Sinai Bedouin simmer

This month's violent eruption in the Sinai has again drawn attention to the plight of the peninsula's Bedouin, Dominic Moran writes for ISN Security Watch.

Clashes this month in the Sinai have again drawn attention to the plight of local Bedouin, largely sidelined in the peninsula's exponential economic expansion.

Armed protests and violent clashes broke out in the northern Sinai earlier this month following the shooting deaths of four Bedouin tribesmen at the hands of police. Officials claimed that officers came under fire in at least one of the incidents and that the three men killed in the second, near the Israeli border, were armed.

"I have posted a external pagevideo on my blog with these Bedouins being extracted from a dump outside the city of Rafah," prominent Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas told ISN Security Watch, referring to the victims of the second incident. The families of the victims were reportedly pointed to their relatives' bodies by nearby Israeli soldiers guarding the border fence.

Police posts were subsequently overrun by enraged tribesmen with 77 officers held briefly in two separate incidents. Abbas said that a second video posted on his site shows soldiers confessing that an officer ordered one of the killings. According to reports, night vision and communications equipment, 72 rifles and 20,000 bullets were taken from one of the stations.

Egypt has reportedly moved large troop deployments and dozens of armored personnel carriers into the northern Sinai as it seeks to stymie further Bedouin raids and protests.

An officer was wounded in a drive-by shooting after a ceasefire came into effect and tensions remain high with kinsmen of the victims promising a harsh response unless the officers responsible for the deaths are brought to justice. 

Widening rift

This month's violence continues a trend of sharp decline in Bedouin-state relations in the Sinai that picked up pace with the first of three attacks on peninsula resorts on 7 October 2004 at Taba. State authorities accused individual Bedouin of varying levels of complicity in all three strikes.

Realizing the danger of their position, tribal sheikhs from across the Sinai signed up to a pledge document in early 2005 proclaiming their loyalty to the state and willingness to provide information to the authorities on tribal members complicit in criminal activities - a break with tribal custom.

Subsequent years have been marred by a series of violent clashes and futile Bedouin activist efforts to promote substantive civil rights reform.

Several thousand Sinai Bedouin were detained during the period of the 2004-2006 bombings, with many held for several years without charge, greatly exacerbating pre-existing tensions between local tribes and the government, state security and local authorities. Rights groups claim that detainees have often been subjected to torture.

The arrests continue, with prominent Bedouin rights activists Musaad Abu-Fadj and Yehie Abu-Nusseira among those being held by the authorities.

Referring to prior activist detentions, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights spokesperson Mina Zekri told ISN Security Watch, "They always used to accuse them of instigating riots and interrupting public order and sometimes being dangerous to national security - all ready made charges."

Al Ahram researcher Dr Diaa Rashwan acknowledged that the short-term factors feeding Bedouin-state security force tensions are related to the post Taba crackdown. "I am sure that those measures left a real negative feeling with the Bedouins vis-à-vis the Egyptian police," he said.

Sidelined

The list of demands made by the Bedouin captors of the Egyptian officers earlier this month is instructive in that it effectively covers the major issues of concern to local tribesmen. These are: the unconditional release of prisoners; prosecution of officers held responsible for crimes against Bedouin; immediate state action on alleged discrimination in development and land rights; and the honoring of tribal customs in security force activities.

Long-term state-Bedouin tensions go back to after the Israeli occupation of Sinai Rashwan said. "From this moment [1982] till now there were many laws that are applied in Sinai concerning the [ownership] of land and development, especially [in] northern Sinai, which were not very acceptable to the Bedouin. Under Egyptian law it was forbidden for the Bedouin to have [ownership] of land. But now it has all changed."

Bedouin claim that arbitrary arrests, vehicle license confiscations and raids on private homes continue. The absence of land title in traditional Bedouin culture has made it difficult to demonstrate ownership and grazing and tillage rights.

In el-Arish, the largest town in the northern Sinai governate, the estimated percentage of men between 20-30 years of age in full employment is as low as 10 percent, creating a milieu ripe for the expansion of the black economy, ideological radicalization and both inter-tribal and state-Bedouin clashes.

Referring to the security services, Abbas claimed, "They always try to create problems between the different tribes in the Sinai […] There was a lot of violence last year. They were killing each other using machine guns and the police were siding with the Fawakhriya against the Tarabin."

During the October 2007 disturbances he refers to the el-Arish headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party was looted and pictures of President Hosni Mubarak burned in rioting that went on for days.

Bedouin in the peninsula have long decried alleged discrimination in the state allocation of resources and their lack of access to the economically vital tourism industry.

The allocation of Sinai land for development by the Tourism Development Authority (TDA) in the 1990s reportedly prevented most Bedouin from benefiting significantly from the peninsula's explosive economic growth of recent years, creating an effective fait accompli of land alienation that bolsters the communal destitution of many - but not all - tribes.

