Political Violence Grips Egypt From All Sides

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

political-violence1-629x415

Since the two-year anniversary of the January 25 Revolution, Egypt has seen numerous clashes between anti-government demonstrators and security forces.Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

Adam Morrow, Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Feb 17 (IPS) – Since the second anniversary of the uprising that ended the Mubarak regime, Egypt has witnessed a spate of political violence. Egypt’s opposition led by the high-profile National Salvation Front (NSF) blames President Mohamed Morsi for the bloodshed, but many blame the NSF and its leaders."The NSF’s slowness in condemning recent violence has made it appear to the public as if it were condoning – even inciting – acts of violence and sabotage," Amr Hashim Rabie, senior analyst at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS.

Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition, he added, "may pay the price for this perception in upcoming parliamentary elections."

The second anniversary of Egypt’s Jan. 25 Revolution and its aftermath have been accompanied by outbreaks of violence across the country. NSF-led rallies and marches have led to numerous clashes between anti-government protesters and police that have so far left more than 50 dead, including security personnel.

Monday Feb. 11, the second anniversary of Mubarak’s ouster, saw renewed skirmishes between aggressive protesters and police outside the presidential palace in Cairo. In what has become a new means of expressing political dissent, anti-government protesters also cut Cairo’s metro line and blocked the capital’s busy 6 October Bridge.

In recent months, the NSF – a loose coalition of opposition parties and groups headed by Amr Moussa, Hamdeen Sabbahi (both of whom lost to Morsi in presidential polls last summer) and Mohamed ElBaradei – has taken the lead in articulating the demands of Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition. These demands include amendment of Egypt’s new constitution, the appointment of a new government, and the dismissal of a Morsi-appointed prosecutor-general.

Opposition spokesmen have been quick to blame President Morsi for the recent bloodshed, along with the Muslim Brotherhood group from which he hails. But according to Rabie, most of the public – weary after months of political turmoil – holds the NSF-led opposition directly responsible for much of the ongoing violence and mayhem.

"Recent opinion polls show that most Egyptians blame the NSF for sowing chaos and inciting bloodshed, damaging property both public and private, and hurting the economy by damaging Egypt’s already-reeling tourism industry," he said.

Rabie attributed this perception to failures by the NSF to speedily condemn recent acts of violence and sabotage. "The NSF has been woefully slow in distancing itself from violent acts because it hasn’t wanted to alienate the non-peaceful activists who answered its calls for anti-government rallies."

Conversations with several average Egyptians appeared to support Rabie’s assertions.

"I had been planning to vote against the Brotherhood in upcoming parliamentary polls, but given the opposition’s recent aggressive behaviour, I’m going to give my vote to the Brotherhood candidate," said Karim, a 39-year-old Cairo physician who preferred not to give his last name.

Ahmed Kamel, spokesman for Amr Moussa (head of the liberal Conference Party and leading NSF member), rejected the notion that the public blamed the NSF for bloodshed.

Describing recent opinion polls to this effect as "unscientific," Kamel told IPS: "The NSF did not call for or incite any of the recent violence, at the presidential palace or elsewhere. The NSF simply voices the people’s demands."

But if the NSF wants to speak for people, "it should focus on electoral campaigning with a view to winning a majority in parliament," said Azab Mustafa, prominent member of both the Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). "Until then, it can’t claim to speak on behalf of ‘the people’."

Mustafa added: "The NSF should be trying to win over voters instead of calling for endless, potentially-violent demonstrations, which only serve to hurt the economy and give western critics a chance to say Egypt ‘isn’t ready for democracy’."

Kamel, for his part, responded by saying that the NSF was "more than ready" to contest elections as long as the polling was subject to "complete judicial and international oversight" and the Brotherhood "reveals all the sources of its campaign funding."

Recent political violence has also featured attacks on Brotherhood/FJP offices and on those of Brotherhood-affiliated government officials, garnering for the group and its party a measure of public sympathy. NSF-led rallies and marches, meanwhile, have frequently targeted the presidential palace, which during one recent demonstration was struck with a petrol bomb.

"Protesters have the right to demonstrate peacefully in public areas," said the Brotherhood’s Mustafa. "But most of the recent NSF-led marches in Cairo have specifically targeted the presidential palace, which Egyptian security forces are duty-bound to protect, and all these have inevitably ended in violence."

According to Rabie, the months-long conflict between the NSF-led opposition and the presidency has seen three major battles for public opinion.

The first over Morsi’s controversial November decree overriding the judiciary, and the second over December’s contentious constitutional referendu. These were, said Rabie, "both won by the opposition, with which much of the public sympathised."

But, he added, the presidency and the Brotherhood appear to have won the third round. "The NSF has succeeded in mobilising mass anti-Morsi rallies and marches, but the Brotherhood has won in terms of broad public sympathy, which could translate into electoral gains."

According to official statements, parliamentary elections are likely to be held in April or May.

Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls in late 2011 were swept by Islamist parties, chief among them the Brotherhood. The assembly was dissolved last summer on orders of the ruling military then, after Egypt’s High Constitutional Court ruled it illegitimate on a technicality.

This time around, Rabie expects Islamist parties to capture a smaller share than they did in 2011, when together they won almost three-quarters of parliament’s lower house. "But due to its superior organisation and electoral experience, especially in the case of the Brotherhood, the Islamist camp will likely maintain a parliamentary majority," he said.

"And if the NSF-led opposition maintains its current strategy of staging rallies that lead to clashes with police and impeding public transportation," Rabie added, "it will pay a heavy price at the ballot box."

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New Regime, Same Police Brutality

February 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Police-brutality-grafitti-IPS-573x472

Grafitti in Cairo showing police brutality. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

Cam McGrath

CAIRO, Feb 06 (IPS) – Graphic video footage of an Egyptian man being dragged naked across a street and beaten by riot police during a protest in Cairo has sparked outrage in Egypt and heightened calls for police reform, a key demand of the 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak.The video shows Hamada Saber, a 48-year-old painter, lying on the ground with his trousers around his ankles as police in riot gear strike him with batons and punch him in the face. After he stops moving, police officers drag him face down across the asphalt and attempt to bundle him into an armoured vehicle.

The incident has angered opposition and rights groups, which accuse President Mohamed Morsi of relying on the same brutal tactics as his predecessors to crush dissent.

“It’s shocking footage, but not surprising,” says activist Mohamed Fathy. “We have the same police force now as we did under Mubarak. There has been no serious effort to reform it.”

Saber was assaulted on Feb. 1 after clashes between police and anti-Morsi demonstrators near the presidential palace spilled over into the streets where he was shopping with his family. The violence followed a week of civil unrest across Egypt that left nearly 60 people dead and hundreds injured.

