Reading the Egyptian Revolution Through the Lens Of

Volume 9 | Issue 28 | Number 3 | Article ID 3561 | Jul 11, 2011 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Reading the Egyptian Revolution Through the Lens of US Policy in South Korea Circa 1980: Revelations in US Declassified Documents 米国の1980年ごろの韓国における政策を通してエジプトの革命を読む−−非機密化された文書に見える新事実 Tim Shorrock Reading the Egyptian Revolution Tahrir Square uprising Through the Lens of US Policy in South Korea Circa 1980: Revelations As the mass and social media beamed the so- in US Declassified Documents called “Arab Spring” around the world, analysts and pundits in the United States quickly began Tim Shorrock comparing the revolts to past uprisings, particularly those during the Cold War, which Since early 2011, major peoples’ revolutions had shaken U.S. foreign policy. A favorite topic, have swept through North Africa and the particularly on Fox News, was Egypt’s Middle East. Most recently, the revoltspurported similarity to the Iranian revolution of engulfed Syria and Libya, leading to enormous 1979, which toppled the pro-US Shah of Iran violence in both countries and a NATO-led and eventually led to a Shiite Islamic state bombing campaign in the latter. By far the hostile to the United States. A few most important to the United States was the opportunistic neocon voices also compared the uprising in Egypt, where the military took Obama administration’s public support for advantage of a popular insurrection to stage a Mubarak’s opponents to Washington’s past coup against Hosni Mubarak, a 30-year U.S. actions to pressure Ferdinand Marcos and ally whose military forces and intelligence Suharto to end their dictatorial rule in the services had – and continue to have - extremely Philippines and Indonesia once popular close ties to Washington. In August, Mubarak uprisings had already sealed their fate. will face trial for corruption and murdering protesters during the uprising that engulfed But not a single analyst or journalist of note Cairo’s Tahrir Square for 18 days in January. mentioned what remains one of the most He could face the death penalty if convicted. significant rebellions against a US-backed tyrant of the past half-century: the student and worker uprising in South Korea in 1979 and 1980, which was mercilessly crushed by the Korean military with the US support. Korea didn’t even make the list of near-revolutions: in mid-February, PBS published a list of “30 Years of Uprisings” that had “brought down governments and transformed societies” or were either “dissipated” or “crushed.” The list included Iran, the Philippines, the Baltics, China’s Tiananmen Square, the 1997 Kosovo 1 9 | 28 | 3 APJ | JF Rebellion against Serbia and the 1998released those documents in 1996 and wrote Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela – but about them in the Journal of Commerce, the unaccountably skipped South Korea as well as daily newspaper where I once worked, and the Taiwan. Korean weekly Sisa Journal. The deletion is perplexing. The South Korean Those papers, some of which were further democratic uprising of the 1980s was a declassified in 2005 with the help of the transforming event in Korean history. It began National Security Archive in Washington, with the assassination of dictator Park Chung provide a perfect lens to illuminate how the Hee in October 1979 at the hand of his own CIA Obama administration may have responded to director, and culminated in an armed peoples’ the events in Egypt this year. uprising in May 1980 in the city of Kwangju against the reimposition of military rule by Lt. Egypt, Like South Korea, A cornerstone for General Chun Doo Hwan, who put down the US Policy rebellion with great force. With Kwangju as its Let’s begin this analysis by retracing the recent symbol, the uprising climaxed seven years later events in Egypt and its peculiar relationship (1987) in a national revolt that, like Egypt’s, with the United States. Egypt has long been a brought millions of ordinary citizens into the cornerstone of US strategy in the Middle East. streets and forced the military to finally relinquish power. In the end, the Korean citizens’ movement created one of the most vibrant democracies in East Asia and changed the dynamics of the Cold War in Asia by giving voice to a democratic opposition that called for peace and the end of hostility toward North Korea. The South Korean experience was also a textbook example of how a US administration deals with the toppling of a dictator who has long been friendly and subordinate to US economic and security interests, and how it US Army Black Hawk Helicopters lift off handles the delicate task of ostensibly from Cairo West Air Base During Bright supporting “democracy” while taking steps, Star Joint Military Exercise, Oct 6, 1999 publicly and covertly, to maintain the essential elements of a system protective of US interests. The United States played a central role in Long regarded as the most influential nation in Kwangju by granting permission to Chun to the Middle East, its 1979 peace treaty with deploy a Korean Army division from the Joint Israel made it a major military ally of the U.S.