The tourism sector draws hundreds of thousands of workers from other parts of Egypt with the state seemingly seeking to bolster the local population in a manner that serves to integrate the Sinai more closely into the national economy and polity.

In an external pageApril interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, the governor of south Sinai said, "Jobs in Sharm [el-Sheikh] require certain qualifications that they [Bedouin] do not necessarily possess."

Rashwan prefers to eschew the concept of discrimination, blaming Egypt's notorious bureaucracy and "bad behavior from some small officials" for improper practices in underdeveloped areas of the country rather than pointing to overall state policy. 

The economic status of the peninsula's 20 odd tribes varies significantly with some such as the Mezeina tribe already heavily integrated into the local tourist economy, according to external pagereports, and seemingly uninvolved in this month's protests. Members of profoundly impoverished central and northern Sinai tribes are accused by authorities of involvement in the resort bombings.

Radicalization?

The promotion of religious radicalization would appear to be have been boosted by the government control of imam appointments, which some sources say has led to a loss of authority. The state security forces' purported role in the selection of tribal sheikhs also appears to be a factor increasing tensions and undermining the traditional Bedouin leadership.

"I think it is all a charade," Abbas said, referring to state efforts to co-opt Bedouin leaders, "What is in the hearts of the people is still in their hearts."

It is clear that the Egyptian government fears the development of further ties between Hamas and other Palestinian Islamic groups and Egyptians. This appears to be a primary factor motivating Cairo's acquiescence with the blockade of Gaza. 

Referring to Bedouin prisoners, Abbas said, "Some of them are facing trial and they are accusing them of collaborating with the Palestinian external pageHamas to orchestrate these attacks on tourists in the Sinai."

external pageEgypt Today reported at the time that members of Al-Tawhid Wa Al-Jihad, the shadowy group that claimed responsibility for the 2006 Dahab bombings, purportedly received explosives and other training in Gaza. Three of the alleged bombers were Bedouin

Asked if there was evidence that militant groups were active amongst Sinai Bedouin, Rashwan said: "Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second [in-command] of al-Qaida; the Egyptian who is very interested in Egypt; never mentioned those three attacks. That means that he had some doubts about it."

"We heard of some in Sinai from the young Bedouin behaving like extremist Islamists," he said, but added that those responsible may have come from other regional states, opining, "It is not really 100 percent Egyptian."

Borderline tensions

Authorities in both Egypt and Israel claim that Bedouin are deeply involved in cross-border smuggling. The illicit underground trade into Gaza is reportedly increasingly shifting from weapons to basic commodities as drug and human trafficking across the Israeli border continues.

To Zekri, "The [Egyptian] regime is emphasizing the negative stereotyping of the Bedouins as being outlaws involved in drug trafficking, [as] being disloyal to the nation, or even being spies […] This is the way they steer the mainstream media in society to be unsympathetic with the Bedouins and their cause."

While Bedouin in the Sinai share familial ties with tribesmen in Gaza, Israel and Jordan, their interests and claims on the Egyptian state and its bodies are primarily domestic and often local in nature.

external pageQuoted in Al-Ahram Weekly, North Sinai Governor Mohamed Shosha alleged "the invisible role played by some foreign elements" in promoting this month's violence. The newspaper took this as referring to Israel, but the comment may well have been aimed at Hamas.

With Hamas demonstrating its ability to break the blockade of Gaza in January, government concern with the developing crisis in the territory appears to have been recognized as a key point of pressure on the Cairo authorities by Bedouin in northern Sinai.

A number of protests and violent clashes have taken place close to the sensitive border area and the senior commander of central security force border checkpoints was amongst those held by Bedouin this month.

Rashwan disagrees: "I don't think that the problem of what is happening now in Gaza really affected the situation" in northern Sinai. "What happened was by accident. It was not [planned] by them [Bedouin] or the state," he said referring to the initial incidents this month.

The current closure of the Gaza border appears to play into the hands of those Bedouin involved in the cross-border smuggling of goods. However, the resultant tensions attendant on Egyptian interdiction efforts both on the Gaza and Israeli borders threaten to promote further friction between the security forces and Bedouin. As seen in the breach of the border fence, the opening of the Rafah Crossing could well prove an economic boon for urban Bedouin in northern Sinai towns.

Rashwan believes that efforts to address the issues fomenting tensions between Bedouin and the state must be sensitive to the local culture and society, but  must also include the state taking "central decisions concerning their main issues, the [ownership] of land and the development of this area [northern Sinai]."

While efforts continue to address the economic plight of Bedouin Sinai, the commitment of the state to the same remains in question. It is unclear whether it will be possible to buck the preexisting, well-entrenched trend of vested business interests receiving the bulk of disbursements and official development support.

With prospects bleak for radical reform, further violent eruptions appear to be only a matter of time.

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