Many Egyptians accused the interior ministry of coercing Saber after he insisted in a televised interview from his bed in a police hospital that security forces had rescued him from protesters who had stripped and beaten him. His account contradicted the video evidence, as well as statements by eyewitnesses including members of his own family.

“That a citizen be dragged in a public space is a crime against humanity. That he be forced to amend his testimony before the Public Prosecution is tyranny,” rights lawyer Nasser Amin wrote on his Twitter account.

Saber later recanted his testimony, indicating that it was indeed the police who beat him. His son Ahmed told independent newspaper Al Shorouk that his father phoned him in tears and told him the police had “terrorised him” into giving a false account.

The public outcry over Saber’s ordeal was further heightened by news of the death of a 28-year old activist arrested by police on Jan. 27 during a protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Mohamed El-Guindy’s body showed marks of electrical shocks, strangulation, three broken ribs, a cracked skull and brain haemorrhage, according to a medical report.

Morsi’s government has promised to investigate reports of police torture and abuse. The president announced in a Facebook message that there will be “no return to rights abuses of citizens and their freedoms” of the Mubarak era.

But images of El-Guindy’s battered face and the video footage of police beating Saber have raised doubts, say rights groups.

“The Egyptian police continue to systematically deploy violence and torture, and at times even kill,” the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said in a report published on the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled Mubarak.

“There has been no thorough change, or even cosmetic improvement, in the police apparatus, whether related to its administrative structure, decision-making, oversight of police work or the reform and removal of leaders and personnel responsible for torture and killing,” the report said.

EIPR has documented at least a dozen people killed by police and 11 tortured inside police stations in the seven months since Morsi assumed presidency. Security forces are rarely held accountable, the report said.

Only two police officers have been jailed for the deaths of more than 800 protesters killed during the 2011 revolution. Over a hundred officers have been acquitted.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Morsi hails, has tried to distance the president from recent incidents of police abuse and torture. A group spokesman argued this week that Morsi needed more time to purge the police force of a culture that condoned the torture and humiliation of detainees, excessive use of force, and routine bribe-taking.

Yasser Hamza, a member of the Brotherhood’s legal committee, pointed the finger squarely at the interior minister. He said Egypt’s new constitution, hastily cobbled together and passed in a controversial referendum in December, absolves the president of accountability in cases of police abuse.

“Morsi bears no responsibility in cases of torture and killing of demonstrators according to the new constitution,” independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm quoted Hamza as saying.

He elaborated that the constitution stipulates that the cabinet is responsible for domestic matters, while the president only bears responsibility for foreign affairs.

Activists are not buying it. Some have accused Morsi of abandoning plans to reform the police because he needs a blunt instrument to secure his tenuous grip on power.

“The police are only good at one thing, beating and humiliating Egyptians,” says Mohamed Fathy, a member of the April 6 youth movement.

In a televised address last week, Morsi praised security forces for their crackdown on protests in the Suez Canal region that left dozens dead, including bystanders allegedly killed by police snipers. He described the protesters as thugs and Mubarak loyalists intent on toppling his democratically elected government.

He also announced a 30-day state of emergency in the Canal cities, granting security forces there arbitrary powers to detain or arrest civilians, in effect restoring the sweeping powers police enjoyed under Mubarak’s 29-year rule.

“Morsi gave the police a licence to use indiscriminate force against protesters,” says Fathy. “He shouldn’t be surprised that they did.”

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Egypt’s Morsi to Meet Judges over New Powers

November 26, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

AJ Correspondents

DOHA, Qatar, Nov 26 (Al Jazeera) – Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is set to meet senior judges on Monday to try to ease a crisis over his new powers which has set off protests reminiscent of the revolution last year that brought him to power.Activists on Sunday were camped in Cairo’s Tahrir Square for a third day, blocking traffic with makeshift barricades to protest against what they said was a power-grab by Morsi. Nearby, riot police and protesters clashed intermittently.

One Muslim Brotherhood member was killed and 60 people were injured late on Sunday in an attack on the main office of the movement in the Nile Delta town of Damanhour, the website of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party said.

More than 500 people have been injured in clashes between police and protesters worried Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood is trying to consolidate power.

The country’s highest judicial authority hinted at compromise to avert a further escalation, though Morsi’s opponents want nothing less than the complete cancellation of a decree they see as a danger to democracy.

The Supreme Judicial Council said Morsi’s decree should apply only to "sovereign matters", suggesting it did not reject the declaration outright, and called on judges and prosecutors, some of whom began a strike on Sunday, to return to work.

Morsi will meet the council on Monday, state media said.

Temporary measures

Morsi’s office repeated assurances that the measures would be temporary, and said he wanted dialogue with political groups to find "common ground" over what should go in Egypt’s constitution, one of the issues at the heart of the crisis.

Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University, saw an effort by the presidency and judiciary to resolve the crisis, but added their statements were "vague".

"The situation is heading towards more trouble," he said.

Sunday’s stock market fall of nearly 10 percent – halted only by automatic curbs – was the worst since the uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

Morsi’s supporters and opponents planned big demonstrations for Tuesday that could be a trigger for more street violence.

"We are back to square one, politically, socially," said Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities, an Egyptian brokerage firm.

Morsi’s decree marks an effort to consolidate his influence after he successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August, and reflects his suspicions of a judiciary little reformed since the fall of his predecessor.

Issued just a day after Morsi received glowing tributes from Washington for his work brokering a deal to end eight days of Israeli attacks on Gaza, the decree drew warnings from the West to uphold democracy.

‘Protect the revolution’

The Morsi administration has defended his decree as an effort to speed up reforms that will complete Egypt’s democratic transformation.

Yet leftists, liberals, socialists and others say it has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.

"There is no room for dialogue when a dictator imposes the most oppressive, abhorrent measures and then says ‘let us split the difference’," prominent opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei said on Saturday.

Morsi framed his decisions on Thursday as necessary to protect the revolution that toppled Mubarak nearly two years ago and to cement the nation’s transition to democratic rule.

Morsi also ordered the retrial of Mubarak and top aides on charges of killing protesters during the uprising.

"He had to act to save the country and protect the course of the revolution,” Pakinam al-Sharqawi, one of Morsi’s aides, said.

"It is a major stage in the process of completing the January 25th revolution,” she said, alluding to the starting day of last year’s uprising against Mubarak.

He also created a new "protection of the revolution” judicial body to swiftly carry out the prosecutions.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

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Mohamed Morsi’s Big Goal is New Egypt

November 26, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Eric Walberg* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

Revolutions are never tea parties. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have a clear vision and, along with the Salafis, represent the overwhelming majority of Egyptians. The fractious secular liberals and socialists plus the Christians represent only a quarter of Egyptians, and are united only against Mubarak and now against the MB. They include Mohamed ElBaradei, whose long international career, we should remember, was in the service of the imperial world order.

