Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05CAIRO3755
2005-05-17 04:28:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Cairo
Cable title:  

THE GOE AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD: ANATOMY OF A

Tags:  PGOV KISL EG 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 003755 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/16/2015
TAGS: PGOV KISL EG
SUBJECT: THE GOE AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD: ANATOMY OF A
"SHOWDOWN"

REF: A. CAIRO 3424


B. CAIRO 2877

C. CAIRO 2433

Classified by A/DCM Michael Corbin for reasons 1.4 (b) and
(d).

-------
Summary
-------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 003755

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/16/2015
TAGS: PGOV KISL EG
SUBJECT: THE GOE AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD: ANATOMY OF A
"SHOWDOWN"

REF: A. CAIRO 3424


B. CAIRO 2877

C. CAIRO 2433

Classified by A/DCM Michael Corbin for reasons 1.4 (b) and
(d).

--------------
Summary
--------------


1. (C) In recent months, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has
adopted both increasingly confrontational street tactics and
reform-touting rhetoric (as opposed to its traditional
Islamist slogans). As of mid-May, the MB's more aggressive
approach, and the GOE's response, has built into what is
being widely characterized as a "showdown". In departure
from past practice, the MB has been staging regular
(unauthorized) demonstrations - both in Cairo and in the
provinces - on top of provocative political rhetoric. The
GOE has responded with mass arrests, including that of
prominent MB figure Essam Erian, who was arrested on May 6
reportedly just as he was preparing to announce a bid for the
presidency. Beyond its arrest campaign, the GOE, mainly
through intermediaries in the media, has stepped up attacks
on the group and their motives, and has continued to feed
innuendo and speculation about alleged ties to the U.S. as
"evidence of treachery." The latest statements by the MB's
Supreme Guide could signal an attempt to cool down the
confrontation, but the MB's habit of erratic statements and
inconsistent actions, combined with general GOE nervousness
this spring, may well fuel further tensions between the two
sides. End summary.

--------------
Retooling for a Changing Environment
--------------


2. (C) As discussed ref A, Egypt's political environment has
become increasingly charged as we move further into this
election year. New forces have emerged, issues previously
considered off-limits are now openly debated, and some old
forces are experimenting with new approaches to take
advantage of the changing environment. In this context,
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (MB),the illegal but partially
tolerated political organization which claims to speak for
the majority of Egyptians, has in recent months adopted an
increasingly vocal and even confrontational approach toward
the GOE, advancing their demands for "freedom and political
reform."


3. (C) The MB has also rejected the GOE's constitutional
reform initiative and called on supporters to boycott the May

25 referendum needed to ratify the proposed change.
Provocatively, Essam Erian, a prominent MB figure, was widely
reported to be preparing a run for president. (Erian was
arrested on May 6. He and four MB colleagues remained in
jail as of May 16.) Though still decidedly Islamist in its
outlook and agenda, the MB's leadership has been tinkering
with its public image and has taken up a reformist discourse,
putting on the back burner its long-standing demands for
implementation of Shari'a law and reestablishment of
government by Islamic Caliphate. Most MB watchers agree that
this is a tactical shift rather than an indication of
evolving ideology and note that while senior members of the
MB leadership have changed their tone, in certain fora, this
has not trickled down to the rank and file. The MB supported
the calls of some Iraqi Sunni leaders to boycott the
elections and has consistently hailed the Iraqi insurgency as
legimate resistance justified by Islamic doctrines. They
also remain in ideological lockstep with Hamas, and claim the
group's late leader, Sheikh Yassin as an MB martyr. The MB
has consistently rejected efforts to normalize relations with
Israel and continues to deny its right to exist.


4. (C) Likely inspired by the feats of Kifaya ("Enough"),
the umbrella protest movement that has staged a series of
modestly attended but highly publicized anti-regime
demonstrations this spring, the MB has also shown an
increasing willingness to defy government bans on
demonstrations. In so doing, MB leaders have been stressing
their right to "freedom of association" and even threatening
"civil disobedience" - terms clearly drawn not from their old
Islamist playbook but from that of their secular activist
counterparts. This practice represents a break from the past
- in recent years the MB has generally shied away from
demonstrations that diverged from the pattern of
(containable, and, to the GOE, non-threatening) student
demonstrations on campus focused principally on the
Palestinian Intifada and the war in Iraq.


5. (C) Starting with unauthorized demonstrations in Cairo
and the Nile Delta city of Mansoura in late March (ref C),
the MB has been regularly holding impromptu public gatherings
and demonstrations in Cairo, Alexandria, and the provinces.
These events have often, but not always, been subsequent to
Friday noon prayers - gatherings particularly difficult for
the GOE to preempt or contain - and have involved numbers of
participants (varying significantly from one event to the
next) in the thousands. On several occasions, the MB's
recent demonstrations have often devolved into skirmishes
with riot police deployed to contain them, such as a May 6
clash in Mansoura in which one protester allegedly died from
tear gas inhalation, and violent clashes earlier in the first
week of May in Fayyoum, in which the police and the MB each
claimed dozens of injuries.

