Massacre of the Sudanese in Cairo
Editorial, Al-Quds al-Arabi
Dec 31, 2005 — In the early 1980s and after President Al-Sadat signed the Camp David accords with the Hebrew State, Egyptian interests were attacked by extremist Palestinian groups, like the Fatah Movement’s Revolutionary Council led by the late Sabri al-Banna (Abu-Nidal).
In one of these attacks and after lengthy negotiations, an Egyptian civilian plane was hijacked to Malta and Egyptian security forces attacked the plane, killing more than 40 passengers as well as the hijackers. A British newspaper said mockingly that nothing is worse than a terrorist organization’s hijacking of an aircraft other than having Egyptian security forces rescuing the hostages. It pointed to the lack of experience, bad planning and disdain for people’s lives.
The Egyptian police raid on the UN offices in Cairo to remove Sudanese demonstrators who had sought refuge in it to demand political asylum in European and Western countries brought back to memory the Egyptian plane incident in Malta and the security forces’ bloody attempt to save passengers’ lives, killing more than half of them and injuring the rest instead.
The demonstrators were peaceful, unarmed, a mixture of women, men and children. They did not offer any resistance and did not confront the Egyptian forces which wanted to remove them. Yet this incident resulted in the death of at least 10 Sudanese, among them a woman and her child.
The question being asked is not just about the Egyptian security forces’ total disdain for the demonstrators’ lives but also about the reasons that required the use of excessive force against innocent and unarmed people who were expressing their annoyance with the UN Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that refused to review their asylum applications and hence to settle them in other countries.
This massacre does not reflect just the Egyptian security forces’ bloodthirstiness and their members’ inefficiency but also the state of collapse in Egypt in all fields. If these organs are dealing with peaceful demonstrators with such a degree of barbarity, then we have to imagine the way they handled and behaved with the Egyptian opposition groups. The violations of the women demonstrators’ honour and the shooting of the opposition candidates and voters in the recent elections we have heard and read about are apparently much less than what really happened.
The Sudanese government’s reaction is regrettable and disappointing. The statements of the Sudanese minister of state for foreign affairs were apologetic to the Egyptian government, absolving its massacre and criticizing the victims. It is a shameful stand by any standard. The Sudanese government is supposed to defend its citizens and demand a joint Egyptian-Sudanese investigation committee to discover the reasons that led to the death of 10 citizens and the injuries to more than 50, among them children who were hit on the head.
A southern Sudanese young man summed up our tragedy with the Arab dictatorial and repressive regimes and the damage they are causing to our image in the world when he said as blood flowed from his head: Look how this Arab country is treating us because we are black.
The Egyptian government’s behaviour with the Sudanese refugees involves ignorance and disdain for the lives of people in addition to its racism. It is a disgraceful stand that we disavow as Arabs and Muslims and as humans. Such inhumane behaviour should not pass without accountability.