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Like a fire in Cairo
28.01.2011 17:16
Op 18 december 2010 stak Mohamed Bouazizi, een fruitverkoper met universitair diploma, maar zonder ventvergunning, zich in het Tunesische Sidi Bouzid in brand uit protest tegen de inbeslagname van zijn fruitkarretje. De demonstraties die hierop volgden, groeiden uit tot de Jasmijnrevolutie die president Ben Ali op 14 januari 2011 het land deed ontvluchten.
Het slagen van de revolutie leidde de volgende dagen tot demonstraties en acties in Algerije, Libië, Sudan, Yemen, Egypte en Jordanië [ 1 |2 ]. Terwijl de Jasmijnrevolutie zich verder ontplooit blijft het in een groot aantal Arabische landen onrustig.
In Egypte werd woensdag 25 januari uitgeroepen tot actiedag voor de revolutie, die tot een stuk in de nacht doorging. De dag na de dag van de revolutie bleek dat dit slechts een begin was, de strijd gaat onverminderd door.
Live blogs/ tijdlijnen:
Update zondag 30 januari
Enduring America 30/1
Live stream
zaterdag 29 januari
Enduring America
English Al Jazeera
Live stream
vrijdag 28 januari
Enduring America
English Al Jazeera
The Guardian
Achtergrond:
Garizo blog,Rooieravotr,D4net,Egypte volgt Tunesië,Van Sidi Bouzid tot Bab-el-Oued,Dear Kitty", ElshaheeedDemocracy Now, The Real News
Foto's en video:
[ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 ]
Social media: Facebookpagina "dag van de revolutie",Elshaheeed op Facebook, Twitter #Egypt, de #Sidibouzid Twitter tag wordt gebruikt voor het samenbrengen van info over alle opstanden.
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| Lees meer over: globalisering vrijheid, repressie & mensenrechten wereldcrisis | | aanvullingen | | uit dit artikel zijn aanvullingen verplaatst naar de ruispagina | | | | Bericht vanuit revolutionair Cairo | nn - 30.01.2011 00:38
Revolutie! Zo klonk het gisteren in de straten van Caïro, onwerkelijk, maar o zo waar. Er was, nadat demonstranten al drie dagen in ongekende getalen de straat op waren gegaan, een mars van miljoenen afgekondigd. Het land stond stond letterlijk in vuur en vlam.
Lees verder op
 http://socialisme.nu/blog/nieuws/12105/bericht-vanuit-revolutionair-cairo/
| | Egypt shuts down Al Jazeera bureau | Ali G - 30.01.2011 16:10
Egypt shuts down Al Jazeera bureau
Network's licences cancelled and accreditation of staff in Cairo withdrawn by order of information minister.
Last Modified: 30 Jan 2011 10:01 GMT
Al Jazeera denounced the closure of its bureau, saying the move was designed to stifle free reporting
The Egyptian authorities are revoking the Al Jazeera Network's licence to broadcast from the country, and will be shutting down its bureau office in Cairo, state television has said.
"The information minister [Anas al-Fikki] ordered ... suspension of operations of Al Jazeera, cancelling of its licences and withdrawing accreditation to all its staff as of today," a statement on the official Mena news agency said on Sunday.
In a statement, Al Jazeera said it strongly denounces and condemns the closure of its bureau in Cairo by the Egyptian government. The network received notification from the Egyptian authorities on Sunday morning.
"Al Jazeera has received widespread global acclaim for their coverage on the ground across the length and breadth of Egypt," the statement said.
An Al Jazeera spokesman said that the company would continue its strong coverage regardless.
'Designed to stifle'
"Al Jazeera sees this as an act designed to stifle and repress the freedom of reporting by the network and its journalists," the statement said.
"In this time of deep turmoil and unrest in Egyptian society it is imperative that voices from all sides be heard; the closing of our bureau by the Egyptian government is aimed at censoring and silencing the voices of the Egyptian people.
"Al Jazeera assures its audiences in Egypt and across the world that it will continue its in-depth and comprehensive reporting on the events unfolding in Egypt.
"Al Jazeera journalists have brought unparallelled reporting from the ground from across Egypt in the face of great danger and extraordinary circumstances. Al Jazeera Network is appalled at this latest attack by the Egyptian regime to strike at its freedom to report independently on the unprecedented events in Egypt."
As their signals have been taken off Nilesat, our Arabic sister channels are now broadcasting on the following new frequencies:
1) New frequency for AJA & AJM on Nilesat 7W:
10949 vertical (new)
SR: 27.500 Msps
FEC: 3/4
2) New frequency for AJA & AJM on Arabsat 26E:
11585 vertical (new)
SR: 27.500 Msps
FEC: 3/4
3) Arabic and Mubasher on Hotbird:
12111 MHz Vertical (Old)
SR: 27.500 Msps
FEC: 3/4
4) Arabic and Mubasher on Arabsat Badr4 (Old):
12034 MHz Horizontal
SR: 27.500
FEC: 3/4
5) Arabic and Mubasher on Arabsat Badr4 (Old):
11996 MHz Horizontal
SR: 27.500
FEC: 3/4
Source: Al Jazeera
| | 1 lichaam van verzet | Ed - 31.01.2011 11:18
Dit moet je zien. De brug die op 28 januari na uren veroverd is op weh naar Tahrir plein door demonstranten. Het zijn geen individuen meer maar het is 1 lichaam van verzet. Onbreekbaar en onstuitbaar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBtYLBQPRGQ
 Website: http://www.d4net.nl
| | geen individuen | yessir - 31.01.2011 14:49
"Het zijn geen individuen meer..." doe niet zo raar. Natuurlijk zijn dit allemaal individuen, alleen omdat er van kilometers afstand gefilmd wordt zie je dat niet meer. Visies van massa's als 'corpus' horen in de fascistische vuilnisbak thuis. Mensen als die in deze opstand meedoen, worden nu bij bosjes neergeschoten en hebben familie en vrienden die dat verlies moeten dragen. Solidariteit is hard nodig
| | aan yessir | Ed - 31.01.2011 16:59
Uiteraard zijn het allemaal individuen met allemaal hun eigen verhalen. Het is gewoon bijna zichtbaar hoe zij elkaar gevonden hebben met 1 doel 1 eis 1 spirit als 1 Mubarak en zijn regime weg willen hebben.
Dat ze solidariteit nodig hebben lijkt me een duidelijk en op deze plek een overbodige opmerking.
| | Syria | M - 01.02.2011 17:09
AFP: A group of Syrian online activists are promoting a day of anger after prayers on Friday to call for a peaceful '2011 Syrian revolution' to end what they say is corruption and tyranny.
"The group has been using Facebook, which is officially banned but can easily be accessed through proxies, to call for a day of anger in an echo to Egypt's week-long mass protests demanding regime-change.
"Its message, which has spread to Twitter, tells young Syrians to begin protests on Friday 'after prayer, in what will be the first day of anger and civil rebellion by the Syrian people in all Syrian cities.'
| | protest dam am*dam | hf - 01.02.2011 19:11
dam
| | Live updates from the streets of Cairo | nn - 03.02.2011 15:47
This blog is a collection of comments, contributions and visual media from the Egyptian uprising. It is sent out from one of the few locations in Cairo with an internet connection. Mubarak’s regime cut the internet to the country ahead of a call for a day of rage. The consequences of this day have gone beyond any expectations.
“The people want to bring down the regime” has become the most common chant on the streets.
Website: http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/
| | raiders | duh - 04.02.2011 16:01
gaat al een tijdje rond: Explaining the egyptian revolution to Americans:
http://twitpic.com/3v4mti
| | Een interview met een anarchist op het Tahrir | Irhal! - 04.02.2011 18:35
Een interview met een anarchist op het Tahrirplein in Cairo, donderdag 3 februari 2011
Tekst: Yasser Abdullah
Hoe heet je en vanuit welke beweging kom je?.
Ik ben Nidal Tahrir. van Black Flag, een kleine groep anarcho-communisten in Egypte.
De wereld kijkt nu naar Egypte en gaat zelfs in de richting van solidariteit. Maar nu het internet is afgesneden was informatie moeilijk te vinden. Kun je me vertellen wat er in de afgelopen week in Egypte is gebeurd? Hoe zag het vanuit je perspectief eruit? (Je kunt een heleboel opschrijven.)
Just nu is de situatie in Egypte zo cruciaal. Het begint met een oproep voor een Dag van woede tegen het regime van Mubarak regime op 25 januari .. niemand had dat verwacht van een uitnodiging voor een dag van woede door zomaar een groep op Facebook-pagina, . niet echt georganiseerd, die "we zijn allemaal Khalid Said" heette. Khalid Said is de Egyptische jongen die afgelopen zomer door de politie van Mubarak politie in Alexandria was doodgeslagen. Juist op dinsdag begon alles. Het was de vonk die het hele vuur aanstak.
Op dinsdag waren er grote demonstraties in de straten in elke Egyptische stad. op woensdag begon het bloedbad. Het begon op dinsdagavonds laat met pogingen om aan de sit-in op Tahrir-plein een einde te maken en het ging de volgende dagen door, vooral in de stad Suez. Suez heeft in elk Egyptisch hart een speciale waarde. Het was het centrum van het verzet tegen de zionisten in 1956 en 1967, in dezelfde wijk. die in de Egyptisch-Israëlische oorlogen de troepen van Sharon terugdrong. De politie van Mubarak heeft een bloedbad aangericht:. minstens 4 mensen dood. 100 gewond. Gasgranaten,. rubberen kogels, vlammenwerpers. Er is een vreemde gele stof over de mensen gegooid, misschien wel mosterdgas. Vrijdag werd de Jumu'ah van de woede genoemd. [Jumu'ah is Arabisch voor vrijdag. Het is het nationale weekend in Egypte en ook in veel islamitische landen. het is in de islam een heilige dag. wegens de lange gebeden op deze dag, hjet. genoemd vrijdaggebed gebed]. Men had gepland om na dit gebed voor demonstraties op mars te gaan.
Om 12 uur ’s middags probeerde de politie met al zijn macht en geweld de marsen te voorkomen. Er waren veel confrontaties in Caïro. (in het centrum en in Mattareyah (het oosten van Caïro)), in heel Egypte, vooral in Suez, Alexandria, Mahalla (een van de centra van de arbeidersklasse in de delta). Vanaf de middag tot zonsondergang in Cairo marcheerden mensen naar de binnenstat naar de sit-in op Tahrir om het regime van Mubarak weg te sturen. Zij zongen de leuze "De mensen willen dat het regime opkrast". Bij zonsondergang om 5 uur ’s middags plaatselijke tijd had Mubarak meegedeeld dat hij een avondklok had ingesteld en het leger de stad in zou brengen. Deze avondklok werd gevolgd door de geplande ontsnapping van de politie, die de misdadigers en knokpoegen, die Baltagayyah genoemd worden vrij baan gaven. En de politie organiseerde een grote ontsnapping van misdadigers uit veel Egyptische gevangenissen om de mensen in Egypte bang te maken. Nu was er geen politie. Veel legereenheden hadden geen greep op de straat. De mensen werden bang. Het werd gevolgd door een stroom van nieuws over de Egyptische tv-kanalen. radio's en kranten over plunderaars in vele steden. over dieven die op mensen schieten. De mensen organiseerden volkscomités om elke straat veilig te maken. Dat werd door de regering gebruikt om mensen nog banger te maken voor de instabiliteit in het land. maar het is ook een punt vanwaaruit we konden beginnen om arbeidersraden op te bouwen.
Over woensdag. Toen waren er botsingen tussen pro-en anti Mubarak mensen. Is dat de juiste manier om dit te beschrijven? Wie zijn de "Mubarak supporters?" Welke uitwerking hebben deze botsingen op de houding van de gemiddelde werkende klasse onder de Egyptenaren?
Het is absoluut verkeerd om te spreken van botsingen tussen anti-en pro-Mubarak. De pro-Mubarak demonstratie bestond veelal uit Baltagayyah en de geheime politie die de demonstranten op Tahrir moesten aanvallen. Het waspas begonnen na Mubaraks toespraak van de vorige avond, ook na de toespraak van Obama. Persoonlijk denk ik dat Mubarak voelt als een geslachte os die met zijn bloed zijn slagers probeert te spatten. Hij doet denken aan Nero, die voor zijn vertrek Egypte in brand wil steken. waarbij hij probeet de mensen te laten geloven dat hij een synoniem is voor stabiliteit. veiligheid en zekerheid. Op deze manier heeft hij echt enige vooruitgang geboekt: er is een heilige nationale alliantie gevormd tegen de Tahririten (de demonstranten op Tahrir) en veel mensen, met name de middenklasse spreken over Commune Tahrir. Zij zeggen dat de demonstaties moeten ophouden, want Egypte heeft in brand gestaan. Er zou hongersnood zijn begonnen, maar dat is helemaal niet waar, het is alleen maar een overdrijving. Eelke revolutie heeft haar moeilijkheden, en Mubarak maakt gebruik van angst en terreur om langer aan te blijven. Persoonlijk zeg is dat - zelfs als de demonstranten verantwoordelijk zouden zijn - zelfs dan - Mubarak moet vertrekken, moet weggaan, omdat hij juist nu deze situatie niet aankan.
Wat verwacht je dat er in de komende week gaat gebeuren? Hoeveel kan het standpunt van de Amerikaanse regering de situatie daar beïnvloeden?
Niemand kan achterhalen wat er morgen of volgende week kan gebeuren. Mubarak is een koppige idioot en de Egyptische media voeren van de grootste media-campagne in haar geschiedenis op de protesten op vrijdag. 4 februari in te dammen.. Er wordt opgeroepen voor alweer een mars van miljoenen naar Tahrir die "Jumu'ah van de redding" wordt genoemd. De positie van de Amerikaanse overheid raakt ons meer dan die demonstratie. Mubarak is zo'n verrader dat hij het hele volk kan doden. maar hij kan geen nee zeggen tegen zijn bazen.
