intercepted by Egyptian jet fighters near the Libyan border.
Other foreign relations.
On the international diplomatic scene, Mubarak made no secret of his
hopes that Egypt would reassume a position of prominence within the
movement of nonaligned countries. To that end he traveled to India in
December 1982 and to China, Indonesia, and North Korea the following
April. In addition, he delivered a speech at the 1983 summit of
nonaligned countries, and he attended the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development in Yugoslavia in July. Egypt also stated an
intention to resume full diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, which
had been cut back sharply by Sadat in September 1981.
Mubarak could not, however, ignore Egypt's strong economic and
military dependence on the Western world, and on the United States in
particular. In addition to economic aid, the United States authorized more
than $1.3 billion in military aid in the 1983 U.S. fiscal year, in the form
of a $427 million grant and $900 million in credits. Mubarak continued to
foster good relations with Western countries through visits to West
Germany in December 1982, to the United States, Canada, Great Britain,
and France in January and February 1983, and to Japan in April. In
September, after addressing the United Nations General Assembly,
Mubarak conferred again with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in
Washington. For the second year in a row, the Egyptian armed forces also
participated in military exercises with the U.S. Central Command
(formerly the Rapid Deployment Force) in the summer.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.


1984: Egypt
President Hosni Mubarak continued to move toward improving relations
with Egypt's Arab brethren and with the Soviet Union, and his patient,
persistent efforts along those lines began to bear fruit. At home, the
government took steps to allow the opposition a greater voice and role.
Foreign Affairs.
The stage was set for conciliatory moves in 1984 after Mubarak met with
Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat in December 1983,
following the withdrawal from Lebanon of battered PLO forces loyal to
Arafat. It was the first meeting between Arafat and an Egyptian head of
state since the signing of the Camp David peace treaty with Israel in
1979. Encouraged by the meeting, other Arab leaders began to edge
closer toward restoring relations with Egypt. On January 16, King
Hussein of Jordan called on the Arab League to reinstate Egypt, whose
membership had been suspended in 1979. The same week, Egypt
received an invitation to rejoin the Islamic Conference Organization,
from which it also had been suspended, and Egypt had resumed
membership in that group by the end of the month. Significantly, these
developments occurred in the absence of demands that Egypt renounce its
treaty with Israel.
These events paved the way for Mubarak's first formal post-Camp David
meetings with other Arab heads of state. In February, Mubarak stopped
off for discussions with King Hassan of Morocco on his way to the
United States, and while in Washington, D.C., he met with King Hussein.
These meetings, coupled with improved Egyptian-Iraqi relations brought
about by Egypt's support for Iraq in its war with Iran, produced
speculation that Egypt would be readmitted to the Arab League when that
organization met in March. However, the League failed to follow the
example set by the Islamic Conference Organization, voting only to
express its regrets that Egypt continued to stand by the Camp David
peace treaty with Israel. In late September, Jordan announced it was
resuming diplomatic ties with Egypt. Two weeks later Mubarak traveled
to Jordan to make the first state visit by an Egyptian leader to one of the
Arab countries that had broken relations with Egypt after Camp David.
Mubarak has also pursued the restoration of full diplomatic relations with
the Soviet Union since his assumption of the presidency in 1981,
although overtures were made cautiously, so as not to alarm U.S.
officials. In December 1983, Egypt and the Soviet Union signed an
economic accord that called for a 25 percent increase in bilateral trade.
Then, on July 7, both countries formally announced the resumption of full
diplomatic relations, with an exchange of ambassadors to take place.
These changes apparently portended no fundamental shift in U.S.-
Egyptian relations. U.S. military and economic assistance to Egypt for
1984 was kept at the 1983 levels of $1.3 billion and $1 billion,
respectively, maintaining Egypt's position as the second greatest recipient
of American aid, after Israel. However, relations between the two
countries were not without problems. By the beginning of the year,
Egypt's military debt had risen to some $3.6 billion, and the Egyptians
were having trouble meeting the interest payments on these debts. The
discussions between Mubarak and President Ronald Reagan in February
focused in part on means to alleviate this problem.
Less comfortable with the new foreign policy position staked out by the
Mubarak government were the Israelis. Much to Israel's chagrin,
Egyptian authorities saw few reasons to alter the climate of "cold peace"
between the two countries. From the Egyptian point of view, Israeli
control of the border settlement of Taba, Israel's occupation of South
Lebanon, and Israel's continuing expansion of settlements on the West
Bank were major irritants. On the other hand, the decision by Egypt to
break off diplomatic relations with El Salvador and Costa Rica in April,
in protest over the moving of their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,
upset the Israelis. Cairo further announced that it would deal similarly
with any other nation that moved its embassy to Jerusalem—a threat at
least indirectly aimed at the United States.
During the summer attention was riveted on the mysterious mining of the
Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea. By late September, at least 19 ships from
diverse nations had been damaged by the mines, which threatened to
disrupt traffic through the Suez Canal, traditionally one of Egypt's
greatest earners of foreign exchange.
Naval units from the United States and several Western European
countries, including Great Britain, France, and Italy, conducted
minesweeping operations at the request of the Egyptian government.
Several Soviet ships also joined in the hunt for mines, at the invitation of
South Yemen. Although a radical Islamic group claimed responsibility
for the minings, many observers came to believe that Iran or Libya was
responsible. Egyptian officials blamed Libya, partly on the basis of the
fact that a Libyan freighter capable of placing the mines had passed
through the area. In mid-September, British searchers found a
sophisticated modern mine, apparently of Soviet manufacture, in the Gulf
of Suez. This increased speculation about Libyan responsibility, since
Libya obtains military matériel from the Soviets.
Domestic Politics.
The parliamentary elections of May 27, the first in five years, were
widely viewed as a test of Mubarak's pledge to bring democracy to Egypt.
And although certain groups such as the Communists and radical
Muslims were still banned from the political competition, a total of five
political parties did contest the elections, offering the voters a meaningful
choice.
Among those parties, the most closely watched was the New Wafd. Until
it was outlawed after the military seized power in 1952, the liberal,
generally pro-capitalist Wafd had been the leading political party in the
country. Its successor, the New Wafd, had emerged briefly in the late
1970's, only to cease formal activity under government pressure. Just two
months prior to the May elections, the New Wafd was granted formal
recognition by a Cairo court, and by the end of March the first issue of its
newspaper, al-Wafd, had hit the newsstands. In mid-April, the
government confiscated copies of an issue of al-Wafd that allegedly
violated legal restrictions on coverage of a fundamentalist group
implicated in the 1981 slaying of President Anwar al-Sadat. Shortly
thereafter, however, a Cairo court ordered the government to allow
distribution of the newspaper.
In the political maneuvering that preceded the elections, the largely
secularist New Wafdists formed an unlikely coalition with representatives
of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood organization, which, because
of its religious basis, was barred by law from fielding its own candidates.
The elections themselves were marred by several unseemly incidents,
including the murder of a Socialist Labor Party (SLP) candidate. Officials
of the leftist National Progressive Unionist Party complained vociferously
of election rigging, and their protestations were echoed by officials of the
other opposition parties as well. Police and internal security authorities
were not the object of these accusations so much as overzealous members
of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) who apparently failed to
heed Mubarak's call for peaceful and fair elections.
How seriously the elections were affected by such incidents was difficult
to ascertain. Only 40 percent of all eligible voters participated in the
elections, in which the ruling NDP scored a resounding victory. In all, the
NDP captured 390 of the 448 seats at stake in the People's Assembly,
while the New Wafd won the remaining 58.
No other party garnered the minimum 8 percent of the vote necessary to
occupy seats in the People's Assembly. However, 12 of the 58 New
Wafdist seats were to be occupied by members of the Brotherhood. Also,
in a spirit of accommodation, Mubarak, who had the right to name ten
additional People's Assembly deputies, granted four seats to members of
the SLP.
All things considered, the elections represented an important step toward
establishing a truly democratic system. The 58 People's Assembly seats
won by the New Wafd represented the greatest number achieved by any
opposition party since the termination of the constitutional monarchy in
1952. It was nearly twice the number of opposition seats held in the
outgoing 392-member Assembly, and livelier debate within that body
seemed guaranteed.
In other political developments, Prime Minister Fuad Mohieddin, who
died of a heart attack on June 5, was replaced by General Kamal Hassan
Ali, the former foreign minister. When a new government was announced
on July 17, it included most other incumbent ministers. Among the
returnees were Economics Minister Mustafa al-Said and Defense Minister
Abdelhalim Abu Ghazala.
Economy.
The Mubarak government's strategy for economic development continued
on track this year. In contrast to his predecessor's more liberal economic
policies, Mubarak has focused on a return to stricter economic planning
and a reaffirmation of faith in the public sector. Nevertheless, the private
sector remained significant, and private capital was scheduled to account
for 25 percent of total investment in the 1983-1984 fiscal year.
The country's largest sources of foreign exchange, workers' remittances
from abroad ($3.6 billion in 1983), Suez Canal revenues ($1 billion), oil
revenues ($2.13 billion), and tourism ($1 billion), were expected to
remain close to the same levels in 1984. Production from an important
new oil field at Zeit Bay, brought on line in December 1983, was counted
on to boost oil production from 80,000 barrels per day in fiscal 1983-
1984 to 830,000 bpd in 1984-1985. One trouble spot was the agricultural
sector, where a 2 percent increase in output per year was failing to keep
pace with a 2.8 percent annual increase in the population. As a result, the
country once again was expected to import more than half of its food
needs. Riots broke out in the city of Kafr ad Dawwar, near Alexandria, in
September after the government raised food prices. A day after the protest
— the first such episode since Mubarak came to power — food price
rollbacks were announced.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.

