Egypt's Hosni Mubarak: a fair and just trial

Dear friends,

Now that it has been decided that Hosni Mubarak, former president of Egypt, will stand trial, officials and authorities in charge of the trial proceedings must ensure that he gets a fair trial and must secure a just verdict.  Fairness of the trial and justness of the verdict should concern not only Mubarak but Egypt as a credible country.

In reality, a fair and just trial means different things to different people in Egypt and around the world; it most likely will not be the outcome anyway.  However, I put together for your consideration an imaginary trial that if it were to happen Mubarak will be exiled for life to the god-forsaken island of St. Helena.  Locals there have been asking for some 200 years for another celebrity, Napoleon Bonaparte being the last, to liven up their community.

Here is how my fantasy trial will unfold:

First, Mubarak takes his place on the witness stand, and I as the prosecutor will start with a summary outline of Egypt's current state of affairs (I will not bother to be comprehensive):

1. Extreme poverty, over 40 per cent of the total population live on less than $2 a day.
2. Over 20% unemployment rate, particularly among the youth where a quarter of men and three-fifths of women are jobless, an all-time high.
3. Deplorable health system.
4. Low standard of living environment, air/water pollution and disease.
5. Villages throughout Egypt have gone for decades without potable water.  Egyptians eat food contaminated with carcinogens, and drink water contaminated with sewage, which destroys their health.  With regard to infant mortality rate, the number of deaths of infants per 1,000 live births, Egypt ranks 115 of 195 countries according to the United Nation and 144 of 224 countries or territories, according to the World Factbook.
6. Appalling state of education.
7. High illiteracy rate:  over 30 million are illiterate, 35% of all Egyptians, and 45% of Egyptian women can't read.
8. Unacceptable state of research and development in science and technology.
9. Inequality between women and men.
10. Copts' issues:  inequality, harassment and violence against them.
11. No freedom of the press, freedom of expression or freedom of association and organization.
12. The rule of law has all but disappeared, people harassed, treated with brutality, tortured, fired from their jobs, their families living in fear, arrested and thrown in jail without due process.
13. Stifling bureaucracy, effectively paralyzing Egypt's public and private sectors.
14. Alarming and unchecked state of corruption, bribery, nepotism, cronyism and favoritism, ten times what was there during the monarchy - which was overthrown for exactly these reasons.
15. Depleted work force, with little or no skills, training, or work ethic.
16. Low wages and negligible benefits while unearned wealth accrues to members of the ruling elite and their business partners.
17. Gross mismanagement of the national budget, the nation's wealth siphoned away.
18.  Deplorable leadership, with Egyptian people clinging to the most oppressive practices of traditional society, driving Egypt further into backwardness.
19. A non-representative and incoherent foreign policy that has greatly harmed Egypt's standing in the global community.
20. A non-representative, non-independent and incompetent parliament, with little citizen engagement.
21. A string of incompetent and grossly corrupt governments.
22. Lack of an independent judiciary system.
23. The effective total disappearance of civic institutions and organizations, denying people a critical outlet for programs, services and ideas.

Then, the trial proceeds with me asking Mubarak the following questions:

1. Considering Egypt's national resources and wealth, how do you explain the above facts?
2. Considering you were the country's president for 30 years, with unlimited powers and unquestioned authority, what exactly did you accomplish?
3. Is it possible that you simply lack the necessary competency and energy to have done something about the above facts?
4. May one explain your absolute lack of attention to above issues, over 30 years of ruling, by your inherent lack of respect, your deep contempt and your natural tendency to disregard the well-being of the Egyptian people.?
5. May one imagine that your main objectives upon assuming power were to accumulate as much wealth for your family and friends and maintain power to cover this up?
6. As an Egyptian who had the enormously good fortunes to ascend to the highest public office, why may I ask did the fire of passion, dedication and sacrifice for Egypt never burn inside you.
7. On what basis did you decide during the last 30 years that no other Egyptian alive, man or woman, could possibly have the skills, talent, know-how, passion and energy to take over from you?  Have you encouraged any other Egyptian to bring new ideas to the table?
8. As you realized that soon you would not be able to preside over anything let alone a country of Egypt's complexity, how did it come about that you decided to install your son Gamal as the new president?  Did we not get rid of the monarchy precisely to avoid the abomination of family succession?
9. When exactly did you decide that the future of Egypt, the liberty of its people, their dignity and their right to pursue a decent standard of living, their basic human rights, was not your concern?
10. When did you decide that you did not trust the Egyptian people's abilities and judgment for even minimal self-governing, as evident by your choosing a complete autocratic patriarchal form of government?
11. Lastly, Mr. President, would you please succinctly define to the court the role of the president, the specifications of the job, and the duties and responsibilities attached to the highest office in the land of Egypt?

