'It's been very hard in Egypt'

2008-10-09 10:02

Washington - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took aim at close ally Egypt on Wednesday over its human rights record and lamented "setbacks" there despite what she said were her personal efforts to press for reforms.

Rice has been lambasted by some activists for not pushing Cairo hard enough on human rights for fear of upsetting a close US ally, criticism the top diplomat said was "very painful".

"It has been very hard in Egypt," said Rice when asked to reflect about the Bush administration's "freedom agenda" that involves promoting human rights and democracy worldwide.

"The progress has not been everything in Egypt that we would have hoped for. We have had setbacks there, we have had disappointments there," Rice told an advisory committee to the State Department on promoting democracy.

"It is very hard when I have to sit in front of young democracy advocates and have them say 'Why have you not been advocating more on our behalf'. We have been," she added,

"We are not going to fail to have relations with the Egyptian government but we do advocate on their behalf."

Rice said she frequently pushed "friendly" governments like Egypt to do more on human rights but such requests were resented. "But we do it. Even with our friends that are not free."

The Bush administration's so-called democracy and freedom agenda has come under attack in many parts of the Middle East, where it is seen as patronising and an attempt by the United States to impose its own values on others.

US efforts on human rights have also been seen by some as hypocritical in light of the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and the indefinite detention of security detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Rice pointedly defended her administration's "freedom agenda", which she said was now institutionalised by President George W Bush in a national security directive soon to be unclassified and released to the public.

"It concludes that championing freedom is a national security imperative. I fundamentally believe that," she said.

She conceded promoting democracy was often a "bumpy ride" and the administration's efforts had not always worked.

"We have sometimes been accused of being a bit too naive, or optimistic, or whatever, about democracy but I would ask that we think what would happen if the United States of America ever chose to accept the world as it is rather than to insist that the world can be the world that we want it to be."

With the Bush administration's term ending in January 2009, Rice said democracy promotion had to be more than a US task and European and Asian nations must do more.

"The next big frontier is to get more international support for this agenda," she said.

- Reuters