--------------
The GOE Strikes Back
--------------


6. (C) The GOE has struck back with a series of mass
arrests, repeatedly reiterated its determination to enforce
the constitutional ban on religious political parties, and
accused the MB of sowing unrest and subversion. The arrest
of Essam Erian, who, though not a member of the group's elite
Guidance Bureau, is one of the best known members of the MB
leadership, is an escalation on the GOE's part. Though Erian
was jailed in the 1990s, the GOE has in recent years
refrained from arresting senior MB leaders, presumably in
exchange for restraint, on the MB's part. Many observers
believe Erian's arrest was intended to pre-empt an
announcement to run for president, while MB Deputy Supreme
Guide Mohammed Habib told the press he believed Erian had
infuriated authorities by discussing the GOE's "lack of
legitimacy" on a recent interview on Al-Jazeera TV.


7. (C) The arrests conducted by the GOE, occurring both
during demonstrations and by late-night visits to
wanted-persons' homes, have been occurring on a scale larger
than we have seen in recent years. By early May, the MB was
claiming that 2400 of its members had been arrested in police
sweeps of the organization, and dozens more were arrested
over the weekend of May 14. However, there have also been
reports of mass-releases - Egyptian media reported the
release of 1300 MB detainees on May 10. With these
fluctuations, the current number of MB detainees at any given
point of time is uncertain.

--------------
Public Image and the American Card
--------------


8. (C) In addition to its arrest campaign, the GOE and its
supporters in the media have been working overtime to attack
the MB's image and fan doubts and fears about the nature and
intentions of the group. The pro-government weekly
Al-Mussawar published on May 11 a lengthy "special report" on
the MB which typified the tone and content of numerous
columns and articles in the pro-government press in the first
half of May. The piece emphasized the "provocative" and
"aggressive" behavior of participants in recent MB
demonstrations, asserted that those picked up in recent
arrest sweeps were detained under regular criminal statutes
rather than the Emergency Law, and cited "voluminous
evidence" of the MB's true intent to seize power and impose
an authoritarian theocracy in Egypt, in defiance of the
constitution's ban on religiously-based political parties.
Also fueling fears about the MB's true nature, Musawwar
editor Makram Mohammed Ahmad wrote "It is difficult to
believe that the group has renounced violence...especially
when they continue to have 'secret groupings' (within the
organization)."



9. (C) Perhaps most damagingly to the MB, pro-government
commentators in the media have continued to accuse the MB of
maintaining covert ties with the USG, implicitly tarring the
group as traitors and "agents of a foreign power." For
example, the May 11 Musawwar article claimed that GOE agents
arresting Essam Erian seized a "dossier analyzing the future
relationship between the MB and the Americans." The article
also stated (as reported in other pieces),that a University
professor arrested with his son in an early May sweep of MB
members in Zagazig, just north of Cairo, asked that the U.S.
Embassy be informed of their arrest as his son is a U.S.
citizen.


10. (C) As noted ref B, the MB has on numerous occasions
encouraged reports of their being approached by the U.S.,
(usually adding that they rebuffed the overture, in protest
of U.S. "crimes against Islam.") Such reports, the group
apparently believes, contribute to the MB's stature as a
force that international powers can not afford to ignore in
Egypt. However, the latest round of articles and
commentaries which fueled innuendos implying the MB was a
willing pawn in a cynical (though undefined) "American game"
in Egypt have apparently become too much for the group's
leadership to bear. Several MB sources have recently made
categorical denials that the group is in contact with the
U.S., and Deputy Supreme Guide Mohammed Habib reportedly
demanded on May 11 an apology from the GOE for maligning the
MB's image by claiming it was in contact with the U.S. For
his part, MB Supreme Guide Mahdy Akef, who apparently still
believes these reports can be twisted in the group's favor,
has told the press several times in the past month that "if"
any such contacts were too take place, they would have to be
conducted under the supervision of the Egyptian Foreign
Ministry. (Comment: The notion that the Egyptian MFA would
gladly moderate discussions between the USG and the MB is
absurd, but airing this prospect seems to suit Akef's purpose
of stressing the group's weight and stature on the domestic
and international stages. End comment.)

--------------
Comment
--------------


11. (C) There are signs that the MB would like to ramp down
tensions with the GOE. MB Supreme Guide Mahdy Akef, in
remarks published on May 12 by the regional Arabic daily
Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, struck a conciliatory tone, asserting "we
are not revolutionaries and have no interest in the downfall
of the regime," and distancing the MB from the Kifaya protest
movement which "uses bad language." He added that the MB
"objects to (Kifaya's) slogans against President Mubarak and
his son." However, the MB leadership, particularly since
Akef took the helm in early 2004, has a track record of
making inconsistent and erratic policy statements, and, at
least as of the weekend of May 14, there was no sign that it
would cease demonstrations in Cairo and the provinces. We
judge the MB's habit of making erratic and inconsistent
statements to be indicative of a clumsy effort to makeover
the public image of what is still, at heart, an
inward-looking and intolerant organization ill-equiped to
compete on a democratic political stage.


12. (C) The GOE, meanwhile, continues to appear nervous this
spring as it wrestles with fierce domestic debate over the
modalities for elections later this year, the aftermath of
three terrorist attacks in Cairo in April, unprecedented
demonstrations not only by the MB, but by the Kifaya protest
movement, and others, and even challenges from within the
system, such as the threat by judges not to carry out their
duties as electoral supervisors (ref A). The GOE may also
believe, to some extent, the stories it has helped generate
about contacts between the U.S. and the MB; several times in
the past two weeks, Embassy officials meeting with key GOE
contacts have been "reminded" that any U.S. overture to the
MB would be "very dangerous." In this context, a nervous
GOE is unlikely to slacken its grip on the MB in the near
future. End comment.


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GRAY