Egypt

جرائم حرب لا تغتفر

الاهرام ٣٠ ابريل ٢٠٢٢
بقلم عزة رضوان صدقي

صور الجثث المتناثرة في شوارع بوتشا بأوكرانيا والمقابر الجماعية للمدنيين المقيدين بالأيدي والأرجل دفعت العالم إلى اتهام القوات الروسية والرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين بارتكاب جرائم ضد الإنسانية

الغضب الدولي من عمليات القتل هذه مفهوم، وقد أعرب قادة العالم عن إدانتهم لها . دعا الرئيس الأمريكي جو بايدن إلى محاكمة بوتين بتهمة ارتكاب جرائم حرب قائلاً: "إن ما يحدث في بوتشا أمر شائن". أما رئيس وزراء بريطانيا بوريس جونسون فقال إن "الهجمات التي تشنها روسيا على المدنيين هي دليل أكبر على جرائم الحرب". إلا أنه قبل محاسبة مرتكبي جرائم الحرب الحاليين لابد من محاكمة مرتكبي جرائم الحرب السابقين فالمُساءلة مطلوبة لكل من تطاول على الأبرياء

توفر اتفاقيات جنيف مبادئ توجيهية يجب الالتزام بها أثناء الحروب بعضها موضح أدناه. بموجب الاتفاقيات يجب على القوات المقاتلة ألا تهاجم المدنيين عمدًا أو تستخدم التعذيب. كما يجب ألا تستخدم أسلحة كيماوية أو بيولوجية وتحترم حياة وحقوق المحتجزين والأشخاص غيرالقادرين على أداء واجباتهم القتالية أثناء الحرب

اليوم سوف نقارن أحداثا سابقة بالأحداث الحالية على أمل وضع الأخيرة في منظورها الصحيح وستدعم اتفاقيات جنيف موقفنا هذا. بكل إنصاف إذا لم تتم محاسبة الجناة السابقين في جرائم الحرب على المخالفات التي اُرتكبت فكيف يمكن تطبيق مثل هذه الاتهامات على الجناة الحاليين؟

 أثناء حرب الخليج في فبراير ١٩٩١ تعرض الجنود العراقيون المنسحبون من الكويت إلى هجوم شرس من قبل قوات التحالف بقيادة الولايات المتحدة على ما أصبح يُعرف باسم "طريق الموت"، وهو الطريق السريع بين مدينة الكويت وحدود العراق. أدى الهجوم إلى تدمير شامل لآلاف المركبات ومقتل ركابها. عدد المركبات التي دُمرت يُقدر بنحو ٢٠٠٠ مركبة وعدد شاغلي المركبات يُقدَّر على الأقل بعدد مماثل للمركبات. لمدة عشر ساعات طاردت قوات التحالف الجنود العراقيين الفارين مسفرة عن مشهد مروِّع وغير إنساني لآلاف المركبات المحترقة والجثث المتفحمة المتناثرة على طول الطريق السريع. كانت قوات التحالف على علم بأن الجنود المنسحبين ليس لديهم القدرة أو النية للتفاعل مع الهجوم وأنهم عاجزون عن خوض القتال. لذلك وجب إدانة قوات التحالف واعتبارهم جناة حرب

اتفاقيات جنيف تقول:"لا لتعمُّد مهاجمة المدنيين". إذا كان الرئيس الروسي بوتين سيُتهم بارتكاب جرائم حرب فيجب أن يُتهم الرئيس الأمريكي السابق جورج دبليو بوش ورئيس الوزراء البريطاني السابق توني بلير بارتكاب جرائم حرب على خلفية آلاف القتلى الذين سقطوا خلال غزو العراق الذي أسفر عن  مقتل ٧١٨٦ مدنيا عراقيا خلال الشهرين الأولين

مقال بقلم المحامي البريطاني مايكل مانسفيلد على شبكة سي إن إن في عام 2013 بعنوان "لماذا يجب اتهام بوش وبلير بارتكاب جرائم حرب بسبب غزو العراق؟" يوضح أسباب وجوب محاكمة بوش وبلير بتهمة ارتكاب جرائم حرب بموجب القانون الدولي. وفقًا لمانسفيلد كان الهدف من غزو العراق هو الإطاحة بالرئيس العراقي السابق صدام حسين لكن تغيير النظام مهما كان مرغوبًا فيه لا يسمح به ميثاق الأمم المتحدة. للتحايل على ذلك اختلق بوش وحلفاؤه وجود أسلحة دمار شامل في العراق. وفقًا للمادة 8 من ميثاق الأمم المتحدة "شن هجوم مع العلم أن تأثيره من المحتمل أن يتسبب في وفاة أو إصابة المدنيين سيجعل الجاني عرضة للمحاكمة". يقول مانسفيلد: إن استخدام القنابل العنقودية واليورانيوم المنضب في العراق من قبل قوات التحالف ضد المدنيين يندرج ضمن هذا التعريف.