1985: Egypt
President Hosni Mubarak was forced to adopt a more aggressive attitude
in his conduct of the affairs of state, breaking the calm he had brought to
Egyptian politics following the 1981 assassination of his predecessor,
Anwar al-Sadat.
Copts and Muslim Fundamentalists.
The year began on a conciliatory note when Mubarak allowed Pope
Shenouda III, elected leader of the Coptic Christian community, to
resume his papal duties after more than three years of forced internal
exile. Shenouda was among those accused by Sadat—just one month
prior to the latter's assassination—of having fomented sectarian strife and
political unrest. Shenouda's restoration was applauded by the Coptic
community, Egypt's largest minority, and was seen as a sign of Mubarak's
confidence in the stability of his regime.
Mubarak also demonstrated continued tolerance of lively debate by the
legal opposition parties. Although Communists and Islamic
fundamentalists were still prohibited from forming political parties of
their own, their views could be seen in the weekly press or heard in other
forums.
In fact, Islamic fundamentalists were more active than ever before in
seeking to gain influence over the government, and they met, at first, with
success. In the spring, a liberal decree enhancing women's rights in
divorce and other "personal status" matters was repealed by the People's
Assembly under fundamentalist pressure. Around the same time, the
government acceded to pressure from such interests and ordered the
destruction of 3,000 copies of the classic Arabian story collection A
Thousand and One Nights, on the grounds that its contents were morally
corrupting.
Emboldened by these victories, the sheikh of Noor Mosque, Hafez
Salama, intensified his demands for the government to adopt Islamic law
(sharia). He also preached on behalf of restoration of mandatory
almsgiving, implementation of the Islamic penal code (including such
penalties as amputations for thefts), removal of the existing banking
system (which permits interest), abrogation of the Camp David peace
treaty with Israel, and establishment of an Islamic republic similar to the
one in Iran. In mid-July, Salama called upon the faithful to march on the
Aruba presidential palace in support of his program. But the
demonstration was postponed after Mubarak banned the march as a threat
to national security and also deployed more than 1,000 riot policemen to
quash any attempt by the fundamentalists to defy the ban. Salama, 13 of
his supporters, and more than 30 others labeled as "extremists" were later
arrested. Salama was released in August and vowed to continue his
campaign.
The July show of force was part of a new offensive being launched by
Mubarak, who had become increasingly wary of the fundamentalist
movement. In late June he had launched a verbal assault on "religious
fanatics," accusing them of threatening national unity and collaborating
with an unnamed foreign power. He also banned the use of bumper
stickers voicing Islamic slogans, which were being distributed by the
fundamentalists. On July 1 he backed the People's Assembly when it
voted nearly unanimously to restore the earlier, more liberal "personal
status" laws repealed in the spring. Two days later, the government
announced that it was assuming control of all mosques in Egypt, in a
move designed to undercut fundamentalist opposition.
The events amounted to the first major showdown between the
government and Islamic fundamentalists, and Mubarak was seen to have
won a crucial test of strength. However, the August 20 assassination of an
Israeli diplomat in Cairo, for which several militant Islamic groups
claimed responsibility, was an indication that the fundamentalists had not
given up the fight.
Conflict Over Economic Policy.
The government found itself embroiled in a divisive conflict over
economic policy. On January 5, Minister of the Economy Mustafa Said
had introduced new measures aimed at clamping down on black
marketers, whose dealings in foreign currencies had grown so powerful
that even the national banks had difficulty meeting their foreign currency
needs. The measures also created several new restrictions on imports. But
the arrest and trial of several of the biggest black marketers also led to
charges from within the government that some of the confiscated money
had been illegally handled. Furor over this matter, combined with
opposition from some business leaders to other aspects of the January 5
measures, resulted in Said's resignation in late March. He was quickly
replaced by Sultan Abu Ali, who restored the import/export regime that
had been in place prior to January 5.
Egypt's overall economic problems remained considerable. The country
imported 60 percent of its total food requirements, including 75 percent
of its wheat. Imports of foreign goods had soared during 1984, helping to
force a devaluation of the Egyptian currency to 1.27 pounds to the dollar.
This change in the official rate—which was one of the January 5
measures—did not, however, prevent the black market rate from reaching
1.5 pounds to the dollar. The budget deficit was nearly $5 billion, and the
total foreign debt climbed to over $30 billion. Economic experts
projected a balanceof-payments deficit for 1985 of $1.3 billion, a reversal
from the small surpluses recorded in recent years.
The stress of coping with burdensome economic problems may have had
something to do with Prime Minister Kamal Hassan Ali's decision to
resign on September 4, although other speculation—in the absence of any
official explanation—centered on Ali's health. Ali Lofti, chairman of the
Economics Department at Ain Shams University, a member of an
economics advisory committee, and a finance minister under Sadat, was
appointed by Mubarak as the new prime minister. Lofti immediately
faced a crisis. In the first three weeks of September the pound lost 25
percent of its value on the unofficial open market. (It then apparently
stabilized.) Contributing to the drop was a surge in demand for hard
currency fueled by rumors that the pound would be devalued and that
Lofti was planning to introduce severe import restrictions.
Foreign Aid.
In the effort to meet Egypt's rising food needs and realize other
developmental objectives, the government continued to rely heavily on
foreign assistance. For 1986, the U.S. aid package was expected to hit
$2.3 billion, with Egypt continuing to be the second-largest recipient of
U.S. foreign aid, after Israel. Over the 1979-1985 period, Egypt received
$6.8 billion in military aid and $7.8 billion in economic aid from the
United States alone. In fact, the flow of American loans had been so
heavy that the accumulated interest was acknowledged as a serious
problem. Interest payments on just the military component of the debt
were projected at more than $500 million for 1985, of which Egypt was
expected to pay at least $400 million.
Egypt's ability to finance its debt was further inhibited by declining
revenues from petroleum exports (caused by the decline in world oil
prices) and by the lack of any significant improvements in tourism or
exports. It thus came as no surprise that Mubarak discussed debt
rescheduling and a request for supplemental emergency assistance during
meetings with top U.S. officials when he visited Washington, D.C., in
March. The Egyptian president succeeded in extracting a promise of $500
million in emergency aid above the $2.3 billion in aid already targeted for
Egypt, but his hosts were not at all enthusiastic about debt rescheduling,
apparently fearful of setting an undesirable precedent.
Mideast Tensions.
The other major topic broached during Mubarak's U.S. visit was the
search for peace in the Middle East. To advance the peace process—and,
perhaps, to enhance his image in the United States prior to the visit—
Mubarak had actively promoted the peace initiative sponsored by Jordan's
King Hussein and Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat.
That plan, announced on February 11, called for the formation of a joint
Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to enter into peace talks with Israel. The
U.S. administration reacted favorably to the initiative and to Egypt's
efforts, but in the months that followed American officials refused to
engage in any diplomatic activity that might be construed as granting
formal recognition to the PLO.
Egypt's standing in the Arab world—and perhaps the peace process as
well—suffered a setback as a result of the hijacking of an Italian cruise
ship by Palestinian terrorists shortly after it left the Egyptian port of
Alexandria. The Achille Lauro was seized on October 7 by four gunmen,
who then demanded the release of 50 Palestinian prisoners in Israel. The
ship eventually anchored near Port Said, and Egypt became a mediator.
Egypt negotiated in conjunction with Italy and PLO officials, including
Muhammad Abbas, leader of the PLO faction to which the hijackers
belonged and the alleged mastermind of the plot. Two days after
commandeering the ship, the gunmen turned themselves in to Egyptian
authorities in exchange for a promise of safe passage out of Egypt. The
terms angered the United States, which confirmed that the gunmen had
killed an elderly, wheelchair-bound American passenger, Leon
Klinghoffer. The following day, an Egyptian airliner carrying the four
Palestinians, Abbas, and others left Egypt. It requested and was denied
permission to land in Tunis, the site of PLO headquarters, and Athens.
The plane was then intercepted by U.S. Navy F-14 jet fighters and forced
to land at a NATO base in Sicily. Mubarak had said the hijackers were
being turned over to the PLO, which claimed ignorance of the terrorists'
plans (despite evidence to the contrary) and said it would put the men on
trial. The gunmen were taken into custody by Italian authorities and
charged with murder and kidnapping. Abbas was later allowed to leave
Italy despite U.S. objections.
Mubarak denounced the U.S. action as an "act of piracy" and demanded
an apology; President Ronald Reagan instead sent a special envoy for
talks with the Egyptian leader. Demonstrations broke out in Cairo
protesting Egypt's ties with the United States and its treaty with Israel.
Mubarak, doubly constrained by Egypt's financial dependence on the
United States and by his desire to end Egypt's isolation in the Arab world,
put down the protests for fear that fundamentalists might take advantage
of the unrest.
On November 23 an Egyptair jetliner bound from Athens to Cairo was
hijacked by several men, apparently part of a group called Egypt's
Revolution. The men made no demands during the hijacking, beyond
ordering the plane to Malta and asking that it be refueled. The hijackers
began shooting passengers while the plane was still in flight, and once it
landed in Malta, they apparently killed one person and wounded several
others, dumping their bodies out of the plane. Nearly 24 hours after the
ordeal began, Egyptian special forces stormed the plane; the hijackers
retaliated by tossing grenades at the passengers, setting off an inferno.
Over 50 people were killed during the rescue operation.
Meanwhile, relations with neighboring Libya were strained over several
points. Libya's leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi, made good on a threat to
expel some 10,000 Egyptians working in his country. Libya (and
Ethiopia) also condemned the military exercises staged jointly by U.S.
and Egyptian armed forces under the code name Bright Star '85.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.


1986: Egypt
In 1986 Egypt's economic problems reached crisis proportions, giving
rise to serious strains in the social fabric. Concomitantly, doubts arose
over the ability of President Hosni Mubarak's regime to withstand the
attendant political pressure.
Economic Woes.
Just as several major infrastructural projects were completed, providing
much-needed relief of Egypt's communications and transportation
headaches, the economy was beset by numerous negative developments
over which Egyptian authorities had little control. Revenues from oil
exports were expected to plummet to less than half of the $2.1 billion
level attained in 1985, as the price of Egyptian crude dropped sharply
during the first half of the year. The oil-based economies of Egypt's Arab
neighbors were similarly affected by the worldwide oil glut, and the
resulting contraction of economic activity sent hundreds of thousands of
Egyptian migrant laborers back home to Egypt. This development
undercut economic growth, previously stimulated by the massive foreign
remittances of the migrant workers, and also posed seemingly
insurmountable unemployment problems.
As if these difficulties were not enough, a series of 1985 terrorist
incidents and 1986 rioting discouraged foreign tourism in Egypt. Dozens
of tourist hotels, many of them brand-new, operated at below the breakeven
point for most of the year. The only relatively bright spot among
Egypt's major sources of foreign currency was the Suez Canal, whose
annual revenues topped the $1 billion mark for the first time ever in the
1985-1986 fiscal year. However, traffic and revenues were below
projections for the first half of 1986.
Other sectors of the economy failed to make up for these reversals.
Imports continued to exceed exports, leading most observers to expect a
current account deficit for 1986 of some $4.5 billion. By August, Egypt's
total foreign debt had climbed to $36 billion, and nervous Egyptian
business executives were believed to have transferred $40-45 billion to
foreign banks.
Many foreign financial backers stood ready to see Egypt through the
economic crisis. In late 1985, the International Monetary Fund had
extended an offer of $1.5 billion in standby credits. The U.S. Congress
voted to maintain its high level of aid to Egypt — $2.3 billion in military
and economic aid was appropriated for fiscal year 1987 — and several
other countries echoed the promise of West German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl to assist Egypt.
Public understanding of the dire economic straits permitted the
government greater freedom to implement price hikes for transportation,
water, electricity, and gasoline. Price controls on fruits, vegetables, meat,
and other products were gradually abandoned, with resulting price
increases placing many commodities beyond the means of even middleclass
families. It was not clear whether additional pressures by the IMF
and other foreign creditors would bring government cuts in subsidies for
bread, sugar, tea, and other Egyptian staple goods, which cost the
government $2 billion a year. In any event, budgetary constraints seemed
likely to continue to produce unrest and instability. In October, Prime
Minister Ali Lutfi, an economist named in 1985 to deal with Egypt's
financial problems, was replaced by economist Atef Sedki.
Social Disturbances.
A mere rumor relating to budgetary cutbacks produced a serious outbreak
of violence early in the year. In February, the word spread among soldiers
of the Central Security Forces that budgetary pressures would bring a
government decision to extend their duty by one year. Poorly treated by
their superiors and forced to subsist on salaries of about $7.38 a month in
addition to their abysmal food and shelter provisions, Security Forces
conscripts mutinied, setting fire to many hotels and nightclubs —
symbols for them of luxurious and decadent life-styles — in the area of
the Giza pyramids. Security Forces in other parts of Cairo also went on a
rampage, and Muslim radicals apparently exploited the breakdown in
order to wreak havoc on their own. Mubarak was obliged to summon the
regular army to restore order, and the official toll for the February 26-27
events was 107 dead and more than 700 wounded. A series of trials of
more than 1,300 alleged rioters began in October.
The mutiny further undermined public confidence in the Mubarak regime,
which had just been badly shaken by the repercussions of a 1985 incident
in which a young Egyptian policeman went berserk and started firing at a
group of Israeli tourists on a beach in the Sinai peninsula, killing seven
and wounding four others. The policeman, Suleiman Khater, went on trial
in November before a military tribunal and was sentenced to life in prison
at hard labor on December 29. Both secular and religious opposition
leaders took a strong interest in the Khater case from the outset, elevating
Khater to the status of a national hero and staging demonstrations calling
for his release. The opposition worked itself into a fury of antigovernment
attacks in the press and elsewhere when it was learned in January that
Khater had committed suicide in his prison cell. Opposition voices
reached such a fever pitch that Mubarak responded with his own verbal
lambasting of the regime's critics, warning them that he might not be able
to maintain the relatively liberal political environment he had helped
create should opposition leaders not exercise greater responsibility and
utilize less inflammatory language.
Most opposition leaders muted their attacks following Mubarak's threat,
and the country regained its political calm. Nonetheless, the economic
crisis, coupled with a growth in the strength of various opposition
elements, indicated an uncertain future for Mubarak.
Political Unrest.
Increases in the cost of living helped trigger illegal strikes by publicsector
textile workers in February and railroad engineers in July.
Although not responsible for the direction of these strikes, the National
Progressive Unionist Party (a coalition of Marxists, followers of the late
President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and other independent leftists) and the
Socialist Labor Party benefited from the opportunity to present
themselves as representatives of working-class interests. Also, several
Nasserite leaders presented cases before the Supreme State Constitutional
Court to win the right to form their own political party. Many predicted
that the entry of a true Nasserite party into the political arena might result
in an even more successful mobilization of disgruntled public-sector
workers and others against the regime's liberal economic strategy.
Overshadowing these important political developments, however, was the
continued growth in strength of Islamic fundamentalist forces of various
hues. Although the most radical Islamic groupings, such as al-Jihad and
Takfir wa-l-Higra, remained subject to tight government surveillance and
frequent arrests, the much larger Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic
Groups (Gama'at al-Islamiyya) appeared well on their way to establishing
themselves as the dominant civilian political forces. Having already
gained dominance on the nation's university campuses, these groups
made requests of their own to the Supreme Court for the creation of
political parties and arranged cooperative pacts with existing political
parties (the New Wafd and Liberal parties).
In the face of increasing popular support for the Islamic organizations'
call for the implementation of Islamic law, the regime continued to insist
on a more secular society and politics. During 1986, the view became
widespread that socioeconomic duress would cause a major social
upheaval, with the less moderate Islamic Groups perhaps most likely to
exploit the situation.
In the face of this challenge, the regime's National Democratic Party
seemed almost dormant. Despite the absolute majority it held in the
People's Assembly, the party seemed in need of a clearer ideological
position to better combat opposition forces. Many expected such changes
to be introduced when the party held its fourth annual national congress
in July, but none were forthcoming.
Foreign Affairs.
Egypt's economic and military dependence on the United States and other
capitalist industrial powers remained great in spite of strains produced by
the 1985 Achille Lauro affair, in which U.S. jet fighters intercepted and
forced down an Egyptian airliner carrying the hijackers of an Italian
cruise ship, and in spite of domestic opponents' charges of excessive
Western dependence. Joint U.S.-Egyptian military operations were again
conducted in the Mediterranean in August, continuing what has become
an annual event.
There were some signs of a thaw in the "cold peace" with Israel.
Negotiations over Taba, a 700-square-meter chunk of land on the
Egyptian-Israeli border claimed by both states, were at the center of most
Egyptian-Israeli diplomatic encounters. In September both parties agreed
to submit the issue to binding international arbitration. This development,
along with U.S. coaxing, induced Mubarak to end his long-standing
refusal to meet with Israel's prime ministers. Israel's Shimon Peres and
Mubarak met in Alexandria, Egypt, on September 11 and 12 to discuss
further efforts to promote peace in the region, but no new proposals
emerged from the talks. Prior to the summit, Egypt agreed to restore an
ambassador to the Tel Aviv post, vacated in 1982 after Israel's invasion of
Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Mubarak's steadfast upholding of the 1979 Camp David
peace treaty with Israel and his quiet diplomacy throughout the region
continued to yield subtle, but real, political dividends. The July meeting
between Peres and Morocco's King Hassan II left Egypt somewhat less
isolated as regards its relations with Israel. Furthermore, in the same
month Saudi Arabia's King Fahd made a significant overture for the
restoration of normal ties with Egypt. Finally, Mubarak's numerous
cordial meetings with Jordan's King Hussein, PLO leader Yasir Arafat,
and the new regime in Sudan, as well as his continued strong support for
Iraq in its war with Iran, placed Egypt on the verge of normal ties with
most of the other Arab nations. Relations with the more radical anti-
Israeli Arab states, such as Libya, Syria, and the People's Democratic
Republic of Yemen, remained understandably cool, if not hostile, from
the Egyptian perspective.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.


