MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your world with the world. Later in the broadcast, what Goldilocks has to do with discovering new planets. But first, last week, Egypt's military raided the offices of a dozen pro-democracy groups, some domestic and some international, taking computers, documents and cash. The raids come nearly a year after the start of the uprising that led to President Hosni Mubarak's ouster. And further complicates the countries ongoing process of electing a new government.

MR. KOJO NNAMDICritics say the coordinated raids in several cities reflect the militaries efforts to squash growing descent. They may also reflect an ongoing distaste for meddling by foreign organizations in Egypt's domestic politics. As American leaders decry the raids, political observers wonder whether the Obama administration will be forced to rethink American economic aid to Egypt. Joining us to discuss all of this is Samer Shehata, professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University. He joins us by phone from Washington. Samer Shehata, thank you for joining us.

MR. SAMER SHEHATAThanks for having me.

NNAMDIAlso joining us by phone from Tracy's Landing, Md., is Leslie Campbell, regional director of Middle East and North Africa programs for the National Democratic Institute. Leslie Campbell, thank you for joining us.

MR. LESLIE CAMPBELLIt's nice to be on, thanks.

NNAMDILes, I'll start with you. What happened last Thursday at the National Democratic Institutes offices in Cairo, Alexandria and Assiut? How did the raids unfold and what was taken?

CAMPBELLWell, just after noon on Thursday of last week, we -- as you mentioned, the three offices, Cairo, Alexandria and Assiut is a smaller city in Upper Egypt. Our staff, we had some staff working -- there's actually an election observer mission going on now and a few other activities. Our director was in the Cairo office. There was banging on the door, commotion, a number of, we think, probably dozens, little hard to count them, but dozens of armed men. Some unarmed, walked into the offices aggressively, herded the staff and the same thing happened in all three offices. Herded the staff into one room, prohibited them from making a phone call.

CAMPBELLOur director did ask if she could make a call to the American embassy, she's an American. She said she would like to inform them and they said, no, put down the phone. And then they proceeded to scour the offices and, as you mentioned, took away boxes and boxes of documents, books, personal computers, we think as many as 40 computers were taken from the three offices. We have about 58 Egyptian staff and most of them have either a personal or a NDI supplied computer.

CAMPBELLThey took safes, the ones that they could carry. They took money. We had some cash on hand, again, as we had an observer delegation in the country and there are a lot of expenses associated with things, the hotels and the travel and so on. And the whole procedure lasted between four and six hours, six hours in the large Cairo office, a little less in the other offices.

CAMPBELLIt was still -- it was well into the evening when they finished and after all of that, they let the staff go. No one was arrested, but as you can imagine, the whole experience with guns and the aggressive nature of it was rattled people considerably, particularly the Egyptian staff. But it was an experience that has never happened before. It certainly never happened in Egypt, not happened to that degree anywhere in the world. So it was a shock, to put it mildly.

NNAMDIWere those offices reopened? Was the property returned? Are those organizations now continuing their work?

CAMPBELLThe property has not been returned and the offices are not officially reopened. They sealed one office and they threatened to seal the others with wax. We've received mixed messages. There certainly has been a lot of diplomacy on behalf of Ambassador Anne Patterson and the U.S. government. We, you know, certainly have complained.

CAMPBELLWe filed a formal complaint with the police because there were also, I should've mentioned, no warrants, no inventory of the goods taken, no record of the goods taken. So we would like to be able to, you know, have a recording of this. But thus far, nothing has been returned. We do not have official confirmation of what was taken and we're tentative about using offices because the whole situation continues to be unsettled.

NNAMDILes, what does the National Democratic Institute do in Egypt and what does it have in common with the other groups whose offices were raided, some 17 groups?

CAMPBELLSure, well, NDI has been active in Egypt since around 1998, but we open an office in 2005 and we work in 65 countries around the world. We work on democracy assistance, which means training to political party activists, civil society people, particularly those engaged in election observation or election monitoring. We've helped in Egypt to train and give documentation, handbooks and so on to the thousands of Egyptians that are monitoring their own elections. We work -- we help to train candidates, for example, women running for office.

CAMPBELLWe do a lot of work around the world and, in Egypt, helping to expose women to the best practices at running for office. But we work in the field of democracy and all of the organizations that were raided are in a similar field. It's either democracy, advocacy for more democratic outcomes, working on the institutions that are part of democracy, civil society, parliaments, parties and all of the organizations were working in the same realm, roughly, which is in trying to provide assistance to help Egyptians who are trying to make the country more democratic.