Hoe hebben de anarchisten van de klassenstijd hieraan kunnen? Wie zijn hun bondgenoten? (je hoeft niet alles te vertellen…)
Het anarchisme is in Egypte geen grote stroming. Je zou er enkele anarchisten kunnen vinden, maar geen grote stroming. Toch deden in Egypte anarchisten mee in de protestdemonstraties en in de volkscomités om de straten tegen bendes te verdedigen. De anarchisten in Egypte koesteren bepaalde verwachtingen van deze raden.. De bondgenoten van de anarchisten in Egypte zijn natuurlijk de marxisten. Dit is voor ons niet het moment van het ideologische debat. Heel links roept op tot eenheid en moeten we dan overal ruzie over maken? In Egypte zijn de anarchisten een deel van de Egyptische links
Welke vormen van solidariteit kunnen er worden opgebouwd tussen de revolutionairen in Egypte en revolutionairen in het "Westen?" Wat kan er meteen worden gedaan en wat moeten we doen op de lange termijn?
De moeilijkste hindernis die Egyptische revolutionair kan tegenkomen is dat de communicatie wordt afgesneden. De Westelijke revolutionairen moeten druk uitoefenen op hun regering om te verhinderen dat het Egyptische regime dit doet. Dat is voor nu, maar niemand kan zeggen wat er op de lange termijn zal gebeuren. Als de revolutie wint dan zullen de westerse revolutionairen solidariteit met hun Egyptische kameraden vormen tegen de verwachte agressie van de VS. en Israël. Wordt de revolutie verslagen dan zou het het bloedbad voor alle Egyptische revolutionairen worden.
Wat zullen de belangrijkste taken zijn als Mubarak eenmaal vertokken is? Zijn er al op de straat veel plannen hierover geweest? Wat hebben de anti-kapitalistische revolutionairen voorgesteld?
Hebben we het over wat de straat eist, dan is de belangrijkste taak een nieuwe grondwet en een voorlopige regering en vervolgens nieuwe verkiezingen. Er zijn over dit onderwerp veel plannen van veel politieke stromingen, hier vooral van de Moslim Broederschap. De anti-kapitalistische revolutionairen zijn in Cairo niet erg groot: . de communisten, democratische links en de Trotskisten roepen dezelfde eisen over de grondwet en nieuwe verkiezingen, alleen wij anarchisten niet. Wij zijn tegen het kapitaal maar ook tegen de staat. We zullen proberen de commissies die zijn gevormd om de straten te beschermen en te beveiligen sterker te maken en ze proberen om te zetten in echte raden.
Wat wil je tegen de revolutionairen in het buitenland zeggen?
Beste kameraden over de hele wereld hebben we solidariteit nodig. Een grote solidariteitscampagne en de Egyptische Revolutie zal winnen.
KAF
Audio versie: http://electricrnb.podomatic.com/entry/2011-02-03T00_56_54-08_00?x Deze site is bereikbaar en bevat een afbeelding van de spreker.
website: http://nadimyat.manalaa.net Deze versie is mogelijk door Mubarak kaltgestellt.
Bron: a-infos: http://www.ainfos.ca/ainfos21341.html
| | MILITARY WILL ENSURE TRANSFER OF POWER | W.L. 30-07-2009 - 05.02.2011 03:33
09CAIRO1468 2009-07-30 14:02 2011-01-28 SECRET Embassy Cairo
VZCZCXRO0333
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHEG #1468/01 2111444
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
P 301444Z JUL 09
FM AMEMBASSY CAIRO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3306
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 001468
SIPDIS
NEA/ELA
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/27/2029
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM EG
SUBJECT: NDP INSIDER: MILITARY WILL ENSURE TRANSFER OF POWER
REF: 08 CAIRO 2091
Classified By: Economic-Political Minister-Counselor Donald A. Blome for reasons 1.4 (b) & (d).
¶1. KEY POINTS
-- (S) NDP insider and former minister Dr. Ali El Deen Hilal Dessouki dismissed public and media speculation about succession. He said Egyptian military and security services would ensure a smooth transfer of power, even to a civilian.
-- (S) Dessouki called opposition parties weak and democracy a "long term goal." He said that the MB had no legitimate political role, adding that mixing religion and politics in Egypt was not wise and would not be permitted.
¶2. (S) Comment: Dessouki is an NDP insider who has held a number of key positions. His assurances that the Egyptian military and security services would ensure a smooth succession to a civilian (by implication Gamal Mubarak) were unusually straightforward and blunt. The idea that the military remains a key political and economic force is conventional wisdom here. However, other observers tell us that the military has grown less influential, more fractured and its leadership weaker in recent years (reftel). They suggest that in a succession scenario in which President Mubarak is no longer present, outcomes are less predictable.
End comment.
¶3. (S) On July 22, PolOff met with National Democratic Party (NDP) Media Secretary, and member of the influential NDP Policies Committee Dr. Ali El Deen Hilal Dessouki. Without prompting, he offered newly-arrived PolOff advice on how to approach political issues in Egypt. He counseled PolOff not to "run around" town asking questions about Egypt's next leader, suggesting that most offered only opinions not facts. He said that this kind of wide-ranging engagement "by our friends" demonstrated a certain "naivete." Dessouki suggested that PolOff also steer clear of the many uncorroborated reports and misguided analysis in the local media. He also underscored a common NDP refrain that Egypt's opposition political parties were weak and self-serving.
¶4. (S) Dr. Dessouki's most important message, he said was to always keep in mind that "the real center of power in Egypt is the military," a reference he said included all security forces. Dessouki noted that while the military did not intervene directly in matters of day to day governance, it leaders were determined to maintain order and that the importance of a "legal transition" should not be underestimated. Dessouki did acknowledge that the military is concerned about maintaining its "corporate interests," but was emphatic in his declaration of their commitment to a "constitutional" transition of power. Dessouki went on to say that the military has "no objection to a civilian" as the next president (a remark that can be interpreted as a pointed reference to Gamal Mubarak). Dessouki then reiterated that the NDP has not yet selected its candidate for the 2011 presidential elections (a point Gamal Mubarak himself has made to us).
¶5. (S) Dessouki acknowledged there would be some violence around the upcoming 2010 parliamentary and 2011 presidential elections, but suggested security forces would be able to keep it under control. Widespread politically-motivated unrest, he said, was not likely because it was not part of the "Egyptian mentality." Threats to daily survival, not politics, were the only thing to bring Egyptians to the streets en masse. Dessouki said the NDP focus on economic reform would continue up to the elections and after any transition of power. He added that Egypt was moving towards democracy, but that a transition from a "pharoanic" political system would take a long time.
¶6. (S) Disdainful of its political import, Dessouki said the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) was not a credible political organization. As evidence of their pure self-interest, he cited the MB's refusal to "integrate" and become a part of the mainstream political process despite invitations from the last three Egyptian presidents. Dessouki referred to recent arrests of MB members (septel) as evidence they operated extra-legally. (Note: Separately, on July 26 Dessouki publically denied press reports that the NDP is pursuing a deal with the MB that would promise an end to the arrests in exchange for a stop to MB "internal and external" activities. End note.)
Dessouki warned that because Egyptians are very religious people, politics and religion is a volatile mix. In a more strident tone, Dessouki went on to say that he, and President Mubarak, "would not tolerate" the existence of political parties with a religious agenda whether Muslim or Christian and suggested that there was no such thing as a "moderate Islamist."
Tueller
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/07/09CAIRO1468.html
| | @anarchist in Cairo | nn - 05.02.2011 13:01
De revolutie in Egypte is ook een belangrijke testmoment voor revolutionaire stromingen en ik hoop dat er lessen worden getrokken.
De geinterviewde anarchist meldt over de vraag hoe het nu verder moet:
"Hebben we het over wat de straat eist, dan is de belangrijkste taak een nieuwe grondwet en een voorlopige regering en vervolgens nieuwe verkiezingen." en "De anti-kapitalistische revolutionairen zijn in Cairo niet erg groot: . de communisten, democratische links en de Trotskisten roepen dezelfde eisen over de grondwet en nieuwe verkiezingen, alleen wij anarchisten niet. Wij zijn tegen het kapitaal maar ook tegen de staat. We zullen proberen de commissies die zijn gevormd om de straten te beschermen en te beveiligen sterker te maken en ze proberen om te zetten in echte raden."
Maar het is niet voor niets dat deze eisen op dit moment de eisen van de straat zijn, omdat ze de beweging zoals die nu is grote stappen verder zouden brengen.
Natuurlijk is het doel om de committees en raden die ontstaan te versterken en te laten uitgroeien tot een alternatief centrum van macht, maar elke Egyptenaar weet dat dit nu op korte en middenlange termijn geheel onrealistisch is als het gaat om het wegkrijgen van Mubarak.
Je kan dus als 'anarchist' een absract verhaal hebben dat niets te maken heeft met de uitdagingen van het moment en de reele sociale krachtverhoudingen in Egypte, maar dat verklaart ook waarom zo'n anarchistische stroming in landen als Egypte (ook overigens elders) nooit zal aanslaan en zelfs tijdens zo'n revolutionaire stemming geen populariteit kan winnen. Want een stroming die niet in staat is om aan te geven wat de volgende stappen zijn, kan mensen niet overtuigen van een alternatief dat verder weg ligt.
Food for thought dus....
| | Egypt Officials Seek to Nudge Mubarak Out | NYT - 05.02.2011 16:03
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: February 5, 2011
CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak appeared increasingly isolated on Saturday, with protests entering their 12th day and the Obama administration and some members of the Egyptian military and civilian elite pursuing plans to nudge him from power.
The country’s newly named vice president, Omar Suleiman, and other top military leaders were discussing steps to limit Mr. Mubarak’s decision-making authority and possibly remove him from the presidential palace in Cairo — though not to strip him of his presidency immediately, Egyptian and American officials said. A transitional government headed by Mr. Suleiman would then negotiate with opposition figures to amend Egypt’s Constitution and begin a process of democratic changes.
On Saturday, thousands of people re-assembled in Cairo’s Tahrir Square after a huge and jubilant protest rally on Friday by anti-Mubarak demonstrators who have made the vast, central plaza the rallying-ground and the emblem of their campaign.
Soldiers at the entrance seemed to have reinforced security checks, forcing demonstrators to pass through in single file. The military also appeared to have shrunk the area available to protesters, particularly close to the Egyptian Museum.
There were indications that, alongside the authorities’ avowed readiness to break with their autocratic past and talk to the fractured opposition, more traditional efforts to stifle unwelcome voices remained. After days of harassment of reporters, Al Jazeera, the Doha-based satellite broadcaster, said Egyptian authorities had arrested its bureau chief and one of its journalists in Cairo a day after it said its offices in Cairo had been torched.
At the same time, the government is seeking to give the impression that it has restored authority and that the country is slowly emerging from the chaos and tumult or recent days — part of an apparent effort to counter the protesters’ narrative of imminent change.
On Saturday, for instance, Mr. Mubarak summoned the most senior economy officials - including ministers responsible for oil and finances — to a palace far from the crowds in Tahrir Square to discuss a crisis that has cost the country $3.1 billion and left the capital paralyzed, according to The Associated Press.
It was not immediately clear how much that crisis would be affected by a huge explosion early on Saturday in a pipeline in northern Sinai carrying natural gas to Israel and Jordan. There was no immediate suggestion of a link between the protests and the explosion, which sent a huge plume of orange and yellow flame into the early morning air, visible for miles around. Despite assertions on state television that the pipeline had been sabotaged, interior ministry officials said the cause of the blast was not clear.
On Friday, administration officials said that among the political ideas that had been discussed were suggesting to Mr. Mubarak that he move to his home at Sharm el Sheik, the seaside resort, or that he embark on one of his annual medical leaves to Germany for an extended checkup. Such steps would provide him with a graceful exit and effectively remove him as the central political player, going partway toward addressing a central demand of protesters on the streets of Cairo.
Mr. Suleiman and top military officers are being encouraged to have detailed discussions with opposition groups, conversations that would ultimately include how to open up the political system, establish term limits for the president and enshrine some key democratic principles ahead of elections scheduled for September.
“None of this can happen if Mubarak is at the center of the process,” said one senior administration official. “But it doesn’t necessarily require the president to leave office right now.”
But administration officials remain concerned that removing Mr. Mubarak too early could create constitutional problems that would establish a political void. Under the existing Constitution, the speaker of the Parliament would take power, at least in name, if Mr. Mubarak resigned.
Apparently echoing Washington’s assessment, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told a security conference in Munich, Germany, on Saturday that early elections would not be helpful, reflecting fears among European leaders of a power vacuum. “Early elections at the beginning of the democratization process is probably the wrong approach,” she said, according to Reuters.
Opposition leaders have insisted that they will not negotiate with Mr. Suleiman until Mr. Mubarak is out of office. They have been counting on the impact of his resignation, should it occur, to ensure that senior Egyptian officials do not try to derail the movement toward a constitutional democracy.
At a news conference with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada on Friday, President Obama said he believed that the Egyptian president had already made a “psychological break” from his hold on office by announcing that he would not run again. Mr. Obama again stopped short of declaring that Mr. Mubarak should leave office sooner, but he set out a series of steps that the Egyptian government must meet to assure an “orderly transition” that seemed to all but require that the Egyptian leader step out of the way, if not resign.
Mr. Mubarak said in an interview Thursday with ABC that he was eager to step down, but that if he did, “Egypt would sink into chaos.”
Leaders of the country’s opposition movements are already warning of the risk of another military-backed president for life if the military elite currently negotiating a transition from Mr. Mubarak were to block broader change.
But several groups of prominent intellectuals and political analysts are pushing plans to endorse an initial transfer of power to Mr. Suleiman, who already appears to be governing in Mr. Mubarak’s place, they said.
“The reality on the ground is that the vice president is the one managing the situation and what we want to do is legalize it,” said Wahid Abdel Neguid, the deputy director of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and one of the figures working on the plans. “Given the current situation, the president really can’t do anything, not here and not abroad, given the amount of pressure that is on him.”
