September 19, 2016 | No Comments
NEW YORK — Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s decision to meet separately with Egypt’s authoritarian president on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Monday has prompted a growing outcry on both the left and the right.
On Monday, a small group of scholars and activists with a focus on Egypt, including some who identify has conservatives, released a letter they had written to both presidential candidates urging them not to meet with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The authors pointed to the thousands killed and tens of thousands imprisoned under Sisi’s harsh rule.
“Since taking power via a military coup three years ago, President Sisi has overseen not only the complete reversal of Egypt’s nascent democratic transition but also unprecedented human rights abuses,” states the letter. “It is not in our interest to embrace him but to use our influence to press for beneficial change in Egypt.”
The letter, dated Friday, further states: “Your meeting with Sisi at the UNGA will be taken in Egypt, and around the world, as an endorsement. To meet with him is a policy decision, which should await a later date after much study and assessment of U.S. policy toward Egypt. Therefore, we strongly urge you to readjust your schedule.”
The signatories were: Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution; Elliott Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations; Reuel Gerecht of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; Neil Hicks of Human Rights First; and Stephen McInerny of Project on Middle East Democracy.
The letter writers are part of a non-partisan working group on Egypt that has been meeting since 2010, according to Kagan. Their criticism follows that of others including Human Right Watch’s executive director Ken Roth, who wrote on Twitter: “Why does Hillary again want to meet Sisi? He directed 817+ killed in 12 hours in Rabaa Sq” — a reference to a massacre in a Cairo square under Sisi’s watch in 2013.
Trump was said to be planning to meet with Sisi on Monday morning, but his aides did not respond to requests for a summary of the parley. Clinton’s meeting was set for later Monday.
Sisi, a retired general, came to prominence during the chaos of Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution. He took power in 2013 after mass protests prompted the military to oust the elected government of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi.
Trump has said that if elected president, he will work with Sisi to fight terrorism, describing him in a speech as someone who recognizes that “this ideology of death that must be extinguished.”
Clinton is critical of Sisi’s predecessor Morsi, who was arrested after his ouster and now faces a death sentence, in Hard Choices her State Department memoir.
But she also criticizes Sisi, who she wrote “appears to be following the classic mold of Middle Eastern strongmen.”
Clinton’s decision to meet with Sisi could stem from a desire to signal to Arab allies in the region that she will partner with rulers who impose stability, even if those rulers are autocrats.