TORONTO (IDN) – At last Egyptian politics is moving. President Mohamed Morsi is slowly building on his summer ‘coup’, when he stared down Egypt’s generals and put his men in the top army and defence positions, following terrorist attacks in Sinai which the army, so old and bumbling, so involved in Egyptian internal politics, failed to prevent.

Now, he has stared down Israel’s generals, and dealt as an equal with President Barack Obama to bring U.S. pressure on Israel to back down in its planned invasion of Gaza. Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil was sent to Gaza on November 16 at the height of Israel’s current Operation Pillar of Cloud, forcing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call a unilateral truce to avoid killing the Egyptian leader.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rushed to Cairo to show Washington’s support for Morsi, making it clear that Obama was starting a new leaf, finally understanding who his real ally is in the Middle East, and putting Netanyahu in his place. There will be no repeat of Israel’s humiliation of Obama with the 2008 Operation Cast Lead.

Then, just hours after Morsi, the world’s wise peacemaker, waved good-bye to Hillary, but with his old-guard judiciary poised to dissolve the Constitutional Committee and destroy all hope for carrying the revolution forward, the unassuming president stared them down too, issuing a decree putting his decrees above judicial review.

And for the second time, he dismissed the procurator general, Abdel Meguid Mahmud, who has presided over the legal stonewalling of prosecutions of counterrevolutionaries – this time not backing down. The time for dawdling and letting criminals off the hook is over. The new prosecutor general, reformer Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah, has ordered a new trial of Mubarak and police and thugs let off scot-free by the old judiciary.

And watch out, Mubarak-appointed Supreme Constitutional Court, don’t you even think about disbanding the Constitutional Committee that is so painstakingly putting together a constitution. (Liberals and Christian secularists resigned from the committee, doing their best to sabotage it, revealing where their sympathies lie.) Or about disbanding the Shura Council on some technicality, as you did the lower house in May, in a conspiracy with the generals to sabotage the revolution.

The secularists should look at the writing on the wall. Egypt is a devout Muslim country, where Christians are protected by Islam and cultural liberals are tolerated. These Western-inspired forces will never prevail, so they should work with Islamists, not against them, if they want to maximize social harmony and their own rights.

Sadly, the opposition is increasingly siding with the Mubarak crowd. "President Morsi said we must go out of the bottleneck without breaking the bottle," presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said. The opposition would rather see the bottle break that get Egypt’s life blood flowing again.

Secularist onslaught

Islamic civilization has been endangered for centuries now, battered and undermined by the Western secularist onslaught. Finally, Muslims are doing something about it. Now the Egyptian revolution of 2011 – which is Islamic, as elections since then prove beyond a doubt – is in danger, and the Muslim Brotherhood is showing it has spine and smarts. In both assertions of presidential power since then – in August and November 2012 – Morsi used a brief window of opportunity to maximum effect. His decisive steps caught observers by surprise, but surprise is the essence of revolution. Waffling and compromise lead to paralysis.

Anyone who wants to be part of a new Egypt, to shake off the imperial yoke looking for inspiration in Islam, should be delighted and inspired. Instead, MB offices in Port Said and Ismailia and Suez were fire-bombed, and liberals and judges, reinforced by the Mubarak crowd – now more and more assertive – are demonstrating angrily at the high court in Cairo and the judges’ union has called a strike.

Some talk of impeaching the president as a traitor. The counterrevolutionaries are continuing to expose themselves. "The decisions I took are aimed at achieving political and social stability," Morsi explained, vowing to firmly enforce the law against hooligans hired by loyalists of the former regime to attack security forces, state and party institutions.

Under prosecutor Meguid, it was beginning to look like no one would be held to account for the tens of thousands who were tortured and killed during Mubarak’s reign, for the billions that were stolen, and the flagrant rigging of elections. The rich, corrupt old guard continue to pay thugs and unemployed to disrupt civic life, to bring discredit to the revolution. They have been doing this from day one and there is no reason to believe they have stopped.

No tea parties

Revolutions are never tea parties. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have a clear vision and, along with the Salafis, represent the overwhelming majority of Egyptians. The fractious secular liberals and socialists plus the Christians represent only a quarter of Egyptians, and are united only against Mubarak and now against the MB.

They include Mohamed ElBaradei, whose long international career, we should remember, was in the service of the imperial world order. He is a nice Arab, a laid-back, secular Muslim, no threat. How else could he have been appointed IAEA chief and crowned Nobel Peace Prize winner? Morsi has “usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh," ElBaradei pontificated.

Other dissidents include the also-rans in the June presidential elections. Morsi’s main rival, Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, fled Egypt in disgrace after the election, facing arrest on corruption charges, leaving behind Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi, ex-MBer Aboul Fotouh, and former Mubarak foreign minister Amr Moussa, who have teamed up to form the self-proclaimed “National Salvation Front” to oppose the presidential decree.

ElBaradei should be reminded there were great pharaohs, not just bad ones. Yes, "Morsi is a ‘temporary’ dictator", screams the headline in al-Masry al-Youm. There are times, especially during a revolution, when it is necessary to act decisively to save the revolution. The kind of paralyzed ‘democracy’ that the U.S. and the old guard in Egypt want would choke and stall the gains until cynicism reigns and the starving masses cry out for the old order.

What is key, is that the firm hand is an honest one, devoted to the people. Morsi’s kind are Egypt’s only hope now – selfless and God-fearing, not acting for personal gain or empire, but for the good of the people. He pledged to relinquish his new powers when the constitution is ratified four months from now, and there is no reason to doubt his word.

ElBaradei – Then and Now

Prior to the revolution in January 2012, ElBaradei too was a hero, a brave figure, able to shield himself from Mubarak’s secret police with his international prestige, the man who openly rallied Egyptians against tyranny. In the lead-up to the revolution, he acted in alliance with the MB, as later did Sabahi in the lead-up to the first post-revolution elections. They both underrated the real MB support and determination – and their own lack of standing with Egyptians – thinking that secularists would prevail in open elections, that they could make the MB abandon their program.

After the MB and Salafis chalked up 75% of the vote, the secularists suddenly found it impossible to accept their junior role in Egyptian politics. Rather than recognizing their own lack of credibility, and accepting the broad MB program while trying to salvage something from the secularist project, they have now drifted into alliance with the old guard and by implication their imperial allies abroad.

This is exactly what happened during the Russian revolution of 1917, where the political playing field shifted quickly, leaving key actors flummoxed. Alexander Kerensky too was a liberal ‘revolutionary’, until he fled to Paris, exposed as a reactionary anxious to appease the British and French and keep Russia in the criminal war which had inspired the revolution.

