Zahi Hawass Indiana Jones

The US Department of Justice is investigating whether National Geographic broke the law by paying up to $200,000 a year to Zahi Hawass, Egypt's former antiquities chief, according to the newly-launched American website, Vocativ.

The Justice Department, in line with its usual practice, is 
neither confirming nor denying an investigation and National Geographic insists it has not broken the law, but let's take a look at some of the background.

Zahi Hawass is a controversial figure. In 2002, after several years as chief inspector and director of the Pyramids Plateau site in Giza, he became secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and in 2011, during the final days of the Mubarak regime, was appointed as Egypt's first Antiquities Minister.

Hawass brought a showbiz approach to Egyptology which irritated some of the more academically-minded archaeologists. The worldwide publicity he generated undoubtedly helped to promote tourism in Egypt, though it also became a means for Hawass to promote himself. He even launched a "Zahi Hawass" menswear brand (for "the man who values self-discovery, historicism and adventure").

He relished performing for the TV cameras and, with his characteristic broad-brimmed hat, was dubbed by the media as Egypt's own Indiana Jones.

Perhaps more accurately, Egyptian blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy describes him as the Mubarak of archaeology: "He is a dictator ... who cares as much about Egyptian antiquities as Mubarak cared about human rights."

Since being ousted from his post in 2011 he has been pursued by a number of legal claims in Egypt. Last June, an article in the Smithsonian magazine explained the situation thus:

"Hawass is still fighting the legal problems that ensnared him during the revolution. Last spring the prosecutor general banned him from traveling outside Egypt, pending investigation of dozens of charges of impropriety and corruption brought against him by a pair of former colleagues. 

"Hawass stands accused of wasting public money and exposing Egyptian antiquities to possible theft by shipping them overseas without permission. He gave up his National Geographic contract, an arrangement that paid him $200,000 a year, after questions were raised about possible conflict of interest. As antiquities chief, Hawass administered many sites that the Geographic used in its television programmes and other projects. (He insists that he left because 'I can make more money' without an exclusive arrangement for his lectures and books.)

"His relationship to the former first lady, Suzanne Mubarak, has also come under scrutiny. Investigators are probing his involvement in the Suzanne Mubarak Children’s Museum in Cairo (renamed the Children’s Civilisation and Creativity Centre when it opened in January 2012), which was funded by donations raised by Hawass on a lecture tour and funnelled into her charity. Hawass may have violated the law by using his public office to raise money for a private organisation. Hawass maintains that his relationship with Suzanne Mubarak was beyond reproach ...

"He had been assured that the travel ban had been lifted, he said, but the paperwork had fallen between the cracks during the political crisis: 'Egypt is in chaos now. Nobody cares about Zahi Hawass'."

At one level the Zahi Hawass story sounds like an all-too-familiar case of blurred lines between official and personal business – as illustrated by the Hawass menswear affair. While Hawass was 
in New York for the travelling King Tut exhibition the museum was 
specially opened up one night to provide the background for a photo-shoot of his new clothing brand.

In 2011, Hawass was sentenced to a year in jail (though not actually imprisoned) during a legal wrangle over a bookshop at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Hawass explained on his blog that this was the result of "a complete misunderstanding". According to another version of the story, Hawass was disgruntled that a profitable bookshop concession outside the museum entrance, renewable every three years, had been repeatedly won by a man called Farid Atiya.

"Hawass was so determined to block Atiya from winning again that he set out to build a second book shop on the western side of the museum, a prime location situated at the visitors' exit.

"Hawass’s intention was to rent the gift shop to a governmental company ‘Sound and Light’, responsible for displays at top tourist spots, they would in turn rent it to the AUC Press (American University in Cairo Press) championed by Hawass."

In another case, in 2012, an Egyptian court ruled that an agreement signed by Hawass to send 179 artefacts for exhibitions in the US (in exchange for $1.25 million) had violated Egypt's Antiquities Protection Act. This was illegal because the exhibitors concerned (which included National Geographic) were regarded as private institutions rather than museums and the agreement had not been signed by President Mubarak as required by the law.

Hawass's relationship with National Geographic, where he had the title "Explorer-in-Residence", has been frequently criticised by Alan Mairson, a former staff writer and editor for National Geographic who now runs the Society Matters blog which aims to provide "commentary and critique of the National Geographic Society’s broken business model".

Starting in 2001, Hawass signed a series of contracts with National Geographic, rising from an initial $80,000 a year to $200,000 a year over the following decade, according to the Vocativ article. By the standards of Egyptian salaries – even those of senior officials – these were enormous sums. However, Hawass says there was nothing illegal about this and he obtained Egyptian government approval. The article continues: 

"In his contract, Hawass had to indicate that his services for National Geographic – evidently a few lectures and some consulting projects – were outside his official duties as a government official. He also had to agree that his services were legal under Egyptian law."

The question for the US Justice Department, though, is whether National Geographic's payments infringed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by “securing any improper advantage”.

The article quotes Jessica Tillipman of the George Washington University law school as saying that it can be legal to pay a foreign bureaucrat as long as there’s no effort to sway his official duties but it is "potentially problematic" that National Geographic also did business with the government agency that Hawass ran. 

     
Posted by Brian Whitaker
Tuesday, 29 October 2013