GOE "FREEZES" ACTIVITIES OF IFES

C O N F I D E N T I A L CAIRO 003557 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS NSC STAFF FOR SINGH E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/07/2016 TAGS: PGOV PREL EAID KDEM EG SUBJECT: GOE "FREEZES" ACTIVITIES OF IFES REF: A. CAIRO 3441 ¶B. CAIRO 3422 ¶C. CAIRO 3363 Classified by Charge Stuart Jones for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (SBU) MFA Assistant Minister for American Affairs Salama Shaker convoked IFES Country Director Ben Goldsmith and Deputy Director Noreen Tadros on June 7. USAID/Cairo democracy and governance director and poloff (notetaker) joined the meeting at Shaker's request. Shaker, joined by her deputy Mohammad Aboul Dahab and senior staffer Bassel Ahmed, informed IFES that they must "freeze" all activities until their registration is approved. Shaker, who has displayed increasing irritation over the past few days on the issue of the registration of IRI, NDI, and IFES (reftels), repeatedly lamented "all of the upheaval in the press. The situation we face is not a rosy one," she warned. The task ahead "is not crisis management but crisis containment." Shaker also called attention to an opinion column in Rose El-Youssef that urged readers to organize peaceful demonstrations at the Zamalek and Dokki offices of IRI and NDI. ¶2. (SBU) IFES briefed Shaker on the activities they have conducted in Egypt, which have included seminars with the GOE-funded Ahram Center for Political and Security Studies as well as consulting work with the State Information Service, a division of the Ministry of Information. IFES also briefed Shaker on their application for registration, which has been pending with the GOE since late 2005. Shaker, who initially criticized IFES for not having been in contact with the MFA from the outset, was forced to backtrack when Goldsmith and Tadros described their multiple contacts and communication with the MFA's Nermine Affify, a staffer responsible for registration of foreign organizations in Egypt. Shaker dismissed the contact with Affify ("only a Second Secretary") and said that IFES would have been better served had they reached out to a more senior MFA official. USAID DG director asked Shaker if she had any indication when the MFA would be able to share a decision on IFES and NDI applications, which were submitted in late 2005. Shaker replied only that the MFA still needed to consult with "relevant authorities." ¶3. (C) Brandishing a memo from FM Aboul Gheit, Shaker emphasized that the FM is personally outraged by the situation. It is bad enough that the FM is annoyed, she said, but "we don't want to be hearing about this from the President himself." It was especially insulting, she argued, for groups like IRI to "come here and tell Egyptians how to think." She expressed outrage that IRI's Country Director had mentioned the example of Ukraine's political reform process; Shaker insisted that there was no basis for comparison. ¶4. (C) The GOE has now formally frozen the activities of IRI, NDI, and IFES. Rose El-Youssef, the xenophobic daily widely believed to be influenced by the security services and funded in part by NDP insider Ahmed Ezz, has continued to run incendiary coverage of the situation. In the June 7 edition, a columnist called for popular protests against NDI and IRI, and an article about a routine conference of regional MEPI small grants recipients argued that "like cancerous cells that reject all kinds of remedy, American organizations and agencies persist in ... instilling poison in Cairo and Alexandria despite being rejected by all political forces." JONES