Speaking at a Cairo mosque, Morsi told worshippers Egypt was moving forward. "I fulfil my duties to please God and the nation. God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship. I don’t seek to grab legislative power.” It is ridiculous to accuse the mild-mannered Morsi of creating a dictatorial cult around himself. He is a man with a mission, but one which should gladden the hearts of all Egyptians: “We’re moving on a clear path, we are walking in a clear direction. And we have a big, clear goal: the new Egypt.”

The transition to the new Egypt will not be easy. The striking judges and brazen secularists, who flourished in the Mubarak era, will have to learn some self-restraint or go. Traditionally, revolutions lead to a house-cleaning through retirement, emigration, or in the worst case, through violence. When old elites team up with old and new mafias, they play with fire.

The Egyptian generals bowed out when their bluff was called. The prosecutor general and those eager to scuttle the real democratic process and the birth of the new constitution, with holier-than-thou words about the ‘independent’ judiciary, should do the same now and let the popularly-elected leader get on with the hard work of making sure the revolution is not strangled in the cradle.

* Eric Walberg is is author of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/ A version of this appeared at http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/25/274493/morsi-strengthens-grip-on-egypt-affairs/ IDN Viewpoints reflect opinions of respective writers, which are not necessarily shared by the IDN-InDepthNews editorial board. [IDN-InDepthNews – November 26, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Briefly President, Now Pharaoh

November 24, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Cam McGrath

CAIRO, Nov 24 (IPS) – When Mohamed Mursi was sworn in as president in June there were concerns that the first democratically elected president in Egyptian history would be subservient to the military council that had ruled the country since dictator Hosni Mubarak was toppled in early 2011.But by August, Mursi had pulled off a political coup, issuing a decree that purged the military of its leadership and left him in sole control of the government, with full executive and legislative authority. A decree issued Thursday expanded Mursi’s power even further, putting his decisions beyond dispute and neutralising the judiciary that was one of the last institutions challenging his Islamist government.

“Not since the days of the pharaohs has an Egyptian leader amassed so much power,” says Ahmed Hamid, an activist protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. “Even Mubarak never dared to go this far, and you saw what happened to him.”

Mursi’s decision to expand his own powers set off a political firestorm, exposing deep rifts between his supporters – predominantly members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other conservative Islamic groups – and the liberal and secular Egyptians who are his main opponents. Clashes erupted as the rival camps held demonstrations in cities across Egypt on Friday.

In a seven-article declaration, Mursi sacked the Mubarak-era prosecutor general and ordered new investigations and trials of all those accused of killing or injuring protesters since the start of last year’s uprising – a decision that could see Mubarak retried.

More contentiously, he declared the upper house of parliament and the constituent assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution immune from dissolution by any court. The move appears aimed at pre-empting the verdicts of ongoing legal challenges that could see either body declared unconstitutional.

Mursi gave the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly an extra two months to draft a new constitution to replace the one suspended after Mubarak’s ouster. He ordered work to continue despite resignations by almost all of the assembly’s secular and Christian representatives, which have cost it much of its legitimacy.

Presidential spokesman Yasser Ali announced on national television that Mursi’s expanded powers were necessary to “protect the revolution’s gains” and end the stalemate with the judiciary that has stalled Egypt’s democratic transition. He said the presidential decree was aimed at “cleansing state institutions” and “destroying the infrastructure of the former regime.”

Egyptians who fought to bring down Mubarak’s authoritarian regime were particularly alarmed by a clause in the decree that states the president’s decisions cannot be suspended or revoked by any authority. Banners carried by protesters warned that Mursi had become “the new pharaoh.”

“The decree effectively renders presidential decisions final and not subject to the review of judicial authorities, which may mark the return to Mubarak-style presidency, without even the legal cosmetics that the previous regime employed to justify its authoritarian ways,” journalist Hesham Sallam wrote in an op-ed piece.

Mursi also granted himself the authority to take “any measures he sees fit in order to preserve and safeguard the revolution, national unity or national security.”

The clause assigns the president broad and only vaguely defined powers. Some activists drew comparisons to emergency laws under Mubarak that allowed security forces to arbitrarily arrest, torture and imprison political dissidents with impunity.

“Protesting here today against Mursi could be viewed as a ‘threat’ to the revolution or national unity,” says protester Mustafa Abbas, a primary school teacher. “This is a dangerous article that opens the door for witch hunts of the president’s opponents.”

Mursi’s declaration evoked strong reactions across Egypt, filling squares with demonstrators and reviving the spirit and slogans of the uprising last year that toppled Mubarak.

“The people want the downfall of the regime,” protesters chanted in Cairo.

And in a scene reminiscent of the heady days of the revolution, television stations used split screens to cover Friday’s pro- and anti-government rallies. As riot police rained tear gas down on his critics in Tahrir Square, Mursi triumphantly took the stage at a rally organised by the Muslim Brotherhood, claiming the mantle of the revolution.

“I never sought legislative authority and I would never use it to settle scores, but if my people, my nation, or Egypt’s revolution are in danger then I must,” he said.

Hoping to assuage fears, Mursi promised to relinquish his supplementary powers once a new constitution is adopted and a new parliament elected.

Nathan J. Brown, an expert on Egyptian law and politics at George Washington University, interpreted the underlying message: “I, Mursi, am all powerful. And in my first act as being all powerful, I declare myself more powerful still. But don’t worry – it’s just for a little while.”

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Gaza Assault Shows a New Egypt

November 24, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Adam Morrow, Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Nov 23 (IPS) – The reaction of post-revolution Egypt to Israel’s weeklong onslaught on the next-door Gaza Strip – brought to a halt temporarily at least by a Wednesday night ceasefire – has contrasted sharply with the former regime’s callous approach to the besieged coastal enclave."The Mubarak regime unashamedly participated in Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip, never missing an opportunity to pressure Hamas," Tarek Fahmi, Israel affairs expert at the Cairo-based National Centre for Middle East Studies told IPS. "Egypt’s new leadership, by contrast, has expressed its unconditional support for Hamas and the people of Gaza, and actively tried to lift the siege."

President Mohamed Mursi became Egypt’s first freely elected head of state this summer, some 16 months after the ouster of longstanding president Hosni Mubarak. Mursi hails from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, of which the Palestinian resistance faction Hamas – which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007 – is an ideological offshoot.

Unlike his predecessor, and most Western leaders, Egypt’s new president was quick to denounce the latest round of Israeli bloodletting. In his weekly Friday sermon on Nov. 16, Mursi vowed that Egypt would not leave the Gaza Strip "on its own" to face Israel’s "shameless aggression."

In a clear reference to post-revolution foreign policy changes, he went on to assert: "Egypt today is very different than the Egypt of yesterday."

