Ex-Mubarak deputy says US funded opposition during uprising

Gen Martin Dempsey, the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meets with Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of Egypt’s ruling military council as tensions rise over Cairo’s move to proceed wiShow more

CAIRO // An Egyptian cabinet minister has accused the United States of directly funding non-profit groups to create chaos in the country following last year's uprising against the former president Hosni Mubarak.

According to comments published in state-owned newspapers yesterday, the international cooperation minister, Faiza Aboul Naga, made the remarks in a testimony she gave in October to judges investigating allegations the groups used foreign funds to foment unrest.

Ms Aboul Naga, a leftover from the Mubarak regime who has served in three interim governments formed since his was forced out, has been leading the clampdown on the foreign groups.

Authorities last week referred 43 employees of non-profit groups, including at least 16 Americans, to trial before a criminal court.

All 43 are banned from travel. No date has been set for their trial.

The crisis has soured relations between Egypt and the United States, which has threatened to cut off aid to Egypt - a total of US$1.5 billion (Dh5.5bn) a year in military and economic assistance - if the issue was not resolved.

The release of Ms Aboul Naga's testimony four months after she gave it suggests that Egypt may not be willing, at least for now, to ease tensions with the US.

She said international and regional powers did not want Egypt to prosper following Mubarak's resignation, so they resorted to the creation of chaos.

"But the United States and Israel could not directly create and sustain a state of chaos, so they used direct funding, especially American, as the means to reach those goals," she was quoted as saying.

She also claimed that some of the money came from the US economic assistance to Egypt - which currently runs at $250 million a year.

Aboul Naga claimed Washington directly and illegally funded the non-profit groups in what amounted to an interference in Egypt's internal affairs, a challenge to its sovereignty and harms national security.

"Evidence shows the existence of a clear and determined wish to abort any chance for Egypt to rise as a modern and democratic state with a strong economy since that will pose the biggest threat to American and Israeli interests, not only in Egypt, but in the whole region," she was quoted as saying.