CAMPBELLI should mention, because I think I have to be very clear about this, we do not fund and never have funded political parties. There's no partisan agenda. We're completely nonpartisan. We do not fund protests, we do not fund protestors. This is a long term development process to help the Egyptians who are trying to bring democracy to their own country.

NNAMDIIn case you're just joining us, we're talking about Egypt's military raids on pro-democracy groups and inviting your calls at 800-433-8850. Les Campbell is region director of Middle East and North Africa programs for the National Democratic Institute and Samer Shehata is a professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University. Samer, these raids come in the middle of the multi stage parliamentary elections and nearly a year after the start of the protests that led to President Hosni Mubarak's ouster. Why now?

SHEHATAWell, I think that there's really no explicit reason why they occurred on the day that they occurred. But if one steps back a moment, you can see that they are part of a larger pattern of attempting to intimidate those who have been critical of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military men in charge who have genuinely attempted to move the country toward democratization, who have called for a holding, those who have killed protestors accountable since Mr. Mubarak was ousted from office in February of last year.

SHEHATAAnd of course, they also come in the context of state violence against protestors. We saw this in the middle of November before the elections took place, beginning November the 19th, for about a week in Tahrir in which 40 civilians were killed in protests by state violence against them. Then again, last month in front of the prime minister's office and of course, many of your listeners will remember the violence directed against the female protestors last month which Hillary Clinton spoke out against.

SHEHATASo this is part of a larger multifaceted pattern, to intimidate individuals and organizations working for democratization in Egypt, working for free and fair elections, working for transparency, many of which have been critical of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in Egypt. And of course, right now, one of the most frequent chance in Tahrir, across Egypt, is no to military rule. We've had enough of the generals and we want civilians in charge, in a democratic Egypt. And I think that's also something that needs to be understood.

NNAMDILes Campbell, some people are saying that while Egypt's military will make amends with the large international groups whose offices it raided, it has successfully scared into submission the smaller domestic human rights and civil society groups. Do you think that's true?

CAMPBELLWell, I think there is some truth to that. You know, as much as we find it difficult and certainly nobody likes to be the subject of an armed raid, in the end, as an organization, we'll survive this. We have the ability, at least through diplomacy and through the media and so on, to fight back. We can, you know, receive more funding and so on. And so I think that really the focus should be on the local organizations on the Egyptians who will be much more intimidated. And to say that this will have a freezing effect, I think, would be to put it mildly.

CAMPBELLWe already know many of the organizations, the people, there's a lot of networking, of course, among the people working in the democracy or generally. And the people who weren't raided really believe -- they're waiting for the other shoe to drop. I mean, they are every day since Thursday, every morning, thinking, okay, is this the day that we're going to get it too? Because they really -- there was no real rhyme or reason to it in the sense that they hit a broad swaff. It's not like they were targeting, necessarily, just U.S. funded organizations. They also got European funded organizations.

CAMPBELLIt wasn't just international organizations, it was also local. And it wasn't just one type of organization. We're all working broadly in the democracy human rights arena, but each organization has a different specialty. So, yes, absolutely, I think if I were running a small Egyptian NGO right now, I would be really quite concerned about what was coming next.

NNAMDISamer Shehata, several of the groups that were raided are American. I have a two-part question for you. One, to what extent is there some public sentiment in Egypt that, I guess, looks with disfavor on foreign organizations, participating in democratic processes in Egypt? And, two, will this have any repercussions for the U.S.-Egypt relationship on the $1.3 billion in aid the U.S. gives to Egypt every year?

SHEHATASure. Well, the answer to the first question is, yes. There's certainly a significant segment of the Egyptian public. We couldn't really give a percentage that looks cynically or skeptically at many of these organizations, I think, incorrectly as being foreign interference in the domestic politics of Egypt. And of course, I think that the claims, of course, that the regime has made is that all of these organizations are in violation of Egyptian law because they have received foreign funding from external sources without going through the legitimate channels.

SHEHATABut more so and even quite absurdly, that -- and Les implied this in his earlier comment that they'd been encouraging protestors to go out onto the streets to participate in violence and to criticize the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. And of course, there's absolutely no indication that any of that has occurred. With regards to the second part of the question, it certainly has drawn the ire or at least the attention of high ranking American officials. Not only Ambassador Anne Patterson in Cairo, but Secretary Leon Panetta, also was on the phone with Field Marshall Tantawi, the Minister of Defense and the Head of the Supreme Council of the Armed forces.