The latest violence was triggered by Israel’s assassination on Nov. 14 of a top Hamas commander, to which Gaza-based resistance groups responded by firing salvoes of rockets. The subsequent week of unremitting Israeli bombardments – from air, land and sea – left more than 150 Palestinians dead, the vast majority civilians, and hundreds more seriously injured.

In the same period, five Israelis were killed by rocket fire from Gaza. Several more were reported injured.

Following announcement of the ceasefire, Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal expressed gratitude to Mursi for Egypt’s role in mediating an end to the violence. He also thanked the Egyptian president for the latter’s "decisions and approach to Israel’s latest aggression on Gaza."

Since the crisis first began, Egypt’s reaction has not been confined to strongly worded statements.

On the first day of the onslaught, Cairo announced the withdrawal of its ambassador to Israel, while Mursi called on the UN Security Council and the Cairo-based Arab League to hold emergency meetings. Two days later, Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil paid a brief visit to the beleaguered territory in a show of solidarity.

Egypt also opened the Rafah border crossing, the strip’s only link to the outside world (since its 2005 ‘unilateral withdrawal’ from the territory, Israel has kept its border with the strip hermetically sealed). Passengers and cargo, including desperately needed medical supplies, are now flowing from Egypt into the strip, while injured Palestinians are being brought into Egypt for medical treatment.

According to Fahmi, the reaction of Egypt’s new Islamist leadership to the latest crisis in Gaza corresponds to Mursi’s – and by extension the Muslim Brotherhood’s – stated positions on the perennial Arab-Israel conflict.

"Mursi’s reaction is in line with his campaign platform and his post-election statements on the issue," Fahmi explained, "in which he said that Egypt under his leadership would directly support the Palestinian people against Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine and work to secure Palestinian national aspirations."

The Egyptian response to the current crisis contrasted starkly with the Mubarak regime’s reaction to Israel’s 2008/09 ‘Cast Lead’ offensive. Over the course of that three-week-long onslaught almost four years ago, in which Israel used internationally banned weapons, some 1,500 Palestinians – mostly civilians – were killed and thousands more injured.

Despite the ferocity of the Cast Lead assault, Mubarak’s Egypt had kept the Rafah border crossing tightly sealed. Not even Palestinians suffering life-threatening injuries had been allowed into Egypt for medical treatment.

"At the behest of the U.S. and Israel, Mubarak completed the Zionist blockade of the strip – even at the height of the Cast Lead massacre – in hopes of destroying Hamas," Magdi Hussein, political analyst and former head of Egypt’s Islamist-leaning Labour Party told IPS.

"Mursi, by contrast, openly supports the resistance in Gaza and began taking steps to open the border even before the latest aggression," added Hussein, who was jailed for two years under Mubarak for crossing into the strip without permission during Israel’s 2008/09 assault.

Notably, Mursi has also shifted Egyptian support from the Palestinian Fatah movement, which leads the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, to Hamas in Gaza.

"Egypt now supports Hamas, to which the Brotherhood is affiliated ideologically and which espouses a strategy of armed resistance," said Fahmi. "The Mubarak regime had supported Hamas’s bitter rival Fatah, which had insisted on holding fruitless ‘peace talks’ with Israel that utterly failed to improve the Palestinians’ position."

Egyptian support for the people of Gaza – and the resistance based there – has hardly been confined to official circles.

On Sunday, a convoy including hundreds of Egyptian activists of all political stripes briefly visited the strip to express solidarity with their beleaguered Palestinian brethren. Two days earlier, pro-Gaza rallies held across Egypt drew tens of thousands, while Egyptian political groups from across the spectrum are calling for an even bigger mass protest this Friday.

But while Egypt’s Gaza policy has changed fundamentally since last year’s revolution, that of the international community has apparently not. As was the case during Israel’s Cast Lead assault four years ago, the UN Security Council failed to issue a resolution calling for an end to hostilities.

On Tuesday (Nov. 20), one day before the ceasefire announcement, the U.S. blocked a UN Security Council statement condemning the escalating violence.

"Some European capitals appear more sympathetic to Hamas and Gaza this time around," said Fahmi. "Washington’s support for Israel, however, as during Cast Lead, appears to be total."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Commentary, Conflict, Foreign Affairs, Middle East, Politics Tagged With: , ,

There’s Bride at the End of the Tunnel

August 27, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Sanjay Suri

Aug 27 (IPS) – Mai Ahmed, a 26–year-old from the West Bank fell in love over the Internet with Mohammed Warda from Nussirat refugee camp in Gaza after they ‘met’ on the Internet. The Israeli government refused permission for her to travel to Gaza. Mai travelled to Jordan, flew from there to Egypt, drove across the Sinai, and then crossed through a tunnel into Gaza, where she now lives. “It’s a story I will tell my grandchildren,” she says.Brides and bridegrooms are now being smuggled through the Gaza tunnels, to add to the usual fare of medicine, food, bread, refreshments, car parts, cement, and fish and sheep.

Abu Saleem, a 29-year-old digger at the Gaza tunnels under the border with Egypt says he is seeing an increasing number of brides coming in from Egypt, and grooms being smuggled through the other way. Only last week he received a phone call from his boss asking him to assist a young Egyptian bride on way to her groom in Gaza.

It’s cheaper to find a bride in Egypt than in Gaza.

Adel Al-Ahmed, 37, is happy with his Egyptian wife Shymaa after he found he could not afford the dowry for a Gaza girl. “It is relatively cheaper dowry in some areas in Egypt, and there is more acceptance by some young Egyptian women to live in simple and modest conditions,” he says.

Difficulties obtaining travel permits and visas have made the tunnels a lifeline to cross to and from Egypt. A recent side effect is the increasing number of Gaza youths who leave the 140 square kilometre Gaza strip to search for brides.

Tunnel owners in Rafah would earlier transport women and children like cargo in re-fashioned barrels. Now, people crawl or walk, depending on the structure of the tunnel.

The tunnels are considered illegal in Egypt, but are a vital part in the life and commerce on both the Gazan and the Egyptian side. Palestinians consider the tunnels a legitimate trade and passenger route under the Israeli siege.

The Israeli government says the tunnels facilitate illegal smuggling, and routinely sends F-16 fighter jets to destroy them.

That makes marital unions a risky business. Brides and grooms using tunnel access also require a permit from the de facto government in Gaza, or the tunnel owner can be fined 1,500 dollars.

Adel married a Palestinian girl, but divorce followed due to “family demands”. He has since remarried after finding a new bride through his sister, who married an Egyptian in El-Arish.

“I went to a wedding in Egypt, and was introduced to a wonderful young woman who I later married.” Adel took the tunnel route. Once married the young couple had to crawl to Gaza on their hands and knees for about 200 metres in a tunnel to cross the border.

With the money he saved in paying an Egyptian rather than a Palestinian dowry, Adel could furnish an apartment in Rafah. “I would advise Gaza youth to get married to Egyptian women,” he says.

