The Home Of “The Dark Bats Of The Night”

April 16, 2012

An NYT piece on the dubious disqualification of Egyptian presidential candidates is accompanied by a picture of one of them – Egypt’s former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman in his office.

Writes the NYT:

Mr. Suleiman stands more clearly for a restoration of the old order than any other former Mubarak government official now re-entering politics. And he has deep ties to the intelligence services – his campaign manager is his former chief of staff in the spy service and has begun running the campaign from its headquarters – raising fears that its officials might revive Mubarak-era practices like bugging candidates' offices and rigging elections.

The Arabist points out that the Suleiman office is entirely black:

So Omar Suleiman paints his office walls black. What else!? And is that shiny bit behind him the hyperbaric chamber he sleeps in? And on the right side, the mini-fridge where he keeps body parts and truth serums.

Which reminds me of a Suleiman quote in a February 2011 piece in The National which I used as a headline in a piece following the Egyptian revolution attempt:

Egypt's protesters were defiant today after a warning from the country's new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, that if protesters do not enter negotiations, a "coup" could take place causing greater chaos, raising alarm of crackdown.
…
He warned of chaos if the situation continued, speaking of "the dark bats of the night emerging to terrorise the people."

Looking at Suleiman's office those dark bats of the night may well have their home at exactly that dark place.

Posted by b on April 16, 2012 at 19:08 UTC | Permalink

Comments

A really great story about Suleiman from author Ron Suskind:

Ron Suskind, author of the book The One Percent Doctrine, called Suleiman the “hit man” for the Mubarak regime. He told ABC News that when the CIA asked Suleiman for a DNA sample from a relative of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Suleiman offered the man’s whole arm instead. “He’s a charitable man, friendly,” said Suskind. “He tortures only people that he doesn’t know.”

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/egypt-crisis-omar-suleiman-cia-rendition/story?id=12812445#.T4x-ftVns4c
It goes without saying that this is not a “Change you can believe in” kind of Presidential Candidate.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Apr 16 2012 20:25 utc | 1

1) those panels are not black – you can do that with photoshop and/or lighting
2) it is hypocritical to blame the executioner and not the employer
3) the black holes are made in Europe and the US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#Extraordinary_renditions_and_black_sites_in_Europe
“In January 2005, Swiss senator Dick Marty, representative at the Council of Europe in charge of the European investigations, concluded that 100 people had been kidnapped by the CIA in Europe—thus qualifying as ghost detainees—and then rendered to a country where they may have been tortured. Marty qualified the sequestration of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (aka “Abu Omar”) in Milan in February 2003 as a “perfect example of extraordinary rendition.”[52][53][54] (See below: The European investigation and its June 2006 report)”
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll3/id/2840/rec/15
“Could the leadership changes resulting from Egypt’s January 2011 Revolution uproot thirty years of security cooperation between the
United States and Egypt? This monograph examines how the security cooperation, rooted in the Camp David Accords, supports both the
Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty and other key strategic interests of the United States and Egypt. The United States gains strategic access to the
Middle East region through the security cooperation, and Egypt’s military protects its economic power. The monograph investigates
whether new political parties and leaders, including the Muslim Brotherhood, plan to maintain or cancel the Peace Treaty. In the short-term,
U.S.-Egypt security cooperation will continue as Egypt’s new leaders plan to adhere to the Peace Treaty, despite the cold peace with Israel.”
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17651802
“M16’s alleged involvement in the 2004 rendition to Libya of Abdel Hakim Belhaj was approved by the government, the BBC can reveal.
Mr Belhaj is suing the British government, saying it was complicit in his illegal rendition and subsequent imprisonment and torture under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s former regime.”

Posted by: somebody | Apr 17 2012 6:18 utc | 2

And how many Suleiman’s, and Suleiman protégés, work for Assad?
It all brings a certain famous song to mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fboorBw-FcY

Posted by: Sultanist | Apr 17 2012 11:20 utc | 3

About Suleiman’s disqualification – as far as I have read and heard, candidates need 30 000 citizen endorsement signatures, which is quite ‘normal’ and better than say, the French system (500 from deputies, which the le Pens always struggle to get).
These signatures are not notarized. He gathered a bit more than that number, but about 3 000 were invalid, which is to be expected, it is always the case and 10% is common, in CH it is often more. So I don’t know about the NYT article, which in any case is unclear on this matter. As these systems are new in Egypt, that he did not gather more is perhaps not so surprising? He needed say 40 000 to be safe.
Now, that does not mean there was not some plot afoot, miscounting, etc.
Abu Ismail (salafist) was disqualified because in Egyptian law candidates, their parent(s) and their spouse if any must be natural born citizens and must hold or have held no other nationality. His mother (deceased) was a US national. A sort of extreme ‘birther‘ attitude, with such laws Obama could not have been a candidate, as we know many object to Obomber on this count.
Keirat al Chater (muslim brotherhood) was disqualified for his penal convictions during Mubarak’s rule. He has a partial amnesty for these, but not all the convictions have been wiped out. One is for money laundering, and I am *guessing* now here, probably that one is still on the books, it is hard to disprove or wash (sic) away. Again, comprehensible: One cannot make light of rules that bar convicted criminals from standing if the rule of law is to hold.
All three have appealed the decision. Suleiman can stand in the future, and al-Chater will most likely be able to, but Abu Ismail is knocked out.
Seven other candidates were rejected, but I don’t know anything about them.
So, one can view all this under an Orientalist angle, or consider it ordinary ‘democratic’ type politics.

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 17 2012 14:20 utc | 4

@Noirette – a real democracy does not need to disqualify candidates. The people can disqualify them by voting against them. To me it seems the Muslim Brotherhood is cleaning up the field so their candidate will get a sure win.
I am pretty sure that Suleiman, as much as I may dislike him, would get a decent share of votes from loyal Mubarak followers.

Posted by: b | Apr 17 2012 18:39 utc | 5

I don’t agree that a ‘real’ whatever that is, democracy, doesn’t need, or should not be able to, disqualify candidates, for very top post posts, or more generally, put up some barriers to get on the ticket.
These might vary tremendously from culture to culture, from country to country.
Convicted rapists, drug runners, murderers, non-nationals (and that has to be defined), ppl who are under 18 (as another ex, I personally have nothing against), and so on might be deemed unfit to run. Just because ppl will be outraged and such candidates standing makes a mockery of Republic style voting, and invalidates the whole concept.
Pragmatically, having hundreds or even thousands of candidates in a populous country like Egypt is impossible to handle, too expensive, too bizarre, and makes the vote hazardous and empty.
Some choices have to be made before the important vote. Some barriers set up. In the W that is usually handled by the Party Apparatus.
Voters cannot pay attention or understand more that say 10 candidates. Even that is a bit much. If no gateways for entry are set up, the system fails.

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 18 2012 19:06 utc | 6

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