The groups putting forward the proposal include Nabil Fahmy, former Egyptian ambassador to the United States; Naguib Sawiris, one of the most prominent businessmen in Egypt; Ahmed Kamal Aboul Magd, a lawyer and influential Islamic thinker; and Ahmed Zewail, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist. One group met Friday at the office of Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League and perhaps the most popular political figure in Egypt.
Mr. Suleiman, a former military officer, appears to share power with two close allies, Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the defense minister, and Ahmed Shafiq, the prime minister, a retired general who previously ran the country’s national airline, said Abdel Moneim Qattou, a retired Army general close to all three.
But the three find themselves squeezed between their loyalties to Mr. Mubarak on one side and the military on the other, Mr. Qattou said. They have been unwilling to push Mr. Mubarak out, he said. But they are also unwilling or unable to deploy the military against the protesters — a move that would cut deeply against its self-image and prestige.
“The three of them are military men,” Mr. Qattou said. “They know each other very well and they are together trying to find a way out of this crisis. They want to do this without spilling blood and without hurting the dignity of Egypt or Mubarak while fulfilling the demands of the masses.”
There appeared to be signs on Friday that the three men may be recalibrating their positions. Mr. Shafiq announced for the first time that the government would make no effort to clear Tahrir Square, allowing the protesters to remain indefinitely.
Field Marshal Tantawi, meanwhile, visited the square himself in the morning to inspect the troops stationed around the Egyptian Museum. It was the first appearance there by any of the country’s top officials, and protesters and military experts took it as a signal to Mr. Mubarak’s plainclothes supporters not to assault the square again.
A cheer rose from the protesters as soon as Field Marshal Tantawi appeared, and they clasped hands to form a barrier around the area where he was walking. Several said they wanted to ensure that no Mubarak-supporting provocateur tried to incite violence.
Mr. Obama repeated twice at his news conference that exactly how the transition would occur is “not a decision ultimately the United States makes or any country outside of Egypt makes.” But he laid out a series of principles that seemed designed to hem Mr. Mubarak in, and reduce his options.
“Going back to the old ways is not going to work,” he said. One official said that these messages were being reinforced in what he called an effort to “flood the zone” with calls to military leaders, members of the Egyptian elite, and legislators. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates made another call to his Egyptian counterpart on Friday, part of the effort to assure that the military kept enough peace on the streets for serious discussions with the opposition to begin.
Opposition leaders contend that the existing Constitution so favors the governing party that it should be thrown out immediately and that Parliament, which is dominated by Mr. Mubarak’s party, should be disbanded.
In the opening stages of what promises to be a protracted round of negotiations, the diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei said in a news conference at his home near Cairo that opposition lawyers were preparing an interim Constitution. He said the opposition was calling on Mr. Mubarak to turn over power to a council of two to five members who would run the country until elections within a year.
Only one member would come from the military, Mr. ElBaradei said, adding that the armed forces’ most important task now was to “protect Egypt’s transition period in a smooth manner.”
“We have no interest in retribution,” he said. “Mubarak must leave in dignity and save his country.”
Mohamed el-Beltagui, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the outlawed Islamist group that had been the major opposition in Egypt until the secular youth revolt, said that the organization would not run a candidate in any election to succeed Mr. Mubarak as president.
David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, and David E. Sanger from Washington.
Anthony Shadid, Kareem Fahim, Mona El-Naggar and Liam Stack contributed reporting from Cairo; and Alan Cowell from Paris.
------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06egypt.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06egypt.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
| | Hillary Clinton signals US backing Suleiman | Julian Borger - 05.02.2011 16:16
Egypt protests: Hillary Clinton signals US backing for Omar Suleiman
US secretary of state stresses need for orderly transition headed by vice-president
Julian Borger in Munich
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 5 February 2011 13.21 GMT
Hillary Clinton said the transition process in Egypt should be transparent and inclusive.
The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton today signalled how far the US has swung its support behind vice-president Omar Suleiman and the transition process he is leading in Egypt.
Clinton was speaking at a security conference in Munich today, where the watchword on Egypt was the need for orderly transition.
In her most striking remarks, the US secretary of state said: "There are forces at work in any society, particularly one that is facing these kind of challenges, that will try to derail or overtake the process to pursue their own agenda, which is why I think it's important to follow the transition process announced by the Egyptian government, actually headed by vice-president Omar Suleiman."
She was presumably referring ito Suleiman's leadership of the transition rather than the government, but US officials have told their European colleagues that they view Suleiman as increasingly in control.
(..)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/05/hillary-clinton-omar-suleiman-egypt
| | Egyptian army in Tahrir Square & aid centre | Guardian - 05.02.2011 16:20
1.31pm: Mustafa Khalili in Cairo has called in to report that the Egyptian army is moving its tanks beyond the barricades in Tahrir Square and appear to be trying to scare the protesters into going home. He also says soldiers are trying to shut down one of the first aid stations inside the square.
1.23pm: Ahdaf Soueif has just sent in an email about military police dragging people out of a legal aid centre in Cairo.
A good friend just saw eight to 12 people being dragged out of No 1 Souq el-Tawfikiyyah St and bundled into a bus while a military police vehicle waited nearby. The people were being beaten and [people in] the street had been told they were "Iranian and Hamas agents come to destabilise Egypt".
No 1 Souq el-Tawfikiyyah St is the home of the offices of the Hisham Mubarak Legal Aid Centre, the Centre for Social and Economic Rights and the 6th April Youth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/feb/05/egypt-protests
| | Reports on the Battle for Tahrir | Sharif Abdel Kouddous - 05.02.2011 17:33
Video Report on the Battle for Tahrir:
An Inside Look at How Pro-Democracy Activists Reclaimed Tahrir Square After Attacks by Mubarak Forces
On Thursday, pro-democracy activists ventured back to Tahrir Square, to reclaim the downtown Cairo public space, which had become a battleground in the effort to oust President Hosni Mubarak. Democracy Now! producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Hany Massoud walked through the streets, talking with Cairo residents—many who were injured from the attacks the day before—and witnessed the efforts to clean up the trash and rock-filled square while also organizing a system of grassroots resistance and community care programs to defend the square from pro-Mubarak forces who threatened to return.
http://www.democracynow.org/tags/sharif_kouddous
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/1/29/sharif_kouddous_reporting_live_from_cairo_egypt
http://www.democracynow.org/
| | De Facto Military coup, not de jure (legal) | watchthesecreten - 05.02.2011 18:39
There is widespread reporting that leaders of the ruling National Democratic Party have resigned, including the president Hosni Mubarak, the president's son, Gamal Mubarak, and the secretary-general of the party, Safwat el-Sharif. The new secretary-general of the party is Hossam Badrawi, seen as a member of the liberal wing of the party and the business side of the Military, which is a also the major economic and financial Institution of Egypt.
These ruling party resignations / expulsions of Hosni Mubarak, his son and others can be viewed as a covered "coup d'etat". Hosni Mubarak is probably still acting as figurehead president for constitutional reasons. Preatorian Guard.
| | Video protester shot Alexandria, 28-01-2011 | Moustafa Mahmoud - 06.02.2011 02:32
First Posted: 02/ 5/11 05:47 PM Updated: 02/ 5/11 06:10 PM
Graphic footage has surfaced of what appears to be a protester shot in the streets of Alexandria, Egypt by secret police.
The birds-eye view video shows seemingly peaceful activity until about 1:30, when what looks to be a tire on fire falls to the ground. A few moments later, an individual approaches what looks to be police forces and opens his jacket, facing them. The forces then shoot the protester, who collapses instantly.
An English-language description of the video on YouTube says, "Most likely killed on Friday the 28th of January in the Manshya District in Alexandria. Video by Moustafa Mahmoud."
WATCH (Warning: Explicit Content):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/05/protester-shot-killed-alexandria-egypt-video_n_819152.html
| | Mubarak's Gone Mad | Tahrir spring - 06.02.2011 03:02
Awesome kid leading chant at Friday #Tahrir demo #Egypt #Jan25
"he's anti-mubarak
he keeps repeating hosni has gone mad hosni has gone mad...hosni has killed me...
hosni has beat me up...my heart
then he goes on saying
gamal tell your dad, leave with your gang of criminals"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7eNEYrl15w
| | 'why they burn themselves at the Parliament" | Asmaa Mahfouz - 06.02.2011 18:21
Is This the Video That Started the Egyptian Revolution?
Posted on February 2, 2011 by Jane Jamison| 1 Comment
Was there one video that fired the riots and protests which have now led to the end of the Hosni Mubarak presidency?
Is this showing us ”the power of one?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgjIgMdsEuk&feature=player_embedded
This video is being circulated with subtitles. . [hat tip: Gary D: Facebook]
Some writers are saying that this video, posted on Facebook, is what inspired the protests and regime change in Egypt.
U.S. News Source:
Asmaa Mahfouz is one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement, an organization that has been using the internet to unify protesters against Mubarak’s corrupt and totalitarian regime since 2008. Her role in the movement was to reach out to Egyptian youth.
Raw Story:
Mahfouz made the video after four Egyptian men set themselves on fire. The men were apparently inspired by the example of Tunisia, where a self-immolation triggered protests that eventually led to the ouster of the nation’s president.
“Four Egyptians have set themselves on fire, thinking maybe we can have a revolution like Tunisia,” she said. “Maybe we can have freedom, justice, honor, and human dignity. Today, one of these four has died.”
“Of course, on all national media, whoever dies in protest is a psychopath,” she continued. “If they were psychopaths, why did they burn themselves at the Parliament building?”
Looking straight at the camera, Mahfouz declared that she was making her video “to give you one simple message.”
“We want to go down to Tahrir Square on January 25th,” she said. “If we still have honor, and want to live in dignity on this land, we have to go down on January 25th. We go down and demand our rights, our fundamental human rights. I won’t even talk about any political rights. We just want our human rights and nothing else.”
Mahfouz’s role in the April 6 Youth Movement was to help shape its public message and reach out to Egyptian youth, according to the New York Times.
“This entire government is corrupt – a corrupt president and a corrupt security force,” she continued. “These self-immolators were not afraid of death but were afraid of security forces. I’m going down on January 25th, and from now till then, I’m going to distribute fliers in the street every day. I will not set myself on fire. If the security forces want to set me on fire, let them come and do it.”
The following information is posted on YouTube with the video:
This vlog was recorded on January 18th by Asmaa Mahfouz, the girl who helped start it all. She had shared it on her Facebook, and it had gone viral. It was so powerful and so popular, that it drove Egyptians by the thousands into Tahrir Square, and drove the Egyptian government to block Facebook . I’ll shut up now and let Asma talk.
Translated by Iyad El-Baghdadi, subbed by Ammara Alavi. Find me here:
www.el-baghdadi.com
www.facebook.com/iyad.elbaghdadi
www.twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadiy
----------------------------
http://www.uncoverage.net/2011/02/is-this-the-video-that-started-the-egyptian-revolution/
| | AlJazeera's (EN) blog resumé day 13 (Caïro) | All Jazz - 07.02.2011 02:22
Feb. 6, 2011
2:47am
With the protests against Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian president, showing no sign of abating, many observers are looking to the United Nations to step in. But at the UN Security Council, the issue is not even up for discussion. So what to make of the fact that the world body doesn't seem inclined to address the historic and urgent events unfolding in Egypt?
Here's Scott Heidler's report from New York:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0sYpcB6kB4&feature=player_embedded
----------------------------------------------------------
4:27am
When the uprising there began nearly two weeks ago, there was a near-total internet blackout. But exactly how was access cut off?
An American advocacy group called Free Press says it's uncovered a link to a California-based technology company [NARUS / BOEING] which allegedly sold the Egyptian government equipment allowing it to track online activity.
Rob Reynolds reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uODOBCgNhZc&feature=player_embedded
------------------------------------------------------------
9:08am
Our correspondent in Cairo says that the Christian Coptic prayers, to be held later in the day, is a way for the Copts to counter claims by state television that most of the protesters are members of the Muslim Brotherhood. She says the Christians want to show they are part of the popular uprising and have the same grievances and demands as the rest of the people.
------------------------------------------------------------
11:50am
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has called for a "democratic transition" in Egypt "in the shortest possible time," suggesting an interim government.
"A democratic transition should be ensured in the shortest possible time... If this is achieved, I believe the people will definitely accept such an outcome"
------------------------------------------------------------
4:28pm
Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin has been detained by the Egyptian military in Tahrir Square.
5:27pm
For Twitter: #aje correspondent @AymanM now held by #Egypt army #Freeayman.
Please retweet urgently to help secure the release of Ayman Mohyeldin!
6:29pm
The Emmy-nominated Al Jazeera English correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin has been detained by the Egyptian military. Al Jazeera are calling for his immediate release after being taken near Tahrir Square. Mohyeldin was Al Jazeera English’s correspondent in Cairo even before the recent uprising.
10:30pm
Ayman Mohyeldin, an Al Jazeera correspondent who was detained while covering the unrest in Egypt, has been released.
He was seized by the Egyptian military near Tahrir Square in Cairo on Sunday, but was freed seven hours later following a concerted appeal by the network and supporters of Mohyeldin.
There had been many calls on Twitter for the release of Mohyeldin, who has more than 20,000 followers on his page.
------------------------------------------------------------
6:05pm
Amnesty International has warned that a Google employee arrested in Cairo during recent unrest faces significant risk of abuse by Egyptian police.
Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Middle and North Africa at Amnesty International, said: "The Egyptian authorities must immediately disclose where Wael Ghuneim is and release him or charge him with a recognizable criminal offence... He must be given access to a doctor and a lawyer of his choice and not be subjected to torture or other ill-treatment. His case is just one of many that highlight the continued crackdown by the Egyptian authorities on those exercising their right to protest peacefully."
------------------------------------------------------------
6:47pm
A video by Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher depicts strong images showing scenes of the intense fighting in Cairo and Alexandria from Wednesday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqydgpyVNKY&feature=player_embedded
------------------------------------------------------------
7:50pm
Reports of gunshots fired by army into the air near the cordon they set up inside the barricades, near Egyptian museum. Protesters clashed with army as they try to confine space available to protesters with barbed wire.
