Tourists and terrorists - how terrorist acts by Islamic fundamentalists have reduced tourism in Egypt

JUST when Egypt appeared to be getting its economic house in order, Islamic extremists are trying to burn it down.

Last year terrorist teams fired on trains carrying tourists near the perpetually nervous university town of Assiyut. In December, three terrorists burst out of a coffee shop in Old Cairo and fired on a passing busload of tourists, wounding eight passengers and eight Egyptians who came to their defense. The Gama'a Al-Islamiya, a radical organization, has distributed flyers in recent months warning all foreigners to leave or face the consequences.

The danger to tourists is no greater in Egypt than in many other places. But as one Miami hotelier explained that city's sharp drop in tourism in late 1993, "Most folks like to vacation where they can sleep with both eyes closed, and, thanks to exaggerated news reports, they just don't feel that comfortable here these days."

Tourist arrivals in Egypt are off by more than 50 per cent and revenue by as much as 80 per cent. The tourism industry, formerly booming along at $3 billion a year, is the source of one million jobs, supporting more than six million Egyptians. So the acts of a few extremists have directly cut into the incomes of 15 per cent of the population, and the overall negative impact on the economy touches everyone.

The terrorists have been causing trouble beyond their numbers--a good guess would be that there are only about 5,000 of them. They draw support from Egyptian veterans who volunteered to fight Afghanistan's Soviet-supported regime during the 1980s. Trained in eastern Iran by religious revolutionaries, the "Afghans" eventually returned home to a recessionary economy. Unemployed malcontents eager to support a new cause, many of them were attracted by the fire-breathing rhetoric of religious zealots.

For years government policy toward the radicals has alternated between pious speeches and overly harsh repressive measures. But the government's latest crackdown on terrorism resulted in at least one significant victory, when Talat Yassin Hammam, commander of the military wing of Gama'a Al-Islamiya and a veteran of Afghanistan, was cornered and killed on April 25.

So far, the expatriate community is mainly standing firm. As one veteran of the Nasser years puts it, "We thought Egypt was worth it during the worst of the socialist and secret-police years. Well, it is much more viable today. We just have to be reasonably cautious."

A resident of six years notes a benefit of the tourism downturn: "Cairo's terrible traffic congestion is greatly dissipated, but what a terrible price the Egyptians are paying."

Donald McDonald, president of the 4,500-student American University in Cairo, empathizes with the Egyptian man in the street and argues that the terrorists are hurting their own cause. "When the terrorists attacked the minister of the interior last August, a few meters from where we are sitting, they damaged their own image more than anything else," he says. "The suicide motorcyclist succeeded in wounding the minister, killing himself, and murdering two innocent bystanders."

Many observers believe the government has not done enough to turn public opinion against the extremists. The impact of the decline in tourism, for example, has not been discussed in the press or on television. And the ongoing connection between the Egyptian extremists and Iran has not been exposed. "If it were," says a frustrated Koranic scholar, "the people would be disgusted because of their negative attitudes toward the Shiite revisionism that Iran embraces."

McDonald is moderately hopeful. "I plan to continue to do what is necessary to run the school," he says. "I don't want to be foolish, or mean to sound macho. If our students are any guide, however, the Egyptians will see through the extremists. They understand the issues, they want to see the country succeed, and they want to get on with their lives."

COPYRIGHT 1994 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group