Egypt on the Brink An exclusive look at the hunted men
who brought growth and reform to Egypt. By Judith Miller
Y
oussef Boutros Ghali, the former fi nance min- ister of Egypt, once the highest-ranking Coptic Christian in the country
since the revolution, was at his home computer in London in October when his wife, Michelle, appeared at the door, clutching her chest. Sud- denly she collapsed. Ghali bolted from his desk, scoop-
ing up her motionless body, calling her name, administering CPR. She died in his arms. The cause of death, a doctor told
me, was an aneurysm — a rush of blood to the heart. It was almost in- stant. There was nothing Ghali could have done to save her, said a close family friend who described her death. The sudden loss of his vibrant, 49-year-old wife of 20 years, mother of their three sons, ages 12, 14, and 18, was a crushing blow to a man whose life had already been upended by Egypt’s revolution. Only a year ago, Ghali was among
Egypt’s most prominent offi cials. With a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, he had given up a lucrative post at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to return to Cairo 18 years
JUDITH MILLER
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Judith Miller, formerly of The New York Times, is currently an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an expert on national security issues.
56 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2012
changes that threatened its economic interests and political power. On several key issues, the reform-
ers had fi nally won, making Egypt what the IMF called an “emerging success story,” one of the region’s “fastest-growing economies.” But since the January 2011 upris-
AHMED NAZIF
ing at Tahrir Square, which toppled President Hosni Mubarak in only 18 days, the military-led civilian transi- tional government has been waging a judicial jihad against Ghali and oth- ers who helped free Egypt’s economy. Once credited by U.S. offi cials for
policies producing annual growth of some 7 percent for several years — foreign and domestic investment in industries that private investors had once shunned, and robust job creation — they have now been blamed not only for a culture of corruption that is nearly as old as Egypt’s pyramids, but also for Mubarak’s political failings. Although the free-market policies
RACHID MOHAMED RACHID
ago to help transform his nation’s moribund state-owned economy. For years, he and a small team of
talented reformers, led by Prime Min- ister Ahmed Nazif and activist Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid, battled Egypt’s entrenched bureau- cracy and its military/security elite, which seemed determined to block
resulted in a more equitable distri- bution of income than that of India, Mexico, Brazil, and several other emerging economies, the reformers are now hunted men. Convicted by a Cairo criminal
court of “squandering public resourc- es,” based on often bogus evidence in sham trials that in Ghali’s case lasted only six minutes, they are either in jail, in exile, or on the run. Travel bans and Interpol warrants
have been issued for them, passports canceled, visas revoked, and their property and other assets in Egypt
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