Adel paid 30,000 Egyptian pounds (about 5,000 dollars) in dowry, but the conditions of marriage are “way easier and less demanding.”

Many have ventured as Adel did. Ahmed, who gave only his first name, crossed into Egypt though a tunnel and met a young Egyptian woman while visiting relatives. A few weeks later he returned and asked his family to propose to her. “Tunnels have made it easier for me to get married outside of Gaza,” he tells IPS.

Ahmed had proposed earlier to young Palestinian women in Gaza, but he was asked for a separate apartment as a condition to marriage. “This demand never happens when I, or my friends, ask for the hand of an Egyptian girl.”

Hadeel, a young Palestinian woman from Rafah in her mid-twenties became friends with an Egyptian girl during an official NGO visit. A few months later Hadeel’s friend informed her that her brother and family would like to visit Gaza through the tunnel.

They came over and Hadeel met her friend’s brother. Several tunnel visits later, he proposed. They are due to get married in October. Hadeel will move to Egypt.

For many Gazans, there is both love, and light, at the end of these tunnels.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Culture, Human Rights, Middle East, Politics, Report Tagged With: , , , , ,

Egypt Continues March to Democracy

January 18, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

Woman casting her vote By Ernest Corea*

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – As the January 23 deadline for the inauguration of Egypt’s first post-Mubarak People’s Assembly (parliament) approaches, the thoughts of politically conscious Egyptians must inevitably turn to the conundrums that lie beyond the recently concluded elections. Prominent among these is the role of the military as the country continues – or attempts to continue – its transition from oligarchic military rule to a nascent democracy.

President Jimmy Carter’s account of how the military views its place in the political structure confirms the crucial nature of this issue. Briefly, the military’s approach is: Yes, but. (Carter who was in Egypt as an election monitor had wide ranging discussions with key political figures.).

Al Jazeera reported that following his contacts with the leadership of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Carter said: "The military would like to transfer full control and authority to elected officials." In his assessment, however, "the military wished to continue to have a political role."

Carter explained: "When I met with military leaders, my impression was they want to have some special privilege in the government after the president is elected," and added his own belief that "the military should be completely subservient to the elected civilian officials".

There you are: Yes, but.

Power Role

The SCAF concept of a democratically elected regime co-existing with an authoritarian military power within the same national power structure appears unworkable. SCAF, it would seem, wants the country to be "slightly democratic."

The armed services, however, appear to be confident about their own strength and unity. This is confirmed by the announced visit to Libya of SCAF head Field Marshal Tantawi. Military leaders who fear that their back is exposed rarely leave home.

On top of SCAF’s desire to retain a power-role, the post-Mubarak conduct of the military has been fraught with dangers to civil liberty, as assessed by Amnesty International in its 2011 report on the Middle East and North Africa.

Although SCAF "pledged repeatedly to deliver on the demands of the January 25 revolution, " Amnesty International "found that they had in fact been responsible for a catalogue of abuses that was in some aspects worse than under Hosni Mubarak.

"The army and security forces have violently suppressed protests, resulting in at least 84 deaths between October and December 2011. Torture in detention has continued while more civilians have been tried before military courts in one year than under 30 years of Mubarak’s rule."

Time to Celebrate

Carter found that 900 claims of election malpractices were made. At the same time, there was much violence during the election period, some of it demonstrably by or with the connivance of the military.

Nevertheless, despite all the difficulties up to now and those that might lie ahead, "the march to democracy has started. These (the elections) are the first fruits of our revolution of January 25. It is time to celebrate. But it is also time to pay homage to the dead and wounded who made this possible. The fallen must never be forgotten," Ismail Serageldin, a distinguished Egyptian intellectual, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and formerly a Vice President of the World Bank, told IDN via email.

Elections to the People’s Assembly have been completed, and figures released up to January 9 (i.e. excluding the results of run-off elections held January 10-11) show the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, ahead of other contestants, with a haul of 193 seats out of 498. (Ten more members of the Assembly will be nominated by the President, bringing total Assembly membership to 508.)

The Salafist Al Nour, a conservative Islamist group, was second with 108 seats. Other parties or coalitions that reached double figures were Al Wafd with 38 seats, Egyptian Block (30), Reform and Development (11) and the Revolution Continues (10).

The key responsibility of the Assembly in the coming months will be to choose a 100-member constitutional council that will draft the country’s post-dictatorship constitution. The extent to which SCAF keeps its hands off the selection of the council and its deliberations will provide a very clear indication of how interventionist its continuing conduct will be.

Highest Turnout

Egypt’s parliamentary elections were held in three rounds as there are insufficient judges to monitor all the polling stations in the country simultaneously. Forty seven political parties, some of them loose-knit coalitions of like-minded groups, fielded over 6000 candidates in all.

A second three round election will be held from January 29 to March 11 to select the 270 members of Egypt’s upper house, the Shura Council. The country’s new president is expected to be elected in June.

Even at this stage, however, reaction within Egypt to the transition, long drawn out as it is, from a dictatorship to a democracy grounded in the will of the people, is one of great enthusiasm.

Serageldin captures that spirit when he says:

"The wide spread of political ideas represented in the election campaign is great. Democracy is about pluralism, and pluralism is about differences of views. The point is to settle these differences through the ballot box, not by confrontation in the streets. Egypt needs us all…."

Some 62 percent of eligible voters (over 8 million people) participated in the first round. Compare this with voter turnout in US federal elections of 56.8 percent in 2008 and 37.1 percent in 2006.

"This is the highest turnout in Egypt’s history since pharaonic times until now," said Abdel Moez Ibrahim, the head of Egypt’s Elections High Commission.

Reaching Out

Throughout the election campaign, the FJP and its originator the Muslim Brotherhood, said that their goal is to create a free, secular state. Much now depends on the extent to which they govern by that assurance.

The Muslim Brotherhood knows that it has achieved a high level of acceptance in society partly as compensation for the suffering it endured under the Mubarak regime, and also because of the social and economic support it provided the poor through efficient and effective networks of health clinics, schools, and other social services.

Expectations of systemic expansion and improvement among those who benefited from these services will be high. This, at a time when Egypt is trying to climb back to the annual GDP growth rate of 7 percent it achieved before it felt the impact of global recession. So this is not a time for ideology but for ideas that can generate action.

It is a time for consensus building and a time for reaching out to combine the various strands of the country’s substantial human resources. The world saw what they could achieve together, during the January revolution. But uniting is not going to be easy, particularly after a hard-fought election.

Political parties elected to the Assembly have demonstrated their commitment – at this stage, at any rate – to consensus building, by agreeing to share leadership positions in the Assembly.

A kind of olive branch has, meanwhile been extended to the armed services, through unofficial but distinct speculation about amnesty to the military for past actions.

