Western Funding Aims to Abort the Egyptian Revolution

It is already known that the West was not happy with the revolution sparked by the Egyptian people against the Camp David regime, Israel's friend and client of the United States. They have not relented in their attempts to terminate the revolution since it began. After failing to directly impact the events in Tahrir Square, the West has attempted multiple forms of direct and indirect intervention in internal Egyptian affairs. Vigorous attempts began months ago to influence the behavior of civil organizations and political movements, the groups that led the Egyptian people during the revolution. This was done in order to prevent and co-opt any possibility of change through parliamentary or presidential elections.

Since last March, Egypt has been witnessing what appears to be a war of words between Salafist forces accused of receiving funds from some Arab countries friendly to the United States and liberal forces accused of receiving American and European funds. Journalists, media workers and human rights activists are also known to focus on these accusations, magnifying the importance of the issue of foreign funding for political parties and organizations in Egypt.

According to the Egyptian cabinet, three official bodies began an extensive investigation of organizations receiving such funds. These bodies are the cabinet itself, the National Security Agency and the Attorney General’s office. These investigations are aimed at discovering the organizations' activities and finances, examining expenditures for activities against the revenues received for those activities, as well as investigating how their money reaches its destination. Egyptian cabinet official Massad Baheiri indicated that the Egyptian Central Bank has been told to intercept these funds by tracking account numbers in Egyptian banks. The Central Bank has actually acquired all of the required data, and the Egyptian official said there is an estimated $40 million recognized as coming from the U.S. embassy in Cairo. In addition, there are other funds which are unaccounted for, paid for by American and European research centers and organizations. The money was delivered within the last three months in order to influence the outcome of the upcoming Egyptian elections.

It is noteworthy in this respect that the U.S. embassy in Cairo has leaked a report saying it supports the 215 Egyptian associations and organizations. The report explained that these organizations were the ones that participated in workshops in Luxor between last March and June. Unlike dozens of other organizations that receive money from Europe, the volume of aid from the American embassy given to these Egyptian groups is estimated to be at least $40 million.

Another Egyptian official confirmed that 500 Egyptian organizations reported by the government had received foreign support for training on election monitoring. A coordination center official confirmed there are hundreds of foreign public and private entities working in Egypt on democracy assistance, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development in Cairo, the Office of the European Union, and the United Nations Development Program. All of these actors donated large amounts of money to fund what they call “political awareness programs” and to monitor the parliamentary and presidential elections. They also announced that strengthening the so-called work of journalists, political activists and bloggers is an objective of this funding. The Egyptian official added that the EU approved the allocation of €8 million to support civil society organizations for the prospective training of election monitors, and has allocated $6 million to a German aid agency to support information and training for youth activists, journalists, and media workers with regard to social networking. The official also said that Sweden provided $10.4 million to train 13,000 lawyers to monitor the elections.

The official explained is that the Central Bank compiled the report for the Attorney General, the aim of which is for him to consider if these funds constitute a gross interference in Egyptian politics. The official noted that the “Egypt Protection Center” will conduct audits of popular organizations receiving such funds.

This data, also confirmed by the Popular Coalition to detect foreign funding of civil society organizations, revealed that foreign funding from third parties was directed to a number of organizations, journalists and lawyers. The Coalition said in a statement to the Association of Editors for Human Rights and the Syndicate of Egyptian Journalists that a number of journalists have received a lot of funding from American organizations to promote civil society, liberalization and influence the future of Egypt.

This information, converging with the uproar raised by the issue of foreign funding to civil society organizations and Egyptian political parties, has threatened U.S.-Egyptian relations. After the junta's refusal to fund civil society organizations directly with no strings attached, and as a result of the hype surrounding the dismissal of the director of USAID in an attempt to appease Egyptians, the country announced a threat to open the floodgates to all types of foreign funding (including organizations directly opposed to Western interests) for Egyptian organizations without the notification of the Egyptian government.

The Egyptian military council warned the U.S. Ambassador in Cairo Anne Patterson of the seriousness of spending $40 million on groups involved in the revolution. This is in addition to the estimated $165 million allocated by the U.S. Congress to monitor the support of what it calls democracy in Egypt. The military council asked its organizations to disclose the names and lists of received funds from any third party, especially by the United States and European Union, and to refer those involved to the Attorney General so he may investigate the claims on behalf of the integrity of the Egyptian people.

The Council also rejected the allocation of any foreign funds to Egyptian parties and organizations, on the basis that this funding violates Egyptian sovereignty while furthering foreign agendas that oppose security and stability in Egypt. The authorities demanded the rejection of U.S. aid, saying that this aid causes the corruption and dependency characteristic of the previous regime. They stated that this aid made Egypt merely a tool of U.S. foreign policy at the expense of its national dignity, especially when Egyptian national decisions and sovereignty submitted to, and were dependent on, American hegemony.

There is no doubt that the West's attempts to hijack the Egyptian revolution and install a new system similar to the former regime will continue until Egypt puts an end to this. Certainly the U.S. aid provided to Egypt every year was a cheap price to silence Egyptians on the question of Palestine and other contentious Arab issues. However, the Americans have now turned against the Egyptian people as Egyptians burned the Israeli flag outside the Zionist entity's embassy last week. Be sure that the Egyptian people can and will not miss the opportunity to end Western intervention when that opportunity arises.