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1. The Egyptian Legacy in Peacekeeping

Peacekeeping represents a significant component of the Egyptian foreign policy and comes within the Egyptian military strategy designed to enhance national interests, support international legitimacy and bringing peace and stability to the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the World at large. The Egyptian legacy in peacekeeping started with the first United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operation, namely the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) created in Palestine in May 1948 to supervise the truce ordered by the Security Council at the end of the first Arab-Israeli war in which Egypt had participated. The term peacekeeping did not enter popular use until 1956. The eruption of the Suez Crisis between Egypt on one side and Israel, France and Great Britain on the other side; prompted Lester B. Pearson, then Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs and later Prime Minister of Canada, to propose the deployment of an international peace force under the United Nations (UN) flag (the first United Nations Emergency Force - UNEF 1, 1956). Since that time the concept of peacekeeping has evolved. In July 1960, Egypt participated in the United Nations Operation in Congo (ONUC) by a paratroop battalion. The ONUC was established to ensure the withdrawal of Belgian forces from Congo, to assist the government maintaining law and order and to provide technical assistance to the Republic of Congo.

Much experience in peacekeeping and confidence building was also gained in the period 1974-1979 within the framework of the Egyptian-Israeli relations. Such experiences were integrated into the 1974- separation of forces agreement, the 1975-interim agreement, and the 1979-peace agreement. Within the framework of the three agreements different types of peacekeeping/verification and observation missions were adopted. In the 1974-agreement, demilitarized buffer zone, zones of limited forces and weapons on either side, reconnaissance and limited verification missions were carried out by Israeli and Egyptian liaison officers. In the 1975- interim agreement, early warning activities, joint liaison staffs, joint monitoring committee to resolve misunderstandings were established. In the 1979-peace agreement, Israel, Egypt and the US decided to use a Multinational Force and Observers mechanism (MFO) with significantly enhanced liaison system in order to verify compliance and to prevent crises escalation. The MFO is acting as a peacekeeping mechanism and contact point in which both parties, Egypt and Israel, for more than 25 years have an intimate day-to-day contact.

In the nineties and following the end of the Cold War, Egypt sent peacekeeping troops/observers to several hot spots around the world namely in Europe to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Eastern Slovenia and Georgia; and in Africa to Somalia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Angola, Western Sahara and Liberia (see Table 1). Such presence in these areas opened a window of opportunity for Egypt to make political, economic, and strategic gains. It is possible to view the Egyptian role on these occasions of military presence outside the country in many different ways. However the closest perspective to the Egyptian mindset is that Egypt should have a role however big or small in re-engineering its region and the world in times of transition.

It was during this period of the nineties characterized by active Egyptian military presence outside the country jointly with the US and other European and Arab allies in the Gulf, with the NATO in Bosnia, and under the UN flag in Somalia, that many Egyptian figures reached very prominent posts as heads of international political and economic organizations. In addition to that a large amount of Egypt's debts were cancelled and Egypt became a center of attention when it comes to international aid, rewards, funding, and political support. It was also during this period that Egypt shared with other global and regional powers in the founding of many significant regional projects and multilateral dialogues/agreements in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East. This period of the nineties also saw a qualitative shift in the Egyptian armed forces reaching advanced levels of command, control, and communication; in addition to establishing military institutions for training in the fields of peacekeeping, learning foreign languages, and information technology.
During the year 2004, the issue of sending Egyptian troops in peacekeeping missions outside Egypt has gradually come again into light and seems to have moved up to the top of the Egyptian foreign policy agenda. The debate about this subject was not an abstract but focused on three specific possible locations to which Egyptian troops might be sent: Iraq, Gaza in Palestine, and Darfur in Sudan. Even though Egyptian top officials have initially denied the intention of sending troops to any country outside Egypt, the issue continues to be raised and discussed inside and outside the country.

