As I mentioned yesterday, we had planned to go visit a captured Israel military facility in the Sinai Peninsula. My mom decided to come along, so the three of us (Mom, Dad, and myself) drove two hours to the Suez Canal and crossed on a ferry.
We stopped for a quick lunch at a war memorial for the October 1973 war that was fought in the Sinai. There is a fairly large dispute as to who actually won the war. The Israelis were on their way to attacking Cairo when the US stepped in a negotiated a peace treaty. As the Israelis pulled out, the Egyptians captured any remaining equipment and bases, including this site we visited today in the Sinai. The memorial was in the shape of a bayonet attached to the end of a rifle. You have to see the picture to really understand what I can’t really describe. But as war monuments in Egypt go, it was well done… I got a good dose of propaganda!
On the way out, we passed a “tent city” set up for deployed Egyptian troops in the Sinai. By treaty they are not allowed to establish permanent bases in the Sinai since it is a demilitarized zone. To get around this, they go out and set up a thousand tents and put forces there on long deployments. The conditions looked horrible, comparable to a refuge camp. Most of the tents had patches made from clothing sewn in to prevent leaking, and there was no electricity, running water, or sturdy shelter. To top it all off, the men are forced to defecate on the side of the camp, which happens to be right next to the road. The entire camp was surrounded by a tall fence and concertina. If I didn’t know better, I would say it was a prisoner of war camp or something.
We drove onward (about 10 km inland from the Suez on the Sinai side) toward the old Israeli base. It was actually pretty small, but had a great view in all directions. I took lots of pictures, which I will post to my scrapbook website sometime soon! There was the usually military stuff on exhibit… radios, tanks, armored personnel carriers, a couple of Jeeps, and dozens of handheld weapons/mortars.
The sad thing is that the area around the base (and much of the land in the Sinai, for that matter) is totally mined and has been since the mid-1960’s. Every once in a while, a report comes out filled with pictures from villages where dozens of people are missing limbs or have been killed. They are the true innocent casualties of a war fought long ago.
Also, many small communities in this region have never encountered foreigners before. Many of the roads that lead East across the Sinai are blocked off by police checkpoints. When you approach a checkpoint, they aren’t supposed to let foreigners pass unless they have special clearance. Even if they have clearance, they are still given a police escort to ensure safety. I was going to grab a picture of one of the signs on a road that read “Foreigners are Forbidden to Use this Road” but my darn camera ran out of batteries.
So indeed, Egypt fought several years to “win” a piece of land (albeit sizeable) filled with land mines and riddled with untouched settlements (and believe me, you can be certain that many people in these settlements barely identify with Egypt… they are still mostly tribal). Kind of interesting to think about, eh?
It was definitely an enlightening trip. The Sinai was one of the few places in Egypt I have yet to visit. The remaining destination is Luxor, but since it’s 500 miles from Cairo and only accessible by air (because the Egyptians don’t like foreigners driving through the rural cities as I mentioned above) that might not happen unless I come back someday!
