Yearning for Calm and Stability

By William E. Smith

Yearning for Calm and Stability Mubarak is not, and does not want to be, another Sadat

It is a show trial, the largest in Egypt's modern history. The makeshift courtroom is an exhibition hall at the Cairo fairgrounds, where 280 prisoners are on display in huge steel cages. Another 20 defendants are still at large, and two have died in prison. Most of the prisoners are accused of being members of a Muslim fundamentalist group known as al Jihad (Holy War), and many are linked with the violence that broke out in the Upper Egyptian city of Asyut following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat on Oct. 6, 1981. Nineteen of the defendants were among those sentenced last March in the Sadat murder trial. The charges this time, for which all but three of the prisoners face the death penalty: plotting Islamic revolution. During one recess in the proceedings, a bearded, white-robed defendant shouted, "This regime is forgetting the fate of the stupid Anwar Sadat! We will not give up."

The trial of the Muslim fanatics, which may continue for months, underscores the severity of the problems facing Hosni Mubarak, the taciturn former air force commander who became President when Sadat was slain. Largely because of the threat of Muslim extremists, the People's Assembly has extended the state of emergency for another year at Mubarak's request, giving security forces more power to arrest and detain suspects. But while he strives to maintain order at home, Mubarak is also caught up in a wide range of complex diplomatic questions. He must uphold the strong commitments that Sadat made to the U.S., to Israel and to the Camp David accords. Yet he must also register his disapproval of Israel's war in Lebanon and of what he sees as Washington's inability to control the Israelis, even as he strives to repair the ties with the Arab world that Sadat sacrificed in the cause of peace.

Even more urgent for Mubarak is the problem of the Egyptian economy. Most of Egypt's 45 million people live in poverty. The annual per capita income of about $500 cannot keep pace with population growth, currently 3% a year. All Egyptians benefit from government price subsidies on food and other basic commodities. But these subsidies are strangling the economy because they consume 31% of the national budget. Any effort to reform the subsidy program is a risky business, as Sadat learned during the 1977 food riots.

Severely restricted in what he can do, Mubarak has moved slowly. "Don't expect miracles from me," he has warned. "I have no magic wand." He has shuffled his finance and economic ministers. He has raised interest rates on savings and hiked taxes on most imports. He has reassessed Sadat's policy of al infitah (the opening), under which the country has attempted to lure foreign investors. Launched in the mid-1970s, al infitah produced some investment in luxury hotels and soft-drink plants, but did little to expand Egypt's industrial base.

Perhaps Mubarak's most important action, at least from a political viewpoint, is the emphasis he has placed on reducing corruption. Two months ago, Mubarak turned to the late President's half brother, Esmat, 58, and said angrily, "You stink, Esmat. I've had enough. I will not tolerate your corruption." Three weeks later, Esmat Sadat was arrested, along with three of his sons, on charges of extortion and embezzlement. It was, without doubt, Mubarak's most popular act.

In his handling of foreign affairs, Mubarak has worked steadily at improving Egypt's tattered relations with the Arab world, particularly Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the gulf states and the Palestine Liberation Organization. He wants King Hussein of Jordan to become the chief Arab representative in Palestinian autonomy negotiations with the Israelis, and he is urging the P.L.O. to recognize Israel unilaterally, believing that this would have a dramatic and salutary effect on the peace process. In turn, Egypt would like a resumption of economic aid from the Arab oil states, which totaled $7 billion before it was suspended in 1978. Mubarak is seeking more than that. "The Egyptians want reconciliation, but they also want vindication of the peace process through wider Arab participation," says a Western diplomat in Cairo. "Mubarak is not going hat in hand to the Arabs."

This would be easier if Israel had not invaded Lebanon. Some Arabs felt that Egypt was partially responsible, since its peace treaty with the Israelis removed the once formidable Egyptian threat on Israel's southern border and permitted the Israelis to concentrate their army in the north for a move on Lebanon. These Arab governments wanted Mubarak to condemn not only Israel but also the U.S., whose economic and military support (currently running at $2 billion a year) is essential to Egypt's, and to Mubarak's, survival. After the Beirut massacre in September, Egypt withdrew its ambassador from Israel; he probably will not return until Israeli forces have been withdrawn from Lebanon.

Mubarak was heartened by President Reagan's peace initiative, which calls for a future confederation of Jordan and the presently occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Reagan plan, as a Western diplomat explains it, "made it clear that the U.S. believes that the sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza does not lie with Israel." Says Boutros Boutros Ghali, Cairo's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs: "The main concern of Egyptian diplomacy now is to maintain the momentum of the Reagan initiative." During his visit to Washington in January, Mubarak will doubtless urge Reagan to stand by his plan.

There is no evidence that Mubarak will ever be, or even seeks to be, another Sadat. He is unassuming, plodding, perhaps indecisive. But after the nearly three decades of tumult that Egypt endured under Gamal Abdel Nasser and then Sadat, it is possible Mubarak represents the calm and stability most Egyptians yearn for.

--By William E. Smith. Reported by Robert C. Wurmstedt/Cairo

With reporting by Robert C. Wurmstedt/Cairo

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.