1987: Egypt
In October 1987, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was returned to a
second six-year term in office by a national referendum. However,
daunting economic difficulties and rising Islamic fundamentalist
opposition appeared certain to make his second term most challenging.
Elections.
During 1987, Egypt experienced significant political activity, much of it
generated during the first months of the year by preparations for the April
6 legislative elections. Although most observers had little doubt that the
regime-backed National Democratic Party (NDP) of Mubarak would
emerge victorious, this did not preclude widespread campaigning and
maneuvering by opposition parties and organizations, as well as by
hundreds of independent candidates.
Opposition leaders managed to patch together a single, nationwide
electoral alliance early on and made a great show of solidarity at a large
public rally on February 5. However, the coalition weakened soon after
when the leaders of the secular, center-right New Wafd Party and the
leftist National Progressive Unionist Party decided to compete on their
own. Their defection, prompted in part by the Islamic fundamentalist
objectives of the other parties, reduced to three the number of
organizations comprising the alliance: the Liberal Socialist Party, the
Socialist Labor Party, and the Muslim Brothers. The last group was
legally banned by the Egyptian constitution but had grown to occupy a
formidable position in the Egyptian body politic; Mubarak was said to
have consented to such a role as a way of controlling the growth of
Muslim extremism.
The three-party alliance presented the implementation of Islamic law as
its major objective, while the New Wafd and the National Progressive
Unionist parties focused their campaigns on government corruption,
mishandling of the economy, and Egypt's military and economic
dependence on the United States. The non-religious issues were also
emphasized by a handful of Nasserite and Communist candidates who,
while also barred from the party arena, were allowed for the first time to
participate in the elections as independents.
Although open to a more ideologically diverse set of candidates than any
others in recent years, the elections were marred once again by numerous
acts of violence and widespread allegations of ballot rigging. On the eve
of the elections, Ministry of Interior forces swept up some 750 opposition
activists, mostly Muslim fundamentalists, on charges of plotting
disruption of the electoral process. On election day there were several
reports of violence and intimidation of opposition poll watchers by state
security forces and officials of the ruling party. These clashes, most of
them in the northern Nile delta region and the southern city of Sohag,
produced at least one death and scores of injuries; the violence was said
to account in part for the small turnout (50 percent).
Mubarak's NDP won a substantial victory, capturing 77 percent of the
vote, and 346 of the 448 contested seats, in the People's Assembly.
Primarily because of the strength of the Muslim Brothers, the alliance
won 13 percent of the vote and 60 seats. New Wafd Party representation
shrank from 57 seats to 35, barely clearing the 8 percent minimum of the
vote required to gain admission to the assembly. The National
Progressive Unionist Party and the minuscule Umma Party both failed to
break the 8 percent threshold, thus winning no representation. The
remaining 7 assembly seats were filled by independents, most of them
close to the government party. Overall, the results gave the opposition
parties combined their greatest strength ever in any post-1952 legislative
assembly. The elections also emphasized the growing strength of Islamic
fundamentalist forces, with the Islamic alliance replacing New Wafd as
the government's major legislative opponent.
On July 6, Mubarak was renominated for the presidency by the assembly,
which his party dominated. New Wafd deputies staged a walkout to
protest the renomination, in keeping with their call for competitive, direct
elections for the presidency. However, the alliance backed Mubarak's
renomination, ensuring a sizable vote in his favor; he was returned to
office by an overwhelming majority on October 5.
Islamic Militancy.
While Mubarak and his party, assisted by military and police forces,
retained firm control of the machinery of the state, extralegal attacks on
the regime by Islamic militants occurred with increasing frequency. They
staged protest demonstrations on university campuses in Cairo,
Alexandria, and many provincial cities, demanding the implementation of
Islamic law and calling for the release of imprisoned comrades. Even
more unsettling, despite repeated harsh warnings by the interior minister
and the president, Islamic radicals apparently engaged in a series of
terrorist acts. In early May former Interior Minister Hassan Abu Basha
was badly wounded and narrowly escaped death; in June a magazine
editor who had criticized the Islamic movement was shot and slightly
wounded, as were two American security personnel, allegedly by
underground Islamic terrorist groups. Hundreds of suspects were rounded
up during this period by Interior Ministry forces; tales of torture increased
the alienation between Mubarak's government and Islamic
fundamentalists.
Economic Conditions.
Much of the political instability had its origins in the country's chronic
economic woes. With the population growing at a rapid 2.6 percent
annually, Egypt continued to produce far more mouths to feed than could
be satisfied by domestic resources. Food imports were needed to meet
more than half of domestic consumption, and government subsidies for
food and other basic necessities were estimated to cost some $3 billion
annually.
The total foreign debt reached $40 billion in 1987, forcing authorities to
meet some of their foreign creditors' demands for economic reform. On
May 1, subsidies were slashed, producing increases of up to 85 percent in
the cost of kerosene, diesel fuel, and gasoline. On May 11, banks were
authorized to set the exchange rate for the Egyptian pound at the free
market rate. These changes, coupled with foreign creditors' awareness of
the government's political vulnerability — widespread rioting had erupted
after radical cuts in staple goods subsidies in January 1977 — produced
agreements with the International Monetary Fund and other creditors in
mid-May. Existing debts were rescheduled and new credit extended on
terms viewed as extremely lenient. Elsewhere, recovery in the tourist
industry and higher prices for petroleum exports brought relief to the
economy, but the overall picture remained grim.
Foreign Affairs.
Somewhat more auspicious were Mubarak's accomplishments in the area
of foreign affairs. In January, Egypt attended the Islamic Conference
Organization summit in Kuwait, for the first time since the signing of the
1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel; at the meeting, Mubarak
reportedly made considerable progress in repairing relations with Syria
and other Arab nations. Also, Egypt's steadfast assistance to Iraq in men
and matérial earned Iraq's gratitude and that of other regional powers
siding with Iraq in the Iraq-Iran conflict. In early January, a Saudi
Arabian military delegation visited Cairo for the first time since the
Saudis' 1979 break with Egypt; several other Saudi dignitaries followed
later in the year. Saudi officials also appreciated Mubarak's
demonstration of solidarity with Saudi Arabia against Iran in the
aftermath of the July 31 riots at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, where
hundreds of Iranian pilgrims died in clashes with Saudi security forces. In
May, Egypt broke off ties with Iran following the arrest of Tehran-backed
fundamentalists charged with plotting to overthrow the Egyptian
government.
Improvements in Egyptian-Arab relations did not develop at the expense
of Egypt's peace with Israel or ties with the United States. Israeli officials
were angered by Egypt's action in inviting Austrian President Kurt
Waldheim to visit Cairo, but this flap was offset by the Egyptian foreign
minister's trip to Israel in July — the first visit by an Egyptian official of
such rank since Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982.
Moreover, the Israelis were pleased when Egypt closed down Palestine
Liberation Organization offices in Cairo in April, following the Palestine
National Council's sharp denunciation of Egyptian-Israeli relations.
Egypt's advocacy of an international Middle East peace conference that
would include a role for the Soviet Union received a mixed reception
from both Israel (whose leaders were divided over the prospect) and the
United States. Nevertheless, Egypt remained the second largest (after
Israel) recipient of U.S. foreign aid, a solid indication of Washington's
appreciation of the overall Egyptian policy of moderation.
Mass Transit for the Mideast.
In September, President Mubarak dedicated the first subway system in
the Middle East, a French-financed project built in Cairo over the last six
years by a French-Egyptian consortium. The 26.8-mile-long system has
21 stations and is partially underground.
The Glory That Was Egypt.
On May 3 the 3,000-year-old temple of Amenhotep III, in present-day
Luxor, became the site of one of the international cultural events of the
year — a gala production of Verdi's Aida in one of its original settings,
ancient Thebes. Commissioned in 1869 to celebrate the opening of the
Suez Canal, the opera was first performed in 1871 at the newly opened
opera house in Cairo. Hundreds of celebrities traveled to Luxor to enjoy
the spectacular 1987 performance, which featured a cast of some 1,500
led by Placido Domingo.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.

