Issue No. 597
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1 - 7 August 2002 Issue No. 597 Home news |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
A matter of time
A newspaper's allegations that members of Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya were arrested for weapons smuggling further enflamed the controversy over the sincerity of the group's cease-fire initiative
The banner headline of last week's Al-Ahali -- mouthpiece of the leftist Tagammu' Party -- claimed that authorities had foiled an attempt by members of the country's largest armed militant group, Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, to smuggle weapons from a neighbouring country into Egypt, reports Khaled Dawoud. The weapons, the story said, were meant to be used in a renewal of the group's anti- government attacks.
The report shocked most observers, appearing as it did on the pages of Al-Ahali just weeks after a series of interviews with the so-called "historic" leaders of the group were published in Al- Mussawar, a weekly magazine.
In these jail house interviews, the leaders, who are serving life terms for taking part in the plot to assassinate late President Anwar El-Sadat in 1981, reiterated their denunciation of violence, going so far as to express their readiness to offer an "apology" for all the crimes Al-Gama'a carried out between 1992 and 1997. Amongst these was the November 1997 Luxor massacre, in which 58 tourists and four Egyptians were murdered.
While officials at the Interior Ministry remained tightlipped, refusing to confirm or deny the Al-Ahali report, the jailed Al-Gama'a leaders immediately issued a statement denying the smuggling claims and accusing "communists and leftists" of seeking to destroy the ongoing effort to end their dispute with the government.
In addition to the report on the alleged smuggling incident, Al-Ahali had also quoted a leading Al-Gama'a figure denying that the views expressed by the jailed leaders reflected the outlawed group's real stand. Mohamed Al-Islambouli, whose brother, Khaled, carried out Sadat's assassination, said that the jailed leaders, "only represented themselves, and did not represent Al-Gama'a or all its leaders".
Clearly, the statements made by the jailed leaders in the Al- Mussawar interview have renewed tensions within the group, which many experts believe had been weakened since the Luxor massacre, and even more so after the 11 September attacks in New York and Washington. The fact that the interviews were conducted by Al-Mussawar's editor-in- chief, Makram Mohamed Ahmed, who is known for his close ties to the country's top leadership, also raised questions about whether the government's attitude towards Al- Gama'a had changed. Were the interviews a prelude to the possibility of releasing thousands of Al-Gama'a members who have been detained for years without charges or trial, under the provisions of Emergency Law? Some Al-Gama'a leaders -- who have already served their sentences -- also remain incarcerated, again under Emergency Law.
Al-Gama'a's jailed leaders had originally launched their so-called cease-fire initiative in July 1997, calling upon their followers to stop all anti- government attacks. The Luxor massacre, however, which was carried out four months later, was seen as a message that the more hard-line leaders of the group, who lived in Afghanistan at that time, rejected the appeal.
Nearly two years later, in late March 1999, the group finally adopted the call to stop violence. The government, while vehemently denying that it had struck a deal with the armed group, began to improve its treatment of Al- Gama'a prisoners, ordering the release of at least 5,000 to 6,000 who had been detained without trial, or who had finished their sentences. There were also no further waves of administrative arrests of suspected members of Al- Gama'a, and, to a great extent, reports of torture in prisons became fewer.
In one of the interviews with Al-Mussawar's Ahmed, one Gamaa leader went so far as to say that if a member of the group defied the cease-fire, he would personally report him to the police. Another Gamaa leader said that he believed that Sadat's assassination had been "wrong in the first place".
Such a radical change of heart inspired even non- Islamists and experts on militant groups to question how useful such new stands would be in convincing more hard- line members of the group to totally renounce violence.
"The hundreds of Al- Gama'a members who spent years at large thinking they were fighting for a good cause must now be going mad," said Abdel-Rehim Ali, an Al-Ahali journalist who has reported on militant Islamic groups for years. "The jailed leaders of Al-Gama'a suddenly became more royal than the king. That made them lose all credibility. The way they praised their prison conditions was also so unbelievable that if it were true, even those who had been released would want to go back to jail," Ali told a seminar hosted by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHR) on Sunday.
Montasser El-Zayat, a prominent Islamist lawyer who played a vital role in conveying messages between imprisoned Gamaa leaders and their followers outside of jail regarding the cease-fire initiative, was also present at the seminar. "This was not a change of heart, but a return to the roots," he told a largely sceptical audience. He added that the jailed leaders of Al- Gama'a were not looking for a deal with the government, whereby they would be released after spending more than 20 years in prison. "They have recognised," explained El-Zayat, "that violence caused more harm than good to their cause, and have decided to revise their views." He added that the leaders used Islamic rules to reach the conclusion that "the group's interest at this stage required them to give up violence." He also denied that attacking Coptic Christians was part of the group's ideology, claiming that the perpetrators of such attacks "remain unknown until today". El-Zayat also reiterated claims by the "moderate" leaders of Al-Gama'a that the Luxor massacre was carried out by members of the group who had not even consulted their own leaders.
Ali, meanwhile, questioned the "roots" that Al-Gama'a wanted to return to. He reminded El-Zayat of Al- Gama'a statements which confirmed that using violence to overthrow the government was a vital part of their ideology. "Where's the guarantee that the same leaders won't decide, in a few years, to say that their interest now requires a return to violence?". He also revealed a copy of a 1983 transcript of an interrogation with a number of jailed Gamaa leaders in which they confessed to legitimising attacks on jewelry stores owned by Copts in order to provide financing for the group.
Abul-Ela Madi, a moderate Islamist activist and a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, agreed with El-Zayat that the ideas expressed by the jailed leaders "were positive, and should be encouraged. But they are not enough". As an Islamist who is seeking to form a political party called Al-Wasat (The Middle), Madi pointed out that the jailed leaders, while seeking to provide religious evidence to support their change of heart, "quoted verses from the Qur'an which Prophet Mohammed used to justify reaching agreements with the non- believers and Jews [at that time]. Personally, I don't think that the same rules should apply to the present government, which cannot -- by any means -- fall into the same two categories [non- believers and Jews]."
According to Madi, Al- Gama'a probably need more time before finally making up their minds on this issue. "The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, have been seriously revising their strategy since Sadat released them from prison in the early 1970s," he told the audience at the CIHR seminar, "and are now fully convinced that violence will not achieve their goals. Al- Gama'a probably need some more time."
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