Foreign Funding and National Security

It has been unveiled that 43 defendants, including nine U.S. nationals, have fled the country. Also, four U.S. organizations (the Republican Institute, the Democratic Institute, the Fred House Organization and the U.S. Center for Journalists) have received $45 million and 1.6 million euros from March to December 2011. Finally, the defendants conducted surveys and research on the streets of Egypt then sent them to Washington. Also, they were found in possession of survey maps of Egypt split into four sections: Cairo, the Delta, Upper Egypt and Sina, as well as a record of church sites and military headquarters in Egypt. This breached Egyptian sovereignty. They also unlawfully supported election campaigns of political party candidates. The charges have been admitted as these organizations operate without a license. They are funded from abroad to perform acts in the name of democracy, which breaches Egyptian national security. The defendants were released by two investigating judges who acted according to the law, and that is the rightful prerogative of the state. However, we believe that the U.S. has set off a tempest in a teapot in such a way that they unveiled the ugly colonial face hiding behind the cover of democracy and adorn with the makeup of human rights.

Most importantly, we hear that members of the U.S. Senate and Congress threatened to cut off military aid to Egypt unless the Military Council allows non-governmental organizations to return to Egypt and operate without restrictions, spreading democracy and protecting human rights. They also demanded that prompt measures be taken to restore the organizations’ property, to stop questioning them and to register them unconditionally. The challenge and underestimation of the Egyptian justice reached such an extent that the U.S. ambassador in Cairo sent a letter to the investigating judges, ordering the termination of the investigation and authorizing U.S. nationals banned from traveling to do so. Among them was the son of the U.S. Transportation Secretary. John McCain, former candidate for the U.S. presidency, considered that what these organizations had endured was a threat to U.S. national security, similar to Iran taking U.S. citizens as hostages. We do not understand the relationship between funding organizations working to promote democracy, as they claim, and the threat to U.S. national security unless these organizations do operate for the benefit of U.S. national security, which implies that they threaten Egyptian national security. Does America wish to disrupt the democratic process, which is supposed to lead to rule of law that applies to everyone, so that it won’t apply to its nationals? And how come the Military Council orders the judiciary to drop the principle of separation of powers out of love for Mama America? Will the U.S. accept that this all applies to them, or are they the masters of the world whose orders should be obeyed? As to the constant and disrespectful threat to cut off U.S. aid, this has proven to be cheap blackmail that is not appropriate, and it does not commensurate with Egypt.

More than half of this aid goes back to America in the form of freight to transport weapons on U.S. vessels. The remnant is paid as a reward to the so-called U.S. consultants. Concerning the false claim to promote democracy, we would like to focus on the role of the Republican Institute, which came to Egypt to spread democracy out of love for Egypt and Egyptians. This institute conducts anti-democratic activities, including supporting the military coup in Venezuela in 2002, helping overthrow the democratically elected government in Haiti in 2004 and participating in the 2005 bid to change electoral laws in Brazil to weaken the ruling Labor Party. America and its institutes have been supporting brutal dictatorships over decades, and George W. Bush’s admission that the U.S. has been protecting non-democratic Arab regimes over decades can be given as the best evidence. The United States single-mindedly pursues its interests and nothing but its interests, claiming to spread democracy and lying with their talk of human rights protection. This is through their support for those organizations that are nominally human rights organizations but, as a matter of fact, are homeland-burning organizations. Egypt will remain a free state. It will be sovereign and free to make decisions. These are the outcomes of the January uprising which will never fall, which will be a guide for the people and a disruption of American and Zionist colonial interests.