8:52pm
Reports of human chains created to block the army tanks from entering the Tahrir Square.
| | April 6 Youth Movement | Facebook - 07.02.2011 02:42
April 6 Youth Movement
foundation statement
=================
Who are we?
=======
We are a group of Egyptian Youth from different backgrounds, age and trends gathered for a whole year since the renewal of hope in 6 April 2008 in the probability of mass action in Egypt which allowed all kind of youth from different backgrounds, society classes all over Egypt to emerge from the crisis and reach for the democratic future that overcomes the case of occlusion of political and economic prospects that the society is suffering from these days.
Most of us did not come from a political background, nor participated in political or public events before 6 April 2008 but we were able to control and determine our direction through a whole year of practice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do we want?
==========
We want to reach to what all Egyptian intellectuals and all national political forces agreed upon from the necessity of Egypt passing by a period of transition and to be ruled by a public character which has been agreed upon for the sake of the nation, its dignity and establish the principles of democratic governance
And one of the most important features of that period is the release of public freedom and the rules of democratic political practice and the forming of political, social entities and others as soon as being notified.
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How this is going to happen?
=================
By walking in two parallel directions which we can not dispensed any of them
The first direction :-is to search for a good alternative which was deliberately hidden by the authoritarian rule over the many years to represent the spearhead in the battle for the democratic transformation in Egypt.
The second direction is:-to restore the confidence of the Egyptian masses everywhere in the probability of choosing their own destiny urging them to participate in determining their fate by all means.
The movement pursues a path of peaceful resistance and non-violence strategies of war and we don't mind flexibility and diversity at the level of tactics diversity at levels of tactics between what is radical and what is Reformist to achieve the final goal which is a non-violent change.
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Our relationship with the Egyptian political forces:-Despite the fact that our main frame is young people are independent of any party or trend, but our relationship with parties and political forces is a relationship of respect and mutual cooperation within the framework of various campaigns between us and other parties and trends youth members according to the minimum joint insisting on our independent ideas, Ensure our long-cast Non-Bi-partisan or ideological.
We stress that we are not affiliated to any party or political trend or a political movement, whether we agree on the ideas, methods or vary.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Our relations abroad:- We believe it is wrong to mention the word abroad as vague as a vague, without a breakdown.
Abroad is divided into people, governments and civil society organizations.
We refuse dealing with foreign governments However; we believe that in the information technology and internet we have to be open to all different kinds of experiences and learn from them.
We do not live in this world alone... What is happening in Egypt affect the world and what is happening in the world affect Egypt.
They should get rid of the ideas that was planted by the repressive regime in us in locking ourselves and to be opened to others experiences. We refuse to be influenced by those ideas and ridiculous concepts like other political factions.
We consider that the actions of the locking limit the movement of intellectual richness and wealth of experience.
We welcome the exchange of experience between us, and similar past movements and welcome collaboration with civil society organizations in the framework of law and solidarity media, training and learning stressing on our independency and not to impose any agendas or ideas from any party whatsoever on us.
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Our funding: Rely on the voluntary contributions of members as the main source of funding...
--------------------------------------------------
Egypt's youth
Free Youth
Youth April 6 movement
---------------------------------------------------
Official Site of movement
http://6april.org
--------------------------------------------------------------
Who are we ?? Want to know more about us??
Check Youth April 6 Blog ...
http://shabab6april.wordpress.com/
Youth April 6 mail group ... Please Sign up now
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shabab6april/
Please send your data (name and age and qualification, work and a means of communication and district) for all members .. Activists and non-activists.. Political and non-political to establish a well organized database and send any new activities to the members of each district.
Messages should be sent with name and age and qualification and the means of communication and address to the following emails:
 shabab6april.mov@gmail.com
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Rules of conversations and discussions:
April 6 Youth Movement welcomes all young people who dream of change regardless of any prior intellectual affiliation.
** any discussion or sectarian comparison between religions are forbidden
** any party propaganda of any kind is forbidden
** any argument between the ideologies whether to validate it or not is forbidden
** damaging criticism to any trend or a political faction or party that agrees with us on the need for change is forbidden
** when processing a campaign or theme or activities forbidden to discuss any topics that causes the dispersal of this goal
** any insults or defame or discussing any personal matters is forbidden
** In case of any violations of the rules the members will be subjected to either by deleting these topics or suspending the member at the insistence of dispersal...
** The English language is the offical language in the group
** This group is for foreigners who are interested in 6 april youth movement news, statements and discussions.
------------------------------------------------------------
All you have to do to support us is this:
► 1 Join this group.
► 2 Click on "Invite People to Join" button in the right menu.
► 3 Select all of your friends. (this only takes a few minutes)
► 4 Click on the "Send invitation" button
---------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Info
Email: shabab6april.mov@gmail.com
Office: Every place in Egypt
Open: alle inhoud is openbaar.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38588398289
| | Swapping a Dictator for a Torturer | JAMES RIDGEWAY - 07.02.2011 17:51
February 4 - 6, 2011
Our New Man in Egypt
As things now stand, the United States appears ready to have Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak tossed out in exchange for his newly-named Vice President, Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian spy master. That is, maintain the status quo by swapping one dictator for another.
Of course, Israel must sign off on this deal aimed at assuring that Egypt can remain as America's main base in the region, straddling as it does North Africa and the Middle East. Without that status quo, the U.S. would have to rethink its entire neo-colonial policies in the region.
But Suleiman looks like a nasty piece of work.
(..)
Read further:
http://www.counterpunch.org/ridgeway02042011.html
JAMES RIDGEWAY is senior Washington correspondent for Mother Jones Magazine. For 30 years he was Washington correspondent for the Village Voice. He edits the Unsilent Generation, where this article also appears.
| | US envoy Frank Wisner in Cairo, Empire's bag | Vijay Prashad - 07.02.2011 19:01
February 2, 2011
Frank Wisner in Cairo
The Empire's Bagman
By VIJAY PRASHAD
From inside the bowels of Washington's power elite, Frank Wisner emerges, briefcase in hand. He has met the President, but he is not his envoy. He represents the United States, but is not the Ambassador. What is in his briefcase is his experience: it includes his long career as bagman of Empire, and as bucket-boy for Capital. Pulling himself away from the Georgetown cocktail parties and the Langley Power-point briefings, Wisner finds his way to the Heliopolis cocktail parties and to the hushed conferences in Kasr al-Ittihadiya. Mubarak (age 82) greets Wisner (age 72), as these elders confer on the way forward for a country whose majority is under thirty.
Obama came to Cairo in 2009, and said, "America does not presume to know what is best for everyone." Those words should have been cast in gold and placed in the portico of the White House. Instead, they drift like wisps in the wind, occasionally sighted for propaganda purposes, but in a time of crisis, hidden behind the clouds of imperial interests (or those of Tel Aviv). America presumes to know, and presumes to have a say equivalent to those of the millions who have thronged Egypt's squares, streets and television sets (one forgets about the protests of the latter, too tired to get to the square, nursing sick children or adults, a bit fearful, but no less given over to anger at the regime).
The Republicans have their own ghouls, people like James Baker, who are plucked out for tasks that require the greatest delicacy. They are like diplomatic hit-men, who are not sown up by too much belief in the values of democracy and freedom, but to the imperatives of "stability" and Empire. The Democratic bench is lighter now, as the immense bulk of Richard Holbrooke has departed for other diplomatic assignments. He had been given charge of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he found little traction. The Taliban could not be cowered, and nor would the Pakistani military. Holbrooke had much easier times in the Balkans, where, according to Diana Johnstone, he instigated the conflict by refusing the road of peace. Wisner comes out of the same nest as Holbrooke. He is the Democrat's version of James Baker, but without the pretend gravity of the Texan.
Wisner has a long lineage in the CIA family. His father, Frank Sr., helped overthrow Arbenz of Guatemala (1954) and Mossadeq of Iran (1953), before he was undone in mysterious circumstances in 1965. Frank Jr. is well known around Langley, with a career in the Defense and State Departments along with ambassadorial service in Egypt, the Philippines, and then India. In each of these places Wisner insinuated himself into the social and military branches of the power elite. He became their spokesperson. Wisner and Mubarak became close friends when he was in country (1986-1991), and many credit this friendship (and military aid) with Egypt's support of the US in the 1991 Gulf War. Not once did the US provide a criticism of Egypt's human rights record. As Human Rights Watch put it, the George H. W. Bush regime "refrained from any public expression of concern about human rights violations in Egypt." Instead, military aid increased, and the torture system continued. The moral turpitude (bad guys, aka the Muslim Brotherhood and democracy advocates need to be tortured) and the torture apparatus set up the system for the regime followed by Bush's son, George W. after 911, with the extraordinary rendition programs to these very Egyptian prisons. Wisner might be considered the architect of the framework for this policy.
Wisner remained loyal to Mubarak. In 2005, he celebrated the Egyptian (s)election (Mubarak "won" with 88.6% of the vote). It was a "historic day" he said, and went further, "There were no instances of repression; there wasn't heavy police presence on the streets. The atmosphere was not one of police intimidation." This is quite the opposite of what came out from election observers, human rights organizations and bloggers such as Karee Suleiman and Hossam el-Hamalawy. The Democratic and Republican ghouls came together in the James Baker Institute's working group on the Middle East. Wisner joined the Baker Institute's head Edward Djerejian and others to produce a report in 2003 that offers us a tasty statement, "Achieving security and stability in the Middle East will be made more difficult by the fact that short-term necessities will seem to contradict long-term goals." If the long-term goal is Democracy, then that is all very well because it has to be sacrificed to the short-term, namely support for the kind of Pharonic State embodied by Mubarak. Nothing more is on offer. No wonder that a "Washington Middle East hand" told The Cable, "[Wisner's] the exact wrong person to send. He is an apologist for Mubarak." But this is a wrong view. Wisner is just the exact person to send to protect the short-term, and so only-term, interests of Washington. The long-term has been set aside.
I first wrote about Wisner in 1997 when he joined the board of directors of Enron Corporation. Where Wisner had been, to Manila and New Delhi, Enron followed. As one of his staffers said, "if anybody asked the CIA to help promote US business in India, it was probably Frank." Without the CIA and the muscle of the US government, it is unlikely that the Subic Bay power station deal or the Dabhol deal would have gone to Enron. Here Wisner followed James Baker, who was hired by Enron to help it gain access to the Shuaiba power plant in Kuwait. Nor is he different from Holbrooke, who was in the upper circle of Credit Suisse First Boston, Lehman Brothers, Perseus and the American International Group. They used the full power of the US state to push the private interests of their firms, and then made money for themselves. This is the close nexus of Capital and Empire, and Wisner is the hinge between them.
One wonders at the tenor of the official cables coming from Cairo to Washington. Ambassador Margaret Scobey, a career official, has been once more sidelined. The first time was over rendition. She is known to have opposed the tenor of it, and had spoken on behalf of Ayman Nour and others. This time Obama did an end run around her, sending Wisner. Scobey went to visit El-Baradei. Similar treatment was meted out to Ambassador Anne Patterson in Islamabad. Her brief was narrowed by Holbrooke's appointment. What must these women in senior places think, that when a crisis erupts, they are set-aside for the men of Washington?
Wisner urged Mubarak to concede. It is not enough. More is being asked for. Today, Mubarak's supporters have come out with bats in hand, ready for a fight. This has probably also been sanctioned in that private meeting. It is what one expects of Empire's bagman.
Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009. The Swedish and French editions are just out. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu
http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad02022011.html
------------------------------------------
"The Empire’s Bagman": Obama Egypt Envoy Frank Wisner Says Mubarak Should Stay
The official U.S. response to events unfolding in Egypt remains mixed. Over the weekend, the Obama administration distanced itself from U.S. “crisis envoy” to Egypt Frank Wisner after he issued a statement in support in support of President Hosni Mubarak. Revealing a possible conflict of interest, British journalist Robert Fisk recently reported Wisner works for the law firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises "the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government’s behalf in Europe and the U.S." We are joined by Trinity College Professor Vijay Prashad, who has written about Wisner’s history with the U.S. Department of State and his close relationship with Mubarak. His most recent book is The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/7/the_empires_bagman_us_ambassador_frank
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View: "Wisner"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/search?q=wisner&target=guardian
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http://www.pressherald.com/news/u_s_-envoy-stirs-pride-in-mainer-sister-says_2011-02-05.html
http://www.securityconference.de/Muenchner-Sicherheitskonferenz-2011.muenchnersicherheit+M53db17c337d.0.html?&L=1
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US envoy's business link to Egypt
Obama scrambles to limit damage after Frank Wisner makes robust call for Mubarak to remain in place as leader.
By Robert Fisk in Cairo
Monday, 7 February 2011
Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama's envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator's own Egyptian government.
Mr Wisner's astonishing remarks – "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy" – shocked the democratic opposition in Egypt and called into question Mr Obama's judgement, as well as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a "personal capacity". But there is nothing "personal" about Mr Wisner's connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises "the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government's behalf in Europe and the US". Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials – nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.
Mr Wisner is a retired State Department 36-year career diplomat – he served as US ambassador to Egypt, Zambia, the Philippines and India under eight American presidents. In other words, he was not a political appointee. But it is inconceivable Hillary Clinton did not know of his employment by a company that works for the very dictator which Mr Wisner now defends in the face of a massive democratic opposition in Egypt.
So why on earth was he sent to talk to Mubarak, who is in effect a client of Mr Wisner's current employers?
Patton Boggs states that its attorneys "represent some of the leading Egyptian commercial families and their companies" and "have been involved in oil and gas and telecommunications infrastructure projects on their behalf". One of its partners served as chairman of the US-Egyptian Chamber of Commerce promoting foreign investment in the Egyptian economy. The company has also managed contractor disputes in military-sales agreements arising under the US Foreign Military Sales Act. Washington gives around $1.3bn (£800m) a year to the Egyptian military.