تقول الاتفاقيات "لا للتعذيب". إنما الجرائم التي اُرتُكبت في العراق لم تتوقف مع غزو البلاد وفقد الآلاف من الأرواح. تم استخدام "أساليب الاستجواب المعززة"، أي التعذيب، بالكامل. فضيحة سجن أبو غريب هي دليل على المدى الذي وصلت إليه الوحشية والانتهاكات في العراق. الصور التي نُشرت في عام ٢٠٠٤ عما كان يحدث في أبو غريب مخزية وغير إنسانية حيث تُظهر سجناء عراة مكدسين في أكوام، وسجناء مقيدين مثل الكلاب وكلاب تنقض على السجناء وأكثر الصور اشمئزازا كانت لرجل مقنع ممسكاً بأسلاك كهربائية. مرتكبو جرائم سجن أبو غريب حوكموا وأدينوا في الولايات المتحدة ولكن لم يتم محاكمتهم في محكمة دولية. في الواقع فإن فكرة توجيه الاتهام لمجرمي أبو غريب في محكمة دولية لم تخطر ببال أي شخص.  لكن اليوم بسبب الجرائم التي حدثت في بوتشا قال المدعي العام للمحكمة الجنائية الدولية إنه سيفتح تحقيقًا في جرائم الحرب التي ارتكبها الجنود الروس

بدون محاسبة الجناة السابقين على جرائم الحرب التي ارتكبوها وتطبيق المساءلة عليهم لا ينبغي محاسبة الجناة الحاليين على جرائمهم

 

What constitutes treason

Al Ahram Weekly

Azza Radwan Sedky, Tuesday 19 Apr 2022

The third season of the serial Al-Ikhtiyar may remind us of the real meaning of treason, writes Azza Radwan Sedky

With the start of Ramadan, I began watching the third season of the Egyptian TV serial Al-Ikhtiyar, or “The Choice,” a series that chronicles Egyptian political events over the last decade. 

The leaks that appear at the end of each episode, and in fact the whole series, reminded me of an article that appeared in the newspaper Al-Watan in October 2013 headed “Sinai National Security Adviser: Morsi fled to Gaza and leaked Security Plans to Terrorists.” 

In the article, journalist Osama Khaled conducted an interview with major-general Sherif Ismail, national security adviser for Sinai during former president Mohamed Morsi’s rule. Ismail’s position gave him access to confidential and classified information. At one point, Ismail had no other option but to resign after he realised that working under certain conditions was a betrayal of Egypt. 

This is my take on the interview, which was conducted in Arabic. Some details have been omitted for brevity, but the translation maintains the integrity of the interview. Any bracketed information is mine and is there for clarification.

Ismail starts off by talking about the Muslim Brotherhood’s agreement with the Americans and the Israelis to liquidate the Palestinian cause by abandoning part of Sinai and annexing it to Gaza so as to facilitate Israel’s disposal of the Gaza crisis without giving up any of its land. 

He comments on the war on terror in Sinai in 2013, saying that “the fallout in Sinai today is the upshot of the missteps of the previous regime. Today’s operations are corrective measures to fix these missteps.” 

He then goes on to explain the moves Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood took in Sinai. Morsi released 580 prisoners who had served only half their time, even though they had all been sentenced in cases related to terrorism, insurgency, the arms trade, and drugs. Although Ismail and the security apparatus voiced their concerns over Morsi’s intention to release these convicts, Morsi went ahead with it anyway.

Morsi also culled the police’s ability to retaliate against those crossing into Egypt, something which according to Ismail gave Hamas and other extremist groups the freedom to manoeuvre in Sinai. 

“On a weekly basis, about 350 Palestinians entered Sinai illegally via tunnels. The president’s instructions were to let them return to Gaza without pursuing any legal action against them. That’s what we did: we simply returned them to Gaza via the border crossings,” Ismail said.

He went on to explain the gravity of the situation. Allowing the Palestinians to cross into Sinai “was a national security issue – a direct violation of Egyptian authority”. Furthermore, Hamas had stored weapons in Sinai and conducted training exercises for Palestinians and Bedouin. Ismail also recorded joint training exercises with Islamist groups from Gaza such as Al-Jihad Al-Islami, Geish Al-Islam, and Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis.

All these groups forgot about their differences and agreed on one principle: to create a terrorist state in Sinai. This is why Hamas permitted them to travel through its territory on the condition that they did not conduct any operations from within Gaza against Israel. 

The violence had stopped after Egypt brokered a deal between Israel and Hamas, allowing both to enjoy a long truce. But these groups began to train in Sinai, turning it into a ticking timebomb ready to explode at any moment.

However, the Egyptian presidency did not do much when they were told about these aberrations, Ismail said. Not only did it refuse to conduct any operations against these groups, but it also disclosed the information to the groups in Sinai so that they could correct their bearings.

When Khaled asked Ismail why the army or the police did not react to such events, Ismail said that the army did not act unless instructed to do so. Both the army and the police were subjected to a plot to diminish their capabilities at the time. The government had ignored requests for armaments and vehicles to be used to enforce security and pursue militants and to protect police units themselves. Restrained and unable to act, the army and police were incensed by such actions.

Ismail also confirmed that Safwat Hegazi, the then Muslim Brotherhood leader who visited Sinai often, had played a critical role in ground operations and in the bombing of pipelines (supplying Jordan and Israel with gas). Mohamed Al-Zawahiri, leader of a Salafi jihadist group and brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was captured in Al-Arish, only to be released the same day by a specific order. 

 Ismail resigned in protest because of two particular incidents. The first was when the presidency aborted the “Eagle Operation,” an Egyptian counterattack against the killers of 16 Egyptian soldiers in Rafah close to the border with Gaza. Then, Morsi sent a delegation to the area. “The fact that Magdi Salem, other Islamist group members, and ex-convicts were among the members of the delegation enraged the security apparatus in Sinai as a whole. They were not qualified to negotiate in the name of Egypt and excluded the army and police force,” he said.

The second incident was when Brotherhood leader Khairat Al-Shater established a company called “Palestinian Egyptian” in Cairo to oversee 70 tunnels crossing from Gaza into Egyptian territory and giving him monopoly control over illegal routes into and out of Gaza. 

Ismail then realised that his reports to the presidency were being utilised against Egypt instead of protecting it. He could not continue to work for a regime that was working against his country.

In the interview, he goes on to explain why Morsi ousted field-marshal Tantawi and general Mourad Mowafi. The latter had provided a dossier on Islamist terror operations in Sinai that reported on the increase in the number of terrorist cells in Sinai and the spread of weapons, training camps, and Islamist courts. It also warned that Sinai had become a goal for terrorists from all the Arab countries. 

