CAIRO: Disgruntled Bedouins unhappy with the outcome of a meeting between Interior Minister Habib El-Adly and tribal elders will hold a press conference Thursday to make specific demands.
Bedouin representatives met with El-Adly Tuesday to calm tensions that had erupted during a week of intermittent clashes in central Sinai. However, hundreds protested in Wadi Amr after the meeting, stating that the meeting did not offer the necessary solutions the Bedouins were seeking.
The protestors also rejected the governor of North Sinai’s description of the Bedouins as “outlaws” in a television interview.
“There was a sense of frustration because there was no breakthrough. No solutions were announced for the Bedouins,” Bedouin spokesman Moussa El-Dilh told Daily News Egypt about the meeting. “None for all those tried in absentia, nor the officers who have committed violations here.”
“The Bedouin leaders said they would open many subjects in the meeting but apparently they didn’t even say a word,” he added. Meanwhile tribal leaders at the meeting promised to assist the government in searching for Bedouins wanted by the state and promised to fight extremist thinking amongst their tribesmen.
A statement by the Interior Ministry on behalf of El-Adly after the meeting cut a more optimistic picture, stating that “the private and public interests of the people of Sinai are a major focus of the political leadership of the State.
“The ambitious plan for the development of Sinai requires the element of safety to give investors the incentive to invest,” it added.
El-Adly also promised that some Bedouin detainees held under the emergency law would be released starting the beginning of July.
However, it is what was not said that raised the ire of El-Dilh and other Bedouins.
“The tribal representatives didn’t even ask for the release of the detainees, the minister offered to do so and picked a few random ones. Not one of the Sinai activists, such as Mossad Aboul Fagr, is among them,” he said.
“They just want to shut us up by releasing a few, yet they have thousands of Bedouins behind bars,” El-Dilh added.
A shootout ensued on the road leading to Al-Oja crossing last week between security forces and armed Bedouins in which at least two passersby were injured.
After security forces raided the village of Wadi Amr near the crossing at dawn in search of Bedouins wanted by the state or tried in absentia, a group of them held up the road leading to Al-Oja crossing.
Security forces converged and the two sides exchanged gunfire, which mainly hit truck drivers caught in the crossfire.
The main suspect sought by state forces is Salem Ali Salem, known as Salem Abu Lafi, a man who escaped from police clutches last February during his transfer to another prison, an incident which led to the death of two policemen.