Mr Wisner joined Patton Boggs almost two years ago – more than enough time for both the White House and the State Department to learn of his company's intimate connections with the Mubarak regime. The New York Times ran a glowing profile of Mr Wisner in its pages two weeks ago – but mysteriously did not mention his ties to Egypt.
Nicholas Noe, an American political researcher now based in Beirut, has spent weeks investigating Mr Wisner's links to Patton Boggs. Mr Noe is also a former researcher for Hillary Clinton and questions the implications of his discoveries.
"The key problem with Wisner being sent to Cairo at the behest of Hillary," he says, "is the conflict-of-interest aspect... More than this, the idea that the US is now subcontracting or 'privatising' crisis management is another problem. Do the US lack diplomats?
"Even in past examples where presidents have sent someone 'respected' or 'close' to a foreign leader in order to lubricate an exit," Mr Noe adds, "the envoys in question were not actually paid by the leader they were supposed to squeeze out!"
Patton Boggs maintains an "affiliate relationship" with Zaki Hashem, one of Egypt's most prominent legal firms. It was founded in 1953 and Zaki Hashem himself was a cabinet minister under Mubarak's predecessor, President Anwar Sadat, and later became head of the Egyptian Society for International Law.
By a further remarkable irony, one of Zaki Hashem's senior advisers was Nabil al-Araby, one of the 25 leading Egyptian personalities just chosen by the protesters in Tahrir Square to demand the overthrow of Mubarak. Nabil al-Araby, a former member of the UN's International Law Commission, told me yesterday that he ended his connection with Zaki Hashem three years ago and had "no idea" why Mr Wisner had come out in support of Mubarak's continued rule. He himself believed it was essential Mubarak make a dignified but immediate exit. "The head must go," he said.
When Frank Wisner joined Patton Boggs in March 2009, the company described him as "one of the nation's most respected diplomats" who would provide clients with "strategic global advice concerning business, politics and international law". The firm stated specifically that "it looks to Ambassador Wisner to use his expertise in the Middle East and India to assist its American and international clients."
Stuart Pape, managing partner at Patton Boggs, said at the time that "it is a real coup for the firm to have Ambassador Wisner – one of the most experienced and highly regarded diplomats – join our ranks... His in-depth knowledge of global politics and the international financial world is a huge asset for our clients."
We still do not know exactly what kind of "expertise" he has bestowed upon the dictator of Egypt. But his remarks at the weekend leave no room to doubt he advised the old man to cling on to power for a few more months. The vast network of companies with family connections to Mubarak's regime is, of course, one of the targets of the pro-democracy demonstrators in Egypt.
A spokesman for the State Department said he "presumed" Mrs Clinton knew of Mr Wisner's employment by Patton Boggs and the firm's links with the Mubarak government, but refused to comment on any conflict of interest for the envoy. A spokesman for Patton Boggs could not be reached yesterday.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/revealed-us-envoys-business-link-to-egypt-2206329.html
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"Frank Wisner" on Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/Services/Search/?q=frank%20wisner
| | Dictator(s) needs stablity, please US-EU aid | Gun Laws -ReMix - 08.02.2011 02:27
Matthew Cassel is a photographer and journalist based in Lebanon.
http://justimage.org/
Mish Ba3id, the North Africa revolution mixtape
http://enoughgaddafi.com/?page_id=294
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/jan/24/tunisia-protest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/jan/25/egypt-protests-in-pictures
The U.S.-Egyptian Breakup | Washington's Limited Options in Cairo
Foreign Affairs - Steve Cook, February 2, 2011
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67347/steven-a-cook/the-us-egyptian-breakup?page=show
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/jan/27/egyptian-protests-suez-in-pictures
PERRY ANDERSON - SCURRYING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM
New Left Review 10, July-August 2001
http://www.newleftreview.org/A2330
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/jan/28/egypt-protests-cairo
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/jan/29/egypt-protests-cairo
AlJazeeraEnglish | 26 januari 2011
PJ Crowley, the spokesman for the US state department, has been talking to Al Jazeera about the recent protests in Egypt and Tunisia. He says the US supports social reform and more freedoms in Egypt, yet at the same time supports the government of President Hosni Mubarak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmEcQMwprIo&feature=player_embedded
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/jan/30/egypt-protests-sixth-day-in-pictures
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/jan/30/injured-protesters-cairo-egypt
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/jan/31/egypt-tahrir-square-in-pictures
Another Egyptian who's had enough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThvBJMzmSZI&feature=related
25 Jan Revolution - Dream With Me - Hamza Namira - ثورة ٢٥ يناير - احلم معايا - حمزة نمر
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHZbZm69PCE&feature=player_embedded
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/01/protesters-cairo-egypt-in-pictures
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/01/egypt-protest-signs-in-pictures
4 FEBRUARY, 2011 - seeking donations for the national democratic party تبرعات للحزب الوطني
http://tabulagaza.blogspot.com/2011/02/seeking-donation-for-national.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/02/egypt-protest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/02/egypt-tahrir-square-protests-cairo
The NDP is dead, long live in the NDP
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/7/the-ndp-is-dead-long-live-in-the-ndp.html
http://www.arabist.net/storage/uploads/ndp-post25jan.pdf
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/5/rip-old-guard.html
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/5/the-ndp-shuffle.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/03/egyptian-protests-cairo-in-pictures
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/03/egypt-protesters-head-protection-helmets
The Way Forward - 6 Feb. 2011
http://www.sandmonkey.org/2011/02/06/the-way-forward/
http://www.sandmonkey.org/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/04/egypt
Falastin's Egypt links - 2011-02-06
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/6/falastins-egypt-links-2011-02-06.html
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/6/even-more-links.html
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/6/links-5-february-2011.html
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/5/reading-material-on-egypt.html
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/5/links-4-february-2011.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/04/egypt-protest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/05/egypt-protests-cairo
Why Tunis, Why Cairo? - Issandr El Amrani · 5 February 2011, pages 3-6
http://www.lrb.co.uk/2011/02/05/issandr-elamrani/why-tunis-why-ca
After Mubarak - Adam Shatz · 5 February 2011, pages 7-8
http://www.lrb.co.uk/2011/02/05/adam-shatz/after-mubarakiro
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/06/egypt-protests-tahrir-square#/?picture=371478765&index=13
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/06/egypt-protests-tahrir-square#/?picture=371479117&index=14
12:08PM
Wael Ghonim, head of Google's Middle East operations, has been released by Egyptian security forces. He spoke to Mona al Shazly on DreamTV about his ordeal.
Twitter user and journalist @SultanAlQassemi live blogged the interview - find his translation of the broadcast with Wael Ghonim below the videos.
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/07/live-blog-feb-8-egypt-protests
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/07/egypt-protests-live-updates
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/07/egypt-protests-in-pictures
#jan25 - the soundtrack - rebel
Arabian Knightz and Lauryn Hill have laid down the first track in honor of Egypt's uprising.
http://web.me.com/issandr/filechute/arabianknightz-rebel.mp3
| | The State of Apathy in Egypt is gone | We are all the Sjaak - 08.02.2011 15:25
The Egyptians have seen the light, only the creatures of the dictatorial regime are still blind.
Millions and millions have come out all over Egypt.
Watch yourselves, I can't describe what I see, even I follow the events as much as I can.
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
| | Faraohs watching the Pyramids crumble | NoStable Stagnation - 09.02.2011 00:48
"We Became One in the Street": Leading Egyptian Feminist Nawal El Saadawi Says Egyptians are More United than Ever
listen:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/2/7/we_became_one_in_the_street_leading_egyptian_feminist_nawal_al_saadawi_says_egyptians_are_more_united_than_ever
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http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/05/egypt-shooting-messenger
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http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/1/29/live_from_the_egyptian_revolution_by_sharif_abdel_kouddous
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/2/2/live_from_egypt_the_true_face_of_the_mubarak_regime
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908//vp/41361283#41361283
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41361865#41361865
http://www.democracynow.org/search?query=egypt&commit=Search
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We are all part of Egypt's revolution
Matthew Cassel, The Electronic Intifada, 6 February 2011
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11783.shtml
http://electronicIntifada.net/bytopic/692.shtml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/08/egypt-protest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/08/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-in-pictures#/?picture=371546527&index=0
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/08/egypt-protests-live-updates
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/08/egypt-protests-live-updates1
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/06/live-blog-feb-7-egypt-protests
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/07/live-blog-feb-8-egypt-protests
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=307
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=314
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=318
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http://213.251.145.96/cable/2010/01/10CAIRO99.html
10CAIRO99 2010-01-19 14:02 2011-02-06 CONFIDENTIAL Embassy Cairo
VZCZCXRO1905
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHEG #0099/01 0191452
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 191452Z JAN 10
FM AMEMBASSY CAIRO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4751
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 000099
SIPDIS
DRL FOR A/S POSNER
NEA FOR CONNELLY/WITTES
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/19/2030
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM KIRF EG
SUBJECT: ACTIVISTS, BLOGGERS DETAINED WHILE ATTEMPTING TO
VISIT NAGA HAMADI
REF: A. CAIRO 59
¶B. 08 CAIRO 862
Classified By: Economic-Political Minister-Counselor
Donald A. Blome for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).
¶1. KEY POINTS
-- (SBU) The GOE arrested and detained a group of about 30 activists and bloggers the morning of January 15 as they arrived in Naga Hamadi to visit the families of those killed in the January 6 sectarian shootings (ref A).
-- (SBU) The group of detainees included activists from secular opposition political parties and movements, bloggers and journalists. One member told us the group also planned to speak to Coptic families about sectarian tensions in Naga Hamadi.
-- (SBU) The government released the detainees during the mid-afternoon of January 16. Lawyers confirmed there are three criminal code charges (not under the Emergency Law) related to illegal assembly pending against the group, but did not expect the government to take further action on the case.
-- (C) The Ambassador, DCM and ECPO Minister-Counselor raised concern over the case with senior GOE officials, and urged the GOE to release the detainees.
¶2. (C) On the morning of January 15, police arrested a group of approximately 30 activists, bloggers and journalists at the Naga Hamadi train station in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Qena as they disembarked from their train en route to the town of Naga Hamadi. According to one detainee, blogger Wael Abbas who met with A/S Posner in Cairo January 14, the group planned to pay condolence calls on the families of those killed during the January 6 sectarian shootings in Naga Hamadi (ref A), and speak to Copts about sectarian tensions in the area. Abbas said police beat and lightly injured blogger Ahmed Bedawi during the arrests "for no apparent reason."
¶3. (C) Contacts told us that following the arrests, police detained the male members of the group in a nearby facility, and held the female members in an area hospital. Contacts understood that secular opposition politician Osama El-Ghazali Harb, who was in Naga Hamadi at the time on a separate visit to the victims' families, was concerned that police would abuse the women, and therefore convinced authorities to hold the female members in a hospital. Harb told us separately that he was in Naga Hamadi with members of his Democratic Front Party and leaders of the Kifaya movement, including George Ish'aq.
¶4. (SBU) The group included bloggers, journalists, activists from secular opposition parties such as El-Ghad and the Democratic Front Party and movements such as "Kifaya" and "April 6". A lawyer for the group confirmed that a French activist was among the detainees. Some of the detainees are participants in Freedom House's "New Generation" program which provides training for young activists. One member of the group departed for Washington January 18 to participate in a Project on Middle East Democracy program. Contacts confirmed that activist and El-Ghad party member Israa Abdel Fattah was also part of the group. (Note: Abdel Fattah was the subject of headlines in April 2008 when she was arrested and detained for 17 days after her call for an April 6 general strike on Facebook attracted almost 70,000 members (ref B). Following her release, she renounced her activities in a television interview, and has remained out of public view until now. End note.)
¶5. (C) The government released the detainees mid-afternoon on January 16. Contacts told us the release was contingent on the activists' agreement to depart Upper Egypt immediately for Cairo on private rented buses. Wael Abbas told us that police did not abuse him or the other male detainees in custody, but did not provide them with beds or blankets. Activist contacts close to the detainees told us they welcomed the Department's January 16 public statement of concern.
¶6. (C) Lawyers for the group confirmed to us that three penal code charges related to illegal assembly are currently pending against those arrested. The lawyers expected the government to keep the case open, ostensibly pending investigation, but that the public prosecutor would not order a trial.
¶7. (C) Beginning on January 15, we expressed concern over the detentions to senior GOE officials. Ambassador noted our concern to Presidential spokesman Soliman Awad, and DCM contacted MFA Senior Advisor and Spokesman Hossam Zaki. Economic-Political Minister-Counselor raised the issue with MFA Deputy Assistant Minister for Human Rights Wael Aboulmagd who defended the GOE decision to arrest the activists "to prevent further violence."
SCOBEY
------
other new WL cables:
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2005/11/05CAIRO8938.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2006/01/06CAIRO493.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2006/02/06CAIRO941.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/10/07CAIRO3126.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/10/07CAIRO3155.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/11/07TELAVIV3258.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/12/07CAIRO3503.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/01/08CAIRO9.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/08/08TELAVIV1984.html
| | Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm | Staff_el - 09.02.2011 02:34
Fallen faces of the uprising: Sally Zahran
Mai El-Wakil - Mon, 07/02/2011 - 16:15
On 28 January 2011 (the Friday of Anger), when state security forces and hired thugs violently confronted pro-democracy protestors in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag, 23-year-old Sally Magdy Zahran passed away after thugs beat her on the head with bludgeons.
Zahran grew up in Cairo with her family and only lived in Sohag for four years, where she enrolled in the English department at the Faculty of Arts. Her father, a university professor, was recruited by the university in Sohag and her family still resides there.
Upon completing her studies, Zahran moved back to Cairo and worked as a translator.
Since the protests started on 25 January, she was spending time with her family in Sohag and the Friday of Anger was the first day she took to the streets.
“She felt it would be safe to join the protests at that point. So many others were going out on Friday,” said her friend Aly Sobhy.
Zahran had no political affiliations and friends confirm that she was not an activist. She was a passionate young woman who was critical of living conditions in Egypt.
She had never joined protests before, explained Sobhy, but often joined Facebook groups that called for socio-economic reforms such as raising the minimum wage.
