OPPOSITION AL-GHAD PARTY VP PROVIDES ADDITIONAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L CAIRO 002420 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR NEA, NEA/ELA, NEA/PI AND DRL/NESCA NSC FOR PASCUAL E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/25/2028 TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM EG SUBJECT: OPPOSITION AL-GHAD PARTY VP PROVIDES ADDITIONAL DETAILS ON HEADQUARTERS TORCHING REF: A. CAIRO 2350 ¶B. CAIRO 2339 Classified By: DCM Matthew H. Tueller for reason 1.4 (d). ¶1. (C) Summary and comment: On November 16, Al-Ghad party Vice-President Wael Nawara described for visiting NEA/ELA Office Director Nicole Shampaine the November 6 torching of the party's headquarters in greater detail than his initial account (ref B). Nawara displayed newspaper photos that showed what he termed "government thugs" marching on the headquarters with pro-government Ghad faction leader Moussa Mustafa Moussa and then setting fire to the ground-level entrance. Nawara said these thugs then entered the party's third-floor offices and smashed furniture. According to Nawara, the crowd on the street below threw rocks into the offices, and Nour-faction members responded by throwing glass bottles into the crowd. Nawara speculated that the GOE was less likely to indict Nour-faction members because of the public sympathy for them generated by the newspaper photos. Nawara noted that the security services had pressured his employer into firing him in early November because he insisted on running for Ghad party president. Separately, a former Ghad party member told us he believes the GOE "created the space" for Moussa to stage the November 6 attack because of its anger over Gameela Ismail's September 23 meeting with President Bush. We believe Nawara's account is credible, and that the GOE likely facilitated the November 6 torching with the aim of fragmenting the opposition further. End summary and comment. ¶2. (C) Nawara noted that a mediator between the Nour and Moussa factions of the party warned Nour-wing Secretary-General Sayed Bassyouni prior to the November 6 torching that "thugs" would disrupt the November 6 general assembly, and "cut people's faces and rape women." Nawara then showed us photos from "Al-Badeel" newspaper of men using flaming aerosol cans on the building's ground-level door, and explained that "these government-hired thugs" were trying to burn a wooden barrier that the Nour faction had placed in the doorway to guard against intruders. Nawara said that once the men had burned down the wooden barrier, they used "machinery" (NFI) to dismantle the locked metal gate in the doorway. ¶3. (C) At that point, Nawara recounted, thugs stormed into the Ghad party's third-floor offices where the general assembly meeting was in progress, smashed furniture and threw objects from the offices into the street below. According to Nawara, the crowd on the street began throwing rocks and other objects into the party offices, and Nour-faction members responded by throwing glass bottles off the balcony into the crowd in self-defense. (Note: We have uploaded on post's classified web site an amateur video recording of the November 6 torching that includes images of this. We have e-mailed the link to NEA/ELA. End note.) Nawara told us that he and Gameela Ismail, the wife of imprisoned party leader Ayman Nour, took refuge two floors above the Ghad party offices. Nawara said he was fearful at this point that the thugs would slash people's faces and rape Ismail, as the mediator had warned. Nawara expressed chagrin that the police, who did not respond to his requests for protection prior to November 6 (ref B),subsequently arrested Nour faction members instead of "the thugs who carried out the attack." ¶4. (C) Nawara speculated that the GOE was "backing away" from issuing indictments against Nour faction officials due to its "embarrassment" over the "Al-Badeel" newspaper photos showing the thugs first marching on the party headquarters with pro-government Ghad faction leader Moussa Mustafa Moussa and then directing aerosol flames at the ground floor door. He also assessed that Gamila Ismail's displaying the "Al-Badeel" photos on Egyptian television November 8 turned public opinion against the government. ¶5. (C) Nawara confided that his employer, "B.Tech," had fired him from his position as Chief Marketing Officer shortly before November 6, due to what Nawara termed as pressure from the government security services. Nawara said his company had requested that he not run for Ghad party president in the planned November 8 elections (now postponed because of the November 6 torching),and warned him of the consequences if he did not comply. Nawara told us he decided not to agree to his employer's request because, "I felt I had no choice but to run for Ghad president." Nawara noted that with unified Nour-faction support for his candidacy, he could not "let the party down" in the run-up to the 2010 parliamentary elections. ¶6. (C) Regarding Ghad's next steps, Nawara told us that the party's Nour faction would hold a general assembly and continue its legal fight against the Moussa wing. He described the party's best case scenario as "rebuilding" to prepare for the 2010 parliamentary and 2011 presidential elections by increasing its supporters among the party's young, middle-class base, mostly located outside Cairo. ¶7. (C) Separately, on November 22, Shedy Talaat, leader of the Liberal Lawyers Union and a former Ghad party member, told us that he believes Moussa is pursuing a personal vendetta against Nour, Gameela Ismail and their supporters in the Ghad party. While Talaat said that Moussa may not have received GOE encouragement, the GOE probably "created the space" for Moussa to stage the attack because of its anger over Ismail's September 23 meeting with President Bush in New York. Since the November 6 torching, we have repeatedly approached Gameela Ismail to hear her account of the attack, but she has thus far not agreed to a meeting. ¶8. (C) Comment: Nawara's amplified narrative of the November 6 torching, backed-up by newspaper photos, is credible, as is his account of being fired from his job as a result of pressure from the security services. The government has a history of trying to fragment the already weak opposition, and we believe the GOE likely facilitated the November 6 torching of the Ghad party headquarters, despite its denial (ref A). End comment. ¶9. (U) NEA/ELA Director Nicole Shampaine cleared this message. SCOBEY