Ismail said that after the Brotherhood took power in Egypt it tried to paralyse the security apparatus. It retired 600 major-generals from the police and shrank the role of state security, refusing to provide it with the necessary arms.

That is in addition to the meeting that took place at the Four Seasons Hotel in Cairo between Al-Shater and the leader of the Iranian National Guard with a view to creating a similar militia group in Egypt that would answer to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood was thus working towards destroying the nation in order to build another that fitted its ideology.

Ismail said that after Morsi escaped from the Wadi Al-Natroun Prison, he went to Al-Arish where he stayed with former deputy governor and Brotherhood member Adel Qatamesh. Then he headed to Gaza via the tunnels. When the dust settled, he returned to Egypt.

Morsi wasn’t alone on this trip to Gaza. “Morsi entered Gaza with Ayman Nofal [the leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas], who coordinated with the Brotherhood office in Al-Arish. Bedouin and Salafi, those who had earlier stormed the prisons and the police stations, and assisted them in crossing into Gaza,” Ismail said.

My understanding of what Ismail says regarding events in Sinai is that they constitute acts of treason. When a man of Ismail’s standing uncovers the cataclysmic situation in Sinai at that time, there is no room for doubt or second-guessing.

---

* The writer is the author of Cairo Rewind on the First Two Years of Egypt’s Revolution, 2011-2013. 

*A version of this article appears in print in the 21 April, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

Exclusive interivew of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

Though Egypt is mentioned, this interview is not about Egypt. Still, I'm posting it here because it should be seen by as many viewers as possible. High time we get the chance to listen to the other side. The version I have here goes slightly sideways, so you are better off heading to the link below. 

India Today (Link: Exclusive interview of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov)

 

الإعلام الغربي وحرب أوكرانيا

الاهرام ١٦ ابريل ٢٠٢٢
بقلم عزة رضوان صدقي

كشفت الحرب الأوكرانية عن الوسائل الملتوية التي يتبعها الإعلام الغربي في تغطية الأحداث، وإذا كان الرأي العام يتشكل من خلال تحليلات وسائل الإعلام الغربية فيجب أن نكون أكثر حذرا. في مواجهة الحروب يجب أن يلعب الإعلام دورًا موضوعيًا ويقدم معلومات مؤكدة ويزيل التصعيد ويوثِّق الحقائق. على الرغم من أن الموضوعية الكاملة قد تكون مستحيلة إلا أن تغطية الإعلام الغربية لهذه الحرب بالذات تعارضت مع هذه الأهداف

حظي غزو أوكرانيا بتغطية إعلامية أكثر من أى صراعات أخرى متجاهلا بعضها تماما، مما قد يجعل العالم غير ملم بها أو بأهميتها. أسباب ذلك التوجه واضحة: أوكرانيا بلد أوروبي والدولة المعتدية قوة نووية والمصالح الغربية مهددة. فمثلا ذكر الإعلام الغربي أن ٤.٢ مليون طفل أوكرانيا قد نزحوا من ديارهم ولم يتكلم عن الـ ٥.٢ مليون طفل المعرضين للمجاعة ووفاة ٨٥.٠٠٠ طفل من الجوع في اليمن.  مقتل ١٤٠٠ مدني في أوكرانيا هو أمر مفجع إلا أن وفاة نصف مليون شخص من الحرب والمجاعة في منطقة تيجراي بإثيوبيا خلال الأشهر الستة عشر الماضية لم يحظ بنفس التغطية

ثانيًا أصبحت وسائل الإعلام الغربية لسان حال وجهات النظر الغربية وتعمل كإعلام دولة بدلاً من كيان مستقل، وعلى الرغم من أن وسائل الإعلام الغربية تشيد بالتغطية غير المتحيزة والنزيهة إلا أنها تؤكد الرسالة الغربية، بينما تقلِّل من أهمية رسالة الجانب الروسي من القضية، معتبرا إياها أكاذيب لا تستحق المزيد من التحقيق. تظهر الرسالة التالية بعد تقارير وكالة الأنباء الروسية تاس على تويتر "هذه التغريدة مرتبطة بموقع إعلامي روسي تابع للدولة"، مما يثير الشكوك حول وكالة الأنباء الروسية

قد يحق للأوكرانيين لي الحقيقة لتشجيع الولاء الذي يحتاجون إليه، لكن على وسائل الإعلام أن تدقق فيما تنقله حتى لا تصبح المعلومات المضللة هي القاعدة. وفقًا لصحيفة ديلي إكسبريس البريطانية "بوتين أُذل. يقول الطيار الأسير: لقد خسرنا هذه الحرب بالفعل"، وتقول نيوزويك الأمريكية إن "الطيار الروسي الأسير يقول إنه تلقى أوامر بضرب المدنيين"، وهو إذا ما قال هذا بالفعل، يجعلنا نتساءل عما إذا كان قد تعرض للتعذيب، لكن هذا الجانب الأخلاقي لا يتم التدقيق فيه