In May 2010, she joined the first Cairo Complaints’ Choir, an artistic project inspired by the work of Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kallleinen, who invited people to come and sing their complaints collectively in various cities around the world. In October 2010, she participated in the workshop and the performance of the choir project, in which participants wrote, composed and sang about the inadequacy of public services and state corruption using advertisements.
“Zahran was a pacifist who loved life and wanted things to become better in her home country,” said Sobhy.
Like other young women her age she aspired to have a decent life, family and kids, he added.
“I am not trying to make her seem idealistic, but she was a well educated and cultured person, who was positive and tried to make things betters through small initiatives. She was loved by all those who knew her.”
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/fallen-faces-uprising-sally-zahran
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Thousands protest outside Egypt parliament to demand its dissolution
Staff - Tue, 08/02/2011 - 19:05
Thousands of Egyptians protested on Tuesday outside of the parliament building in downtown Cairo to demand the assembly's immediate dissolution.
The nearly 4000 protesters, who are also demanding the resignation of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, chanted slogans such as, "This parliament is void," "Down with fraud,"and "Dissolve Ezz’s council," the latter in reference to Ahmed Ezz, business tycoon and the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP)'s dismissed secretary of organizational affairs.
Ezz is believed to have funded the NDP's electoral campaigns in parliamentary polls--widely seen as fraudulent--held late last year.
One outspoken protester called on fellow demonstrators heading to nearby Tahrir Square--the site of an ongoing million-man protest--to join in the demonstration outside of parliament. Protesters raised banners reading, “It's time for reform."
Members of the armed forces were able to keep protesters away from the parliament building’s main gate, calling on parliamentary employees to keep their distance so as not to provoke the demonstrators.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/thousands-protest-outside-egypt-parliament-demand-its-dissolution
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A message from Tahrir Square
Youth of the Revolution - Mon, 07/02/2011 - 14:12
We, the youth of the square are attempting to communicate with our families and friends on the outside, to respond to the various accusations that we hear in the local news. We have asked our fellow Egyptians in the square for their views on these accusations. Here are their responses to each one:
1. The Muslim Brotherhood is responsible for the 25 January revolution and controls Tahrir square.
The Muslim Brotherhood was not present at the start of the revolution. It only started to participate after the first week.
The protesters on Tahrir square come from different political, social and religious backgrounds. This is clearly reflected in the diversity of daily activities that take place in the square, which include reading the Quaran, playing music, etc.
The Muslim Brotherhood has announced it will not nominate a candidate in the presidential elections.
The Muslim Brotherhood constitutes a part of the Egyptian public and has the right to participate in the protests, like any other political current.
2. The protesters in Tahrir square belong to an organization and receive funding, which is why they sleep in similar looking tents.
The protesters in Tahrir square come from various social classes. Some sleep in tents, others cannot and sleep on the floor. The protesters know they subject their lives and the lives of those around them to danger, especially after the criminal incidents of last Wednesday involving Mubarak and state security thugs.
Would these people to risk their lives for the sake of money or an organization? We are here to defend certain principles and achieve our legitimate demands.
3. After 12 days of protest, the protesters have brought the country to a standstill and prevented people from going about their jobs and daily lives. Why all this destruction?
We are not the ones who imposed curfew on the Egyptian people. We are not the ones who shut down gas stations, banks and the stock exchange. We are not the ones who pulled the police off the street and freed prisoners, causing insecurity. Egypt lost millions of dollars because of the government's decision to disrupt Internet across the country. Egypt's losses during the days of the revolution are nothing compared to what has been stolen by corrupt elements in the government and the Interior Ministry. The revolution seeks to bring down these very elements to restore the people's rights.
4. Why are protesters still in Tahrir square? Are they not satisfied with the changes that the government has made so far?
Since the first day of the revolution, the youth raised the slogan "The people want the regime changed." This slogan encompasses all of our demands. By the regime, we mean the president, his government, his lying media, and his corrupt businessmen. We do not deny that the revolution has achieved many accomplishments. But these accomplishments are insufficient because the core has not changed. The fraudulent People's Assembly has not been dissolved and we cannot trust that it will take steps to amend the constitution. The Emergency Law is still in place and can be used to arrest all those who peacefully try to call for changing the regime. Finally, there is still no law guaranteeing the freedom to establish political parties. All the changes offered by the government so far are superficial and do not represent real change in the root causes of corruption, injustice and dictatorship.
We invite you to visit us in Tahrir square to spend some time with us and listen to the people.
In Tahrir until liberation.
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/opinion/message-tahrir-square
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Protesters attack police stations in several Egyptian provinces
Staff - Tue, 08/02/2011 - 19:51
Angry protesters attacked police stations in several parts of Egypt two days following the reappearance of police after having completely disappeared on Friday, 28 January, following police attacks on peaceful protesters demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
Witnesses said that soon after the police reappeared, they began using provocative tactics while dealing with residents, which led to clashes in Upper Egypt and in areas around Cairo.
In Barambel Village in Helwan, south of Cairo, residents set the local police station on fire after a police officer shot and killed a local resident for violating the curfew.
The resident had gone out during curfew hours on Monday night and was shot to death after failing to respond to the police officer's warnings. He was killed instantly.
Following the incident, village residents torched the police station in which the officer was taking cover, leading to the death of the officer and total destruction of the station and its civil registry. Other police personnel managed to escape before they were caught by residents.
In related news, police forces on Tuesday used live ammunition to shoot protesters in the Wadi Gedid Governorate, southwest of Cairo. The protesters had voiced objections to the reinstatement of an officer whom they described as “dictatorial."
According to eyewitnesses, 61 people were injured in clashes with security forces in the province's capital, Kharga.
Local residents had rejected the return of Captain Ahmed al-Sokkary, whom authorities had dismissed during the first days of nationwide protests calling on President Hosni Mubarak to resign.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/protesters-attack-police-stations-several-egyptian-provinces
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Egyptian state press journalists demonstrate against corruption
Staff - Tue, 08/02/2011 - 18:28
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/egyptian-state-press-journalists-demonstrate-against-corruption
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On day 15 of Tahrir uprising, newcomers swell protesters' ranks
Heba Afify - Arabic Edition - Tue, 08/02/2011 - 17:03
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/day-15-tahrir-uprising-newcomers-swell-protesters-ranks
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EXCLUSIVE: Gaza wall to be completed this month, says new WikiLeaks cable
Lina Attalah - Wed, 01/12/2010 - 16:22
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/exclusive-gaza-wall-be-completed-month-says-new-wikileaks-cable
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| | Arab democracy vs regional stability | Hicham Yezza - 09.02.2011 06:47
Thursday, February 3, 2011 - 6:53
Real Arab democracy Vs mythical “regional stability”
By Hicham Yezza
As an Arab, and an activist, the past few weeks have proven to be some of the most moving and exhilarating moments of my generation. After decades of hope and despair, it seems the iron grip of the Arab authoritarian kleptocracy has been, at long last, irrevocably broken. In every discussion I’ve had with fellow activists (some in Egypt and Tunisia, but also others in many other Arab countries on the cusp of change), one truth is evident: this generation is determined to reclaim, and restore, the legacy of its nation’s revolutionary struggle for independence from colonialism, a legacy spoiled and defiled by decades of dictatorship and repression.
However, one of the less charming aspects of observing the media deluge around the monumental events in Tunisia and Egypt, is the seemingly robotic framing, by people who should know better, of the options facing the ‘West’. Pundit after pundit, article after article, interview after breathless interview, the debate continues to oscillate between two choices: ‘democracy for untested Arabs’, on the one hand, and a vague, near-mystical notion called “stability in the region” on the other.
Of course, the very idea that freedom is something the West grants to carefully-selected, less enlightened Untermenschen, whilst being astonishingly patronising, is hardly new to anyone with a passing knowledge of Imperialist history. After all, women, black people and countless groups from the ranks of the oppressed have all been told, at some point or other in the not-too-distant past, that they too needed to earn their right to be equal. For decades, seriously-taken men solemnly pontificated in “civilized” circles about whether other quasi-human groups were “ready” to be “invited”, amidst concerns that granting them equal rights could lead to unspeakable catastrophes.
Paul Valery memorably called politics “the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.” For millions of Arabs, it has been very revealing to see many Western pundits and politicians publicly, and in all seriousness, agonise over the seemingly tricky conundrum of “allowing” Arabs to take control of their own destinies, and whether this incredible act of generosity might turn out to be a mistake if, heaven forbid, the lucky candidates prove to be unworthy recipients by electing the ‘wrong’ leaders.
Over the past few days, the inalienable right of eighty million Egyptians (and a quarter billion Arabs) to have a say in their own lives has been routinely dismissed as a mere geo-political consideration that ought not to distract from the bigger, more pressing calculus of realpolitik-inspired “stability”. Take, for instance, the calls by Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Hilary Clinton and others, for something called an “orderly transition” in Egypt that would, conveniently enough, allow Mubarak to hold on to power for a few more months. Egyptians are being asked to wait for their freedom until the US says they can have it (or, according to realpolitik-inspired cynics, until a suitably-pliant replacement is ready).
As to the much-vaunted regional “stability” (apparently under threat from the horrid prospect of ordinary Egyptians getting involved in their own affairs,) to call the notion Orwellian is to combine cliché with understatement. Indeed, whilst the regional elites and their Western patrons have been enjoying the fruits of “stability”, generations of ordinary Arabs have been subjected to half a century of quasi-pathological state brutality, institutional thuggery, systemic corruption, a crushing denial of basic rights of expression, communication, travel, and protest; not to mention entire generations of youths condemned to lives of abject misery and pointlessness, as well as millions of women infantilised and brutalised by a combination of patriarchy and bureaucracy.
Make no mistake, these are not distant, occasional aberrations dotted sparingly across national timelines, but hourly occurrences, to this very day, taking place, to varying degrees, across most of the Arab world. They are not sporadic excesses committed by errant foot soldiers but constitute the very Modus Operandi of entire systems of power, and inform their survival mechanisms. This is the “stability” the US and its allies are scrambling to safeguard. And to defend it as some sort of venerable achievement is to add insult to the injuries of its dozens of millions of victims.
And yet, these obvious truths have hardly featured in official pronouncements. Instead, we keep hearing the same feverish tropes about the horrific ‘void’ that departing authoritarian relics might be leaving behind and how it might present a ripe target for an opportunistic grab by the Islamist bogeyman. The same goes for the oft-repeated “concern” about whether Arabs (despite some mysterious genetic defect, the tone often seems to imply) have the necessary civil society “structures” and “traditions” to sustain a steady transition towards democracy. Whilst it is no doubt legitimate to discuss the technical modalities of how such a transition can take place (and it might surprise some to know that many in the Arab world have been doing just that for years now), it is ludicrous to assume that Arabs are somehow inherently incompatible with democracy.
Let us not forget that almost every single internal Arab uprising against dictatorship and injustice, since the 1950s, has ultimately failed because, more often than not, the West chose to cover its eyes with one hand while supplying the weapons of repression with the other. Indeed, the Arab population is in such dire straits, economically and civilisationally, because its attempts to break free had been systematically and ruthlessly crushed for so long, and not the other way round.
It should no longer be acceptable to peddle, or take seriously, the line that Arabs cannot be left to their own devices because they would invariably make a mess of it. Ultimately, a prosperous and peaceful Middle East must be seen as the crowning result, not the first condition, of the Arab populations reclaiming their right to take part in their own affairs. The time for political calculations at their expense must end now.
Hicham Yezza is editor-in-chief of Ceasefire.
http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/editorial/freedom-vs-stability/
| | U.S & CIVIL SOCIETY, EGYPTIAN OPPOSITION | watchthesecreten - 11.02.2011 01:57
10CAIRO145 2010-01-31 14:02 2011-02-09 CONFIDENTIAL Embassy Cairo
VZCZCXRO2491
RR RUEHROV
DE RUEHEG #0145/01 0311459
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 311459Z JAN 10
FM AMEMBASSY CAIRO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0089
INFO ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 000145
SIPDIS
DRL FOR A/S POSNER
FOR NEA, NEA/ELA AND DRL/NESCA
E.O. 12958: DECL: 2035/01/31
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KDEM EG
SUBJECT: A/S POSNER ENGAGES WITH CIVIL SOCIETY, POLITICAL OPPOSITION
REF: CAIRO 64; CAIRO 47; 09 CAIRO 2111; 09 CAIRO 1997; 09 CAIRO 1977
CLASSIFIED BY: Margaret Scobey, Ambassador; REASON: 1.4(B), (D)
¶1. Key Points:
-- (C) In meetings January 13-14, A/S Posner told activists and opposition politicians that the U.S. is seeking ways to advance human rights and political participation over the coming 12-18 months.
-- (C) Activists urged the U.S. to end a "double standard" on Israeli human rights violations, close Guantanamo and speak out against GOE repression.
-- (C) Opposition political leaders agreed that prospects for significant political reform are slim while President Mubarak remains in office. Most expected Mubarak to be a candidate in 2011, and predicted the military would play a role in succession to ensure stability.
-- (C) Former Presidential candidate Ayman Nour urged A/S Posner to press the GOE to stop interfering with opposition political activity, and to allow him to work and travel.
¶2. (C) A/S Posner told activists the U.S. is interested in how to advance human rights in Egypt over the next 12-18 months to improve people's lives. He said the U.S. would pursue a traditional human rights agenda to address police brutality, restrictions on NGOs, freedom of expression and assembly problems, sectarian tensions, and the State of Emergency. Posner noted that the U.S. is engaged on the coming Egyptian elections, and is working on issues of observation, participation and training. Posner said that the UN Human Rights Council focuses disproportionately on Israel. He described the Goldstone Report as flawed for not being able to include the Israeli government position, and called for Israeli and Palestinian domestic investigations into human rights violations during the Gaza war.
--------------------------------------------- ------------
Civil Society Recommendations for the U.S.
