Fayza Abul Naga :US hijacked Egypt's revolution

Egyptian International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abul Naga told prosecutors that the United States tried to hijack the country's revolution funding non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Egypt to create chaos in the country, state media reported. Washington directed the January 25 revolution to achieve U.S.-Israeli interests in Egypt, official news agency MENA quoted Naga as saying in her testimony to the investigations run by the Egyptian Justice last October over the foreign funding for the NGOs. "The revolution came as a surprise to the United States, and it slipped from its control when it transformed into a people's revolution," she added. The Egyptian Justice Ministry recently referred 44 activists, including 19 Americans, to trials over the NGOs, which put Egyptian-U.S. relations in jeopardy as the United States threatened to halt its aid to Egypt. "The United States decided to use all its resources and instruments to contain the situation and push it in a direction that promotes American and also Israeli interests," the agency quoted Naga as saying. MENA reported that a judicial investigation into the funding of several civil society groups found that the United States had diverted aid originally intended for infrastructure to the NGOs. Cairo prosecutors backed by police in December stormed the offices of the US-funded International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House as part of an examination of the NGO's alleged illegal foreign funding. They were among 17 offices of local and international NGOs raided. Aid workers are accused of "setting up branches of international organizations in Egypt without a license from the Egyptian government" and of "receiving illegal foreign funding." (QNA)