by Mohammed Fadel, Palestine Note, February 2, 2011

Following a week of unprecedented anti-regime demonstrations that culminated in the “million-person” march, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president for the last thirty years, finally announced that he would not seek re-election in September. He reiterated his determination, however, to remain in office until the expiry of his term, in part, to assure a smooth transition in power and help effect the reforms demanded by the people. Pointing to his record of military service defending Egypt, as well as the achievements of his regime, he reiterated his determination to live out the rest of his days in Egypt and to die on Egyptian soil with the dignity of an Egyptian citizen.

Predictably, reaction to his speech has been almost uniformly negative, with many Egyptians dumbfounded, and others just enraged, that he still believes he is in a position to negotiate with the Egyptian people over the terms on which he will give up office. I may be the only Egyptian who is willing to take him up on this offer, but only if he is serious about the “citizen” part.

What would it mean for President Mubarak to become Citizen Mubarak? Well, most importantly, it would mean that he would be accountable to Egyptian institutions for his conduct in office the last 30 years. There are two areas in particular for which Citizen Mubarak must be held accountable: public corruption and torture. By all accounts, Citizen Mubarak, before he became President Mubarak, lived in a modest flat in Heliopolis in a manner that was neither unbecoming of a senior military officer nor that was ostentatious. At some point into his thirty years of service, however, President Mubarak and his family apparently succumbed to the temptation to use the perquisites of President Mubarak to enrich themselves. While the upper range of the estimates of the Mubarak family’s wealth – $40 billion – must be dismissed as exaggeration, there is no denying that President Mubarak and his family appear to live far beyond the means that would be afforded to them on the legal salary of President Mubarak. The family’s apparent corruption, moreover, was merely a reflection of a broader pattern of public corruption that flourished in President Mubarak’s administration, particularly after his administration launched a campaign to privatize state-owned firms. If President Mubarak wishes to live out his remaining years as honorable Citizen Mubarak, he must be prepared to account for his family’s wealth before responsible government agencies. (Of course the new Egyptian government will expect the international community to freeze all assets belonging to the Mubarak family in any case.)

Recovery of corruptly obtained assets is critical not only for dealing a death-blow to the culture of corruption that became entrenched during President Mubarak’s administration; it is also critical to provide a source of funding for remedying the other shameful legacy of President Mubarak’s administration: the widespread and systematic use of torture by the Central Security Services. President Mubarak allowed Egypt to become a notorious site for torture, as evidenced by the fact that it was a favorite site for the rendition of suspects in the so-called Global War on Terror. Egypt during President Mubarak’s administration adopted the Convention Against Torture in 1986 and it went into effect in Egyptian law in 1987. Consistent with President Mubarak’s repeated references to his constitutional duties during this crisis, the Egyptian people must insist on holding Citizen Mubarak accountable for his violations of Egyptian law prohibiting torture during his term in office.

Egyptians stand on the cusp of a historical transformation of their society, and perhaps of the entire region. This revolution cannot live up to its potential if Egypt does not hold members of the former regime accountable for their two greatest failings: corruption and torture. These were diseases that threatened to kill the political life of the community, and their effects will not be healed without the public restoration of the law’s dignity. This of course will mean restraining the understandable desire for revenge, including for the deaths of at least 300 Egyptian citizens in the last week. Egyptians do not need to see Hosni Mubarak hang, or even spend the rest of his days in jail. (How much longer will he live as Citizen Mubarak anyway?) They do need to see him, however, accountable before a court, just like any other citizen who abuses his position to enrich himself, his family and his friends, and then hires thugs to silence, intimidate, beat up and even kill those who threaten to expose his action. The opportunity to subject Citizen Mubarak, as well as his cronies, to public questioning – even if only along the lines of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Committee – will be cathartic and emancipatory, and promises to provide the most effective means to purge Egyptian society of the ill effects of not only the last 30 years, but also of the excesses of the Free Officers’ Revolution, and to that extent. To that extent and on these conditions, Egyptian citizens should welcome Citizen Mubarak: no citizen should be forced into exile, even one lacking as distinguished a career as Citizen Mubarak, but no citizen should be above the law, even ex-Presidents.