mena Se inet Ry! so A SR, teen ee ee eee eo Whither the Egyptian economy? ‘(Mideast—the SAN FRANCISCO— Nearly 18 months after the October, 1973 war rocked the Middle East, and almost a year after the _ signing of a cease-fire on the Syrian as well as Egyptian fronts, the Arab countries and Israel still stand face to face while rumors of renewed war or possible peace fill the air. There is no doubt that war is far from the interests of the masses of people — Israeli or Arab. So acute has the economic crisis become in Israel that the secretary general of the Labor party, Meir Zarmi, had his phone cut off in early February. He couldn’t pay the bill. Hardly any wonder, in a country whose Minister of. Finances freely ad- mits he has imposed the world’s highest tax rate, which can still cover only 63% of government expenditures. : But what has given Israel such a high tax rate, enormous debt and huge.inflation problem is continued preparation for war. And there is no doubt that the - policies of war and occupation are being continued. The Housing Ministry has just announced proposals to con- struct a town of 20,000 people in occupied Syrian territory in the _ Golan Heights, at Katzbeye. Israel] has held Golan since the 1967 war. HEAVY PRICE Former Cabinet member Shu- lamit Aloni revealed Jan. 25 that several important U.S. poli- ticians, supported by Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, want. to put a U.S. base at Sharm-el-Sheikh in the Sinai peninsula. This, evidently, is what Schlesinger and other U.S officials see as the result of “Israeli withdrawal” from the occupied Egyptian territory. Egypt, too, has paid a heavy price in the last seven years of trying to regain her territory occupied by Israel. According to Mohammed Has- sanein Heykal, an advisor to Egyptian President Anwar Sa- dat, and an ex-editor of the authoritative Cairo daily Al- Ahram Egypt, “is undergoing a crisis of ready cash. Factories are only working to 60% or 65% of their capacity.” In order to overcome the legacy of underdevelopment and colonial economic structure, Egypt embarked under the late ’ President Gamal Abdel Nasser on a program of industrial con- struction and a large public sector-of the economy. Much of this development has been done with Soviet assist- ance. The gigantic high dam at Aswan, the huge iron and steel complex at Helwan, the alum- inum factory at Nag Hammadi have all been completed with ‘Soviet aid, and there are others besides. : : Yet, in recent years, under Sadat an opening to some great- -er private enterprise in the economy and favoring private enterprise already in existence has meant greater-problems too for. working people. This year, however, has been especially difficult. DEMONSTRATIONS According to the Hurriya, published in Beirut, there have been strikes this year in Al Kubra, Cairo, Shibra and Al Khayma to protest the high cost of living; prices have gone up 20-30% in eight months. THE MIGHTY Nile has been harnessed by the Aswan Dam. Built largely with Soviet aid, it has established the power base for expansion and deepening of Egypt's industrial potential. The most recent strike, ac- cording to an Egyptian trade unionist interviewed in the Hur- riya, was-at the Misr-Helwan Textile factory where 18,000 workers went on strike. In response, the trade union leader Rachid Al-Jabali was jailed by. the government. Long rows of people were reportedly in line waiting to buy sugar and after hours of waiting were told there was no ‘sugar. That is said to be the reason for the demonstrations in. Cairo in early January. They ended up with ‘several thousands of workers demon- strating in Cairo streets for more than five hours, in a line Unrest in Spain growing MADRID — Growing political protest at home and the threat of a military confrontation in North Africa Feb. 10 created. one of the most serious crises in the 36-year history of Franco's regime in Spain. The Catholic newspaper Ya said: “Authority is progressively deteriorating.” Police detained 57 persons, including two Italian television newsmen, during an attempted demonstration Sunday outside Madrid's Carabanchel prison, police sources said. They said hundreds of persons tried to demonstrate their sup- port for political prisoners held at the suburban penitentiary. Police guarding roads to the prison scattered the demonstra- tors as they began to approach the jail. - A government spokesman said the Italians were arrested for trying to film the demonstration without securing the special per- mit required by Spanish authori- ties, EXPELLED Police held the Italian news- men for 24 hours, then confiscat- ed their film and tapes and ordered them to leave the coun- try. International pressure to free the 10 continued to grow, and a delegation of U.S. notables! headed by New York City Coun- cil President Paul O'Dwyer peti- tioned the Spanish Supreme Court on Feb. 11 to free the imprisoned trade unionists. The case of the “Carabanchel 10” rank and file trade unionists convicted. of “illegal assembly” by the Franco government and sentenced to a combined total of 162 years in prison, has aroused widespread. support throughout Western Europe and Latin America. Accompanying O'Dwyer were William Colavito, secretary treasurer of the Iron Workers Union, AFL-CIO, and attorney Eric Schmidt, Secretary of the U.S. Committee for a Demo- cratic Spain. Almost 100 not- ables signed the amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief, including Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, associate Secretary of the U.S. Catholic Conference; Arnold Mil- ler, president of the United Mine Workers of America; Prof. Arthur Schlesinger, former as- sistant to ex-President Ken- nedy; Nobel Prize Laureates Profs. George Wald and Salva- tore Luria; Roger Baldwin, hon- orary president of the Interna- tional League for the Rights of