ثالثًا سلّطت الحرب على أوكرانيا الضوء على التحيُّز العنصري لدى الغرب الذي تعكسه وسائل الإعلام الغربية، كاشفا عن قاعدة عنصرية مفادها أن الأوكرانيين يتميزون على الأفارقة والعرب وغيرهم من ضحايا الحروب. يقول نائب المدعي العام الأوكراني "إنه أمر مؤثر للغاية بالنسبة لي، لأنني أرى الأوروبيين بعيون زرقاء وشعر أشقر يُقتلون". وسائل الإعلام الغربية تتبع نفس النمط. " هؤلاء ليسوا لاجئين من سوريا، هم من أوكرانيا وهم مسيحيون. هم من البيض ومتشابهون جدًا [معنا]" كما تقول مراسلة إن بي سي نيوز الأمريكية. وقال مراسل شبكة سي بي إس نيوز الأمريكية إن "هذا ليس مكانًا، مع كل الاحترام الواجب، مثل العراق أو أفغانستان التي شهدت صراعًا مستمرًا لعقود. هذه مدينة متحضرة نسبيًا وأوروبية نسبيًا - لا بد لي من اختيار هذه الكلمات بعناية أيضًا – مدينة لا تتوقع فيها ذلك أو أن يحدث ذلك" أتساءل عما إذا كان سيقول لو لم يختر كلماته بدقة

 قالت هدى عثمان، رئيسة جمعية الصحفيين العرب التي تتخذ من نيويورك مقراً لها: "المحزن هذه المرة هو أن التعليقات جاءت بشكل عرضي وعفوي، فكشفت عن التحيز الشديد وهو شيء لا نتوقعه من صحفيين يغطون أحداثًا دولية"

دور الإعلام الغربي في تضليل الأوكرانيين محوري أيضًا. إنه يسلط الضوء على الدعم المالي الغربي لأوكرانيا ويشجع الصمود الأوكراني ويفخر بالعقوبات التي يفرضها الغرب على روسيا، ثم يطالب الأوكرانيين بالاستمرار في المسار ذاته، لكنه لا يتحدث عن خفض التصعيد أو سبل السلام. لا ينبغي على الصحفيين أن يُجمِّلوا الحقيقة وأن يتلاعبوا بها لجعلها أكثر ملاءمة للأوكرانيين. الحقيقة مؤلمة ولا يجب إنكارها

إن تغطية وسائل الإعلام الغربية حول أوكرانيا لم تعد تدور حول ما يحدث، ولكنها للأسف تحاول أن تُشكل الأخبار والتوجهات وتتحيز للتصعيد، فللأسف الأسئلة التي يطرحها الصحفيون على المسئولين تشعل وتؤجِّج الحرب: "هل نقصفهم إذا قصفوا بولندا؟"، "هل نقصفهم إذا كانت لديهم طائرة بدون طيار؟"، "ما الذي يتطلبه الأمر لنقصفهم؟"

الصحفيون ليسوا محايدين. نتيجة لذلك يجب علينا - نحن القارئين والمشاهدين عمومًا الذين ينتظرون الأخبار من المصادر التي كنا دائما معتمدين عليها - أن نكون أكثر حذرا مما يتم تقديمه لنا وكيفية تقديمه. يجب أن نتعلم التدقيق في المعلومات التي نتلقاها حتى نتمكن من استخلاص استنتاجاتنا الخاصة

 

How Egypt's millennials are making Arabic their own

The National (The Weekend), by Hamza Hendawi (Link: How Egypt's millennials are making Arabic their own)

My two cents: Many of these words I hardly know myself. Am I an old geezer or what? 

Egypt’s colloquial Arabic once echoed across the region, with Egyptian television series, films and song lyrics reaching large audiences who found it descriptive, funny and a little bemusing.

But the Arabic spoken on Egypt’s streets has gone through unusually rapid changes in recent years, with the introduction of a wide range of new words and phrases which are understood almost exclusively by the young people using them.

The pace of change is rapid, with newly coined phrases quickly taking root in everyday usage.

While embraced enthusiastically by the young, these new additions to a beloved dialect are often seen as inappropriate or even vulgar by many of those who look back fondly on the language they grew up hearing.

Social media driving change

Like all dialects, Egyptian Arabic has slowly evolved over the years.

Egypt’s film industry reflects the changes that have come to the language, from the stiff propriety of the early black-and-white productions of the 1930s and 1940s, through the nationalist blockbusters of the 1950s and 1960s to the slapstick comedies and biting realism of the 1970s and 1990s.

Today, however, new forms of culture are driving the evolution of the language.

Egyptian linguists are tracking the changes in Egypt’s spoken Arabic in real life and on social media, looking at soap operas, rap and mahraganat, a new music genre in which social and linguistic boundaries are constantly pushed.

The speed at which new words and phrases have entered everyday use in Egypt is beginning to create a language barrier between young and old.

“My parents tell me they barely understand what I am saying to my friends on the telephone,” said Hala Gado, 22, an economics and marketing major studying at Cairo’s German University.

“If you read my WhatsApp messages, you will not understand very much unless you’re young.”

Ammar Ali Hassan, a prominent author and sociologist, says the ongoing evolution of Egypt’s colloquial Arabic has gone off the rails and may not necessarily be beneficial to the language.

“Our colloquial Arabic has slowly evolved over many centuries, taking a slow route that allowed it to ferment, mature and then spread widely. That includes the absorption of words from Italian, French and English,” he said.

“The problem with what’s going on now is that the changes are finding their way to our spoken Arabic too quickly, without ‘consensus’ or respect for our authentic vernacular. They also become in vogue for a time before they disappear, unlike older changes that stayed.”

Video platforms like TikTok and Instagram are helping to accelerate the changes.

A new language barrier?

Such is the speed of change that Egyptian Arabic has never been farther removed from its standard cousin.

The widening gap between Egypt’s colloquial Arabic and its standard form has long been debated by Egyptian writers looking to translate the language of the streets to the page in an appropriate fashion.

Mohammed Hashem, a Cairo-based publisher with a track record of helping young writing talent, says the debate over what is deemed fit for written work was settled in his mind long ago.

“Every author must be free to write what he feels to be right for his work. A fictional character must be allowed to express itself in the way that's familiar to it,” he said.

