Egypt: Bedouins are the key to more safety in the Sinai region – there must be an end to discrimination!

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) demands more rights and more support for Egypt's Bedouins. "The Bedouins are the key to more safety on the Sinai peninsula," said the STP's expert on questions regarding Africa, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Tuesday. "If Egypt does not show more effort to stop the long-lasting neglect of the region and the serious discrimination of its traditional inhabitants, there will be no safety there. It is not enough to just send out police forces and troops to defuse the Sinai powder keg." After 16 Egyptian policemen were killed near the border to Israel on Sunday, Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi announced uncompromising measures against suspected terrorists in Sinai.

"If the radical Islamic terrorist movements and the state of lawlessness in the long-neglected Sinai region are to be fought effectively, there must be more initiative for the regions development and the traditional inhabitants," said Delius. "During the last ten years, every Egyptian government has underestimated the volatile situation on the peninsula and has therefore failed. Now the new power vacuum must be ended effectively. "The 500,000 Bedouin of the Sinai were defamed and treated as suspected terrorists under Mubarak's dictatorial reign. Since then, not much has improved. While authorities and politicians had boldly announced a new Sinai-policy after Mubarak's overthrow, little of the promised help or the planned major projects has so far been managed.

There were more than enough signs of warning for the volatile situation in northern Sinai. While the tourist resorts in the south of the peninsula are spared from signs of violence, the tensions in the north have increased significantly during the last few months. 53 foreign tourists, consultants and soldiers were kidnapped by Bedouins since late January 2012. They are trying to draw attention to their plight and to free their arrested relatives by means of these kidnappings. The hostages were always released unharmed after a few hours – like two American tourists just recently, on July 16, 2012.

Egyptian and Israeli security experts are now demanding efforts to stop the smuggling in the Sinai region. "But then the Bedouin need alternatives for their economic existence and for survival in their homeland," said Delius. "Otherwise, Mubarak's short-sighted policy of marginalizing and criminalizing the Bedouins would be continued."