Problems in the Sinai

One of the less publicized issues going on during Egypt’s rebuilding process is the trouble in the Sinai Peninsula. Since the revolution toppled the former autocratic government, lawlessness and chaos have taken hold of society. The nomadic Bedouin of the Sinai, who under Mubarak were controlled and coerced in to cooperating with the regime, have taken advantage of their new found freedom and established their own rule over the area. This is particularly concerning for Israel for a variety of reasons. First, the Bedouin don’t have a formal allegiance to any country, including Egypt, and will do what they must to earn wages and survive. This is likely to include weapons trafficking for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, who will reward them handsomely. It’s become an easier task than in the past since the police won’t get involved; the revolution paralyzed their capabilities and they lack the public approval and will to fight the Bedouin. The army is the only force that could prevent it and it is not a priority for them right now. If it’s not already happening, some kind of agreement about the area must be worked out with the Bedouin, either by Egypt or Israel (though this would be a tricky endeavor diplomatically for Israel because of Egyptian sovereignty issues). If weapons trafficking does start to become uncontrollable, however, it’s hard to imagine that Israel won’t become involved in halting it.

Less important, though unfortunate nonetheless, is the possibility that the Sinai will become just one more destination in the region that Israelis are not welcome. Sharm el-Sheik has traditionally been a popular resort for Israeli’s on holiday, but without proper security (or security of any kind) it will likely be deserted.  It is also another step back in Egyptian-Israeli relations. Check out an excellent article about this developing situation published in last week’s Economist:

The following article was published in last week’s issue of the The Economist:

Hunkered inside his fortified compound, North Sinai’s governor, Abdel Wahhab al-Mabrouk, a military man, plans his counter-attack against the peninsula’s rebellious Bedouin. Since the Egyptian uprising five months ago, they have thrown off the yoke of Egypt’s police and are determined to keep it that way. “We’ll kill them if they return,” says a Bedouin sheikh. General Mabrouk has recently repainted one of four police stations in his provincial capital, el-Arish, which the Bedouin torched. Plans for restoring another are in hand. But on the streets outside the governor’s building, uniformed police venture out only under an army escort.

The governor denies reports that the vacuum in Sinai’s rocky land, which has around 400,000 inhabitants, has been filled by 400 al-Qaeda men. But he accuses Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, and Hizbullah, the Shia party-cum-militia that holds sway in southern Lebanon, of spotting a chance to stir up trouble. He adds that Salafist groups, who follow the puritanical Saudi model of Islam, have flourished since Hosni Mubarak’s fall. A bomb recently destroyed the walls of Sinai’s main Sufi shrine, but the dome miraculously dropped intact over the tomb.

The chaos may be the governor’s best ally. Hospitals are crowded with the victims of tribal vendettas. Notices tied to lamp-posts record the names of women who have disappeared. Traders load their guns before setting off to do business, for fear of highwaymen. In the early hours of June 22nd two Egyptian soldiers were shot dead by masked gunmen in a main street of el-Arish. If such lawlessness continues, hopes an adviser to the governor, everyone will be begging for the police to come back and restore order.

Seeing threats in every corner, the governor has turned to the secret police, who have survived the uprising remarkably unscathed. By warning that the chaos may spill across the eastern border, he has persuaded Israel to allow 3,000 Egyptian troops into eastern Sinai, which, under the Camp David accords of 1978 that provided for Israel’s withdrawal, is a demilitarised zone. Egyptian military vehicles now proliferate, though Egyptian soldiers have taken a hands-off approach to the Bedouin for fear of being dragged into a domestic squabble with them. The governor toys with the idea of a heavier crackdown, but it is plain that only a political agreement has a chance of restoring calm and preventing the pesky Bedouin from soliciting outside support, which would make Sinai even more dangerous.

Such hopes are, for the time being, forlorn. The Bedouin of Sinai loathe the old order. Talk to an adult male Bedou in North Sinai, and the chances are he will tell you he has been in prison, sometimes in solitary confinement in a cell too small to sit down in. For years Egyptian bureaucrats from the Nile Valley have refused to let the Bedouin register their land. Checkpoints dotting Sinai’s rocky wastelands prevented the Bedouin from reaching their area’s main cash-cows: the peninsula’s tourist resorts, its oil installations and its giant cement factory. The government buildings that the Bedouin ransacked during the revolution are still littered with security files.

Most Bedouin leaders now prefer to rely on their own people to keep order. For decades, outsiders have manipulated their hierarchies and handpicked their sheikhs; now they are selecting their own. Control over smuggling routes linking Africa to Asia has provided them with enough guns and cash to keep the governor and his heavies away. A businessman robbed of $250,000 found it more sensible to appeal to Bedouin leaders than to the local courts, bereft of police to enforce rulings. “We can’t really arrest anyone any more,” moans the hapless governor.

Few Bedouin say they want to rid Sinai of Egyptian rule altogether, though the more wistful wonder whether Western powers might yet set up a Bedouin dynasty in Sinai as they did with the House of Saud in the Arabian peninsula. The more pragmatic Bedouin want a new contract with the state, including a degree of local autonomy, access to government and army jobs that have long been denied to them, and an amnesty from the sentences passed on them, often in absentia.

The governor has met tribal leaders and freed a few hundred prisoners. Egypt’s justice ministry has signalled its readiness to release others who have served half their terms. Egypt’s post-revolutionary prime minister, Essam Sharaf, has even paid el-Arish a visit, the first holder of his post to do so for years. But Bedouin leaders damned it as a cheap photo opportunity while, away from the cameras, Egyptian generals seemed intent on reviving the old order. “We’re not in the business of legitimising smugglers, terrorists, drug barons and outlaws,” says an intelligence officer.

In frustration, some Bedouin have resorted to sabotage. Within hours of Mr Sharaf’s departure, a bomb blew up an unguarded pipeline that supplies Israel and Jordan with gas. They may yet attack South Sinai’s oil installations and tourist resorts, and perhaps the Egyptian “guests”—workers whom the government settled on Bedouin territory in an effort to cement the state’s grip. Attacks on cars with Nile Valley licence-plates are getting more frequent. The head of a women’s association in Nakhl, an isolated Sinai town, fled back to the main bit of Egypt after 30 years. Bedouin protesters recently cut the road, albeit briefly, between Cairo and the tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.