It was striking that the three possible sites to which Egyptian troops might be sent fall under three principal dimensions traditionally defining Egyptian national security. Indeed, each one of the three sites has been one day either a theater of Egyptian military activity or has represented high security value in Egyptian strategic thinking. The Gaza strip for example, the Eastern Gate to Egypt, has been associated with Israeli security threats across the border and the long history of wars and confrontations between Egypt and Israel. Iraq is of no less importance for Egyptian security, since Iraq with the rest of the Gulf countries has represented an increasing strategic, economic and human security importance during the last three decades for Egypt. Finally Sudan, the southern neighbor of Egypt, with the River Nile passing through it making Sudan's security and stability strongly linked to security and stability in Egypt.

Only several months later after this debate and on August 11, 2005, a 60 soldier military force left Egypt heading to Darfur in Sudan taking part in the African Union's force in the western Sudanese region of Dafur to observe ceasefire between the government of Sudan and the rebels groups. The conflict in Darfur has claimed between 180,000 and 300,000 lives and displaced around 2.4 million peoples and sent more than 200,000 fleeing to neighboring Chad sparking one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. In April 2005, NATO declared that it would consider a request by the African Union (AU) for support in Darfur region in what could be the alliance's first mission in Africa. NATO is working closely with the European Union (EU) , the UN, NGOs and individual nations to promote peace in the Darfur region. In addition to airlift missions, NATO has provided staff Capacity Building workshops and training for the African Union's officers within the Deployed Integrated Task Force Headquarters in Ethiopia.

On September 1, 2005, following lengthy negotiations, Egypt and Israel signed the agreed arrangements regarding the deployment of a Designated Force of Border Guards along the border in Rafah area to enable Israel to evacuate the Philadelphia corridor, a fourteen-kilometer military zone along the Gaza-Egypt border. Egyptian border patrol guards began deployment on September 11, to prevent smuggling into Gaza. An EU role was foreseen in terms of deploying inspectors to ensure weapons and militants do not pass into Gaza over the border.

Although Egypt strongly backed the US in its war against international terrorism after the 11th of September attacks, it refused to send troops to Afghanistan neither during the war nor after it. Egypt also opposed US military intervention in Iraq in March 2003 and continued to oppose US occupation of Iraq after the war and further refused to comply with US requests to send troops to the country even under a UN umbrella. However, by the last few months of 2004, a number of variables had emerged demanding a new Egyptian stance towards the new challenges facing the Middle East. One of these variables is the gradual emergence of a common Arab-Islamic-Western perspective that is still in its embryo stage confirming that terrorism is a common threat to all, and that regional disputes must be solved if we are to root out terrorism. The slogan work with the world, work with allies and work with the United Nations is beginning to appear as lesson from the Iraqi war experience.

This paper presents the view of Egypt on the issue of peacekeeping as a potential area of cooperation and as a means of building confidence and improving regional security in the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). The paper also presents available peacekeeping capabilities in Egypt, explores areas of common work, and suggests ideas for future cooperation in the area of peacekeeping within the EMP.

2. Peacekeeping in a new Security environment

The regional agenda of the 1990s for peace and cooperation in the Mediterranean based on dialogue, confidence building, and negotiations, was severely undermined by new developments in the international and regional arena, mainly the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in September 2000, the attacks of September 11th on New York and Washington, the Afghanistan war, and finally by the US-led war on Iraq. Today's security environment after September 11th is, however, so changed from that prevailing in the 1990s that three fundamental aspects have to be taken into consideration when assessing future prospects of cooperation in the Euro-Mediterranean region. These are geography; mechanisms of change; and the new value system.



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** Part of EuroMeSCo Project on Peacekeeping as an area for cooperation in the Mediterranean - 24 October 2005.
* Maj.Gen.(ret.)Dr.; Military and Technology Advisor, Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, Cairo, Egypt. 24/10/2005; mkadry@ahram.org.eg; www.ahram.org.eg/ACPSS
The term has been used to describe all types of UN missions including the UN-authorised operation expelling Iraq from Kuwait, to the operations protecting the delivery of humanitarian relief during the civil war in Somalia. When used in this generalized form, the term peacekeeping refers to any international effort involving an operational component to promote the termination of armed conflict or the resolution of longstanding disputes. Paul F. Diehl, International Peacekeeping (Baltimore: the Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), p.4.
See:Canada and Peace Support Operations, in http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/peacekeeping/menu-en.asp

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