Repression Fails As Thousands Demand Mubarak Departure
06 February 2011By Juan Cole
Anti-Mubarak Egyptians prepared themselves on Friday
for a major campaign of street protests that they are
calling not another "Day of Wrath" but rather a "Day
of Departure," an attempt to force President Hosni
Mubarak to resign. By mid-morning thousands had
already gathered at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo
and at other key nodes in the capital. I am watching
Aljazeera Arabic early Friday morning ET (10:15 am in
Cairo), and can hear them chanting "En-Nahar-da! En-Nahar-da"–
Today! Today! Some are tweeting that they expect at
some point the army may block further protesters from
reaching the square. Some tweets from the ground are
saying that today the army is on October 6 bridge
turning back Mubarak's goons and thereby protecting
the protesters.
Crowds have gone beyond the demand for the exile of
the dictator to chanting for him to be arrested and
put on trial for the murders and assaults on peaceful
protesters. Meanwhile, the NYT reported Thursday
evening that the Obama administration is talking to
the Egyptian government with a view toward pressuring
Mubarak to step down immediately in favor of his vice
president, Gen. Omar Suleiman, former head of military
intelligence, who should then oversee a transition to
a more pluralistic system with representation for
Egypt's political parties. (Actually the Egyptian
constitution says the speaker of parliament should
step in if the president is incapacitated). Senators
John McCain and John Kerry successfully sponsored a
resolution in the Senate asking for Mubarak to step
down.
On Thursday, agents of the Mubarak regime had launched
widespread attacks on journalists, in which 26 were
beaten up and 30 were arrested, with 8 having their
equipment seized. US cable news channels could no
longer show live coverage. Egypt's Ministry of the
Interior, which oversees the country's police and runs
a network of neighborhood street gangs (baltagiya), is
suspected by the US embassy of being behind the
campaign against journalists, according to CNN. At one
point on Thursday an Interior Ministry van was
captured on video running protesters down.
I have a deep fear that the breaking of cameras, the
closure of Aljazeera's offices, the attacks on and
threats against international journalists, were
intended to blind the world to a planned atrocity
against innocent, peaceful protesters on Friday. It
may be that the strong condemnation of these moves by
the US, Europe and others has made the Interior
Ministry rethink any such plan.
The Mubarak regime on Thursday had also continued its
attacks on the protesters at Tahrir Square downtown,
deploying plainsclothes police, covert agents, and
hired thugs in an attempt to take the square away from
the dissidents. Although they attacked over and over
again, they were unable to dislodge the demonstrators.
Iason Athanasiades,interviewed on Aljazeera, is
reporting that the failure of the Interior Minister
goons to chase the demonstrators from Tahrir Square
despite brutal violence against them on Thursday has
created increasing doubts in the military about the
wisdom of attempting a bloody crackdown.
Recently appointed prime minister, Air Force Gen.
Ahmad Shafiq, expressed regret for the violence on
Thursday and seemed to blame it on partisans in the
Interior Ministry of ousted domestic surveillance czar
Habib El Adly.
Mubarak also said he was sad to see the violence, in
an interview with Christiane Amanpour. Without a trace
of irony he said he was ready to retire but was afraid
that if he stepped down it would cause chaos.
How stupid do they think we are? Mubarak, Shafiq and
VP Omar Suleiman almost certainly sat down in a room
and authorized the Ministry of Interior to try out
that brutal assault on peaceful protesters.
Proof 1: The Interior Ministry in a dictatorship
doesn't go off on rogue missions; these things are
tightly controlled from the top.
Proof 2: The regular army stood aside and allowed the
goons to attack the demonstrators, allowing them
through checkpoints for their murderous mission.
Soldiers do what they are ordered to do.
But, what the apologies do suggest is that the
government is attempting to distance itself from the
Ministry of Interior tactics.
Adm. Mike Mullen on Jon Stewart's Daily Show
referenced Shafiq's ridiculous ‘apology,' apparently
delivered precisely so that the wool could be pulled
over the eyes of the public. The usually canny and
astute Stewart did not challenge the absurd ‘apology'
meme.
In an attempt to mollify dissidents, the Shafiq
government did move against some former high-level
officials, freezing their bank accounts forbidding
them to flee abroad. Those former cabinet members
(until last week) included Interior Minister Habib
Adly, Muhammad Zuhair Girana, former tourism minister,
Ahmad al-Maghribi, the former minister of housing, and
Ahmad Izz, former high official in the ruling National
Democratic Party (the name of which is made up of
three lies).
Iason Athanasiades on Aljazeera is speculating that
loyalists to these figures in the Interior Ministry
and among the street gangs it runs were behind
Thursday's attacks.
Anti-Mubarak demonstrations continued on Thursday in
Daqahliya Province, where 5,000 dissidents and Muslim
Brothers came out for rallies. In Suez, 3,000
oppositionists,including Muslim Brothers, joined
protests. In Assiout in Upper Egypt, 4,000 Muslim
Brothers and other political forces demonstrated, as
did a similar number in El Minya. Thousands also came
out in El Arish in the northern Sinai. About 100 pro-Mubarak
forces attempted to attack the demonstrators in El
Arish, but the army stopped them.
In downtown Cairo, this eyewitness and participant
insists that the Muslim Brotherhood has played a minor
role in the protests.
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