Not everyone would agree with Mr Hashem, who claims he has no difficulty understanding young Egyptians because of his daily contact with them since a youth-led popular uprising in Egypt toppled autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Supporters of the new lingua franca of Egypt’s youth say it is an improvement on the dialect with which their parents might be familiar.

Farida El Shirbiny, 23, an artist who runs her own handicraft business in Cairo, believes many of the phrases and words that have recently joined Egyptian Arabic are more expressive than those they replaced.

“But some are fairly offensive that they might raise my parents’ eyebrows if I used them in their presence,” said Ms El Shirbiny. “They are just vulgar.”

The difficulty outsiders now have in understanding colloquial Egyptian Arabic has weakened its appeal in the region, leading to a decline in influence in favour of dialects spoken in Lebanon, Syria, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

“Egypt’s place as a cultural and art centre is not as strong as it used to be,” said Reem Bassiouney, a bestselling novelist and a linguistics lecturer at the American University in Cairo. “People in the region are now exposed to other dialects beside the Egyptian one, thanks mainly to soap operas.”

Bestselling novelist and American University in Cairo linguistics lecturer Reem Bassiouney. Photo: Reem Bassiouney

But while it may be less powerful at crossing international borders, Egyptian Arabic has helped break down class boundaries among those who speak it.

Compared with decades ago, when people's choice of vocabulary, intonation and pronunciation were often taken as an accurate indication of social status or education, this is a significant change.

Shady Lewis Botros, a London-based Egyptian novelist, pointed out that one of the defining features of this evolved dialect involved converting English verbs to use Arabic tenses, with some of the new words reflecting the emergence of functions that did not exist even 20 years ago.

This, he said, allowed a generation of young Egyptians to claim an identity for themselves.

“For the young people to have their own kind of dialect gives them a social distinction that separates them from the rest of society. It’s something many of them actually want,” he said. “I have been away from Egypt for years and I tell you, sometimes I read or hear things I don’t understand.”

Bassiouney, the American University linguist, does not see a problem with the rapid changes in the spoken Egyptian Arabic. She says the actual problem lies instead in the declining importance among young people to study standard Arabic.

A new generation of Egyptians, she said, “sees it as unnecessary to master speaking and writing in Arabic”.

Her fear is borne out by many among the hundreds of thousands of pupils at expensive international schools, who mostly communicate with each other in English or French instead of investing time and effort in learning how to read and write in Arabic, a language they use only when dealing with people outside their immediate circles.

“But changes to our spoken Arabic is not for the better or worse. They mostly reflect political and economic conditions. Change happens and there’s no such thing as bad change,” said Bassiouney.

Want to sound cool speaking Egyptian Arabic?

Here are the words you need to know in colloquial Arabic and what they used to mean:

• Nafaad once meant dusting furniture at home – beating a carpet to get the dust out, for instance, or brushing off a suit. Now it means to ignore someone.
• Saahal used to describe the process of tying someone to a moving car as a punishment that could possibly lead to death. Now it means working long and hard without a break.
• Bastef is a verb that’s making a comeback after years on the sidelines or use only by the elderly. Now, it has become a way to describe telling someone off, putting them in their place or, less frequently, beating them up.
• Medashmel is an adjective. It means something that has been smashed or someone who comes home drunk and unable to deal with anything.
• The use of social media has also given rise to the Arabisation of some English verbs. For example, save has become sayev and share is now shayar.
• Another potent example of the use of an English word in an Arabic context is the widespread use of the adverb beyond as an adjective meaning that something or someone is exceptionally good. For example: “This dress is beyond!” or “We stayed at a hotel where the service was beyond”.
• The English noun crush, as in the object of a person’s desires, has been picked up by young Egyptians who use it as a verb. For example: “I crushed on her” meaning “I developed a crush on her”.
• Halaa’ telo is colloquial for giving someone a haircut. Now, it’s used to mean ignoring someone or standing them up.
• One of the most widely used words among the young these days is fasheikh, an adjective that originated in the Arabic verb fashakh, meaning pushing a person’s legs so far apart that he or she is in great pain. Fashakh now means exhausting or tiring someone while the adjective, fasheikh, means outstanding or excellent.

Swiss authorities close investigation into syphoned money of Mubarak regime figureheads

Egypt Independent

The office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) announced on Wednesday that it closed investigations related to the ‘Egyptian Revolution’ over suspicion of money laundering conducted against five suspects.

Since 2011, OAG has been conducting criminal proceedings related to the 2011 ‘Egyptian Revolution’, its key case arising from the Arab Spring.

“Despite the numerous enquiries and having transferred CHF 32 million to Egypt in 2018, the OAG must now accept that the investigation has been unable to substantiate suspicions that would justify the indictment of anyone in Switzerland or any forfeiture of assets,” OAG said in a press release.

It added that “the proceedings, currently being conducted against five suspects, are therefore to be abandoned, and the assets still under seizure (amounting to around CHF 400 million) will be released.”

OAG has since 2011 been conducting an investigation into suspicions of money laundering and supporting and/or participating in a criminal organisation in connection with events surrounding the ‘Egyptian Revolution’ in 2011.

This complex and extensive criminal case initially involved 14 suspects, including the two sons of the ousted president Hosni Mubarak (Gamal and Alaa Mubarak), as well as 28 natural persons and 45 legal entities who, as third parties, hold assets that have been seized. In addition, 140 bank accounts of interest have been analysed.

The suspects, most of whom held official or important economic positions in Egypt, were suspected of having laundered funds in Switzerland of criminal origin that had been obtained from financial transactions related to acts of corruption. Several criminal proceedings were opened in Egypt and requests for mutual assistance addressed to Switzerland in this connection.

Between 2012 and 2019, the OAG sent numerous requests to Egyptian authorities in order to obtain information on the status of prosecutions and judicial or criminal proceedings, primarily those being conducted against persons implicated in the Swiss proceedings. Egypt responded to most of these requests.

