Protest Is Muted as Egypt Levels Border Area in Sinai
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Version 0 of 1. CAIRO — Egyptian officials faced little popular backlash on Thursday after the military demolished dwellings and displaced thousands of people in a town bordering the Gaza Strip, suggesting the government still enjoyed wide latitude from the public to pursue a muscular anti-insurgency campaign, though it has delivered mixed results at best. The demolitions, which began on Wednesday, are part of a government plan to create a buffer zone on the border that the authorities assert will curb the flow of weapons and militants. The plan had been discussed for more than a year, and was finally implemented after a militant attack last week that killed at least 31 Egyptian soldiers. Residents of Rafah, the border town, said they were surprised by the speed with which they were ordered to abandon their homes. On Thursday, though, even as the evacuations continued, many of the displaced residents appeared to be moving on and collecting compensation from local councils in neighboring towns, according to activists monitoring the process. With journalists mostly barred by the military from traveling to the region, in northern Sinai, the depth of opposition to the demolitions was hard to gauge. The authorities have also banned unauthorized protests. But the lack of outcry also seemed to measure the fatigue in Sinai, after decades of government neglect and months of armed conflict pitting the army against a stubborn insurgency. “The armed forces are now trying to fix these accumulated problems,” said Amira Sheashaa, a Sinai political activist. “It is their right to safeguard the border and shut off the tunnels,” she said, referring to smuggling tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. “The people of Sinai are the most affected by the recent upheaval.” Seizing on such sentiments, Egypt’s military projected new confidence on Thursday in speaking about its efforts to fight the militants. As the army chief of staff visited Sinai, officials detailed military successes in an article in Al Ahram, the state newspaper, which said that 10 militants had been killed and that three weapons warehouses and seven “hotbeds of terrorism” had been destroyed. Despite such claims, the government has struggled to end the insurgency, raising questions about its strategy, including the intense focus on Gaza. Some of those questions surfaced in an editorial in a private newspaper on Thursday that represented a rare note of dissent. The writer, Ziad al-Eleimi, cited the promises of government officials, more than a year ago, to eliminate terrorism within two weeks. “Terrorism did not end,” he wrote. “No option remained for us, than to try to guess the strategy.” |