1988: Egypt
President Hosni Mubarak's diplomacy produced some significant
victories for Egypt in late 1987 and 1988, while diverse Islamic
fundamentalist groups remained a domestic challenge.
The Arab World.
Fearful of a victory by Iran in its war with Iraq, much of the Arab world
had begun to seek better relations with Egypt as a potential counterweight
to the Iranians. Cairo was already a major supplier of weapons to Iraq,
selling it some $500 million in arms yearly, and silently approved as large
numbers of Egyptians became mercenaries in the Iraqi Army. An Arab
summit meeting held in Amman, Jordan, in November 1987 adopted a
motion permitting the restoration of full diplomatic ties with Egypt;
within months, most Arab nations had done so. (Ties had been broken by
most Arab countries in 1979, when Egypt signed its peace treaty with
Israel.) Many nations were quick to renew close economic, financial, and
cultural ties as well, and Egypt was readmitted to numerous Arab
organizations. Its exclusion from the Arab League remained in force, but
the prospects for readmission in 1989 seemed high. There were strong
rumors in 1988 of Egyptian-Syrian rapprochement, and relations with
Libya were on the mend. By early April, Egypt had terminated radio
broadcasts by Libyan opposition elements from Cairo, and Libya
announced that it had withdrawn military forces from its Egyptian border.
Egypt's moderate stance on the Mideast conflict, however, continued to
cause friction between the two countries.
In January, Mubarak put forth a five-point peace initiative in response to
Israel's use of force in its efforts to crush a Palestinian uprising that had
begun the month before in the Israeli-occupied territories of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. The five points included calls for a six-month
cessation of violence in the territories, a freeze on new Israeli settlements
there, and the convening of an international peace conference. Mubarak's
proposal, announced just before he made a visit to the United States,
elicited no strong support in Washington, nor did the Palestinians see fit
to cease the civil disturbances. Mubarak's overture faded rapidly into
oblivion, but the Egyptian regime remained steadfast in its commitment
to an international conference to resolve the conflict. Jordan in July cut its
administrative links to the West Bank, and some Palestinian leaders
called on the Palestine Liberation Organization to establish a government
in exile or a provisional government for the occupied territories. In
September, with elections looming in the United States and Israel, Egypt
reportedly advised the PLO to hold off on the formation of a government.
Late the next month, Mubarak met in Jordan with PLO leader Yasir
Arafat and Jordan's King Hussein. Progress was apparently made in
healing rifts between Arafat and the king.
An Economic Uptick.
In general, the economic picture was somewhat brighter. Strong
performances were registered by all of Egypt's major foreign currency
earners: net oil export revenues jumped to $1.5 billion in 1987 from an
abysmal $697 million in 1986, remittances by Egyptians working abroad
were up by 76 percent and seemed likely to hit $4 billion for the 1987-
1988 fiscal year, Suez Canal earnings reached a record level of $1.22
billion in 1987, and earnings from tourism were also up.
A reform of the foreign exchange system, begun in 1987 as part of a deal
with the International Monetary Fund to help repay Egypt's foreign debt,
brought positive results, as black market currency transactions declined
and more remittances passed through official financial channels. The
reform also cleared the way for the rescheduling of some $12 billion in
debt with Egypt's creditor nations and international financial institutions.
In March 1988 an additional exchange rate reform effectively placed
transactions for all but a small (though significant) category of goods at
the free market rate. However, foreign exchange shortages still led to
periodic shortages of flour, sugar, tea, and cooking oil, and Egypt,
unwilling to adopt the harsh and politically risky austerity program
prescribed by the IMF, once again faced a credit squeeze.
Islamic Investment Companies.
The exchange system reforms led at least indirectly to a confrontation
between the government and the so-called Islamic investment companies,
a group of large, private financial concerns in Egypt long suspected as
conduits for illegal foreign remittances and other black market currency
transactions. The companies enjoyed a reputation for correct, Islaminspired
financial behavior—for example, they adhered to the ban on
paying fixed interest. Relying on risk-sharing schemes (with depositors
sharing in profits or losses), they had paid investors dividends as high as
20 to 30 percent on deposits. Consequently, the companies had attracted
hundreds of thousands of depositors in recent years. Some estimates
placed total deposits held by the firms at $5.5 billion, enough to make the
government reject direct confrontation for fear of creating economic
chaos. Nevertheless, government officials could not afford to leave such a
large sector of the economy unregulated and risk undermining the new
foreign exchange system and leaving Egyptian depositors unprotected.
The collapse of the al-Helal Islamic investment company in late 1987,
accompanied by the flight of its owners from Egypt, brought urgency to
the need to resolve the problem. In June the People's Assembly passed a
law forcing the Islamic concerns to convert into joint stock companies
with 50 percent of their capital open to public subscription. The law also
required regular public disclosure of financial activities at home and
abroad, mandated regulation by the Capital Markets Authority, and
imposed limits on the companies' paid-up capital. Complaints were not
long in coming. The directors of al-Hoda Misr called a general assembly
on June 15 and labeled the new law as unfair. Several companies
considered liquidation, a move that might have produced financial chaos.
The government modified the law in August, giving the companies three
months to decide whether to go public and submit to regulation or else
pay back their depositors and liquidate.
Underground Activity.
As in previous years, the political cauldron was near the boiling point.
Primary among government concerns was the effort to combat groups
charged with responsibility for increasingly frequent acts of political
terrorism. Most attention was focused on radical Islamic groupings that
had been implicated in arson, assassination attempts, or other civil
disturbances and engaged in numerous shoot-outs with the police in the
streets of Cairo. In March police arrested 69 radicals for disrupting a
music festival that the fundamentalists found objectionable. In June, 19
members of a Shiite Muslim cell, allegedly involved in an Iranian-backed
conspiracy, were apprehended. In August several people were killed in a
confrontation between police and religious militants at a Cairo mosque.
Not all of the underground activity was undertaken by Islamic radicals. In
fact, far more prominent was the mid-February indictment of 20 alleged
members of the clandestine group Egypt's Revolution, a radical Nasserite
organization. The accused—who included Khaled Abdel Nasser, son of
former President Gamal Abdel Nasser—were charged with involvement
in the assassination of two Israeli diplomats in 1985 and 1986, as well as
an unsuccessful attempt on the lives of U.S. embassy personnel in May
1987. Khaled Nasser had managed to find refuge in Yugoslavia but
vowed to return to Egypt to stand trial. However, he—along with a cousin
and a third defendant—was still in exile when the proceedings began on
November 1, and was tried in absentia.
To facilitate Interior Minister Zaki Mostafa Badr's efforts to suppress
terrorist attacks and internal unrest, the government surprised its
parliamentary opponents in March by hurriedly legislating an extension
of emergency laws permitting easy arrest and incarceration without
formal charges of persons considered suspicious. Opposition parties have
long opposed the existence of such laws but to little avail. In May the
Supreme Constitutional Court invalidated a law that prevented the
formation of new parties by people opposed to the 1979 treaty with Israel.
The law had been challenged by a Nasserite group. The ruling barred the
Nasserites from forming a party, however, on the constitutional ground
that their platform was too similar to that of an existing party, but the
Nasserites hoped that a pending ruling in another case before a different
court would eliminate this obstacle.
Lake Nasser Replenished.
Drought in East Africa over the past few years had reduced the level of
Lake Nasser, behind Egypt's Aswan High Dam, to the point where
operation of the dam's hydroelectric plant was threatened. However, flash
floods from rainfall in the Sudan in August restored the water level to that
of the early 1980s, ending the threat to power supplies and agriculture.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.

1989: Egypt
Years of patient diplomacy and moderation on the part of Egypt yielded
major achievements in 1989 in relations with the Arab world; Egypt also
was energetically pursuing a Mideast peace initiative. Meanwhile, despite
some hopeful economic signs, the domestic scene continued to be fraught
with crisis.
Arab Relations.
Since succeeding Anwar al-Sadat to the presidency in 1981, Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak has worked diligently to end Egypt's isolation
from the Arab world, brought on by Sadat's 1979 peace treaty with Israel,
without having to renounce the treaty. Most Arab nations had restored
ties with Egypt by the beginning of 1989, but Egypt at that point
remained ostracized from the Arab League.
Mubarak's objective of reintegration into the Arab fold received a major
boost in February, when the Arab Cooperation Council was formed by
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and the Yemen Arab Republic. Egypt's partners in
the council immediately let it be known that they would refuse to attend
any meeting of the Arab League to which Egypt was not invited. These
moves paved the way for Egypt to be invited to an extraordinary Arab
League summit in Casablanca, Morocco, in May; Mubarak's attendance
marked the end of a ten-year absence on Egypt's part.
Egypt's readmission to the Arab League opened the door to restoration of
full diplomatic relations with Lebanon in June and to improved relations
with Arab hard-liners Libya and Syria, the only two Arab states with
which Egypt now did not have diplomatic ties. Mubarak met with Libyan
leader Muammar al-Qaddafi at the Casablanca summit, and by early June
their nations had reopened air and ground transportation routes. Similarly,
warmer relations with Syria allowed flights between Egypt and Syria to
be resumed after a hiatus of 12 years. Mubarak and Qaddafi met again in
mid-October and agreed to a number of joint undertakings.
Relations With Israel.
Egypt's improved status in the Arab world did not come at the expense of
its relations or treaty with Israel. In fact, a major irritant to Egyptian-
Israeli relations was removed when Israel in March returned to Egypt the
Taba enclave in Sinai, the last remnant of Egyptian territory held by
Israel as a result of the Six Day War of 1967.
Obvious tensions remained, as Israel refused to support Egypt's call for
an international conference to resolve the Arab and Palestinian-Israeli
conflicts and Egypt initially balked at the peace plan proposed by Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, involving elections in the occupied West
Bank and Gaza Strip. However, Mubarak later sent Shamir a more
detailed, ten-point plan for elections in the occupied territories, with the
hope that the election proposal might be made acceptable to the
Palestinians. Mubarak also was seeking direct talks between Israel and
Palestinians. In mid-September, Mubarak met in Cairo with Israeli
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin for discussions of his peace proposal;
Mubarak also met with Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, who withheld any public endorsement of the Egyptian
initiative at this point but indicated a willingness for "dialogue" with
Israel under certain conditions. On October 2, Mubarak met with
President George Bush in Washington, D.C., and received encouragement
for his peace initiative; however, the Israeli government a few days later
rejected the Mubarak proposal for Israeli-Palestinian talks. In mid-
October the PLO turned down both the Egyptian plan for negotiations
and a new U.S. proposal for Egyptian-Israeli-U.S. talks on the makeup of
a Palestinian delegation to meet with the Israelis. In November, at a
meeting in Cairo, the PLO said that it reserved the right to decide who
would represent the Palestinians. Mubarak endorsed this position.
Other Foreign Relations.
Heavy U.S. military and economic assistance to Egypt continued at the
rate of some $2.3 billion annually. Egypt registered further improvement
in relations with the Soviet Union, as the two nations signed several
economic accords. One dark spot in foreign policy appeared in relations
with Egypt's southern neighbor, Sudan. Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq
al-Mahdi unilaterally abrogated the joint defense pact with Egypt in early
June, after allegations that Egypt had made efforts to destabilize his
regime. However, al-Mahdi was deposed by a military coup on June 30,
and the new regime was recognized by Egypt the following day.
Economic Aid Reprieve.
Strapped with an external debt estimated at around $50 billion and with
the prospect of penalties from the U.S. Congress if it failed to meet debt
obligations by the end of June, Egypt entered 1989 walking an economic
tightrope. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund had broken
down in October 1988, with the Egyptians claiming that the IMF was
trying to impose an impossibly rapid time schedule for numerous
reforms. By April, however, dialogue had resumed, and by late May an
initial agreement had been worked out. It called for a 3 percent increase
in interest rates to help stem the 30-40 percent inflation; reductions in
subsidies on nonfood items like electricity, petroleum products, and
cigarettes; and adjustment of foreign exchange rates. These reforms
accompanied more liberal laws on inheritance and investment, both of
which pleased the IMF. In exchange, the IMF acquiesced to government
wishes that food subsidies be continued, as well as to a 13.3 percent
increase in government and public sector salaries. The IMF also cleared
the way for a rescheduling of some $3.5 billion in debts to 1990 and for
an infusion of about $2 billion in assistance from various donors. Such
aid promised to breathe new life into the economy.
Islamic Opposition.
The undeniably liberal attitude taken by the IMF in its negotiations with
Egypt could be explained in part by its recognition of the difficult
domestic position facing Mubarak. Clashes pitting the police against
Islamic extremists, who seek establishment of an Islamic republic and
implementation of Islamic law, were becoming a fact of life in the nation.
A huge confrontation occurred during December 1988 in the Cairo
district of Ein Shams, where extremists had virtually imposed their
control for several months. After the killing of a police officer there, a
massive police raid yielded more than 300 arrests; three extremists were
killed in the raid, and many were injured.
The government sought to engage the extremists in a dialogue early in
1989, enlisting the support of prominent sheikhs such as Muhammad
Mutawalli al-Sha'rawi and Muhammad al-Ghazali to urge them to avoid
violence, but these and other efforts failed to bear fruit. In April another
major confrontation, in Al Fayyum, south of Cairo, resulted in the arrest
of hundreds of demonstrators, including the blind sheik Omar Abdel-
Rahman, reputed spiritual leader of Jihad. (Jihad, or "Holy War," is an
Islamic fundamentalist movement implicated in the 1981 assassination of
Sadat.) Abdel-Rahman had previously been tried for inciting Sadat's
assassination but had been released for lack of sufficient evidence. News
of these arrests triggered demonstrations in many other cities, culminating
in the arrest of more than 1,500 extremists around the country.
In August, Abdel-Rahman and 23 others were released from custody
pending future hearings on the April events, in a move designed to help
decrease domestic political tension. Meanwhile, in September, 26 other
Muslim extremists were convicted on charges relating to three attempted
murders in 1987. They were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one
year to life.
Domestic Politics.
In what many described as one of the biggest governmental changes
undertaken by Mubarak, Field Marshal Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala, the
minister of defense, was made an assistant to the president and was
replaced at the Defense Ministry by Major General Youssef Sabri Abu
Taleb, the former governor of Cairo. Abu Ghazala had been appointed
defense minister by Sadat in 1981. He had built a powerful base in the
military and was noted for his very warm relations with the United States.
His change of post was widely interpreted as a demotion, although
Mubarak simply described the move as a normal rotation in military
command. Some observers felt that Abu Ghazala had been hurt by
allegations of involvement in an attempted theft of secret military
materials from the United States to Egypt, which had been uncovered by
the United States in mid-1988. It was also thought that he and Mubarak
might have clashed over other issues, such as the size of the defense
budget.
Elections for the Consultative Council were held in June. All 153
contested seats were won by the regime's National Democratic Party;
subsequently, all opposition parties leveled charges of election fraud. The
liberal Neo-Wafd party and the leftist National Progressive Unionist
Grouping boycotted the elections on the grounds that the council was
purely advisory and had no genuine legislative function.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.