--------------------------------------------- ------------
¶3. (C) Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights Executive Director Hossam Bahgat urged the U.S. to "practice what it preaches" on human rights by closing the Guantanamo Bay prison. Bahgat called on the U.S. to end a "double standard on Israeli human rights violations," and expressed disappointment with the U.S. position on the Goldstone Report, which he asserted "makes it harder for us to cooperate with you" on human rights. Bahgat recommended the State Department human rights report assess that the situation in Egypt declined in 2009. Bahgat asserted that many Egyptians believe the GOE has interpreted the current administration's relative "silence" on human rights and political issues as a signal of support.
--------------------------------------------
Activists' Concerns and Criticism
--------------------------------------------
¶4. (C) Director-General of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies Bahey Al-Din Hassan said he was unsure of what current U.S. human rights policy is. He expressed concern over lack of U.S. public criticism of Syria for human rights violations, and U.S. support for Yemeni President Saleh while he represses his people. Hassan expected increasing GOE repression leading up to the 2010 parliamentary and 2011 presidential elections. Hassan said he was initially optimistic when the Forum for the Future was launched that it would strengthen partnerships between Arab governments and civil society. Instead, Hassan asserted, government-controlled NGOs have dominated the Forum. Hassan noted that because of this phenomenon, he has not participated in the Forum since 2005.
¶5. (C) Labor activist Kamal Abbas asked what the U.S. would do to address expectations that fraud would pervade the 2010 and 2011 elections, and that Gamal Mubarak would inherit power from his father. Human rights lawyer Tarek Khattar asserted that U.S. support for the GOE encourages it to repress the Egyptian people. He contended that President's Obama June 4 Cairo speech has not produced "any positive results" in Egypt. Women's rights activist Mozn Hassan criticized the President's speech for "equating women throughout the region with each other," instead of recognizing their differences. Human rights lawyer Atef Hafez complained that the U.S. denied him entry to the Guantanamo Bay prison to visit a prisoner he was trying to represent. Hafez also complained that the Guantanamo prison is still open despite President Obama's commitment to close it. Activist Mohammed Zarea called for the U.S. to urge the GOE to make significant changes to open up political life.
¶6. (C) Noting widespread dissatisfaction with political leaders on all sides, "April 6" leader Ahmed Salah said the 2010 and 2011 elections represented the only opportunity for change, and pressed for more immediate action. He called for greater internal and external pressure on the GOE to increase freedom of assembly and expression, lift the State of Emergency, improve election procedures with electronic voting, and allow registration with national identification cards.
--------------------------------------------- ----------------
Opposition Political Leaders on Egypt's Future
--------------------------------------------- ----------------
¶7. (C) At a dinner with opposition political party leaders, A/S Posner asked about prospects for democratic change. Most expected Mubarak to run in 2011, leaving little room for change. Wafd President Mahmoud Abaza and Democratic Front President Osama Al-Ghazali Harb said they were focused on preparing for a post-Mubarak transition, whenever that may occur. In addition to their plans to participate in the 2010 parliamentary elections, opposition party leaders said they are pressing the GOE and the ruling party for a "national dialogue." The leaders agreed that the military would play a significant role in any post-Mubarak scenario, and that constitutional provisions would be secondary to concerns about internal stability. Leader of the un-registered Reform and Development Party Anwar El-Sadat asserted that the military would not support Gamal Mubarak's succession to the presidency, but that loyalty to President Mubarak kept it from acting to sideline Gamal now. Abaza called Egypt's military "apolitical," but predicted the military would to step in to ensure stability if necessary.
¶8. (C) Regarding U.S. democracy promotion, the group called for continued support to civil society and "principled" pressure on the GOE. However, Sadat noted sensitivities over "outside interference" in both the regime and opposition camps. Al-Ghad Party Vice-President Wael Nawara suggested that external criticism should be matched with primarily economic "incentives" to encourage the government to commit to concrete democratic reforms.
--------------------------------------------- -------------
Former Presidential Candidate Ayman Nour
--------------------------------------------- -------------
¶9. (C) In a separate meeting, Al-Ghad party founder Ayman Nour said Egyptians were ready for change and seeking leadership. "I'm banned from participating in the coming elections, but I will be part of the political fight," Nour asserted. Nour opined that the GOE's prevention of a liberal alternative to Gamal Mubarak strengthened the Muslim Brotherhood. He underlined the impact of the security services' interference with opposition political activity, and advocated increased U.S. pressure to highlight GOE restrictions. Nour urged A/S Posner to press the GOE to restore his own personal rights by allowing him to resume his work as an attorney or journalist, travel abroad and sell his assets. Nour thanked A/S Posner for the Department's November 6, 2009 public statement expressing disappointment at the GOE's decision to prevent him from travelling to the U.S.
¶10. (U) A/S Posner cleared this message.
SCOBEY
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2010/01/10CAIRO145.html
| | Forum for the Future: Partnership Dialogue 7 | civil front org.s - 11.02.2011 03:15
Forum for the Future: Partnership Dialogue Panel Session
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Ritz Carlton
Doha, Qatar
January 13, 2011
MR. FOSTER: Good morning. Thank you very much for joining us here, at the seventh Forum for the Future. My name is David Foster, and I will be moderating this discussion involving our panelists here, and of course, a great many of you out here, as well.
For the past five years, it's been my privilege to work here in Qatar for Al-Jazeera English. And one of our mottos has always been, "Every angle, every side," which is, effectively, what this is about. It's about dialogue (inaudible). And we will work our way from this side.
First of all, may I ask, Madam Secretary, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States of America (inaudible).
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, David. I am honored to be here again at the Forum for the Future, especially with so many friends and colleagues from the G8 and from the Middle East.
I am delighted to join with Sheikh Khalid, who is a great colleague of mine in the foreign ministry, and I look forward to hearing from Slaheddine Jourchi, whose work on human rights and democracy in Tunisia I admire -- and, of course, it is especially timely today -- and Mohamed El-Masry, president of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce.
This is the last stop on a trip that has brought me from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Yemen, Oman, and now to Doha. On this short, but intense journey, I saw many signs of the potential for a new and innovative Middle East: a solar-powered city rising from the sands of the UAE; civil society leaders in Oman partnering with their government to improve education and create economic opportunities; a young Yemeni woman and a young Yemeni man, both of whom studied abroad and then returned to work for progress in Yemen. And of course, here in Qatar, the home of the 2022 World Cup, we see many examples of a commitment to innovation. Last year I visited Education City, which is connecting Qatar's young people to the global economy.
So, wherever I go, in my conversations with people from all walks of life—from officials at the highest levels of government to university students, religious leaders, and engaged citizens, one message has consistently emerged: People are deeply proud of this region and what it has accomplished, but they are also profoundly concerned about the trends in many parts of the broader Middle East, and what the future holds.
We all know this region faces serious challenges, even beyond the conflicts that dominate the headlines of the day. And we have a lot of work to do. This forum was designed to be not just an annual meeting where we talk with and at each other, but a launching pad for some of the institutional changes that will deal with the challenges that we all know are present.
For example, a growing majority of this region is under the age of 30. In fact, it is predicted that in just one country, Yemen, the population will double in 30 years. These young people have a hard time finding work. In many places, there are simply not enough jobs. Across the region, one in five young people is unemployed. And in some places, the percentage is far more. While some countries have made great strides in governance, in many others people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order. They are demanding reform to make their governments more effective, more responsive, and more open. And all this is taking place against a backdrop of depleting resources: water tables are dropping, oil reserves are running out, and too few countries have adopted long-term plans for addressing these problems.
Each country, of course, has its own distinct challenges, and each its own achievements. But in too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand. The new and dynamic Middle East that I have seen needs firmer ground if it is to take root and grow everywhere. And that goal brings us to this Forum.
I believe that the leaders of this region, in partnership with their people, have the capacity to build that stronger foundation. There are enough models and examples in the region to point to, to make the economic and social reforms that will create jobs, respect the right of diversity to exist, create more economic opportunity, encourage entrepreneurship, give citizens the skills they need to succeed, to make the political reforms that will create the space young people are demanding, to participate in public affairs and have a meaningful role in the decisions that shape their lives.
So to my friends, the leaders of these countries, I would say: You can help build a future that your young people will believe in, stay for, and defend. Some of you are already demonstrating that. But for others it will take new visions, new strategies and new commitments. It is time to see civil society not as a threat, but as a partner. And it is time for the elites in every society to invest in the futures of their own countries.
Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries’ problems for a little while, but not forever. If leaders don’t offer a positive vision and give young people meaningful ways to contribute, others will fill the vacuum. Extremist elements, terrorist groups, and others who would prey on desperation and poverty are already out there, appealing for allegiance and competing for influence. So this is a critical moment, and this is a test of leadership for all of us.
I am here to pledge my country’s support for those who step up to solve the problems that we and you face. We want to build stronger partnerships with societies that are on the path to long-term stability and progress -- business, government and civil society, as represented on this panel, must work together, as in our new regional initiative called Partners for a New Beginning. We know that what happens in this region will have implications far beyond.
Now, America cannot solve these problems. And I know you understand that. But it bears repeating. What we need is a real vision for that future that comes from each of you, from governments that must deliver on their promises, from civil society and business leaders who must build their people up, and of course, from the people themselves.
The Middle East is brimming with talent. It is blessed with resources, enriched by strong traditions of faith and family. This rising generation of young people has the potential to achieve so much, and we need to give them the chance to do so.
So, here at the Forum for the Future, let us face honestly that future. Let us discuss openly what needs to be done. Let us use this time to move beyond rhetoric, to put away plans that are timid and gradual, and make a commitment to keep this region moving in the right direction. People are looking for real leadership in the 21st century, and I think it can be provided, and I know that this is the moment to do so.
Thank you very much.
PRN: 2011/T37-13
___________________
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/01/154595.htm
---------------
Forum of the Future - USA
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/mideastdigest/janapr/156278.htm
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/01/154635.htm
http://fpc.state.gov/155515.htm
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| | From the (betrayed) White House - 10-02-2011 | Paniek Confusion - 11.02.2011 04:01
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release February 10, 2011
Statement of President Barack Obama on Egypt
The Egyptian people have been told that there was a transition of authority, but it is not yet clear that this transition is immediate, meaningful or sufficient. Too many Egyptians remain unconvinced that the government is serious about a genuine transition to democracy, and it is the responsibility of the government to speak clearly to the Egyptian people and the world. The Egyptian government must put forward a credible, concrete and unequivocal path toward genuine democracy, and they have not yet seized that opportunity.
As we have said from the beginning of this unrest, the future of Egypt will be determined by the Egyptian people. But the United States has also been clear that we stand for a set of core principles. We believe that the universal rights of the Egyptian people must be respected, and their aspirations must be met. We believe that this transition must immediately demonstrate irreversible political change, and a negotiated path to democracy. To that end, we believe that the emergency law should be lifted. We believe that meaningful negotiations with the broad opposition and Egyptian civil society should address the key questions confronting Egypt’s future: protecting the fundamental rights of all citizens; revising the Constitution and other laws to demonstrate irreversible change; and jointly developing a clear roadmap to elections that are free and fair.
We therefore urge the Egyptian government to move swiftly to explain the changes that have been made, and to spell out in clear and unambiguous language the step by step process that will lead to democracy and the representative government that the Egyptian people seek. Going forward, it will be essential that the universal rights of the Egyptian people be respected. There must be restraint by all parties. Violence must be forsaken. It is imperative that the government not respond to the aspirations of their people with repression or brutality. The voices of the Egyptian people must be heard.
The Egyptian people have made it clear that there is no going back to the way things were: Egypt has changed, and its future is in the hands of the people. Those who have exercised their right to peaceful assembly represent the greatness of the Egyptian people, and are broadly representative of Egyptian society. We have seen young and old, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian join together, and earn the respect of the world through their non-violent calls for change. In that effort, young people have been at the forefront, and a new generation has emerged. They have made it clear that Egypt must reflect their hopes, fulfill their highest aspirations, and tap their boundless potential. In these difficult times, I know that the Egyptian people will persevere, and they must know that they will continue to have a friend in the United States of America.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/02/10/statement-president-barack-obama-egypt
| | Documents of the US Congress | Sceptical - 11.02.2011 18:56
Below are a number of (secret / officialy not public, but simply available on the web) documents of the US Congress (I have just randomly selected 7 of them, 2003-2011),
which
a) reveil a changing policy between the US and Egypt
b) mainstream media are not telling the truth (what's new...)
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/19440.pdf
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/RS220492102005.pdf
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/54274.pdf
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/ib93087.pdf
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rs22002.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL34346.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL32260.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33003.pdf
---------------
No one will be surprised that Israël and (and promoting 'free market' capitalism) is central to US-Egypt relations.
A major concern is the potential influence of 'Islam' on the Egyptian political realm.
There is a greater reliance on bringing 'soft power' into the relation, supporting a wide variation of liberal-conservative NGO's.
The denial that the US is not meddling into Egyptian political civil society spheres is not true, even though a lot of media sources are repeating this.
There is less support for the Egyptian military from the US than mentioned in mainstream (still too much much, but clearly not true anymore), but also alternative media, which can mean that Mubarak is simply too expensive for the Western political agenda.
-------------
Not being an expert on Egyptian politics, I can only presume that Mubarak has to be removed, because he is no longer usefull (as SOB Saddam Hussein was more of a threat than a liability when he decided to invade Kuwait after the Iran-Iraq war).
A growing and widespread use of 'soft power' / the use of political civil society by the US and Western (EU and its constituent states) regimes to topple certain 'useless' regimes.
See for example a number of growing (double-standard, propaganda) NGO's on Belarus and Iran (despicable regimes for sure), but these conservative-liberal NGO's are non-responsive / very selective when policies and subjects are related to arrests which are not related to Western political parties and Western corporate interests, human rights for Muslims and political dissidents from the critical left, refugee rights, and Western policies towards non-capitalist forms of empowerment.
| | Mubarak is finally gone!!!!! | Sceptical - 11.02.2011 19:10
Great fantastic news. Now the rest of the state regime!
| | d4net | lezert - 12.02.2011 02:56
Overigens meen ik dat het iemand van D4net was die hier in de aanvang van diverse ontwikkelingen in Noord-Afrika vrij ijverig verslag probeerde te doen. Sindsdien waarschijnlijk druk geworden, vandaar nog maar eens op hun site gewezen, wel een goede verzameling stukjes daar: http://d4net.nl/ .
