Egypt Is at Risk If Its Security Issues Are Left to Fester [The National]

March 13, 2014

Earlier this week, interim Egyptian president Adli Mansour issued the law covering presidential elections. Field Marshal Abdel Fattah El Sisi hinted he was running, and most observers and analysts inside and outside of Egypt expect him to win. For whoever does emerge victorious, it will be a painful victory. Beyond the economic challenges facing Egypt, the next president will face a serious security problem. The question is, how will that security crisis be dealt with?

Egypt faces a low-level insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula and militant attacks elsewhere – as witnessed by the Cairo bus attack – from the likes of radical extremist groups such as Ansar Bayt Al Maqdis. Beyond that, it faces violence from a variety of small dissident groups, most of whom, but not all, are supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The protesters tend to be divided into three different groups: those who support the Brotherhood; those that oppose the current military-backed authority but belong to non-Islamist political groups; and those that are not politically inclined one way or the other, but are agitating against the state because they have witnessed or been subject to police brutality. It is a confusing picture due to the complicated nature of the student protest movement in particular. Many were, and are, ideological, but many are not. The latter are protesting because of opposition to specific government policies.

Those three different security challenges – the Sinai insurgency, militant attacks in urban areas, and anarchic protest violence – have to be addressed effectively, without increasing the propensity for violence, or indirectly encouraging a situation where recruitment for such violent actions is easier. Without such a response, insecurity in Egypt is likely to continue for a long period, and that in itself will have far-reaching consequences.

Egypt has known of terrorist acts carried out by Islamist groups like Ansar Bayt Al Maqdis before. The group itself is several years old. Despite its effectiveness, according to various reports, it is relatively small. The key to reducing those numbers is directly related to the government response in Sinai and how the local population relates to the state. Insurgencies in other countries have seen this clearly: where insurgents are able to draw on genuine discontent with the state, they are able to find willing recruits to join their struggle.

Though difficult to confirm, a number of reports indicate heavy-handed tactics that result in many ordinary residents of the Sinai feeling not only neglected but also resentful of the price they’ve paid in terms of the army’s response in the peninsula.

That sort of approach has to be re-examined, and lessons learnt from other countries that have dealt with insurgencies. They must be faced with full vigilance, but keeping in mind the highest standards of counterinsurgency strategies that respect the rights of citizens as citizens, as opposed to being collateral damage. Otherwise, the insurgency will persist.

When it comes to the militant attacks that are taking place elsewhere, there are slightly different considerations. These are not insurgent attacks, but militant ones that deserve a security response, but not only a security response. Many countries have tried that in the past, and failed. In Northern Ireland, a security solution alone could not work, and eventually the Republic of Ireland and the UK realised that without addressing the political track and the economic track, young men and women would be drawn to extreme “solutions”. A vital part of that wider strategy has to address arbitrary arrests, detention without charge or trial, and other violations of civil liberties. That is, in essence, a large part of “draining the swamp” – and the end result will result in a safer, more secure Egypt.

The final part of this overarching security problem is the protest movement. Addressing the protests solely through a security response is likely to worsen the situation. Many of the protesters are protesting precisely because of the human rights violations that were ubiquitous in previous security responses. If those violations are recognised through a thorough investigative process, and relevant officials held to account – unlike what happened recently through the quasi-governmental National Council for Human Rights – that would be a good first step. Instead, independent observers harshly criticised the NCHR’s interim report on the violations committed in the clearing of the protest camps in the summer.

The irony is that many within the security sector are well aware that there ought to be reforms – but there has, hitherto, been little to no political will to achieve it. Even those few officers who have raised their concerns have found themselves penalised.

Nevertheless, there remain NGOs including the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies that are fully aware of the necessity, and have programmes to at least begin to tackle the problems.

Egypt’s future is going to be rocky – there is no way around that. But for it to become one that eventually leads to genuine stability, real security sector reform is necessary. If Egypt’s leaders choose to ignore that dire need, Egypt’s stability is not only at risk – it may become an illusion altogether.

Dr HA Hellyer is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, and the Brookings Institution in Washington DC

On Twitter: @hahellyer

Source: The National