Man; Congresswoman Bella Ab- zug (D-N.Y.); Leonard Wood- cock, president of the United Automobile Workers of Amer- an of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Re- pression, and playwright Arthur Miller. MOROCCO CLAIM Among supporting organiza- tions endorsing the brief are the International League for the- Rights of Man; Amnesty Inter- Angela Davis, co-chairper-. national of the U.S., and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Amid a nationwide wave of: strikes and political protest, the government has been faced with a Moroccan claim to Spanish en- claves on the North African coast, where during the week- end, Spain sent warships, marines and attack helicopters © to the ports of Ceuta and Melilla. At home, the government closed down. the University of Valladolid, where police had re- peatedly clashed with students ‘demanding political freedom and demonstrating their solidarity with striking industrial workers. In Madrid, police arrested several actors and fined eight of them a total of $47,300 for their role in a strike which has closed down theaters in the nation’s three biggest cities, Madrid, Barcelona and Seville. Helmeted riot police carrying tommy guns have been guarding the 50,000-student campus of Madrid University against a renewal of last week's disturb- ances. The month-long wave of strikes and protests is rooted in economic recession, government ‘slowness in enacting promised political reform and a 20% infla- tion rate. - Spanish and U.S. negotiators were scheduled to meet Feb. 10 to negotiate an extension of the -agreement granting the U.S. miliary bases on Spanish soil. that began at the Bab el Louk station where public transport leaves Cairo for the Helwan industrial complex, all the way across the capital to Liberation Square. There is no doubt the demon- stration threw the government into disarray. Government lead- ers immediately took to the air and press to announce measures to ameliorate living conditions. At the same time, the French Communist daily L’Humanitie, reports, “The Right unleashed a great campaign against the Left and the Communists, and the political police seized the occa- ’ sion to ‘uncover’ new Communist cells and make hundreds of arrests.” Many people, like the trade unionist interviewed in the Hur- riya, recall the massive anti- popular campaigns unleashed in other days in Cairo in the wake of such demonstrations, particu- larly in 1946 and 1952 when a great fire became the pretext for mass action against the Left. THE KEY Now, too, destruction of prop- erty is being laid at the door of the workingclass movement, and is becoming a pretext for attack- ing it. Yet an important word on the destruction of properties has been said not only by the workers themselves (who deny it) but by the veteran Egyptian Marxist Lutfi Al Kholy, who writing in Al Ahram, Jan. 8, put forward the slogan “No to de-:- struction, no to the Bayoumi right!” ‘Bayoumi is head of a large, ‘private construction firm in Egypt who owned a 12-story building which collapsed in down town Cairo several days before the demonstrations occurred. Al- most miraculously, the collapse during working hours only killed two people. There are those like Bayoumi who now call for a return to the times of King Farouk. : Undoubtedly today the pub-: lic sector remains the key to the Egyptian economy; the working. class retains important positions won during the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser. According to Planning Minister, Ismail Sabri Abdallah, private invest- ments “have not yet taken on an amplitude broad enough to modi- ~fy the fundamental structure of invested in industry in 1975, almost 1,000 million will be in the public sector. Clearly, however, there are those who would like to change the balance of the economy. According to Henriette and Paul Jacot, writing in L’Humanite, “the private sector has gained ground, developing itself in building, internal commerce and to a certain degree external commerce, which has hitherto been almost entirely in govern- ment hands. The new bourgeoi- sie has sharp teeth. Neverthe- less the state sector continues to control around 70% of all indus- trial production.” DIFFERENCES Egypt needs peace to develop further, but it is a peace that can be gained in many ways and at the price of different’ conces- sions. No doubt some sections of the Egyptian bourgeoisie desire peace that will allow them a renewed partnership with U.S. and other firms, but that will not subject them to the merciless pillage that existed in the years before the 1952 revolution and especially before the nationaliza- tian af the Suez canal in 1956. These differences reflect themselves within Egypt’s gov- ernment. Thus, as Jacques Cou- bard wrote in L'Humanite on the eve of President Sadat’s visit to France, “His (Sadat’s) insist- ence on renewing his confidence. in ‘Henry’ (the U.S. secretary of state) in all interviews accorded to the French press indicate that he leans primarily to Washing- ton and its diplomacy. of ‘little step yd ~ Even among the Egyptian capitalists and their representa- tives there are real differences with this approach, as manifest- ed in a recent press statement given by Hassanein Heykal to the Syrian hewspapers. “The objective in view by Kissinger in piecing out the solution to the crisis of the Middle East and advancing step by step is an attempt to break the Arab front and isolate some from others. The efforts of Kissinger do not seek a com- plete, legitimate and clear solu- tion and thus are only destined to not quite resolve the conflict.” More than ever peace is a necessity for the peoples of the Middle East; even with Sadat’s the Egyptian economy.” Of 1,180 continued sup for Kissinger, - million Egyptian pounds to be Israeli intransigence increases. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1975—Page 5