Estimates of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's stolen fortune range as high as $70 billion, more than a third of the entire Egyptian economy. The media has been reporting steadfastly on those assets, the banks which hold them, and those who would freeze them.
One action group called Avaaz.org calls on G-20 nations and world leaders to 'immediately freeze any assets of the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, his family, and his circle of friends and advisers -- so they can be investigated and returned to the Egyptian people; and to provide cooperation and assistance to Egyptian authorities under Article 51 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.'
They circulated an email today, February 15, which calls on its members to sign a petition (nearly 60,000 signatures so far, and aiming for 500,000) which will be delivered to the G-20 summit finance ministers this Friday, with the proviso that the petition reaches half a million signatures.
They remind us:
Time is running out for world governments to freeze Mubarak’s assets before they disappear into a maze of obscure bank accounts -- like so many other dictators' stolen fortunes. Switzerland has already frozen his finances, and some EU ministers have offered help -- but without an immediate global outcry, action may come too slowly to stop the Mubarak billions from vanishing.
They also remind us that we have a responsibility to the brave people of Egypt, who risked, and some who lost, their lives to bring democratic reform to the country. As most Egyptians eke out a living under $2 per day, this corrupt regime cost Egypt more than $6 billion in public money per year.At the top are the Mubaraks, who have profited immensely from this corruption from a web of business deals, crony-capitalist privatization schemes, and state-guaranteed investments throughout Mubarak's 30 years as president.
Egypt's military government has already asked European Union governments to freeze Mubarak's fortune. The key question now is whether action will come fast enough: all the laws in the world won't help if the Mubarak billions are shuffled out of sight before authorities can seize them.
As a new beginning is dawning in Egypt, let us make sure that its people have the funds that rightly belong to them to help them rebuild.
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