1990: Egypt
Egypt and its president, Hosni Mubarak, faced major challenges this year
as the unity of the Arab world was shattered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait
in August. The economy was also a major source of worry.
Gulf Crisis.
Years of skillful diplomacy and moderation had earned Mubarak and
Egypt newfound prestige in the Middle East and warm relations with both
the United States and the Soviet Union. Without breaking its peace treaty
with Israel, Egypt had been accepted back into the Arab fold and was set
to witness the return of the Arab League to its original home in Cairo.
Due in no small measure to the efforts of Egyptian foreign policymakers,
the Arab world, while still confronting serious difficulties, seemed more
united than at any time in recent history.
In July, however, Iraq mobilized troops along the Kuwaiti border, after
accusing Kuwait of driving oil prices down by overproduction and
stealing oil from a field straddling the border. These events thrust
Mubarak into the role of peace maker. On July 23 he hosted visits by the
Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, and King Hussein of Jordan, and the
following day, in an attempt to contain the crisis, he flew to Iraq, Kuwait,
and Saudi Arabia for emergency meetings with their leaders. Mubarak
came away from the meetings believing he had helped reduce tension by
putting an end to the war of words between Iraq and Kuwait. This
allowed him to focus on other international and regional political and
economic developments when, on July 31, he addressed 45 foreign
ministers, assembled, for the first time ever in Cairo, under the auspices
of the Islamic Conference.
The good will and expressions of solidarity generated by that assembly
were shattered by Iraq's surprise invasion of Kuwait at dawn on August 2.
The Iraqi aggression was immediately denounced by Mubarak, who
called upon Iraq to withdraw its forces immediately and unconditionally.
While Mubarak attempted to keep the crisis an Arab affair, to be settled
through negotiations within the Arab community, he was soon overtaken
by events, especially the U.S. government's decision on August 7 to
dispatch massive air, ground, and naval forces to protect the Persian Gulf
and Saudi Arabia. Mubarak responded to the American deployment by
calling an emergency Arab summit for August 10. At that meeting a
majority of Arab states voted to condemn the Iraqi aggression and to send
a multinational Arab force to Saudi Arabia. By mid-August, several
thousand Egyptian forces had been dispatched to the Arabian Peninsula,
where they teamed up with Moroccan, Syrian, and Saudi troops, and by
late in the year, Egypt had over 15,000 troops in the region. Mubarak
pronounced himself pessimistic about any peaceful resolution of the
conflict but, following the summit, pursued talks with Libyan leader
Muammar al-Qaddafi, Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid, and Syrian
President Hafez al-Assad in Alexandria in an attempt to reach such a
resolution.
An emergency gathering of the Arab League was held on September 9 in
Cairo to discuss the gulf crisis. As a result of the split in the Arab world
caused by the crisis, only 12 of the league's 21 members attended.
However, there was a quorum, and those present passed the motion, for
which preliminary agreement had been reached in March, to return the
Arab League headquarters to its original home in Cairo.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein made several appeals to the Egyptian
public to rise up in arms and overthrow the Mubarak government,
presenting the crisis as one pitting Islam against the West. But these
appeals appeared to fall on deaf ears, even among most of Egypt's Islamic
fundamentalists, who were all too aware of Saddam Hussein's secular,
socialist past.
Economic Problems.
The gulf crisis seemed likely to bring dire consequences for the Egyptian
economy. The country was already facing the prospect of tough new
austerity measures to meet conditions set by the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank in exchange for aid from numerous donors to
relieve its $55 billion foreign debt. Among the major stumbling blocks
were IMF demands for significant changes in Egypt's currency exchange
rate and interest rates. Egypt's foreign aid donors and creditors were
taking a tough stance to force Egypt to accept such reforms. The gulf
crisis added to Egypt's difficulties. The events in Kuwait, combined with
Egypt's position against Iraq, set in motion the exodus of hundreds of
thousands of the nearly 2 million Egyptian laborers working in Iraq. Their
return to Egypt, together with the loss of remittances they had sent home
and the decline in tourism, threatened to strain Egypt's ailing economy to
the breaking point. This threat did not go unnoticed elewhere. U.S.
President George Bush quickly earmarked $163 million in emergency
relief for Egypt, and Congress later forgave $6.7 billion of Egypt's
military debt to the United States in appreciation of its role in the crisis.
With additional emergency relief from Europe, Saudi Arabia, and Japan,
it appeared that a domestic economic crisis would be averted. Indeed, the
debt forgiveness reduced Egypt's interest payments by hundreds of
millions of dollars.
Islamic Opposition.
Widespread solidarity with the government's stance against Iraq provided
a moment of calm on the domestic front in what had been a fairly
turbulent year. The major source of disturbance derived from Islamic
extremists who continued their quest to establish an Islamic republic in
Egypt, resorting to violence in their attempts to achieve their objectives.
Most major disturbances occurred outside Egypt's major cities, but
virtually every province experienced some unrest.
Provocative incidents, such as the burning of churches and businesses
owned by Coptic Christians and the staging of rallies, resulted in
numerous clashes with internal security forces, especially in March,
April, and May. The Jihad (Holy War) organization was behind most of
these activities, but a splinter group called New Jihad battled police
armed with machine guns in one of the bloodiest confrontations, in the
village of Kahk. Over a dozen extremists were killed.
Ironically, the year had started off with a victory of sorts for Islamic
extremists. Their most hated adversary, Minister of the Interior Zaki
Badr, was removed from office by President Mubarak after Badr
delivered two public speeches in which, using the vilest language, he
heaped curses upon his detractors, including many prominent
establishment figures. Badr was replaced by General Abdel-Halim Musa,
who had earned respect as a provincial governor for his dialogues with
Islamic extremists. When immediately put to hard tests by those elements
after becoming the country's top police official, however, Musa showed
no hesitation in meeting force with force. In October, after Speaker of the
People's Assembly Rifaat al-Maghoub was assassinated, police arrested
members of Jihad who, they said, had killed the speaker in a botched
effort to kill Musa.
Domestic Politics.
A ruling by the country's highest constitutional court in the spring upheld
a lower court's finding that 39 Socialist Labor Party and Wafdist
candidates had been fraudulently denied victory in the People's Assembly
elections of April 1987. Despite urging by regime hard-liners to ignore
the ruling, Mubarak called for a referendum on whether to dissolve the
People's Assembly. After the referendum endorsed dissolution, elections
were scheduled for late in the year.
In April three new political parties were legalized: the Green Party
(environmentalists), Young Egypt Party (pursuing a Nile development
scheme), and the Democratic Unionist Party (seeking political union with
Sudan). This concession to pluralism was offset, however, by continued
rejection of efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood and Nasserites to form
parties of their own.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.

1991: Egypt
The Persian Gulf War and its ramifications dominated events in Egypt
during 1991.
Gulf Crisis.
Following Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait in August 1990,
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had attempted to defuse the crisis
through diplomacy. When these efforts failed, Egypt endorsed the United
Nations resolution calling for Iraq's withdrawal and committed troops to
the U.S.-led coalition deployed in the Arabian Peninsula to enforce those
sanctions.
When fighting broke out in January 1991, Egyptian forces were at first
involved only in exchanges of long-range artillery fire. However, Egypt
had the second-largest allied army contingent (about 45,000 troops)
committed to the war, and Egyptian forces were actively involved in the
liberation of Kuwait in February. While Egyptian casualties were
minimal (only ten Egyptian soldiers were killed in action), the scope of
Iraqi casualties inflamed public opinion in Egypt, stirring protests
especially by fundamentalist Islamic forces. Mubarak, who had been an
outspoken critic of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, responded to growing
internal criticism of the war by stressing that Egypt remained obligated
by its commitments to the United Nations and the Arab League to come
to the rescue of Kuwait.
Although the Gulf War pitted Egypt against Iraq and strained relations
with Iraq's principal supporters (Jordan, the Palestine Liberation
Organization, Yemen, and Sudan), cooperative relations with all but Iraq
and Sudan were soon restored. The catalyst for this improvement was the
felt need to close Arab ranks and use the outcome of the war as a
springboard for resolution of the long-standing Arab-Israeli conflict.
Indeed, participation in the anti-Iraq coalition by Egypt and other Arab
forces was motivated in part by U.S. promises to address the issue of
Arab-Israeli relations.
Mideast Peace Efforts.
During the months following the war, U.S. Secretary of State James
Baker repeatedly visited the area to arrange an Arab-Israeli peace
conference. Egypt, the only Arab country that had a peace treaty with
Israel, sent a diplomatic contingent to help broker such a conference,
whose initial phase opened on October 30 in Madrid. Egyptian officials
expressed concern that the heavy influx of Soviet and Ethiopian Jews to
Israel and Israel's policy of allowing new settlements in the Israelioccupied
territories might damage peace negotiations; accordingly, Egypt
was pleased when U.S. congressional consideration of $10 billion in loan
guarantees to finance the settlement of immigrants to Israel was
postponed.
Improved Foreign Relations.
Egyptian officials expressed relief that Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev survived a coup attempt in August. Diplomatic exchanges,
coupled with a Mubarak-Gorbachev meeting in September, resulted in
increased cooperation with the Soviet Union prior to its disintegration at
the end of the year. Meanwhile, Egypt remained a close U.S. ally, and the
second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, some $2.2 billion per year.
Relations with Libya continued to improve, and the Egyptian-Libyan
border was reopened to normal traffic in August. Egypt and Iran each set
up an "interests office" in the other's capital, the first step toward the
resumption of full diplomatic relations.
During the year, two Egyptians were chosen to head international
diplomatic organizations. In May, Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid
was elected secretary-general of the Arab League. Meguid, who served in
the past as Egypt's ambassador to the United Nations, was the first
Egyptian to head the league since Egypt's expulsion in 1979 for making
peace with Israel. Later in 1991, Deputy Prime Minister Boutros Ghali
was elected secretary-general of the United Nations, becoming the first
Arab and the first person from Africa in the post. A veteran diplomat,
Ghali played an important role in the 1979 peace process with Israel and
helped mediate many disputes involving African nations.
Elections.
Elections to the People's Assembly in November and December 1990
were boycotted by most major opposition parties, on the grounds that the
government had not complied with their conditions for safeguarding
fairness in the election process. The elections were marred by several
violent incidents, which resulted in 5 deaths and more than 100 injuries.
The government-backed National Democratic Party (NDP) won 79
percent of the vote; independent candidates took most of the remainder.
The NDP's Ahmed Fathi Surur was elected assembly speaker.
Internal Friction.
Acrimony over the elections set the stage for additional difficulties with
opposition parties throughout 1991. Egypt's participation alongside anti-
Iraq forces in the Gulf War led to many opposition attacks on the
government. With the important exception of the liberal Neo-Wafd party,
which backed Mubarak's position for the most part, opposition parties
decried the government's cooperation with the "Zionist-crusader" alliance
against Iraq, despite their general disapproval of the Iraqi invasion and
occupation of Kuwait. As antiwar demonstrations spread, protests at
several universities led to clashes with government security forces that
resulted in bloodshed.
The relatively quick conclusion to the war helped return life to normal on
university campuses. However, the cease-fire in Iraq by no means put a
stop to the government's trouble with opposition forces, particularly the
very well-organized Islamic extremist groups. Members of the Jihad
(Holy War), the largest of these organizations, as well as scores of other
groups, carried on repeated battles with Egyptian security forces.
The lengthy, celebrated trial of Gamal Abdel Nasser's son, Khaled, and
other members of the "Egypt's Revolution" group, accused of
assassination attempts against U.S. and Israeli officials in Egypt, came to
an end in April. Khaled Nasser was acquitted, while several other
members of the group were found guilty and sentenced to long prison
terms by the Supreme State Security Court.
Economic Problems.
The Egyptian economy experienced dramatic ups and downs during the
year. The Gulf crisis caused hundreds of thousands of Egyptian expatriate
workers in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula to scurry home to safety. Their
return damaged the economy in two major respects: first, it signaled an
end to billions in hard currency earnings that they had previously
repatriated to Egypt; second, it greatly boosted the ranks of the
unemployed and placed an enormous strain on government services and
subsidies. In addition, the crisis frightened away huge numbers of foreign
tourists. These factors would have created dire economic circumstances
had the country not received massive assistance and debt reductions from
its Western and Far Eastern donors. As a reward for political and military
support during the crisis, the U.S. government canceled Egypt's existing
$6.7 billion military debt. France and many other donor nations took
similar actions, helping to reduce Egypt's total foreign debt from roughly
$46 billion to about $24 billion by early 1991.
In March a memorandum of understanding was signed with the World
Bank. Egypt agreed, among other things, to float the exchange rate, grant
greater freedom to the private sector, reduce government subsidies, phase
in market-determined costs for energy and agricultural products, privatize
public sector companies, and implement tariff reforms. The agreement
cleared the way for a $300 million structural reform loan from the
International Monetary Fund in April, as well as for promises of $4
billion in aid over the next two years by the Paris Club, an international
consortium of Egypt's creditors.
The government announced in August that Egypt's oil exports for fiscal
1990-1991 were 70 percent higher than projected, earning $2.5 billion in
revenues. Tourism rebounded strongly late in the year. Despite these
gains, Egypt faced new economic difficulties in the aftermath of the Gulf
War. Recognizing that reform-inspired price increases in many areas
would squeeze most of the Egyptian public, Mubarak reiterated
government promises to maintain price freezes on a list of heavily
subsidized basic commodities.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.