Changing Course

Internationally, it will be difficult for governments and institutions that played footsie with Mubarak’s dictatorship and sustained it, all in the name of "stability," to change course and move into a realistic relationship, based on mutual interests, with a new, post-Mubarak government.

The Government of Israel, already isolated, and now reportedly building a barrier along the Sinai border, will be concerned that Egypt could reject existing bilateral agreements in spite of the assurance by the Muslim Brotherhood and other political entities that they will not.

The US in particular will face tough challenges ahead. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton considered Mubarak a "family friend", she told Al Arabiya in 2009. She will now have to forge a new kind of friendship with whoever becomes her potential partner in the next Egyptian government.

A positive sign is that the US Government has already made contact with the Muslim Brotherhood, thus rejecting the course of antagonism followed by the Bush Administration in reacting to the election victory in Gaza by Hamas, a fraternal party of the Brotherhood.

The US Government has poured billions of dollars into Egypt since the Camp David accords were signed. Most of those aid funds went to Egypt’s armed services. Can the US Government and, in particular, the military, find an effective means of using that relationship as leverage to ensure that the Egyptian military does not stand in the way of genuine progress?

Then, of course, there is the brooding, "1000-lb gorilla" encircling the US-Egypt relationship: the issue of Palestinian rights and security. Any Egyptian government that is created by the will of the people will be supportive of the Palestinian cause. That new reality has to be understood and appreciated. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent assertion that Israel must “get to the damn table” is a small but well noted first move.

Free and Just Society

Egypt has launched a process of significance to itself, to the region, and to the international community. Whether that process results in the creation of a truly free and just society will depend very much on the Egyptians themselves. They have, throughout the revolution that tragically took so many lives but dislodged the jackboot of dictatorship, managed their affairs with dedication and skill. There is no reason why they should not continue to manage their post-revolution process in similar fashion.

But, given the world’s interdependence, they cannot possibly succeed entirely on their own. They will need and deserve all the support they can muster.

[Ernest Corea] *The writer has served as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and the USA. He was Chairman of the Commonwealth Select Committee on the media and development, Editor of the Ceylon ‘Daily News’ and the Ceylon ‘Observer’, and was for a time Features Editor and Foreign Affairs columnist of the Singapore ‘Straits Times’. He is Global Editor of IDN-InDepthNews and a member of its editorial board as well as President of the Media Task Force of Global Cooperation Council. [IDN-InDepthNews – January 18, 2012]

Copyright © 2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Commentary, Middle East, Politics Tagged With: ,

Egypt’s March To Democracy Moves On

December 6, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

Collage of election pictures By Ernest Corea

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – "This first round (of post-Mubarak elections in Egypt) was truly great. No violence, good participation, many candidates. Orderly queues, waiting hours if need be….It is a most promising start for a new future. The people are participating in very large numbers in an orderly, free and fair election and that is the most important thing…

"The march to democracy has started. These are the first fruits of our revolution of January 25. It is time to celebrate. But it is also time to pay homage to the dead and wounded who made this possible. The fallen must never be forgotten," Ismail Serageldin, a distinguished Egyptian intellectual, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and formerly a Vice President of the World Bank, told IDN via email.

The first round of elections to the lower house of parliament, known as the People’s Assembly, was held on November 28 and 29. Complete results were not available at the time of writing (December 3) because, as Al Jazeera reported quoting election officials, only a small number of candidates won outright. Others failed to reach the required minimum of 50 percent. Runoffs will therefore be held shortly.

Already, however, representatives of political parties who have been monitoring the voting and conducting exit polls, see an emerging trend of an ascendant Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, followed by the Salafist Al Nour, a conservative Islamist group and, trailing behind them, the liberal-secular Egyptian Bloc.

The People’s Assembly will consist of 508 members, 498 elected by the people and 10 appointed by the president. Members will serve five-year terms. A key responsibility in the coming months will be to choose a 100-member constitutional council to draft the country’s post-dictatorship constitution.

Highest Turnout

Egypt’s parliamentary elections are held in three rounds as there are insufficient judges to monitor all the polling stations in the country simultaneously. The first round of elections to the People’s Assembly will be followed by two more rounds on December 14 and January 3, 2012. Forty seven political parties, some of them loose-knit coalitions of like-minded groups, are fielding over 6000 candidates in all.

A second three round election will be held from January 29 to March 11, 2012 to select the 270 members of Egypt’s upper house, the Shura Council. The country’s new president is to be elected in June.

Even at this stage, however, with elections far from complete, reaction within Egypt to the transition, long drawn out as it is, from a dictatorship to a democracy grounded in the will of the people, is one of great enthusiasm.

Serageldin captures that spirit when he says:

"The wide spread of political ideas represented in the election campaign is great. Democracy is about pluralism, and pluralism is about differences of views. The point is to settle these differences through the ballot box, not by confrontation in the streets. Egypt needs us all…."

Some 62 percent of eligible voters (over 8 million people) participated in the first round. Compare this with voter turnout in US federal elections of 56.8 percent in 2008 and 37.1 percent in 2006.

"This is the highest turnout in Egypt’s history since pharaonic times until now," said Abdel Moez Ibrahim, the head of Egypt’s Elections High Commission.

No Women Elected

A successful post-dictatorship election (assuming it will be) does not resolve all the issues that inspired Egypt’s pro-freedom revolution. For instance, while there have been no indications or allegations of malpractice by election officials, the election process itself has caused some unhappiness among younger voters because officials who were in charge of holding elections in the past continue to be managing the process even now.

This negative mood is aggravated by concerns that the military who are still calling the shots will try every trick in the book, and some that are not in the book, to perpetuate their power, leaving the elected parliament to function as a powerless talking shop.

If the current electoral trend is confirmed by final results – and most observers, local and foreign are convinced that it will be – that is bound to discourage liberal-secularists who were in the vanguard of the movement that toppled Mubarak.

Women, in particular, who found new roles for themselves in the pro-democracy movement, must necessarily be concerned that a conservative government might want to introduce and enforce laws that give women a subservient place in society. They cannot find comfort in (unconfirmed) reports that no women were elected in the first round.

Reaching Out

Countering these"amber warning signs" on Egypt’s political pathway is the fact that the FJP and its originator, the Muslim Brotherhood, said throughout the election campaign that their goal is to create a free, secular state. Much now depends on the extent to which they govern by that assurance.

The Muslim Brotherhood knows that it has achieved a high level of acceptance in society partly as compensation for the suffering it endured under the Mubarak regime, and also because of the social and economic support it provided the poor through efficient and effective networks of health clinics, schools, and other social services.

