Islamism in crisis

By Khaled Dawoud

Islamist militants await sentence to be passed

According to experts on militant organisations, the brutal killing of 58 tourists and four Egyptians in Luxor, claimed by Egypt's largest militant organisation Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, caused irreparable damage to the Islamist groups.

The massacre, which outraged Egyptian public opinion, seems to have created a deep schism in the ranks of Al-Gama'a, for the first time dividing it into hawks and doves. This division was reflected in a series of contradictory statements and appeals by leading figures within Al-Gama'a.

The dovish faction, represented by the so-called 'historic leaders' (imprisoned Gama'a militants who have been serving life terms for their role in assassinating former President Anwar Sadat in 1981), issued several statements this year calling for an immediate halt to violence and anti-government attacks, and appeared to have the backing of Al-Gama'a's influential spiritual leader, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is now serving a life term in New York for his alleged role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre.

These tactics provoked forceful counter-statements from expatriate, supposedly hawkish, Gama'a leaders, affirming that "there has no be change in Al-Gama'a's strategy." Experts believe that the expatriate Gama'a cadres, most of whom live in Afghanistan with their leader Refaie Ahmed Taha, are the ones who actually call the shots in the organisation.

The doves believe that the regime will not bow to pressure and make concessions under the threat of more violence. Thus, they argue, Al-Gama'a has to take the first step. But the expatriate leaders disagree. They insist that the government should first release thousands of jailed militants who have been detained for years without charges or trial. They also want a halt to military trials for militants and a pardon for armed militants who are believed to be on the run in the south.

The government's response to these confused signals was ambivalent. On the one hand, at least 5,000 militants who were being held without charges were released during 1998. The Interior Ministry, under new Minister of the Interior Habib El-Adli, seemed to want to set a new precedent for releasing militants at the end of their sentence, rather than subjecting them to a further spell of administrative detention as has been the standard practice since the outbreak of the confrontation in the early '90s. On the other hand, however, nine militants were executed this year, including four who were sentenced to death in late 1997.

Meanwhile, military trials showed no sign of abating. The year 1999 will witness two of the most important trials of recent years, one bringing together more than 70 defendants, the other more than 20. Two of these defendants were already sentenced to death in absentia in 1993 and 1997.

This was also the year that Jihad sought to set itself apart from Al-Gama'a by openly declaring war on the United States, thus effectively joining ranks with the Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden. Soon after five suspected Jihad members were extradited to Egypt from Albania, and three days before the bombing of the US embassies, Al-Jihad issued a statement warning that it would take revenge. Shortly before the year ended, Al-Jihad issued a second statement reiterating its threats against the US.

Al-Gama'a, meanwhile, sought to distance itself from the International Islamic Front for Fighting Against Jews and Crusaders, declared in February and led by bin Laden. Taha, Al-Gamaa's leader, issued a statement one week before the US embassies' bombings saying that he had nothing whatever to do with the Front. Yet, it would seen that the latest US aggression against Iraq may have pushed the group into taking a similar line to that of Jihad. Al-Gamaa issued a statement after the four-day US-British strike, urging Muslims to launch "jihad" against the US in revenge for their killing of innocent Iraqi Muslims and civilians.

As for Egypt's largest and oldest political Islamist organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood, 1998 was not much different from 1997. Since the government cracked down on the group in early 1995, accusing it of refusing to take a strong stand against terrorism, the Brotherhood have never had the chance to recover their former power. More than 100 Brotherhood members were sent to military courts and sentenced to prison terms ranging between three and five years.

Several government laws and regulations deprived the Brotherhood of one of their most important strongholds: the professional syndicates. Elections in the doctors, lawyers, and engineers syndicates -- all previously controlled by the Brotherhood, which is banned from forming a political party and fielding candidates in state elections -- have not been held for the past four years. Nor are they now expected to be take place any time soon, for fear that the Brotherhood will be returned to power. Meanwhile, throughout the year, police occasionally rounded up members of the Brotherhood for short periods ranging between one and six months, whenever they suspected any attempt to reinvigorate the group's activities. In November, police arrested 28 leading Brotherhood figures and levelled the traditional charge against them of "forming an illegal organisation with the aim of overthrowing the government."

Salah Abdel-Maqsoud, a member of the Brotherhood, said that his group's policy was "to avoid any confrontation with the regime." He added that although the group had sent several messages to the government asking for dialogue, "the answer was always no." Abdel-Maqsoud said that, nevertheless, the Brotherhood maintains good relations with all other opposition groups, "and most of them now recognise and support our right to practice political activity."

A number of young Muslim Brotherhood members who split from the group in 1997 after their request to form a political party under the name Al-Wasat ("the Centre") was rejected by the Brotherhood's leadership, also continued their efforts to get their organisation off the ground. In May, the Parties Court handed down their final verdict rejecting the request by former treasurer of the Engineers Syndicate Abul-Ela Madi to found Al-Wasat party. Only a few days later, Madi presented a new request to the Parties Committee, asking them to legalise "Al-Wasat Al-Masri Party", thus adding the term Masri, or Egyptian, to the original name. In September, the Committee rejected the request -- just as it always has, ever since it was set up in the late 1970s, whenever it is presented with a request to form a new party. So the matter is now back in the hands of the Parties Court. The first session to look at Al-Wasat Al-Masri's appeal will be held on 9 January.

"We are a political Islamic group whose doors are open to any person who believes in the Islamic civilisation project. Egypt has belonged to the Islamic civilisation and culture for more than 14 centuries, and our project is an Islamic one," Madi told the Weekly. "We are very different from the Brotherhood, although most of us originally belonged to them. We do not claim to be the sole representative of Islam," he added. Madi said Al-Wasat Al-Masri calls for the implementation of Islamic law, but also believes in equality between citizens, regardless of their sex or religion. "Thus we believe women can occupy any post, and the same for Copts," he said.