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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 November 1999 Issue No. 455 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 November 1999 Issue No. 455
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Books Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Impatient for the truth
By Amira Howeidy"The secret of the US nuclear base that destroyed the Egyptian plane," read the red-coloured headline of the independent weekly Al-Osbou' on Monday. The Islamist-oriented bi-weekly Al-Shaab, mouthpiece of the Labour Party, went further, claiming in its Tuesday headline that "the two black boxes were retrieved, duplicated and returned once more to the water." Moreover, it alleged that "18 American corpses are in the CIA's morgue". All this has been kept a closely guarded secret, it argued, to conceal the responsibility of the CIA or the US military base which might have fired a missile on the plane. That specific flight would have been targeted, said the newspaper, "because it carried distinguished Egyptians who had finished their training in the US in addition to experts in the oil sector."
Despite their implausibility, these scenarios have been the talk of the town throughout the past week. Everywhere and anywhere, the mystery of the ill-fated EgyptAir flight that plunged into the ocean last week killing all 217 people aboard, dominates discussions. And many lean toward a conspiracy theory.
"It's obvious it was targeted," said Noha Makkawi, a 27-year old housewife, "because of the 33 officers on board". A relative of hers sitting close by responded with confidence. "The CIA did it."
Even the relatives of the victims who spent a week in Rhode Island, where the search efforts are taking place, dropped hints that the American search efforts are not completely sincere. "They are just too slow," Mustafa Ibrahim, who lost a brother, told reporters upon his return from the US on Monday. Mohamed Abdel-Halim, who also lost a brother, said that "the search efforts stopped for long periods despite improvement in the weather." Another relative complained that "members of the American search team would not answer our questions clearly enough."
Leading poet Abdel-Rahman El-Abnoudi published a lengthy column in Al-Osbou' on Monday after offering his condolences to fathers who lost their sons in the crash. "The enemy who kills us with AIDS and drugs, who targets the tourism sector and smuggles in sub-standard food... isn't he capable of putting something underneath the [plane] seat of the son to fragment him into small pieces?"
El-Abnoudi angrily took issue with the fact that the media broadcast nothing but Qur'anic verses "and other material that promoted this feeling of death".
"Why didn't any analyst explain to us whether what happened was the result of human error, bad weather, an explosion or anything else?" he asked. "Definitely, if this was an Israeli plane, it would have been an entirely different case."
The fact that without the retrieval of the black boxes it remains impossible to know what happened with any degree of accuracy has triggered impatient and often angry reactions.
"In light of the absence of accurate information, it is only to be expected that speculations would be rife," argued Al-Ahram's Monday editorial. It was quick to note that "speculations were not limited to the Egyptians. The American media contributed to them too; they spoke of explosives that might have been on board, while others went as far as to suggest that the pilot wanted to commit suicide."
Meanwhile, EgyptAir and government officials focused their efforts on assisting the families of the victims. Since the plane plunged into the ocean, a Red Crescent medical team has been stationed at Cairo Airport, offering assistance to the families of the victims. The Red Crescent also sent two doctors to the US on the plane that carried officials of EgyptAir, investigators and a large number of family members of the victims, to Rhode Island. They returned on three flights earlier this week.
EgyptAir Chairman Mohamed Fahim Rayyan told reporters upon his return to Cairo on Saturday, that an Egyptian team of four EgyptAir and three Civil Aviation Authority officials has been part of the American investigation team from day one. "They are following up on every detail and are keeping us informed very closely," he said. According to Rayyan, a team from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will visit Cairo "soon" to study the documents of the crashed Boeing 767.
Before leaving for the US, Rayyan was confident that the plane was in perfect condition and ruled out any possibility of sabotage. However, he sounded less certain when he returned on Saturday. "There are many scenarios for the accident. But then evidence emerges that dismisses these scenarios... [however], the whole incident remains shrouded in mystery," he said.
EgyptAir will pay preliminary compensations of $20,000 for each family that submits the required documents. Another $80,000 will be handed over once the final report on the crash has been completed. Prime Minister Atef Ebeid on Tuesday said that the government will hand over a first instalment of LE10,000 pending a final settlement. The Social Insurance Fund, an affiliate of the Insurance Ministry, has established a team to each case of the 62 Egyptian victims individually to determine compensations. More money is forthcoming from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal who donated LE1 million to the families of the "Arabs and Egyptians" who died.
The ill-fated plane carried 62 Egyptians, three Syrians, two Sudanese, 106 US nationals, 22 Canadians and one Chilean. Thirty-three of the 62 Egyptians were military officers on their way back to Cairo after completing training courses in the US.
Not all the families have rushed to receive compensation. "What money will compensate for the men we lost?" a bereaved father asked Al-Ahram Weekly at Cairo Airport.
Many Egyptians have become familiar with the faces and names of the victims as they appeared in the obituary page of Al-Ahram. Although the plane had crashed nearly a week earlier, the first obituaries appeared only last Friday, after families lost all hope that the bodies of their loved ones could still be retrieved and buried back home.
