Sisi short-changes Cameron

Who is Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi kidding when he said that the Muslim Brotherhood is part of the Egyptian people and that the death sentences will not be implemented?

It seems that the line “the death sentences will not be implemented” has become a key item packed in the brutal General’s suitcase for his trip to Europe, only to be used outside of Egypt. When he returns to Egypt, he obliterates it and addresses the people with a bloody and exclusionary discourse.

In his trip to Berlin, the General stood before Angela Merkel and the German media, sweating profusely, and fielded a storm of questions regarding the atmosphere in Egypt due to the mass death sentences. He then said the same line he is using in London today, “the death sentences will not be implemented”. When he returned, he regained his violent face and announced, in a live broadcast, that all death sentences must be implemented immediately, without delay, and gave the approval for the amendments in the laws of litigation. These amendments allow for the immediate execution of the politicised judicial rulings.

What is most interesting is Al-Sisi’s soft talk, saying that “the Brotherhood is part of the nation”, which puts the Brits in real trouble, as David Cameron’s government has been trying for a long time, under Emirati pressures and temptations, to pass a report that classifies the Brotherhood as a terrorist group and condemns and bans its activities. This clashes with the Egyptian Court of Cassation’s decision to disregard the General Prosecution’s decision to consider the Brotherhood leaderships as terrorist entities, giving it zero impact.

It is no secret that Al-Sisi’s government formed his speeches to the West in a manner that would justify his coup against the elected government in Egypt, by saying that he was forced to kill democracy in order to save the world from the Brotherhood’s terrorism. The first thing he and his military government did was classify the Brotherhood as an outlawed terrorist group by means of an order issued by the government appointed by the General immediately after the military coup.

Accordingly, this decision was the premise on which David Cameron’s government based its report on the Muslim Brotherhood. Information was leaked that Cameron was insisting on adopting the Emirati perspective (and by extension Al-Sisi’s perspective), hence banning its activities.

Now it seems that the general and his host are at stark odds with their past statements and positions. How can the British and Egyptian people believe either of them?

Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi lied to his people and to the world when he created this state of societal strife, after mobilising the masses against a “terrorist entity” and offering protection and amnesty to those who illegally kill members of the Brotherhood. He himself is accused of killing nearly 3,000 Egyptians in massacres under the pretext of them being “Brotherhood terrorists”. He also seized their properties and savings and arrested their wives and children, considering them “enemies of the nation and dangers to the entire world”. He then obtained aid, grants amounting to tens of billions of dollars, aircraft deals, and naval fleets under the pretext of building a state free of terrorism that provides safety and security to the Europeans.

In this context, European capitals that were having financial troubles benefitted when the supporters of the coup and its regional sponsors funded the arms trades amounting to tens of billions of dollars to secure the “body guard” south of the Mediterranean. Western governments are salivating over these deals, including the British government, and thus its disregarding of its democratic values and human principles in its exercise of “financial diplomacy” at the expense of human rights.

Al-Sisi’s statement of the Brotherhood being “part of the nation”, in which he contradicts himself, and the Cassation Court’s decision to remove the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership from the terrorist lists, may have harmed David Cameron’s interests and may prevent him from getting a piece of the cake made by the coup government. Paris, Rome and Berlin have already received large pieces of this cake.

Finally, David Cameron should go back to the book by British historian Jefferies, in which he exposes the British conspiracy against Palestine in the form of the Balfour Declaration. He should read the paragraph in which he quoted Robert Bridges’ book The Spirit of Man: “We may see that our national follies and sins have deserved punishment; and if in this revelation of rottenness we cannot ourselves appear wholly sound, we are still free and true at heart, and can take hope in contrition.”

Translated from Al-Araby, 5 November 2015