The purpose of my fantasy trial is not to look backward or exact revenge on Mubarak, but to set the high standard and the mandatory expectation for future presidents, governments, parliaments, and any public authority.  Those who do not accept or understand that should never aspire to or be allowed to be in a position of leadership or governance in Egypt.

Now friends, please read below article by Thomas Friedman published in the New York Times on May 28.  It touches upon the idiocy, irony and highly perplexing fact that Mubarak presided over Egypt for 30 years only to achieve the 23 accomplishments listed above.


Hussein

Pay Attention
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: May 28, 2011
Cairo

The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
Times Topic: Egypt News — Revolution and Aftermath

I had some time to kill at the Cairo airport the other day so I rummaged through the “Egyptian Treasures” shop. I didn’t care much for the King Tut paper weights and ashtrays but was intrigued by a stuffed camel, which, if you squeezed its hump, emitted a camel honk. When I turned it over to see where it was manufactured, it read: “Made in China.” Now that they have decided to put former President Hosni Mubarak on trial, I hope Egyptians add to his indictment that he presided for 30 years over a country where nearly half the population lives on $2 day and 20 percent are unemployed while it is importing low-wage manufactured goods — a stuffed camel, no less — from China.

That’s an embarrassment for Mubarak and America, which has donated some $30 billion in aid to modernize Egypt’s economy over the last 30 years — and President Obama just promised a couple billion more. Egypt’s economy has nose-dived since the uprising, and the new government really does need the money to stay afloat. But I only hope that Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton understand that right now — right this second — Egypt needs something more from Washington than money: quiet, behind-the-scenes engagement with Egypt’s ruling generals over how to complete the transition to democracy here.

Here’s why. After the ouster of Mubarak in February, his presidential powers were shifted to a military council, led by the defense minister. It’s an odd situation, or as the Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany, author of “The Yacoubian Building,” put it to me: “We have had a revolution here that succeeded — but is not in power. So the goals of the revolution are being applied by an agent, the army, which I think is sincere in wanting to do the right things, but it is not by nature revolutionary.”

To their credit, the Egyptian generals moved swiftly to put in place a pathway to democracy: elections for a new Parliament were set for September; this Parliament will then oversee the writing of a new Constitution, and then a new civilian president will be elected.
Sounds great on paper, and it was endorsed by a referendum, but there’s one big problem: The Tahrir Square revolution was a largely spontaneous, bottom-up affair. It was not led by any particular party or leader. Parties are just now being formed. If elections for the Parliament are held in September, the only group in Egypt with a real party network ready to roll is the one that has been living underground and is now suddenly legal: the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

“Liberal people are feeling some concerns that they made the revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood can now take it. This is not true,” Esam el-Erian, one of the party’s leaders, insisted to me.
But that is exactly what the urban, secular moderates, who actually did spearhead the Tahrir revolt, fear. They are only now forming parties and trying to build networks that can reach the millions of traditional Egyptians living in the countryside and persuade them to vote for a reform agenda and not just: “Islam is the answer.”

“The liberal parties need more time to organize,” said Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian billionaire who’s heading the best organized of the liberal parties, and is urging all the liberal groups to run under a single banner and not divide their vote.

If elections happen in September and the Muslim Brotherhood wins a plurality it could have an inordinate impact on writing Egypt’s first truly free Constitution and could inject restrictions on women, alcohol, dress, and the relations between mosque and state. “You will have an unrepresentative Parliament writing an unrepresentative Constitution,” argued Mohamed ElBaradei, the former international atomic energy czar who is running for president on a reform platform.

“Because the Muslim Brotherhood is ready, they want elections first,” adds Osama Ghazali Harb, another reform party leader. “We as secular forces prefer to have some time to consolidate our parties. We must thank the army for the role it played. But it was our revolution, not a coup d’état. ... If there are fair elections, the Muslim Brotherhood will only get 20 percent.”

Free elections are rare in the Arab world, so when they happen, everybody tries to vote — not only the residents of that country. You can be sure money will flow in here from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to support the Muslim Brotherhood.
America, though, cannot publicly intervene in the Egyptian election debate. It would only undermine the reformers, who have come so far, so fast, on their own and alienate the Egyptian generals. That said, though, it is important that senior U.S. officials engage quietly with the generals and encourage them to take heed of the many Egyptian voices that are raising legitimate concerns about a premature runoff.

In short, the Egyptian revolution is not over. It has left the dramatic street phase and is now in the seemingly boring but utterly vital phase of deciding who gets to write the rules for the new Egypt. And how Egypt evolves will impact the whole Arab world. I just hope the Obama team is paying attention. This is so much more important than Libya.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on May 29, 2011, on page WK8 of the New York edition with the headline: Pay Attention.

© Dr Hussein A Amin 2011