SHEHATAAnd clearly there are senators who have also spoken out about this and have called into question the U.S.'s $1.3 billion of aid to Egypt military aid and so on. I don't think it's going to get to that. I think that the Egyptian military, which is dependent on U.S. military assistance, about 1/3 of its budget comes from that, is going to back down. But again, they certainly do not seem eager and, in fact, are quite reluctant to hand over power to a civilian authority. And they're also reluctant for all different kinds of reasons, for Egypt to fully democratize. They see that as imperiling their own interests. Many have said that they have blood on their hands.

SHEHATAThere have been more than 150 people who have been killed since Mubarak was ousted from power. They have deep interests in the Egyptian economy and I certainly don't think they want to see civilians in charge of Egyptian military, which, of course, is an essential part of democracy.

NNAMDIWell, you mentioned...

SHEHATASo when...

NNAMDI...you mentioned deep interests in the Egyptian economy. It's very hard to figure out from here, and Les Campbell feel free to jump in here, when one reads in the Washington Post that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is estimated to control somewhere between five and 45 percent of the economy without public scrutiny. How does that work?

CAMPBELLWell, this is probably a better question for Samer and I'll let him address that. I just wanted to say one thing about the SCAF, but just about some of the allegations that you mentioned, that I think is important. Excuse me, since -- first of all, India, as I mentioned, has been in Egypt a long time. We applied for official registration going through all of the hoops that the Egyptians put forward. It was confirmed to NDI from the foreign minister himself under the Mubarak regime that all of our papers were in order and in fact, we have had very good communication and the lines of communication have been open for years.

CAMPBELLSo the, you know, the idea that there's foreign interference or that these sort of bodies are unwelcome and are interfering, I think, is really on its face ridiculous because we have, in fact, had excellent communication with the foreign ministry, with the security forces and so on. The second thing is that, just as a small statistic, since April more than 6,000 Egyptians have taken part in NDI training programs. So people vote with their feet, we don't force this on people. In fact, we can't keep up with the demand for the type of training and the manuals and the different things that we do.

CAMPBELLIt's hard to know what the role of the military council is. We don't see this, even remotely, as a fight between NDI and the democracy organizations and the military at all. In fact, we, you know, from our point of view, Egyptians need to settle their political system. All we're doing, and we're certainly not taking a side in anything, is trying to give people the tools to participate within a democratic system.

CAMPBELLAnd obviously, that, you know, doesn't find favor with everyone. But I just want to make it very clear that we have no quarrel with the Egyptian government or the Egyptian military and never have had because we're with, you know, as the saying goes, we don't have a dog in that fight. But if Egyptians want exposure to how other democracies run or how, you know, how best to work within their own elections and so on, we can supply that information.

NNAMDIIndeed, Samer Shehata, what impact will these rates have on the ongoing elections in Egypt? What steps are still left in the process of choosing a new parliament and how can that new parliament affect in one way or another, the relationship between the armed forces and the Egyptian economy, getting back to the question I was raising earlier? What do you see as the concern of the Egyptian military in this?

SHEHATASure. Well, with regard to the first question about the impact on what's left of the Egyptian elections. There's still the third round of the elections for the Lower House of parliament, more importantly the People's Assembly. And then of course, beginning later on in January, the elections for the Upper House of parliament. The process is long, it's going to take until March. I don't think that the raids are going to, you know, impact the outcome of the elections. We've seen what the electoral outcomes have been in the first couple of rounds, (unintelligible) has done very well, the Muslim Brother and the Salafi party.

SHEHATABut certainly, possibly the ability to point to certain kinds of electoral violations in different places, I think it's going to have an impact in that. In the first couple of rounds, election observers or those witnesses and so on who have been around have pointed out all different kinds of electoral violations, some large and others not so large. So that's, I think, going to have an impact. With regard to the parliament, again, this is an issue of great concern. There have been numbers of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces who have tried to minimize the power of the future parliament.

SHEHATAIt's not going to be clear to what extent their going to have real legislative power or to what extent they're going to actually, going to be charged with forming the committee that's going to write the constitution or to what extent the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is going to retain that. This is an ongoing struggle and it really is the primary struggle, I think right now, in Egypt as many people try to transition the country towards democracy. Whether the military wants to see democracy in Egypt or what kind of democracy, I think is an open question.

NNAMDIAnd I'm afraid that's all the time we have. Samer Shehata is a professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University. Samer, thank you for joining us.

SHEHATAYou're welcome.

NNAMDILes Campbell is regional director of Middle East and North Africa programs for the National Democratic Institute. Leslie Campbell, thank you for joining us.

CAMPBELLThanks again for having me on, Kojo.

NNAMDIWe're going to take a short break. When we come break, what does Goldilocks have to do with discovering new planets? We'll find out. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.