1992: Egypt
Egypt expanded its role as mediator in regional affairs in 1992. On the
domestic front the government struggled to quell increasing violence by
Islamic militants and to reform a heavily centralized economic system.
International Relations.
In April, after concerted efforts by the United States and Britain, the
United Nations issued economic sanctions, coupled with the threat of
military reprisals, against Libya to pressure that government into turning
over two Libyans implicated in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103,
which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988. The UN
action left Egypt caught between the interests of its major Western aid
donors and pan-Arab sensitivities. The prevailing sentiment in Egypt was
defiant toward the Western demands, largely due to perception of a
Western double standard — that is, the West forced compliance with UN
resolutions affecting Arab nations but not with those concerning Israel.
Also, because more than 1 million Egyptians were working in Libya,
there was great fear of any developments that might result in the rapid
return of those workers to Egypt. The government of President Hosni
Mubarak sought to defuse the situation, urging the United States not to
undertake any precipitous military action that might destabilize the
region, while working with the Arab League to pressure Libya's leader,
Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, into turning over to Western officials the
two men accused of the Pan Am bombing.
Egyptian-Israeli relations had been deteriorating under the conservative
Likud government of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, which
pursued a policy of settling the occupied territories of the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip at the same time as it was participating in Middle East
peace talks. The Arab — and Egyptian — view of Israel's hard-line
position once again left Egypt in an awkward position. As a party to the
multilateral negotiations component of the peace talks, Egypt struggled to
convince all Arab representatives to attend talks relating to regional
issues and was successful in one important instance — at a mid-March
meeting in Cairo, Mubarak persuaded Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to
continue participating in the talks.
In June the Egyptian government was heartened by the electoral victory
of the Labor party in Israel and its immediate call for a partial freeze on
new building in the occupied territories. The following month, when
Israel's new prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, met with Mubarak in Cairo,
Mubarak pressed for a total freeze on settlements. By October the change
in the Israeli government and the strength of Egyptian diplomacy resulted
in Israel's decision to allow Palestinians not residing in the occupied
territories to participate directly in the peace talks. But the significance of
this concession remained uncertain given Israel's refusal to meet with the
Palestine Liberation Organization.
While the Mideast peace talks progressed, Egypt faced a new threat from
its southern neighbor, Sudan. Intelligence reports indicated that the
Sudanese government, which had been adopting an increasingly strong
Islamic fundamentalist stance, was setting up military training camps run
by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Halaib triangle, an area on the
border between the two countries. This led to an Egyptian-Sudanese
dispute over the region. In March a joint committee was established to
resolve the issue, but a clash between Egyptian and Sudanese security
forces in the area in early April left two Sudanese dead. By September,
Egypt had doubled its border posts and had established its own local
administration in the Halaib triangle.
In January the former deputy prime minister, Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
began his first term as secretary-general of the United Nations, replacing
Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.
Domestic Turmoil.
Citing the 1971 constitution, which bans any political party based on
religion, social class, or geographic region, a state administrative court in
February rejected the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood's bid for legal
party status. In the spring, however, a high court allowed followers of
former President Gamal Abd al-Nasser to set up a Nasserist Democratic
Party headed by Dia al-Din Dawud to pursue Nasser's ideals of socialism,
Arab nationalism, and pan-Arab unity.
Radical Islamic elements continued to pose a serious domestic threat,
particularly south of Cairo. In January two state irrigation inspectors were
killed after they happened across a group of Islamic extremists engaging
in weapons training. After a senior security official was assassinated in
early March, some 150 alleged Islamists were arrested.
Counterdemonstrations in Beni Suef resulted in the shooting deaths of
four Islamists by security forces.
In early May, 14 people were massacred by Islamic extremists in the
village of Mansheit Nasser in the Asyut region in retaliation for the
killing of members of the Islamic Group organization in the region in
March. Most of them were Coptic Christians, but at least two were
Muslims who were defending their Coptic neighbors. On June 8,
Egyptians were shocked by the assassination of Farag Foda by the Jihad
organization. Foda was a writer who advocated formation of a party
uniting Muslims and Christians.
In mid-June, clashes between security forces sent to protect Christians
and Islamic extremists broke out in Sanabu, leaving nine dead and many
wounded. Revenge attacks launched by extremists in nearby Dayrut
resulted in the killing of three security officials and two civilians, which
in turn triggered a huge dragnet operation in the Asyut region involving
thousands of security personnel. More than 200 people were arrested in
the dragnet.
A potentially more alarming development resulted from the decision of
extremists to strike at the government by disrupting the nation's lucrative
tourist industry. In late June a crudely fashioned grenade was tossed into
the Karnak Temple in Luxor, one of the world's premier tourist
attractions, and in July a gasoline bomb was thrown at a tourist bus in
Luxor. At the end of August, Islamic militants warned tourists against
visiting areas in southern Egypt. In October a British tourist was killed,
and in November a tourist bus was fired upon, resulting in the wounding
of seven occupants. By November, officials were reporting a decline in
the tourist trade from 30 to 50 percent.
With tourism supplying Egypt with some $3 billion in annual revenue,
the government took strong steps to meet the crisis. In June strong
antiterrorist legislation was pushed through the People's Assembly, and in
November police cars with automatic weapons were assigned to patrol
the highway from Cairo to Luxor. In December, 600 militants were
arrested in the biggest crackdown on dissent in a decade. The antiterrorist
legislation was opposed by the parliamentary opposition and by the
Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, both of which feared
governmental abuse of the loose definition of "terrorist." Such groups
have long contended that the government is the root cause of Islamic
extremists' violence because of its refusal to grant legal and political
status to religious parties and by engaging in human rights abuses,
including torture, against political opponents. Indeed, the human rights
organization Amnesty International had repeatedly levied similar charges
against Egyptian security forces. However, the Mubarak government's
commitment to checking Islamic extremists was evident not only in its
actions at home but in its support for the January coup in Algeria, which
blocked a likely electoral victory by the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation
Front.
Earthquake.
On October 12 a rare earthquake struck Cairo and the surrounding area,
killing over 500 people, injuring nearly 10,000, and leaving 3,000
families homeless. The relief efforts of the governing National
Democratic Party drew criticism from the Islamic fundamentalist
community, which quickly began ad hoc relief efforts of its own, hoping
especially to strengthen its political foothold in the capital city.
Economic Reform and Improvement.
A massive reduction in Egypt's foreign debt from $46 billion to about $29
billion — resulting from Egypt's Gulf War participation on the side of the
U.S.-led forces against Iraq — helped buoy the economy and enable the
government to promote several areas of economic reform. Thus, in
keeping with requests from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
government continued to chip away at subsidies on several basic goods
and services, including railway fares, gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, and
electricity. Such measures helped reduce the budget deficit to below the
targeted level of 10 percent of gross domestic product. The Egyptian
pound remained stable against the dollar, and inflation, though still
somewhat high at 20 to 25 percent, did not race out of control.
The government assured the IMF that it was close to meeting one of the
organization's recommendations: reform of Egypt's bloated, largely
inefficient public sector. But efforts to privatize hundreds of nonstrategic
public-sector companies were slowed for several reasons. First,
privatization was to be preceded by reorganization of the public-sector
companies into 27 holding companies, which led to much jockeying for
position by the directors on the boards of the companies; they also sought
assurances that they would be able to retain their posts after privatization
was complete. Second, with unemployment already estimated at 20
percent, the government feared the political and economic repercussions
of widespread privatization, which was certain to increase unemployment
initially. Finally, the domestic capital market was said to be underfunded.
While the delay in privatization led to friction with the IMF and other
donor organizations, it seemed unlikely that these groups would press the
Mubarak administration too hard, given the country's overall domestic
and foreign policy outlook.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.


1993: Egypt
Egypt was plagued by political violence as the confrontation continued
between government security forces defending the secular regime of
President Hosni Mubarak and radical groups seeking the establishment of
an Islamic republic. This tension affected foreign policy as well.
Domestic Violence.
Though the Islamic fundamentalists were estimated to include only
10,000 activists, their depth of commitment and the tightly knit structure
of their organization made them a formidable foe. Hardly a week passed
without some new development in this struggle, which by year's end had
claimed the lives of well over 200 people since March 1992.
Responding to several attacks on tourists by the extremist Islamic Group
in the fall of 1992, as well as to claims that an autonomous Islamic
republic had been created in a poor district of Cairo called Imbaba, some
10,000 security personnel invaded Imbaba on December 8, 1992, and
arrested the local Islamic Group leader and hundreds of other Islamic
militants. Similar security sweeps were undertaken in other poor districts
of Cairo.
The militants retaliated by striking at tourists in January and February
1993. Unlike previous attacks, which took place in tourist areas far from
the capital, these were carried out for the first time in Cairo itself. The
attacks on tourists were designed to cripple Egypt's economy and to
topple the Mubarak regime, as well as to rid Egypt of so-called corrupting
Western influences. On February 27, just one day after the World Trade
Center bombing in New York City, for which several individuals of
Egyptian origin, including Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, were later put on
trial, a bomb exploded at the Wadi al-Nil cafe in central Cairo's
Liberation Square, killing four, including two tourists. Although major
Islamic militant organizations denied responsibility, Islamic extremists
headed the list of suspects in the cafe bombing.
The violence intensified in March and April. On March 3 a police officer
and his six-year-old son were killed, and one month later a high-ranking
security officer was also gunned down. A fax sent from Peshawar,
Pakistan, reputed haven for several key leaders of Egypt's radical Islamic
elements, threatened foreign interests in Egypt. A March 9 clash in
Imbaba left 23 extremists dead, while a shoot-out 12 days later in the
southern city of Aswan brought the death of ten militants and two
policemen. On April 20 an attempt was made on the life of Information
Minister Safwat al-Sharif; he escaped with minor injuries.
Two days earlier, Interior Minister Abdel-Halim Moussa had been
relieved of his duties because of his approval of mediation efforts
between the police and Islamic activists undertaken by several prominent
Islamic sheikhs. His replacement, Hassan Muhammad al-Alfi, former
governor of Asyut, promised a "decisive confrontation" with the
militants.
Incidents of violence continued throughout the year. Although several
new attacks on foreign tourists resulted only in injuries, far more deadly
were the explosions of several nail bombs in Cairo. For example, a bomb
in the North Cairo district of Shubra took the lives of seven civilians and
wounded 20 others. Such wanton acts of violence raised anew the
question of responsibility. Although the government blamed Islamic
radicals (who themselves denounced the attack), some observers
speculated that foreign governments, ranging from Iran to Israel or the
Sudan, were guilty. Nevertheless, security forces again responded by
broad sweeps throughout most of the country's governorates; these netted
hundreds of activists and massive quantities of explosives and firearms.
On October 26 two Americans and a Frenchman were killed, and three
other foreigners were wounded by a gunman at Cairo's Semiramis Inter-
Continental Hotel (one of the wounded died later). It appeared, however,
that the attacker was mentally ill and was not connected to any militant
groups. Attacks on policemen escalated in December, and late in the
month a tourist bus was attacked in Cairo, leaving 16 people wounded. At
year's end the authorities announced that paramilitary forces had raided a
militant stronghold on an island in the Nile and foiled a plot to bomb
government buildings and assassinate government officials.
Death Warrants Issued.
To expedite the prosecution of militants, Mubarak had already bucked
domestic and foreign criticism by deciding to use military tribunals
instead of the slow-moving civilian judiciary. Military courts began
issuing death sentences, with the first executions occurring on June 13,
prompting new threats of antigovernment violence by Islamic extremists.
Numerous police officers were assassinated during the ensuing months,
and Interior Minister al-Alfi narrowly escaped an attempt on his life on
August 18, as did Prime Minister Atef Sedki on November 25.
Secular and moderate religious opposition leaders criticized Mubarak for
his handling of the domestic crisis. They attributed the crisis to
deteriorating socioeconomic conditions and glaring social inequalities,
not to "foreign forces." Most opposition leaders called for greater
democracy as the best means of defusing the crisis, but Mubarak saw
things differently. In February he oversaw the introduction of new
legislation that would diminish the still outlawed, yet powerful,
fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood's chances of controlling and utilizing
major professional organizations and trade unions as centers of
opposition activity. The brotherhood had already gained control of
roughly half the professional associations. Next, Mubarak ignored calls
for opening up the presidential election process and stuck to the old
format, allowing the People's Assembly (dominated by his own party) to
renominate him, virtually unopposed, for a third term. In the public
referendum held on October 2, Mubarak was reelected president for
another six years.
Privatization Proceeds Slowly.
Mubarak's task was likely to remain exceedingly complex. On the one
hand, he had committed his government to following economic reforms
prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including
liberalization of trade and privatization of inefficient and grossly
overstaffed public sector companies. Yet with unemployment at 20
percent, the crucial tourist sector facing a 30 percent to 50 percent
downturn because of antitourist violence, and a related decline in
projected gross domestic product growth rate from 4 percent down to 1.5
percent, further privatization represented a politically volatile choice.
Thus, privatization proceeded slowly, and Prime Minister Sidqi promised
that there would be no increase in the price of bread, the staple food in
Egypt.
Despite these hitches in economic liberalization, Egypt met IMF and
World Bank conditions that cleared the way to negotiate a new IMF
standby agreement. This agreement, in turn, would enable Egypt to obtain
cancellation of $3 billion in debts to the Paris Club of Western creditor
nations.
International Relations.
The radical Islamists' threat to the Mubarak regime had a heavy impact
on Egyptian foreign policy. In spite of Syrian-mediated efforts aimed at
improving Egyptian-Iranian relations early in the year, the violence in
Egypt kept Iran's Islamic fundamentalist regime high on Egyptian
officials' list of suspected foreign enemies who were inspiring and
funding militant attacks. More specifically, Iran was accused of
establishing terrorist training camps in the Sudan.
During the year dozens of armed militants were captured as they crossed
Egypt's borders with the Sudan and Libya. Most of them were allegedly
Egyptians who had fought in the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan against
Soviet troops and now sought to return home to create an Islamic
republic. Their Egyptian leaders were based in Peshawar, and the
Egyptian government asked to have them apprehended and handed over
by Pakistani security forces. Despite Pakistani promises of assistance,
however, no top leaders were arrested. Mubarak had better luck in
enlisting Tunisian and Algerian support to combat the growing terrorism,
and in May he convinced Gulf Arab states of the need to isolate Iran and
move against elements in their own countries who had abetted radical
Islamists.
Elsewhere, Egypt continued to play the role of facilitator and mediator in
the Arab-Israeli conflict. Mubarak met on numerous occasions with
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasir Arafat, hosted
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in early July, and was particularly
active in furthering Syrian-Israeli peace discussions. The signing of a
mutual recognition accord between Israel and the PLO in Washington in
early September was warmly received in Cairo and seen as a vindication
of Egypt's longstanding efforts to bring peace between Israel and its
neighbors.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserve

1994: Egypt
The struggle between President Hosni Mubarak's government and Islamic
extremists seeking to topple it dominated Egypt's political and economic
affairs in 1994.
Egypt experienced an unprecedented level of violence in early 1994, as
extremists attacked tourists, businesses, and the government. Passenger
trains and cruise ships were fired upon, and bombs exploded outside
several banks in January and February. In March, Mubarak escaped an
assassination attempt by two Islamist-sympathizing Army officers, and
one high-ranking police official was assassinated in early April. The
Interior Ministry responded with heightened force: Two prominent
extremists were killed in police raids in April, and more than 20,000
extremists were incarcerated. Among those arrested in late April was a
lawyer, Abd al-Harith Madani, accused of abetting the extremists. His
death within 24 hours of his arrest provoked accusations that police
officials had used torture and culminated in government suppression of a
protest march by sympathetic lawyers on May 17.
The government's show of force seemed to seriously weaken the major
Islamic extremist organizations — the Islamic Group and Jihad. Both
sought dialogue with the government, and many imprisoned extremists
appeared on television to renounce the use of violence. Nevertheless, the
convening of a world conference on population in Cairo in September
provided the backdrop for a new spate of violence in which several
people died. Mubarak had hoped the heavily attended conference would
serve indirectly to revive tourism; extremists were bent on foiling this
hope, as well as on displaying their rejection of the conference's
objectives regarding population control, which they perceived as a
Western attempt to impose "corrupt values" upon the Islamic world.
Egyptian diplomats were actively engaged as mediators in several
regional conflicts. Palestinian-Israeli talks in Cairo finally produced an
agreement on how to resolve their differences, and, on July 1, Mubarak
escorted Palestinian President Yasir Arafat to Egypt's border with the
Gaza Strip for Arafat's historic return to Palestinian territory.
Elsewhere, diplomacy proved more nettlesome. Northern Yemenis
accused Egypt of a pro-South Yemen bias, frustrating Egypt's efforts to
mediate in Yemen's civil war. Egypt also experienced little success in
resolving Libya's crisis with the West over the 1988 bombing of a plane
over Lockerbie, Scotland. Egyptian relations with the Sudan remained
very strained over Sudanese appropriations of Egyptian assets in Sudan
and alleged Sudanese support for Islamic extremists. On a brighter note,
Egypt restored diplomatic relations with South Africa on May 10 in
recognition of the end of apartheid.
With tourism badly hit by extremist violence, economic growth remained
sluggish. Plans for further economic liberalization through privatization
stalled because of fears that increased unemployment would provide new
recruits to the Islamic fundamentalist camp. Slowed privatization
produced friction with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund,
since both organizations linked progress toward privatization to the
delivery of additional debt relief and economic assistance. Egypt
maintained a low rate of inflation and reduced the budget deficit, but
government expenditures on low-income citizens were increased to
counter the spread of Islamists' influence.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.


1994: Egypt
The struggle between President Hosni Mubarak's government and Islamic
extremists seeking to topple it dominated Egypt's political and economic
affairs in 1994.
Egypt experienced an unprecedented level of violence in early 1994, as
extremists attacked tourists, businesses, and the government. Passenger
trains and cruise ships were fired upon, and bombs exploded outside
several banks in January and February. In March, Mubarak escaped an
assassination attempt by two Islamist-sympathizing Army officers, and
one high-ranking police official was assassinated in early April. The
Interior Ministry responded with heightened force: Two prominent
extremists were killed in police raids in April, and more than 20,000
extremists were incarcerated. Among those arrested in late April was a
lawyer, Abd al-Harith Madani, accused of abetting the extremists. His
death within 24 hours of his arrest provoked accusations that police
officials had used torture and culminated in government suppression of a
protest march by sympathetic lawyers on May 17.
The government's show of force seemed to seriously weaken the major
Islamic extremist organizations — the Islamic Group and Jihad. Both
sought dialogue with the government, and many imprisoned extremists
appeared on television to renounce the use of violence. Nevertheless, the
convening of a world conference on population in Cairo in September
provided the backdrop for a new spate of violence in which several
people died. Mubarak had hoped the heavily attended conference would
serve indirectly to revive tourism; extremists were bent on foiling this
hope, as well as on displaying their rejection of the conference's
objectives regarding population control, which they perceived as a
Western attempt to impose "corrupt values" upon the Islamic world.
Egyptian diplomats were actively engaged as mediators in several
regional conflicts. Palestinian-Israeli talks in Cairo finally produced an
agreement on how to resolve their differences, and, on July 1, Mubarak
escorted Palestinian President Yasir Arafat to Egypt's border with the
Gaza Strip for Arafat's historic return to Palestinian territory.
Elsewhere, diplomacy proved more nettlesome. Northern Yemenis
accused Egypt of a pro-South Yemen bias, frustrating Egypt's efforts to
mediate in Yemen's civil war. Egypt also experienced little success in
resolving Libya's crisis with the West over the 1988 bombing of a plane
over Lockerbie, Scotland. Egyptian relations with the Sudan remained
very strained over Sudanese appropriations of Egyptian assets in Sudan
and alleged Sudanese support for Islamic extremists. On a brighter note,
Egypt restored diplomatic relations with South Africa on May 10 in
recognition of the end of apartheid.
With tourism badly hit by extremist violence, economic growth remained
sluggish. Plans for further economic liberalization through privatization
stalled because of fears that increased unemployment would provide new
recruits to the Islamic fundamentalist camp. Slowed privatization
produced friction with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund,
since both organizations linked progress toward privatization to the
delivery of additional debt relief and economic assistance. Egypt
maintained a low rate of inflation and reduced the budget deficit, but
government expenditures on low-income citizens were increased to
counter the spread of Islamists' influence.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.

1995: Egypt
In 1995 the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made
significant gains against extremists seeking to establish an Islamic
republic. However, the conflict slowed economic growth and affected
foreign relations.
Islamist Movement.
Interior Ministry forces reduced the sphere of most Islamist extremist
activities to the province of Al Minya and the areas around the city of
Samalut in Upper Egypt. Nevertheless, the extremists' violent campaign
to overthrow the government and set up an Islamic state resulted in the
death of over 150 civilians, security personnel, and militants in 1995.
More than 800 people had been killed in the conflict since March 1992.
Security sweeps had left thousands of extremists imprisoned, and there
were widespread allegations of torture and other human rights violations
committed by Egyptian authorities.
Having gained the upper hand against the most radical Islamists, the
government began to take a stronger stance in 1995 against the more
moderate Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood organization and some
members of its ally the Socialist Labor Party. Numerous individuals were
detained in December 1994 and in early 1995, including journalist and
SLP Secretary-General Adel Hussein, for allegedly abetting the
extremists. In November, 54 Islamic leaders were convicted in a military
court of nonviolent offenses and sentenced to prison terms of up to five
years.
The government's actions seemed designed to weaken moderate Islamists
prior to elections set for the Shura Council in June and the People's
Assembly late in the year, as well as anticipated elections for several key
professional syndicates. By banning many Islamist candidates, the
government ensured that Islamists would for the first time in many years
fail to win control of the university student councils. In June, Mubarak's
National Democratic Party (NDP) won 88 of the 90 vacant Shura Council
seats; the Muslim Brotherhood won none and was barred from competing
as a political party in the People's Assembly election. Predictably, the
NDP won 317 of the 444 seats decided in two rounds of voting in
November and December.
On June 26 radical Islamists attempted to assassinate Mubarak during a
state visit to Ethiopia. Members of the Egyptian Islamic Group
organization claimed responsibility for the failed attack, but the Egyptian
government laid most of the blame on the Sudanese government, which
has long been accused by Egypt of helping to arm and train such
extremists. The incident provoked yet another clash between Egyptian
and Sudanese forces in the disputed border region of Hala'ib.
Foreign Affairs.
Allegations of human rights violations and official corruption, as well as
continued Egyptian sympathy for UN-ostracized Libya, produced some
tension in U.S.-Egyptian relations, but U.S. aid to Egypt remained at its
high level of over $2 billion per year. This aid remained a testimony to
Egypt's peace with Israel and to its extensive diplomatic efforts in trying
to broker a Syrian-Israeli accord, as well as to the crucial assistance lent
by Mubarak in hammering out a Palestinian-Israeli agreement in
September.
Egyptian-Israeli relations were tested by two issues in 1995. In the spring
Egypt held out on re-signing the UN-sponsored Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty and lobbied others to follow suit until the Israelis themselves
became signatories. U.S. officials ultimately persuaded Egypt to drop its
demand. In the fall former Israeli military officers revealed that Egyptian
prisoners of war in the 1956 and 1967 conflicts had been summarily
executed and dumped into mass graves. Opposition parties in Egypt
pressured Mubarak to demand that Israel investigate the matter more fully
and punish the responsible officers.
Slow Economic Growth.
The economic growth rate improved slightly in 1995. However, overall
economic activity remained depressed by domestic violence, which
reduced earnings in the key tourism industry. The sluggish economy
made it difficult for the government to deliver on its promise to the
International Monetary Fund to privatize nonprofitable public sector
companies, although some progress was recorded in this area. Egyptian
officials feared that privatization would boost unemployment, which was
already high, and that this in turn might add even more recruits to the
ranks of the radical Islamic organizations.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.