Expectations of systemic expansion and improvement among those who benefited from these services will be high. This, at a time when Egypt is trying to climb back to the annual GDP growth rate of 7 percent it achieved before it felt the impact of global recession. So this is not a time for ideology but for ideas that can generate action.

It is a time for consensus building and a time for reaching out to combine the various strands of the country’s substantial human resources. The world saw what they could achieve together, during the January revolution. But uniting is not going to be easy, particularly after a hard-fought election.

Changing Course

Internationally, it will be difficult for governments and institutions that played footsie with Mubarak’s dictatorship and sustained it, all in the name of "stability," to change course and move into a realistic relationship, based on mutual interests, with a new, post-Mubarak government.

The Government of Israel, already isolated, and now reportedly building a barrier along the Sinai border, will be concerned that Egypt could reject existing bilateral agreements in spite of the assurance by the Muslim Brotherhood and other political entities that they will not.

The US in particular will face tough challenges ahead. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton considered Mubarak a "family friend", she told Al Arabiya in 2009. She will now have to forge a new kind of friendship with whoever becomes her potential partner in the next Egyptian government.

The US Government has poured billions of dollars into Egypt since the Camp David accords were signed. Most of those aid funds went to Egypt’s armed services. Can the US Government and, in particular, the military, find an effective means of using that relationship as leverage to ensure that the Egyptian military does not stand in the way of genuine progress?

Then, of course, there is the brooding, "1000-lb gorilla" encircling the US-Egypt relationship: the issue of Palestinian rights and security. Any government that is created by the will of the people will be supportive of the Palestinian cause. That new reality has to be understood and appreciated. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent assertion that Israel must “get to the damn table” is a small but well noted first step.

Free and Just Society

With the elections now in progress, Egypt has launched a process of significance to itself, to the region, and to the international community. Whether that process results in the creation of a new and just society will depend very much on the Egyptians themselves. They have, throughout the revolution that tragically took so many lives but dislodged the jackboot of dictatorship, managed their affairs with dedication and skill. There is no reason why they should not continue to manage their post-revolution process in similar fashion.

But, given the world’s interdependence, they cannot possibly succeed entirely on their own. They will need and deserve all the support they can muster. [IDN-InDepthNews – December 4, 2011]

Ernest Corea’s previous IDN articles:

http://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/search?searchword=ernest%20corea&ordering=newest&searchphrase=all

Picture: Collage of election picturess | Credit: Carnegie Endowment

Copyright © 2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Elections, Middle East, Politics, Report Tagged With: ,

EGYPT: It’s January Again in Tahrir Square

November 23, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Nov 23, 2011 (IPS) – Days of clashes between protesters and security forces culminated on Tuesday evening in what was estimated to be a million-man rally in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand an end to military rule. The new political crisis has prompted fears that Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls, slated to begin only five days from now, could be called off.

"There have been running street battles between police and protesters for the last four days," Ashraf Barouma, president of the centrist Kenana Party, told IPS. "How can elections be held under these circumstances?"

On Friday (Nov. 18), hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Tahrir Square to protest the policies of Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has governed the country since the February departure of ousted president Hosni Mubarak. Along with demanding presidential elections next year, protesters voiced their rejection of a raft of government-proposed "supra-constitutional principles" granting the military exceptionally broad powers.

At the end of the day, protesters – most of whom were of Islamist orientation – packed up their tents and left the square. Several dozen people, however, including the families of some of those killed in the January uprising, remained in the square overnight.

The crisis began the following morning, when security forces abruptly broke up the modest sit-in with unexpected ferocity. When Egypt’s activist community got wind of the episode, mainly through social- networking media, protesters soon began arriving at the square in the hundreds, then thousands.

For the next three days, downtown Cairo witnessed sights unseen since the 18-day uprising in January, as pitched battles raged between the interior ministry’s Central Security Forces – relying on the liberal use of teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition – and roving bands of stone-throwing activists.

On Monday, security forces withdrew from the square, leaving it in the hands of tens of thousands of protesters – including many from major political parties and revolutionary youth groups – who vowed not to leave until their mounting grievances were addressed. Skirmishes, meanwhile, continued on adjacent streets, as protesters made repeated attempts on the nearby interior ministry building before being repulsed by security forces.

As of Tuesday night, more than 25 protesters had been reported killed and more than 1,000 seriously injured.

"What is happening now shows that the interior ministry is still willing to use the same violent tactics against unarmed protesters as it did under the Mubarak regime," Moustafa Abdel Moneim, general coordinator of the Bedaya youth movement, told IPS.

But the mounting death toll appears to have only steeled protesters’ resolve.

"The fall of all these martyrs has served to unify our ranks and make us more resolute in our demand for a speedy transition to civilian rule," said Abdel Moneim, who has remained in the square since Saturday.

Protesters, he explained, were demanding the formation of a revolutionary government with full powers to manage Egypt’s current transitional phase; the creation of a civilian presidential council; and the immediate prosecution of security officers responsible for killing protesters.

The Bedaya youth movement, along with 36 other revolutionary youth groups, has declared an open- ended sit-in in Tahrir Square until their demands are met. By Tuesday night, hundreds of thousands – some say more than a million – had converged on the square in Egypt’s biggest mass demonstration since the uprising in January.

At about 8 pm, under mounting pressure to issue a statement, SCAF chief Field-Marshal Hussein Tantawi finally delivered a televised address in which he announced a small handful of concessions. Looking drawn, Tantawi declared that he had accepted the government’s collective resignation and promised presidential elections no later than June of next year.

Notably, he went on to reiterate the SCAF’s commitment to holding next week’s parliamentary elections on schedule.

Many political figures, however, dismissed the resignation of the government – which was appointed by the SCAF in the wake of the revolution – as insignificant.

"This resignation doesn’t mean anything since the government had acted as little more than a secretary to the SCAF, which continues to serve as Egypt’s de facto ruler," Magdi Sherif, president of the recently- licensed Haras al-Thawra (Guardians of the Revolution) Party, told IPS.

Protesters in Tahrir Square, meanwhile, entirely rejected Tantawi’s statement, vowing to stay put until a civilian authority could be drawn up to replace the ruling military council.

"We will stay in the square until a government of national salvation or a presidential council – with full powers to run country – is established, and until the army returns to the barracks," said Abdel Moneim.

As for holding parliamentary polls next week, many are not so sure. They believe the initial crackdown on protesters on Saturday had been meant to provoke the violence, thereby providing justification for delaying the polls.

"The only explanation I can think of for causing this trouble only days before scheduled elections is that the interior ministry doesn’t want the polls to take place," said Sherif.

Barouma, for his part, warned that holding elections in the current tense atmosphere could only lead to an escalation of violence.

"The post-revolution security vacuum, coupled with the recent preponderance of weapons among the public – most of which are now coming from Libya – is sure to turn the elections into a bloodbath," he said.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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