For its part, Egypt sent several requests for mutual legal assistance to Swiss authorities with the aim of obtaining evidence that would enable progress to be made in the Egyptian criminal proceedings. The OAG cooperated as fully as possible, in particular by admitting Egypt as a complainant in the Swiss criminal proceedings in 2011.

In response to certain requests, supplementary information was sought from Egypt. As this information was not received, certain mutual legal assistance proceedings could not be completed and were closed in 2017 – either by the OAG or by the FOJ. In the circumstances and in view of the lack of any realistic prospects of the restitution of these assets, the freezing of the assets ordered by the Federal Council no longer served any purpose. In December of the same year, the Federal Council repealed the ordinance freezing assets in connection with Egypt (SR 196.123.21).

Accountable across the board

Al Ahram Weekly, by Azza Radwan Sedky

Azza Radwan Sedky

Tuesday 12 Apr 2022

Before the current perpetrators of war crimes are held accountable, the prosecution of previous ones is a must, writes Azza Radwan Sedky

The images of bodies strewn on the streets and of the mass graves of civilians bound hand and foot and then shot in Bucha near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv have led the world to accuse Russian forces in Ukraine of crimes against humanity and Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes.

The international fury over these killings is understandable since these atrocities are unconscionable. Leaders around the world have voiced their condemnation.

US President Joe Biden has called for Putin to be tried for war crimes, saying that “this guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous.” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that Russia’s “despicable attacks” on civilians are “more evidence” of war crimes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that the Russian invasion of Ukraine constitutes “genocide” and that the Russian forces there are engaged in “terrorism.”

The Geneva Conventions provide guidelines that must be adhered to during wartime, and some of them are highlighted below. Under the conventions, forces engaged in combat must not deliberately attack civilians, use torture, or take hostages. They must not use chemical or biological weapons.

They must also respect the lives, dignity, personal rights, and convictions of those detained. Persons not taking a direct part in the hostilities, or incapable of performing their combat duties during war, are considered to be “hors de combat” and are entitled to their lives being respected.

But before we go further, we should define the term “whataboutery.” This conjoins “what” and “about” and compares previous events to current ones in the hope of putting the latter into perspective. The term was coined during the late 1970s when the former Soviet Union, criticised over alleged human rights abuses, referred to alleged abuses committed by the West. “What about…?” emerged.

This article is going to do just that: launch a whataboutery. In all fairness, if previous perpetrators of war crimes and other abuses are not held accountable for the wrongdoings they have committed, how can such charges be applied to current offenders? How can they be held accountable?

The Geneva Conventions will back the whataboutery here, focusing on only a few of the crimes committed during the Gulf War in February 1991 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“Respect for the lives of those not partaking in hostilities” says the Conventions. In February 1991, Iraqi soldiers retreating from Kuwait and heading home to Iraq during the Gulf War were ambushed by coalition forces led by the US on what came to be known as the “Highway of Death,” a six-lane highway between Kuwait City and the border of Iraq.

This resulted in the across-the-board destruction of thousands of vehicles and the deaths of their occupants. The exact number of vehicles destroyed remains unknown, but it is estimated to be around 2,000. The exact number of the occupants of the vehicles is also unknown, but a guess would be at least the number of the vehicles.

For ten hours, coalition forces went after the fleeing Iraqi soldiers. The scene the next day was that of an inferno, with thousands of mangled and burnt-out vehicles and quashed and charred bodies strewn across the highway.

The coalition forces were aware that the retreating soldiers were sitting ducks and that they had no intention or ability to fight back. They were not partaking in any hostilities, and yet their lives “were not respected”. The coalition forces should be held accountable for their deaths.

“Do not deliberately attack civilians” says the Conventions. The US military launched what it called a “shock and awe” attack on Iraq in March 2003, killing “7,186 Iraqi civilians in two months,” according to journalist Daniel Kenis of LiveStories.

If Putin is to be charged with war crimes, then former US president George W Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair should also be charged with war crimes over the thousands of deaths that took place during the invasion of Iraq.

A CNN article from 2013 by UK lawyer Michael Mansfield entitled “Why Bush and Blair should be charged with war crimes over the Iraq invasion” sets out the reasons why Bush and Blair should be tried for war crimes under international law.

According to Mansfield, the aim behind the invasion of Iraq was to remove former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from power, but regime change, however desirable, is not permitted by the UN Charter. Article 2 of this states that “all Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” To circumvent this, Bush and his allies fabricated the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Invasion by itself cannot be prosecuted; however, any war crimes that follow can be. This means that “to launch an attack… with the knowledge that its effect is likely to cause incidental death or injury to civilians or the natural environment will render the perpetrator liable to prosecution,” according to Article 8 of the UN Charter.

“The use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium in Iraq by coalition forces [euphemistically called collateral damage] against vulnerable civilians falls within this definition,” Mansfield says. But will Bush or Blair ever be charged for the crimes committed in Iraq? If charging Putin is approved worldwide, then why isn’t it acceptable to charge Bush and Blair?

“Do not torture” says the Conventions. The crimes committed in Iraq did not stop with the invasion of the country and the thousands of lives lost. “Enhanced interrogation techniques,” ie torture, were utilised in full in Iraq.

The scandal at the Abu Ghraib Prison is proof of how far the brutality and abuse went. Photographs published in 2004 of what took place in Abu Ghraib were shameful and inhuman, showing naked prisoners heaped into a pyramid, prisoners held down with straps as though they were on leashes, dogs lunging at prisoners, and, perhaps the most repulsive of all, of a hooded man, Ali Al-Qaisi, standing on a box and holding electrical wires.

