Via Susan Falcon ratap Chatterjee, an investigative reporter and executive director of Corporate Watch thinks that the US support for the Egyptian military should come as “no surprise”. In his analysis, a large part of the aid to Egypt is conditional on buying fighter jets and tanks. He points to the fact that Lockheed Martin signed an agreement in 2010 to sell 20 F-16 fighter jets to Egypt by December 2014. Boeing and Sikorsky Aircraft sell Egypt CH-47 Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters respectively, while General Dynamics got $395 million in 2011 to assemble Abrams tanks in suburban Cairo. “Presidents in Cairo and Washington may come and go, but both the Egyptian military and the contractors that supply them, know that their bond is stronger than democracy,” says Chatterjee. At the United Nations, top officials raised their concerns about the situation in Egypt and decided to send Under Secretary General for Department of Political Affairs Jeffery Fektman to Cairo. On Friday, a group of UN rights experts called for restraint and an immediate end to violent confrontations that have seen hundreds killed and thousands injured in the Egyptian capital in recent days. “Egypt is facing an escalating and deeply worrying human rights crisis,” they stressed in a news release, urging all parties to take immediate steps towards political reconciliation.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 05:38:45 +0000
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