1995: Egypt
In 1995 the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made
significant gains against extremists seeking to establish an Islamic
republic. However, the conflict slowed economic growth and affected
foreign relations.
Islamist Movement.
Interior Ministry forces reduced the sphere of most Islamist extremist
activities to the province of Al Minya and the areas around the city of
Samalut in Upper Egypt. Nevertheless, the extremists' violent campaign
to overthrow the government and set up an Islamic state resulted in the
death of over 150 civilians, security personnel, and militants in 1995.
More than 800 people had been killed in the conflict since March 1992.
Security sweeps had left thousands of extremists imprisoned, and there
were widespread allegations of torture and other human rights violations
committed by Egyptian authorities.
Having gained the upper hand against the most radical Islamists, the
government began to take a stronger stance in 1995 against the more
moderate Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood organization and some
members of its ally the Socialist Labor Party. Numerous individuals were
detained in December 1994 and in early 1995, including journalist and
SLP Secretary-General Adel Hussein, for allegedly abetting the
extremists. In November, 54 Islamic leaders were convicted in a military
court of nonviolent offenses and sentenced to prison terms of up to five
years.
The government's actions seemed designed to weaken moderate Islamists
prior to elections set for the Shura Council in June and the People's
Assembly late in the year, as well as anticipated elections for several key
professional syndicates. By banning many Islamist candidates, the
government ensured that Islamists would for the first time in many years
fail to win control of the university student councils. In June, Mubarak's
National Democratic Party (NDP) won 88 of the 90 vacant Shura Council
seats; the Muslim Brotherhood won none and was barred from competing
as a political party in the People's Assembly election. Predictably, the
NDP won 317 of the 444 seats decided in two rounds of voting in
November and December.
On June 26 radical Islamists attempted to assassinate Mubarak during a
state visit to Ethiopia. Members of the Egyptian Islamic Group
organization claimed responsibility for the failed attack, but the Egyptian
government laid most of the blame on the Sudanese government, which
has long been accused by Egypt of helping to arm and train such
extremists. The incident provoked yet another clash between Egyptian
and Sudanese forces in the disputed border region of Hala'ib.
Foreign Affairs.
Allegations of human rights violations and official corruption, as well as
continued Egyptian sympathy for UN-ostracized Libya, produced some
tension in U.S.-Egyptian relations, but U.S. aid to Egypt remained at its
high level of over $2 billion per year. This aid remained a testimony to
Egypt's peace with Israel and to its extensive diplomatic efforts in trying
to broker a Syrian-Israeli accord, as well as to the crucial assistance lent
by Mubarak in hammering out a Palestinian-Israeli agreement in
September.
Egyptian-Israeli relations were tested by two issues in 1995. In the spring
Egypt held out on re-signing the UN-sponsored Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty and lobbied others to follow suit until the Israelis themselves
became signatories. U.S. officials ultimately persuaded Egypt to drop its
demand. In the fall former Israeli military officers revealed that Egyptian
prisoners of war in the 1956 and 1967 conflicts had been summarily
executed and dumped into mass graves. Opposition parties in Egypt
pressured Mubarak to demand that Israel investigate the matter more fully
and punish the responsible officers.
Slow Economic Growth.
The economic growth rate improved slightly in 1995. However, overall
economic activity remained depressed by domestic violence, which
reduced earnings in the key tourism industry. The sluggish economy
made it difficult for the government to deliver on its promise to the
International Monetary Fund to privatize nonprofitable public sector
companies, although some progress was recorded in this area. Egyptian
officials feared that privatization would boost unemployment, which was
already high, and that this in turn might add even more recruits to the
ranks of the radical Islamic organizations.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.


1996: Egypt
Egypt's foreign policy in 1996 was focused mainly on political
developments in neighboring Israel. At home the government pursued
economic reform and took some steps toward privatization.
Tensions With Israel.
Egypt hosted a summit meeting in March at which 27 heads of state and
government voiced support for the Middle East peace process and for the
fight against terrorism. The following month relations between Egypt and
Israel were strained by Israel's shelling of a UN base in southern Lebanon
where refugees had taken shelter. The assault, in which around 100
civilians were killed, was part of a series of reprisals for rocket attacks by
Hezbollah guerrillas on villages in northern Israel and Israeli soldiers in
Lebanon.
Israeli elections in May brought to power the rightwing Likud bloc with
Benjamin Netanyahu as the new prime minister, creating consternation in
Cairo. Within just a few weeks Egypt's Foreign Ministry had abandoned
its wait-and-see attitude and adopted a posture more critical of
Netanyahu's course. As it became clearer that Netanyahu would further
delay implementing crucial aspects of the Oslo accords, Egyptian, Syrian,
and Saudi leaders called an Arab summit in Cairo for June 21-23. At that
summit, attended by all Arab countries except the Iraqis (who were not
invited), the Arab leaders warned the new Israeli government that if it
reneged on the Oslo accords or tried to drop the "land for peace" formula,
it risked a heightening of regional tension and a possible review of
existing peace arrangements between other Arab nations and Israel. By
July 4, Egypt's foreign minister, Amr Moussa, was warning that the peace
process was on the verge of collapse.
The Israeli government's controversial opening in September of an
ancient tunnel near holy sites in Jerusalem for both Jews and Muslims
triggered riots by Palestinians, followed by their bloody suppression by
Israeli security forces. In an attempt to end the violence and advance the
peace process, U.S. President Bill Clinton called upon Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak to join Netanyahu, Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, and
Jordan's King Hussein for talks in Washington. Mubarak, however,
declined the invitation out of a belief that the talks would provide no
fruitful results. His refusal reflected a growing sense of frustration on the
part of the Egyptian leadership, which felt that the U.S. government,
whether out of election-year calculations or not, was granting too wide a
range of maneuver to the Israelis. Additional strains in relations with the
United States were caused by concern that U.S. military and economic
assistance to Egypt might soon suffer cutbacks as a result of U.S.
budgetary constraints.
Freeing up the Economy.
In January, President Mubarak appointed the longtime minister of
planning, Kamal al-Ganzouri, to replace Atef Sidqi as prime minister.
Sidqi had held the post for nine years. However, the long-awaited
government shuffle left many important portfolios, such as defense,
foreign affairs, and interior, in the same hands.
Al-Ganzouri made the acceleration of economic reform — in particular,
opening the door to foreign investment and privatizing public sector firms
— his primary goal. In February the Egyptian government presented a list
of some 100 public sector companies to be offered for sale. The
government also pushed through legislation that reduced controls on
housing rents, permitted the sale of government-owned agricultural lands,
and allowed foreign interests to become majority shareholders in joint
venture banks in Egypt. In the fall the International Monetary Fund
approved an Egyptian program of economic reforms, which led to the
reduction of roughly $4 billion in debt, the third and final portion of debt
relief for Egypt.
Islamic Activists.
Muhammad Hamed Abu al-Nasr, the supreme guide of the influential
Muslim Brotherhood organization, died in January and was replaced by a
hard-line activist, Mustafa Mashhour.
Throughout the year, Egyptian security forces maintained tight reins on
Islamic opposition forces and kept violence to a relatively low level. An
April attack by Islamic extremists on Greek tourists — who were
mistaken for Israelis — left 18 dead, but the nation's important tourist
industry rebounded well from the incident.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.

1997: Egypt
Egypt's political scene was relatively tranquil for much of 1997 — until
mid-November, when a terrorist attack at a popular tourist site left dozens
of people dead.
Domestic Politics.
President Hosni Mubarak sought to maintain an aggressive posture in
dealing with the Islamist opposition. With government repression of the
relatively moderate Muslim Brotherhood, this group refrained from
competing in local government elections, held in April. For the most part,
security forces contained Islamist extremists to a small area of operations
in central Egypt. Until November, violence was at a much lower level
than that experienced during the peak years of 1992-1995.
Incidents prior to November included the mid-February murder of nine
Coptic Christians in a church in Minya Province; the killing of 13 people,
including several Copts, in a village in Qena Province a month later; the
killing of nine tourists in September when a gasoline bomb was hurled at
a bus in Cairo; and the killing of 11 people, including nine policemen, in
Minya Province in October. Some members of the Islamic Group, one of
the two largest extremist organizations, called in June for a cessation of
violence, but this gesture did not bring a government reprieve.
On November 17 six gunmen killed 58 foreign tourists and four
Egyptians near a 3,400-year-old temple at historic Luxor before they
were finally themselves killed by police. The Islamic Group claimed
responsibility for the attack, the bloodiest since the 1992 beginning of its
campaign to undermine the government by hitting economic targets, such
as tourism.
Earlier in the year, tension grew on another front, especially in rural
areas, as the September 30 deadline approached for liberalization of
agricultural landowner-tenant contracts. Opposition parties responded to
peasant fears of escalating market-value land rents and eviction from
rented lands; during the summer demonstrations and arrests heightened
stress, as did several deaths in landlord-peasant clashes (15 by the end of
September). In July the government made efforts to allay peasant fears,
using compensatory schemes, loans, and mediation boards.
Economic Picture.
Although the government's ability to fulfill economic liberalization and
privatization plans remained in question in 1997, there were positive
developments — including Mubarak's more explicit commitment to an
export-led development strategy, the privatization of many public sector
companies, and reduction of trade barriers. In addition, Prime Minister
Kamal al-Ganzouri appointed as minister of the economy the young,
reform-minded Youssef Boutros-Ghali. A reduced, 6 percent rate of
inflation, as well as sound foreign reserves, contributed to increased
foreign and domestic economic investment. Gross domestic product
growth rose to nearly 6 percent. The November killings at Luxor,
however, had a devastating effect on foreign tourism, which had reached
record heights, fueling a boom in the construction sector.
In April the government unveiled a 20-year plan for Egypt's
socioeconomic development. Among objectives were construction or
expansion of over 40 agricultural and industrial communities in the Sinai
Peninsula and the Western Desert, major infrastructural initiatives, and a
sevenfold increase in tourism. Private-sector investors would be
encouraged to provide roughly three-fourths of the essential investment
capital.
Regional Tensions.
Relations with Israel deteriorated as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu pursued policies perceived by Egypt as violating agreements
made in the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli peace processes. In
particular, Netanyahu's support of new West Bank construction by Israeli
settlers brought repeated warnings from the Egyptian government, acting
alone or in concert with other Arab nations. On several occasions
throughout the year, Mubarak met with Netanyahu to encourage cessation
of settlement activity, but to no avail. When Egypt reached out to other
Arab countries, including Libya and Iraq, for regional support, these
initiatives were frowned upon by some members of the U.S. Congress.
But despite congressional threats to terminate U.S. aid, the administration
of President Bill Clinton maintained assistance to Egypt at the level of
$2.1 billion, second only to the amount of U.S. aid given to Israel.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation.

Achille Lauro
In 1985 the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked off the coast of
Egypt by members of the Palestinian Liberation Front. One American
passenger was killed, and subsequent diplomatic conflicts over the
hijackers’ fates strained American relations with Italy and Egypt. In 1994
the Achille Lauro caught fire in the Indian Ocean. One passenger died,
but all others on board were transferred to other ships.The ship sank two
days later.
Woodfin Camp and Associates, Inc./Sipa Press
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.
Achille Lauro
Achille Lauro, Italian cruise ship hijacked off the Mediterranean coast of
Egypt on October 7, 1985, by members of the Palestinian Liberation
Front (PLF), a small guerrilla faction of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO), who were demanding the release of Palestinian
prisoners in Israel. Two days later, the hijackers were induced to
surrender by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and PLF leader
Mohammed Abbas, also known as Abu Abbas.
More than 400 passengers and crew of the Achille Lauro were released,
but the hijackers had shot to death and thrown overboard an invalid
Jewish American passenger, 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer. Mubarak
permitted Abbas and the hijackers to fly to PLF headquarters in Tunisia
aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner. However, United States
president Ronald Reagan sent U.S. Navy jet fighters to intercept the flight
and, with the consent of Italy’s premier Bettino Craxi, to force the aircraft
to land at the joint U.S.-Italian air base at Sigonella, Sicily.
The United States and Italy contested jurisdiction in the case. When the
Craxi government allowed the Egyptian plane to fly to Rome, U.S.
officials requested that Abbas be held in Italy for extradition in view of
evidence that he had engineered the hijacking. However, Craxi allowed
Abbas to go to Yugoslavia. An Italian court convicted 11 of the 15 men
charged with involvement in the cruise ship hijacking. Abbas and two of
his associates, one of whom was captured in 1991, were tried in absentia
and found guilty of organizing the hijacking. The jury sentenced them to
life imprisonment. The incident weakened Craxi’s coalition government,
strained U.S.-Italian and U.S.-Egyptian relations, and slowed Arab-Israeli
peace efforts.
All four of the Palestinian hijackers who carried out the hijacking were
given sentences ranging from 15 to 30 years. The ringleader of the
hijackers, Magied Youssef al-Molqi, was given 30 years. During the late
1980s and early 1990s, Abbas lived in Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya before
settling in Iraq in 1994 where he lived under the protection of the
government of Saddam Hussein. Abbas was granted amnesty in 1996 as
part of the Oslo Accords, the peace agreement between Israel and the
PLO. He moved from Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, to his home in the
Gaza Strip, where he lived until 2000 before returning to Iraq. More than
17 years after the Achille Lauro hijacking, U.S. forces captured Abbas
near Baghdad during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In March 2004
he died in prison.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.