Another prisoner, Manadel Al-Jamadi, died while being tortured. One photograph showed his corpse in a plastic bag.

Those who committed the atrocities at the Abu Ghraib Prison were tried and convicted in the US but never in an international court. In fact, the idea of having the Abu Ghraib offenders charged in an international court never crossed anyone’s mind. Today, due to the atrocities that have occurred in Bucha the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said that he will open an investigation into potential war crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

Mansfield ends his article by saying that “without accountability for Western states, how can we expect the rest of world to respect these principles?” Without having previous perpetrators account for their war crimes, we should not expect current ones to be held to account for theirs.   

The writer is the author of Cairo Rewind on the First Two Years of Egypt’s Revolution, 2011-2013.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 14 April, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

 

Liberalism and the war

Ahram Online, by Abdel-Moneim Said (Excerpt, read on Liberalism and the war)

Commentators have discussed many possible causes for the war in Ukraine. Some have suggested Russian addiction to territorial expansion or Putin’s personal “complex” over the demise of the Soviet Union or, in other versions, of Czarist Russia. Others blame the US and its determination to expand NATO into Ukraine, drawing the analogy with the Cuban missile crisis, which triggered the first major nuclear alarm in history. Other reasons mentioned have to do with the nature of the mono-polar world order or a global order in which globalisation was not rooted in the principle of serving all countries. Some pinned it on President Biden, arguing that he saw his popularity ratings slump so low that he fabricated this crisis to rally American, NATO countries and the whole Western world behind him. 

The list goes on, but whatever the actual causes – historians will one day battle it out – we can not eliminate the possibility that “iberalism” and “democracy” have a hand in the war. These principles have turned from noble ideas inspiring a system of government that took root in Western countries and enabled them to progress and flourish into a weaponised ideology that the US uses to destabilise other countries, delegitimise their governments, and intervene with forms of sociopolitical engineering that often backfires in drastic ways. None of it has to do with the liberalism, democracy and freedom the US claims to promote. 

John Mearsheimer is among a minority of political scientists who, since the end of the Cold War, foresaw, not just how Washington’s liberalist enterprise would lead not just in war but also in tremendous failure. A good many of his books, articles and elections fall under the heading of The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, the title of a book he published in 2018. 

A political science professor at Chicago University since 1982, Mearsheimer was born on 14 December 1947, in Brooklyn, New York, which is where he grew up. At 17 he enlisted in the US army. He was then admitted into the West Point Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1970. After a five year stint as an air force officer, he enrolled in Cornell University, earning his doctorate in international relations in 1980. 

Mearsheimer is an exponent of the realist school in international relations theory founded by Hans Morgenthau, one of the most influential political thinkers after World War II. Morgenthau also taught at Chicago University so it was from there that the realist school spread to other US universities and among the US public in general. Another proponent is Stephen Walt, international relations professor at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, who co-authored with Mearsheimer The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (2007), a study on the power of the pro-Israeli lobby in the US and how it shapes US foreign policies, towards the Middle East in particular, in ways that conflict with real US interests in the region. 

Mearsheimer and his colleagues pose a great challenge to liberalism, or the “great delusion” as he called it, with his assertion that the liberal hegemony project that US foreign policy has embraced since the end of the Cold War has been a recipe for unmitigated disaster. He draws attention to two basic liberal assumptions related to human nature: firstly, that the individual takes precedence over the group and, secondly, that individuals are unable to attain a general consensus on first principles; passionate differences over those often lead to violence. Liberalism’s solutions to such potential violence is threefold: inalienable human rights for the individual, an emphasis on tolerance despite disagreement, and a state to maintain order when disputes turn violent and to restrain those who threaten others’ rights. Such traits make liberalism a universalist theory which can turn liberal democracies into crusading states. 

This underlies the US belief that it has a duty to spread liberal democracy across the world, to strengthen an open global economy and to build international institutions. It operates on the assumption that by remaking the world in America’s image, it will safeguard human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what happens. Instead, the US has become highly militaristic, and the military campaigns it wages ultimately undermine the prospects for peace, harm human rights, and jeopardise liberal values at home. What always happens, Mearsheimer concludes, is that the forces of nationalism and realism trump liberalism, which seems unable to resolve the economic, social and ethnic problems that other countries have to deal with in the context of very complex realities.

We in the Middle East probably do not need to hear what the US realist school has to say in order to understand the sins of US policy. The experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan bear vivid testimony to the consequences of years of liberal sociopolitical engineering. In one we see the inability to manage the state and in the other the return of the Taliban to power. For a full decade, Washington backed an Arab Spring that resulted in the rise of Islamism and terrorism. Revolutions with botanical names like lotus and cedar gave rise to a theocratic oriented clique (Egypt) or political and economic paralysis (Tunisia). In the former Soviet republics, the US-backed revolutions were named after colours, such as orange and velvet. They did not yield inclusive democracies capable of assimilating Russian-speaking minorities. 

Read on here. 

