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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Celebrating Sinai
By Nevine Khalil and Amira IbrahimEighteen years after the complete liberation of all Egyptian territory that was occupied by Israel, Egypt celebrated Sinai Day on 25 April. In a televised broadcast to the nation aired a day earlier, on Monday, President Hosni Mubarak said that regional peacemaking requires a concerted effort in order to achieve a comprehensive settlement. "The peace process has made great progress and it should not be hindered by petty ambitions which threaten the overall goals [of peace]," Mubarak said, "or by mutual fears which prevent courageous decision-making, or side-manoeuvres which waste time and effort."
Mubarak said that the peoples of the region need to look ahead and "focus our resources and efforts on the higher goal of building and construction." This is necessary, he said, to keep up with modern technological advances that will raise society to higher levels of progress and prosperity.
Mubarak said that Cairo is striving to build a "new Middle East based on a just and balanced peace, free of weapons of mass destruction, and devoting its attention to veritable development." He continued that Egypt was "a champion of peace" and that war is not the ideal way of settling disputes. "We [prefer to] solve conflicts through negotiations and dialogue based on international rulings and legitimate rights," Mubarak added.
Looking back, the president noted that the 1973 war achieved "a definitive military victory, changed the face of the Middle East, corrected the 1967 setback, enabled Egypt to fully liberate all its territory and opened the door for a just peace in the region." He said that 25 April 1982, when Israel completed its withdrawal from the Sinai desert, "is most prominent" among Egypt's national anniversaries. "It is the day when the Egyptian flag was raised on all Egyptian territory, crowning a long struggle in defence of territory and pride," Mubarak said.
Mubarak saluted some 100,000 "martyrs" who perished in the wars against Israel since 1948 as well as the late President Anwar El-Sadat who was at the helm during the 1973 war. To mark this anniversary, Mubarak placed wreaths of flowers at the War Memorial and El-Sadat's tomb in Nasr City.
The president said that Egypt's security "depends on strong armed forces capable of protecting national security." He said the military machine should serve as "a deterrent force, participating in achieving stability in the region and protecting a just peace."
President Mubarak at Sadat's tomb
photo: Abdel-Sattar Youssef
For nearly two decades, developing Sinai has been high on the national agenda in order to "protect national interests in times of peace," Mubarak said. He added that construction work under way in Sinai "makes us even more concerned with the success of peace efforts and more persistent in overcoming current obstacles."
The role of the armed forces, however, does not end when the battle drums fall silent. Rather, Egypt's army continues to play a significant role in the development of the desert peninsula. Construction work is continuing around the clock in this once barren expanse of land joining the African and Asian continents. Tourist, agricultural and industrial projects are mushrooming all over as part of the national project for the development of Sinai.
The peninsula's 61,000-square-kilometre sprawl makes up six per cent of Egypt's overall territory. It is rich in minerals and exotic herbs and is home to one third of Egypt's oil production sites at Abu Zneima and Abu Rdeis in Southern Sinai. In 1994, the government launched a national project for the development of Sinai, which will continue until the year 2017 at a cost of LE75 billion.
The armed forces' contribution is mainly in the sectors of transportation, agriculture, industry and health care. Southern Sinai Governor Major General Mustafa Afifi told Al-Ahram Weekly that since the beginning of history, Sinai has been, and will remain, strategically important for national defence.
In the agricultural sector, the armed forces have built two factories in Northern Sinai, one for the production of olive oil from Sinai's main crop and the other for packaging fruit crops grown by the Bedouins. The second factory provides an incentive for nomadic Bedouins to plough the land and cultivate the desert.
Currently, the only land route to Sinai goes via the Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel below the Suez Canal near Ras Sudr. But by next year, travellers will be able to cross the Suez Canal to Al-Arish by train for the first time since 1967. The army engineering corps is constructing the Firdan Bridge, 25 kilometres north of Ismailia, which will provide a rail track in addition to two lanes for cars.
A member of the Armed Forces harvesting crops at one of the farms in Sinai
photo: Fathi Hussein
To meet the increasing health-care needs in the peninsula, the armed forces constructed two military hospitals, one at Al-Arish in Northern Sinai and the other at Al-Tor in Southern Sinai, to serve civilians. According to Brigadier Kamal Rizqallah Saba, director of Al-Tor Military Hospital, the army also sends out 16 mobile medical units every year to provide isolated Bedouin areas with medical care. "Serious cases are transferred to Al-Tor Hospital for free medical care," Saba said, adding that the hospital has 200 beds, two surgery rooms, an emergency surgery room and a helicopter pad.
A chronic water shortage in Sinai was almost eliminated when Nile water reached the desert peninsula through the Al-Salam irrigation canal in 1999. The armed forces also played a part in making water available to many Sinai inhabitants. "We suffered from a water shortage for a long time," said Afifi, "but finally, with the construction of a 255-kilometre-long water pipeline from Suez to Sharm Al-Sheikh by the armed forces, all cities, as well as 80 per cent of the villages, are supplied with water."
Sinai's development plan and economic structure also depend on investment in tourism along its northern, eastern and western axes between Al-Arish and the Gulf of Suez. This will encourage the creation of new communities as well as infrastructure, agricultural, industrial and mining projects. The overall aim is to increase the Sinai population to three million by 2017 by establishing new integrated communities outside the Nile Valley.
"We aim to increase the population of Southern Sinai to reach 500,000 by the year 2017," Afifi told the Weekly. Official figures currently stand at 55,000 inhabitants, "but the truth is closer to 100,000," according to the governor.
