Anyways, in a country with the political economy of Egypt, the line is hard to draw. For instance, the army is producing 120 million eggs a year.

Is this a military or civilian affair?

The generals argue: we are self-sufficient (thanks to our massive agro-industrial production) so the army is not a burden on the country. That’s their after-Camp David argument to justify the power and money they still enjoy.

I argue: 120 million eggs should be produced by the private sector. This would be more cost-effective and more transparent.

I’m hearing that recently the proceeds of the Safi business (bottle water sold in Egypt) got stolen from inside the Ministry of Defense (or Ministry of Military Production).

This might be just rumours, but it tells you bit how this parallel economic sector functions. And that’s what the army mostly is about, isn’t it?

So I’m maintaining that international donors should be be careful who they give their money to in Egypt.

This is the same reason the US won’t sign the treaty, more or less.

I agree with Amgad that the UK and Germany have a special responsibility to do everything they can to remove the mines. Programs can be designed in such a way that the money doesn’t go to golf carts for the brass. And even if some money is siphoned off, in my calculus, a cleared minefield is worth a couple golf carts and a round of drinks for old soldiers.

Clearing the mines, I understand, is difficult, expensive, and dangerous, particularly given the shifting sands of the Western Desert.

Still, the government, preferably with the generous support of the UK and Germany, should:
1) Expand programs to clear the mine fields, or at least to mark them and fence them off;
2) Sign the 1997 treaty to ban landmines (all African states have joined except Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Somalia);
3) Increase assistance to victims.

Germany has provided the Egyptian military with a bit of equipment to remove mines, but it largely remained unused, as far as I know.

Serene, I think that international aid is a stupid concept, yes. I think that it maybe is the single most important impediment to development (right after the protection of Western agricultural markets and related issues in international trade of course).

Amgad, I don’t think its arrogance if I say that Egypt (when I say Egypt I’m referring to the government administration only and not the numerous NGOs and individuals that are doing a fantastic job in their fields in bringing Egypt forward, some of them with foreign financing) has brought the art of donor-shopping to perfection. This observation is based on countless interviews and encounters with both Egyptians and foreigners working in development aid in Egypt.

But for the record, a few years ago I was talking to the head of a major oil company exploring the Western Desert and they told me that, after years of using a private de-mining service for their purposes, one day a general strolled in and said from now on you will be using the military’s demining service. The operations became twice as expensive and half as fast.

It is fine for the Egyptian military to take over demining. They certainly should have all the skill set necessary, this isn’t rocket science, and Egypt is a country that produces fine engineers. But I do wonder where all that money is going — hospitals to treat people with mining injuries or the pockets of top brass?

And of course Western countries (well, the UK which laid down most of the mines) should pay for the demining, obviously. In fact neither the UK nor Germany never really paid for using Egypt as a base station during WW2, putting Alexandria in particular in great danger, and dragging a country with little interest in the core European conflict into its war.