وتنزلق أوكرانيا الي الهاوية

ألاهرام ٢ مارس ٢٠٢٢

بقلم عزة رضوان صدقي

 

تواجه أوكرانيا حرب إبادة وبغض النظر عن مقدار الدعم والإغاثة الذي يقدمه الغرب لها ومدى العقوبات المفروضة على روسيا ومدى صلابة الأوكرانيين في ظل الغزو الروسي سيطول أمد هذه الحرب حتى يتم إلغاء المنهج الغربي الحالي لأوكرانيا

يدفع الأوكرانيون ثمناً باهظاً لهذا المنهج ويتعرضون لعقوبات قاسية حيث يفرون من القصف ليصبحوا اللاجئين الأكثر نزوحا حول العالم. أما الذين يختارون البقاء فليس لديهم ماء أو طعام أو تدفئة أو وقود ويواجهون قصفا شرسا في مدن مدمرة أو هكذا تبدو في الإعلام الغربي

للأسف تتحمل أوكرانيا وطأة الحرب نيابة عمن يشجع على التمديد في هذه الحرب. إن الاستمرار في القتال حتى آخر أوكراني، أو حتى تدمر المدن الأوكرانية بالكامل، غير مبرر وغير منطقي. سيعود اللاجئون الأوكرانيون في نهاية المطاف إلى ديارهم لكنهم سيعودون إلى أوكرانيا ممزقة وربما إلى وطن مقسّم.  لن تدمر المدن الشرقية مثلما يحدث في ماريوبول فحسب، بل سيمتد الدمار إلى غرب أوكرانيا والمناطق الآمنة في الأصل ويتم قصفها الآن

لا يُستخدم المواطنون الأوكرانيون كدروع بشرية، لكن تضليلهم للاعتقاد بأنهم سيخرجون من هذه الحرب فائزين، ويجب الاستمرار في القتال، أمر خطير للغاية. الدعم المعنوي والمالي والإعلامي الذي يقدمه الغرب لأوكرانيا يدفع الأوكرانيين للاعتقاد بأنهم قادرون على مواجهة روسيا.

يصعب مشاركة الدول الأخرى عسكريا في هذه الحرب، لأن الجميع يدركون أن المشاركة العسكرية ستؤدي إلى حرب نووية مُفنية، وبالتالي فإن الأوكرانيين ملزمون بخوض هذه الحرب بمفردهم

ربما ستؤدي العقوبات الغربية إلى شل الاقتصاد الروسي وقد تدفع العقوبات بالروبل إلى مستويات منخفضة غير مسبوقة، مما قد يتسبب في تضخم واسع النطاق. لكن على الأوكرانيين إدراك أن الرئيس بوتين سيستمر بحزم في الحرب، لأنه لن يسمح للناتو والاتحاد الأوروبي بالتواجد على حدود بلاده

كما أن دور الإعلام الغربي في تضليل الأوكرانيين هو دور محوري. وقوف الإعلام الغربي مع حكوماته وتأييدهم جملة وتفصيلا يشعل نيران الحرب ويزيد التصعيد، بدلاً من نزع فتيل التوتر بتقديم التقارير بموضوعية والتوسط من أجل السلم. إن تسليط وسائل الإعلام الغربية الضوء على الدعم المالي الغربي لأوكرانيا والإبلاغ عن العقوبات المفروضة على روسيا والشركات التي انسحبت من روسيا والتركيز على الأزمة الإنسانية هو أمر طبيعي، لكن مطالبة الأوكرانيين بمواصلة المسار الحربي وتجاهل المسار السلمي هو أمر كارثي

بعد حرب ٧٣ قال الرئيس المصري السابق أنور السادات علنا "أنا مش هحارب امريكا". بمعني أنه لو كان العدو آنذاك بمفرده ولم يعتمد كليًا على الولايات المتحدة لكان بإمكان مصر مواصلة الحرب. لكن السادات أوضح أن مصر لا تستطيع خوض حرب ضد الولايات المتحدة وأنه لن يقود شعبه إلى حرب ذات عواقب وخيمة

اليوم على أوكرانيا أن تفعل الشيء نفسه. محاربة القوى العظمي ليس بالأمر السهل، فيجب على أوكرانيا الانتباه إلى الفجوة الكبيره بين أوكرانيا وروسيا في العتاد والإعداد والثقل العسكري. لينتبهوا إلى أن روسيا قد تخسر الرجال والعتاد لكن لم يمس أرضها قدم.  تدعو الحكمة إلى إنقاذ الأرواح وتجنب الدمار الشامل والخروج من الكوارث بأقل قدر ممكن من الضرر

الواشنطن بوست تقول: منذ التسعينيات والولايات المتحدة الأمريكية توسع من تحالف الناتو. بتوسيع هذا التحالف وإعطاء دول مثل جورجيا وأوكرانيا الفرصة للانضمام إلى الحلف فإن الولايات المتحدة تسببت في معضلة أمنية مع روسيا أدت إلى غزوها لجورجيا في عام ٢٠٠٨ وأوكرانيا في عامي ٢٠١٤ و٢٠٢٢

يتطلب التفكير العقلاني نهجًا مختلفًا لإنهاء هذه الكارثه التي أضرت بالعالم أجمع. قال الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة أنطونيو جوتيريش: "المدافع تتحدث الآن لكن طريق الحوار يجب أن يظل مفتوحًا دائمًا". هذا أمر حيوي. المفاوضات والمحادثات السلمية ستؤدي إلى وقف التصعيد بينما التحفيز على استمرار القتال سيؤدي إلى دمار أشد. يجب أن تتفاوض أوكرانيا وروسيا على تسوية عادلة نأمل من خلالها أن تتمكن أوكرانيا من التعايش السلمي سويا مع روسيا والغرب

حقيقةً أن المطالب الروسية لوقف إطلاق النار تتجاوز المقبول، فهي تطالب أوكرانيا بنزع السلاح والحياد التام فضلاً عن قبول ضم شبه جزيرة القرم لروسيا والاعتراف بمناطق دونباس كدول مستقلة، لكن قد تتخلى روسيا من أجل حل أسرع للأزمة عن بعض مطالبها، على الرغم من أنه كلما زاد توغلها في أوكرانيا زاد إصرارها على التنازلات التي تتوقعها

قال وزير الخارجية الأمريكي أنتوني بلينكين إن الولايات المتحدة تتطلع إلى إنهاء الحرب في أوكرانيا وليس توسيعها. آمل حقًا أن يتحقق ذلك لأن الشعب الأوكراني هو الخاسر الأعظم في هذه الحرب