Egypt: NGOs reveal plot to divide the country

NGOs funding investigations which revealed a plot to divide Egypt into four parties Cairo – Mohammed El-Shennawi Major Egyptian Newspapers addressed on Saturday NGOs funding investigations which revealed a plot to divide Egypt into four parties. According to state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper, Sameh Abou Zeid , the judge presiding over the investigation on civil society organisations receiving illegitimate foreign funding, said evidence proves that several foreign and local NGOs have received unauthorised funds.
"Now we are arriving at the next step of the investigations, and we will issue a [new] warrant to search the headquarters of several NGOs operating illegitimately in Egypt," Abou Zeid told a press conference held at the Ministry of Justice on Wednesday.
The press conference took place after the authorities checked the bank accounts of the accused NGOs. In December, Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces SCAF pledged to allow 17 NGOs previously raided by security forces to reopen and operate after the US voiced concern. "We decided to search these NGOs' offices as part of the investigation and reveal the whole truth, so that no innocent party is convicted or vice versa," Abou Zeid commented. "Indeed, we managed to seize some documents that prove some of these NGOs receive funds through illegal avenues from overseas without informing authorities."
Recently, the judicial authorities have indicted 43 people – including six US citizens among 29 foreign nationals and 14 Egyptians – working for non-governmental organisations allegedly operating without appropriate licenses in Egypt. "All procedures taken throughout the investigation were pursuant to the Egyptian law," Abou Zeid added. US foreign aid to Egypt, totalling $1.3 billion annually, is contingent on the latter's commitment to “democracy”, which the US State Department has to certify, according to a new congressional restriction. Certification now appears to be hanging in the balance.
The judge described a variety of discoveries as  “dangerous”, including reports that at least one group had asked what the judge suggested were inappropriate questions touching on religious divisions, and then sent that information back to foreign capitals, and a map showing Egypt divided into four parts. The judge said piles of cash worth hundreds of thousands of dollars had also been found.
The discovery of the map fed a popular conspiracy theory about the United States seeking to divide Egypt into multiple parts, as British colonialists once did with the Arab world. However, officials who worked for some of the accused organisations have said the maps were issued by the government charts of election districts.
To Egyptians, the reference to questions about religion was reminiscent of the frequent suggestions by some Egyptian officials who have, after outbreaks of sectarian violence, routinely blamed unnamed “foreign hands” for stirring strife between Muslims and Christians.  
On the other hand, US groups deny Egypt charges of political meddling amidst Wikileaks report of secret funding.
After a judge accused four US human rights and democracy groups of “political meddling” in the internal affairs of Egypt on Wednesday, they strongly reacted on Friday.
According to ‘Al-Ahram”, Barrie Freeman, director of the North Africa region for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), one of the US groups whose offices were raided in December, denied the NDI has a hidden agenda. “We trained thousands of candidates, hundreds of them were from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist party,” Freeman told AFP, referring to Islamist groups that won a decisive majority in recent parliamentary elections.
Since December, ties between the United States and Egypt’s interim military rulers have become strained, and Washington has raised the possibility it could withhold military aid worth $1.3 billion a year. “It’s really puzzling,” says Charles Dunne, the Middle East and North Africa director at Freedom House, another US-funded group raided in November. “There is a campaign to try to shut down or control completely the civil society in Egypt,” Dunne told AFP.
Egyptian authorities disagreed, accusing the groups of undermining the military-run government during a fragile transition following last year’s ouster of long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak, once a close US ally.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks revealed several letters from Washington proving transactions to fund some Egyptian activists and politicians through American, international and Arab NGOs to get around the supervision of the Egyptian state.
According to Al-Ahram newspaper which published a report on the issue, Wikileaks revealed letters that point to the fact that Hilary Clinton Secretary of the US state Department personally agreed in 2009 to fund some Egyptian organizations in a way that is almost considered money laundering.
Al-Ahram report pointed to a document titled “STATE38619” which is signed by Hillary Clinton on 18 April, 2009. Wikleaks was classified as “secret” by Jeffery Feltman the Assistant Secretary of the State Department. The document concluded that the political strategy now is to fund Egyptian organisations through an American and international façade of organisations.
Al-Ahram also spoke about document “CAIRO353” in which the former American Ambassador to Egypt Margret Scobey proposed that Washington only pass funds to Egyptian liberal opposition indirectly through other groups because the Egyptian government accused the USA of political meddling. This document was dated February 2009.
Scobey also said in the letter “Despite possible overfunding, the Mission believes that a direct grants program has had some positive impact on the capacity of Egyptian civil society, but at a political cost in terms of our working relationship with the Government of Egypt. We do not want to abandon these domestic groups. At the same time, we would like to find a better, less confrontational way to support them. We propose that rather than funding these groups directly using Egypt´s earmarked Egypt Support Fund ESF, we instead provide funding from other sources, for example, from the Democracy and Human Rights Bureau or Middle East Partnership Initiative, or from a new direct Congressional appropriation. The money should go to an outside, professional organization such as the National Endowment for Democracy, which has a long-term vision of promoting democracy and would not carry the same political baggage as using ESF funds”
According to Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper, this issue raised a crisis in relations between Cairo and Washington and Western criticism and threats, including statements by US officials on cutting economic and military aid for Egypt.
Contact between Egypt and the US increased during the past week, though the sides have not attributed it to the foreign funding crisis. The Egyptian media reported that the visit of the US deputy attorney general to Cairo was meant to discuss the future Egyptian constitution, and that the visit to Washington by a SCAF delegation had been scheduled prior to the crisis and was meant to discuss defence matters. In any case, it seems that those meetings and discussions have so far failed to yield a resolution to the crisis between the two countries. Despite US pressure, on February 5 the Egyptian authorities announced that 43 civil society activists, 19 of them American, including the son of the US Transportation Secretary, would be tried on criminal charges. Two days later, the SCAF delegation that had arrived in Washington cancelled the meetings which were scheduled to be held with American congressmen.
Muhammad Al-Manshawi, a columnist for the daily Al-Shurouq, said that the military council is using the crisis with the US to remain in power: "The Military Council is taking advantage of the tension... with the US in an attempt to gain internal political capital, especially in light of continuing pressure from the Egyptian street and the various political forces, and in light of the demands for the Military Council to cede power, return to its [military] bases, and receive no special status in the constitution. Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Faiza Abu Al-Naga made some fiery statements, including that the Egyptian government will accept no threats or dictates from the US, and that ‘US aid to Egypt is not a gift, but is based on the common interests of both countries...’
These statements indicated that the Military Council caused the escalation with Washington in order to compensate for the unexpected loss of the popular [support] that was granted to it after it took power. [This loss of support] has been clearly proven during the protests over the last few days.
Meanwhile, Al-Ahram columnist Mustafa Al-Sami wrote: "Let the American aid cease, if [it means] Egypt becoming an American colony... The honourable youth of the Egyptian revolution should be aware of the American plot against the unity and independence of the homeland. In the name of defending civil society organisations and freedom of opinion and democracy, the US Congress set conditions on military aid to Egypt... The January 25 revolution is not merely fighting the representatives and gangs of the previous regime. [It is also fighting] Washington, which is playing on our land... The Americans are currently the greatest danger for [post-] revolution Egypt."