-South Korean Command to Kwangju to United States. From 2001 it would become a crush the rebellion. major prop in the “global war on terror.” Most of its generals and senior officers were trained The Carter administration’s strategy as it at US institutions such as the National Defense responded to the Korean events first came to University and the Army’s Command and light in a trove of 4,000 declassified documents General Staff College. (The curriculum of the I obtained over a period of years in the 1990s latter, according to theAssociated under the Freedom of Information Act. I Press, includes “instruction in human rights, 2 9 | 28 | 3 APJ | JF the principle of civilian control of the military, As the street protests and confrontations with the US Constitution and other elements of Mubarak supporters intensified over the democracy.”) Like South Korea from 1961 to following week, Secretary of Defense Robert 1987, every Egyptian president since the 1950s Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike has emerged from its military. It currently Mullen held regular, sometimes daily, receives about $1.3 billion per year in US telephone meetings with the Egyptian generals. military aid, second only to Israel, and the Off the record, they argued (according to the Pentagon has some 625 personnel stationed in AP) that these close ties helped the Egyptian the country to assure peace along the border military “keep its soldiers from attacking with Israel and to coordinate weapons sales protestors seeking to topple” Mubarak. from General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and other US weapons suppliers. On February 11, clearly under orders from the military, Mubarak finally called it quits, stepped aside and handed executive power to his appointed vice president (and intelligence chief), Gen. Omar Suleiman. Egypt ever since has been under direct military rule, and a period of relative calm has set in while the restive population prepares for Mubarak’s trial and elections later this year. Many of President Obama’s public comments, such as his February 12 appeal to the Egyptian Army’s “restraint and professionalism” further solidified Washington’s ties with the military in Mubarak and Obama a time of turmoil. Yet the situation was far from settled. Even as Mubarak was fleeing Cairo in the early days of the revolt, the Egyptian army Throughout the crisis of January and February was warning workers and newly formed 2010, these military relationships were the independent unions against work stoppages in paramount driving force in US-Egyptiana bid to end the biggest wave of strikes in the relations. When the peoples’ uprisings in country’s history, ranging from state-owned Cairo’s Tahir Square reached a climax on textile mills to the public sector to the Suez January 26, the Egyptian High Command, led Canal. In February, the Army used force for the by Lt. Gen. Sami Hafez Enan, the chief of staff first time to stop a demonstration in Tahir of the Armed Forces, was in Washington Square. Over the spring, with the state of meeting with US counterparts at the Pentagon; emergency still in effect, Army police arrested the visit was cut short as the Egyptian Army thousands of people for taking part in illegal began taking up positions in Cairo. While demonstrations and began trying them before denying formal discussions of the unfolding military courts. Many protesters claim to have events, Pentagon officials made clear they had been tortured, with some female activists broached the subject several times. As Gen. subjected to “virginity tests” and other James Cartright, the vice chairman of the Joint humiliations, according to press reports (See Chiefs of Staff, for example, told the New York especially “Once the Darling of Egypt’s Revolt, Times it was hard to ignore the televised the military is under Scrutiny,” New York footage from Egypt - and therefore he could not Times, April 9, 2011). Much of the public anger discount “hallway” conversations between was directed against Army Field Marshal Egyptian and US commanders. Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, a former ally of 3 9 | 28 | 3 APJ | JF Mubarak who heads the military’s ruling storm. In the summer of 2011, Egypt may be at Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. the dawn of a new, democratic age – or amidst the calm before a major political storm. So far, apart from the disclosure of US diplomatic cables on Field Marshal Tantawi and other figures dating back to pre-revolutionary times, neither WikiLeaks nor the media have disclosed the behind-the-scenes dealing between the Obama administration, the Pentagon and US intelligence and their counterparts in the Egyptian military and security apparatus.

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