Wel jammer is de ogenschijnlijke radiostilte momenteel bij Streamtime http://streamtime.org/ , maar die zullen dan ook wel met andere zaken bezig zijn. Hun afdeling Midden-Oosten-links kan misschien nog de moeite zijn voor lezers.
| | Tonight we party | Issandr El Amrani - 12.02.2011 04:03
Let's leave the analysis for tomorrow. Tahya Masr!
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/11/tonight-we-party.html#comments
Talking about partying, what is the legal status of alcohol in Egypt?
Feb 11, 2011 at 7:51 PM | wolf
Tonight it is probably the biggest party on the planet.
Feb 11, 2011 at 7:57 PM | alfred
YEAH! Dancing and singin in the streets!
Just as the beloved Emma Goldman said "If I can't dance, it's not my revolution!" Yalla!
Congrats for the first step of the revolution! There will be much work ahead. Tomorrow, not today
Feb 11, 2011 at 8:06 PM | Schnellinger
| | The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions | Mohammed Bamyeh - 12.02.2011 04:56
The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions from the Field [Updated]
Mohammed Bamyeh
Al-Qahira, The City Victorious, February 11, 2011
Never has a revolution that seemed so lacking in prospects gathered momentum so quickly and so unexpectedly. The Egyptian Revolution, starting on January 25, lacked leadership and possessed little organization; its defining events, on Friday, January 28, occurred on a day when all communication technologies, including all internet and phones, were barred; it took place in a large country known for sedate political life, a very long legacy of authoritarian continuity, and an enviable repressive apparatus consisting of more than 2 million members. But on that day, the regime of Hosni Mubarak, entrenched for 30 years and seemingly eternal, the only regime that the vast majority of the protesters had ever known, evaporated in one day.
Though the regime struggled for two more weeks, practically little government existed during that period. All ministries and government offices have been closed, and almost all police headquarters were burned down on January 28. Except for the army, all security personnel disappeared, and a week after the uprising, only few police officers ventured out again. Popular committees have since taken over security in the neighborhoods. I saw patriotism expressed everywhere as collective pride in the realization that people who did not know each other could act together, intentionally and with a purpose. During the ensuing week and a half, millions converged on the streets almost everywhere in Egypt, and one could empirically see how noble ethics—community and solidarity, care for others, respect for the dignity of all, feeling of personal responsibility for everyone--emerge precisely out of the disappearance of government.
Undoubtedly this revolution, which is continuing to unfold, will be the formative event in the lives of the millions of youth who spearheaded it in Egypt, and perhaps also the many more millions of youth who followed it throughout the Arab world. It is clear that it is providing a new generation with a grand spectacle of the type that had shaped the political consciousness of every generation before them in modern Arab history. All those common formative experiences of past generations were also grand national moments: whether catastrophic defeats or triumphs against colonial powers or allies.
This revolution, too, will leave traces deep in the social fabric and psyche for a long time, but in ways that go beyond the youth. While the youth were the driving force in the earlier days, the revolution quickly became national in every sense; over the days I saw an increasing demographic mix in demonstrations, where people from all age groups, social classes, men and women, Muslims and Christians, urban people and peasants—virtually all sectors of society, acting in large numbers and with a determination rarely seen before.
Everyone I talked to echoed similar transformative themes: they highlighted a sense of wonder at how they discovered their neighbor again, how they never knew that they lived in “society” or the meaning of the word, until this event, and how everyone who yesterday had appeared so distant is now so close. I saw peasant women giving protestors onions to help them recover from teargas attacks; young men dissuading others from acts of vandalism; the National Museum being protected by protestors’ human shield from looting and fire; protestors protecting captured baltagiyya who had been attacking them from being harmed by other protestors; and countless other incidents of generous civility amidst the prevailing destruction and chaos.
I also saw how demonstrations alternated between battle scenes and debating circles, and how they provided a renewable spectacle in which everyone could see the diverse segments in social life converging on the common idea of bringing down the regime. While world media highlighted uncontrolled chaos, regional implications, and the specter of Islamism in power, the ant’s perspective revealed the relative irrelevance of all of the above considerations. As the Revolution took longer and longer to accomplish the mission of bringing down the regime, protestors themselves began to spend more time highlighting other accomplishments, such as how new ethics were emerging precisely amidst chaos. Those evidenced themselves in a broadly shared sense of personal responsibility for civilization—voluntary street cleaning, standing in line, the complete disappearance of harassment of women in public, returning stolen and found objects, and countless other ethical decisions that had usually been ignored or left for others to worry about.
There are a number of basic features that are associated with this magnificent event that are key, I think, to understanding not just the Egyptian Revolution but also the emerging Arab uprisings of 2o11. Those features include the power of marginal forces; spontaneity as an art of moving; civic character as a conscious ethical contrast to state’s barbarism; the priority assigned to political over all other kinds of demands, including economics; and lastly autocratic deafness, meaning the ill-preparedness of ruling elites to hear the early reverberations as anything but undifferentiated public noise that could be easily made inaudible again with the usual means.
First, marginality means that the revolution began at the margins. In Tunisia it started that way, in marginal areas, from where it migrated to the capital. And from Tunisia, itself relatively marginal in the larger context of the Arab World, it travelled to Egypt. Obviously the situation in each Arab country is different in so far as economic indicators and degree of liberalization are concerned, but I was struck at how conscious the Egyptian youth were of the Tunisian example preceding them by just two weeks. Several mentioned to me their pride in seeming to accomplish in just a few days what Tunisians needed a month to accomplish.
Marginality appears to have been an important factor within Egypt as well. While much of the media focus was on Tahrir Square in central Cairo, to which I went every day, the large presence there was itself a manifestation of a possibility that suddenly became evident on January 25, when large demonstrations broke out in 12 of Egypt’s provinces. The revolution would never have been perceived as possible had it been confined to Cairo, and in fact its most intense moment in its earlier days, when it really looked that a revolution was happening, were in more marginal sites like Suez. The collective perception that a revolution was happening at the margins, where it was least expected, gave everyone the confidence necessary to realize that it could happen everywhere.
Second, in every sense the revolution maintained throughout a character of spontaneity, in the sense that it had no permanent organization. Rather, organizational needs—for example governing how to communicate, what to do the next day, what to call that day, how to evacuate the injured, how to repulse baltagiyya assaults, and even how to formulate demands—emerged in the field directly and continued to develop in response to new situations. Further, the revolution lacked recognized leadership from beginning to end, a fact that seemed to matter most to observers but not to participants. I saw several debates in which participants strongly resisted being represented by any existing group or leader, just as they resisted demands that they produce “representatives” that someone, such as al-Azhar or the government, could talk to. When the government asked that someone be designated as a spokesperson for this revolt, many participants flippantly designated one of the disappeared, only in the hope that being so designated might hasten his reappearance. A common statement I heard was that it was “the people” who decide. It appeared that the idea of peoplehood was now assumed to be either too grand to be representable by any concrete authority or leadership, or that such representation would dilute the profound, almost spiritual, implication of the notion of “the people” as a whole being on the move.
Spontaneity was a key element also because it made the Revolution hard to predict or control; and because it provided for an unusual level of dynamism and lightness—so long as many millions remained completely committed to a collective priority of bringing down the regime, represented in its president. But it also appeared that spontaneity played a therapeutic and not simply organizational or ideological role. More than one participant mentioned to me how the revolution was psychologically liberating, because all the repression that they had internalized as self-criticism and perception of inborn weakness, was in the revolutionary climate turned outwards as positive energy and a discovery of self-worth, real rather than superficial connectedness to others, and limitless power to change frozen reality. I heard the term “awakening” being used endlessly to describe the movement as a whole as a sort of spontaneous emergence out of a condition of deep slumber, which no party program could shake off before.
Further, spontaneity was responsible, it seems, for the increasing ceiling of the goals of the uprising, from basic reform demands on January 25, to changing the entire regime three days later, to rejecting all concessions made by the regime while Mubarak was in office, to putting Mubarak on trial. Removing Mubarak was in fact not anyone’s serious demand on January 25, when the relevant slogans condemned the possible candidacy of his son, and called on Mubarak himself only not to run again. But by the end of the day on January 28, the immediate removal of Mubarak from office had become an unwavering principle, and indeed it seemed then that it was about to happen. Here one found out what was possible through spontaneous movement rather than a fixed program, organization or leadership. Spontaneity thus became the compass of the Revolution and the way by which it found its way to what turned out to be its radical destination.
It proved therefore difficult to persuade protestors to give up the spontaneous character of the Revolution, since spontaneity had already proved its power. Spontaneity thus produced more confidence than any other style of movement, and out of that confidence there emerged, as far as I could see, protestors’ preparedness for sacrifice and martyrdom. Spontaneity also appeared as a way by which the carnivalesque character of social life was brought to the theater of the revolution as a way of expressing freedom and initiative; for example, among the thousands of signs I saw in demonstrations, there were hardly any standard ones (as one would see in pro-government demonstration). Rather, the vast majority of signs were individual and hand-made, written or drawn on all kinds of materials and objects, and were proudly displayed by their authors who wished to have them photographed by others. Spontaneity, further, proved highly useful for networking, since the Revolution became essentially an extension of the spontaneous character of everyday life, where little detailed planning was needed or possible, and in which most people were already used to spontaneous networking amidst common everyday unpredictability that prevailed in ordinary times.
But while spontaneity provided the Revolution with much of its elements of success, it also meant that the transition to a new order would be engineered by existing forces within the regime and organized opposition, since the millions in the streets had no single force that could represent them. Most protestors I talked to, however, seemed less concerned about those details than with basic demands the fulfillment of which, it appeared, guaranteed the more just nature of any subsequent system. As finally elaborated a week after the beginning of the Revolution, these demands had become the following: removing the dictator; resolving the parliament and electing a new one; amending the constitution so as to reduce presidential power and guarantee more liberties; abolishing the state of emergency; and putting on trials corrupt high officials as well as all those who had ordered the shooting of demonstrators.
Third, remarkable was the virtual replacement of religious references by civic ethics that were presumed to be universal and self-evident. This development appears more surprising than in the case of Tunisia, since in Egypt the religious opposition had always been strong and reached virtually all sectors of life. The Muslim Brotherhood itself joined after the beginning of the protests, and like all other organized political forces in the country seemed taken aback by the developments and unable to direct them, as much as the government (along with its regional allies) sought to magnify its role.
This, I think, is substantially connected to the two elements mentioned previously, spontaneity and marginality. Both of those processes entailed the politicization of otherwise unengaged segments, and also corresponded to broad demands that required no religious language in particular. In fact, religion appeared as an obstacle, especially in light of the recent sectarian tensions in Egypt, and it contradicted the emergent character of the Revolution as being above all dividing lines in society, including one’s religion or religiosity. Many people prayed in public, of course, but I never saw anyone being pressured or even asked to join them, in spite of the high spiritual overtones of an atmosphere saturated with high emotions and constantly supplied by stories of martyrdom, injustice, and violence.
Like in the Tunisian Revolution, in Egypt the rebellion erupted as a sort of a collective moral earthquake—where the central demands were very basic, and clustered around the respect for the citizen, dignity, and the natural right to participate in the making of the system that ruled over the person. If those same principles had been expressed in religious language before, now they were expressed as is and without any mystification or need for divine authority to justify them. I saw the significance of this transformation when even Muslim Brotherhood participants chanted at some point with everyone else for a “civic” (madaniyya) state—explicitly distinguished from two other possible alternatives: religious (diniyya) or military (askariyya) state.
Fourth, a striking development after January 28 was the fact that radical political demands were so elevated that that all other grievances—including those concerning dismal economic conditions—remained subordinate to them. The political demands were more clear that any other kinds of demands; everyone agreed on them; and everyone shared the assumption that all other problems could be negotiated better once one had a responsible political system in place. Thus combating corruption, a central theme, was one way by which all economic grievances were translated into easily understandable political language. And in any case, it corresponded to reality because the political system had basically become a system of thievery in plain daylight. For months before the revolution, virtually everyone had a story to tell me about the ostentatious corruption of the business-cum-political elite that benefited most from the system. They tended to be a clique clustering around Mubarak’s son. Some of its members, reportedly, stood behind the recruitment of thugs who terrorized the protestors for two long days and nights on February 2-3.
Fifth, as everywhere in the Arab World, a key contributing factor was autocratic deafness. The massive undercurrent of resentment that fueled this volcano was stoked over years by the ruling elites themselves, who out of longevity in office and lack of meaningful opposition completely lost track of who their people were and could no longer read them, so to speak. They heard no simmering noise before the Revolution, and when it erupted they were slow to hear it as anything other than an undifferentiated noise. The one-way direction of autocratic communication allowed for no feedback and presented every recipient of its directives as either audience or point of incoherent noise. Throughout the Revolution this deafness of ruling structures was evident in the slow and uncertain nature of government response. On the day following the January 25 demonstrations, editors of government newspapers belittled the events. On January 28, when all Egypt was in flames and many world leaders had issued some statement of concern, the Egyptian government remained completely silent—until Mubarak finally spoke at midnight, saying the exact opposite of what everyone had been expecting him to say. He thought he was making a major concession, but one which—as any intelligent advisor would have told him—could only be interpreted as a provocation, resulting in several more days of protests. Then on February 1 he made another speech, also thinking that he was making major concessions, although again, it was received by many protestors as the height of arrogance. On his last day in office, February 10, he outraged almost everyone in the country when, rather than resigning as everyone had been expecting, he simply delegated his powers temporarily to his now equally hated vice president. Enormous crowds converged on the streets and reached the presidential palace on February 11, and the whole country appeared now determined to extract vengeance on a man so out of touch with such an unmistakably obvious popular will.
He was, in a sense, always responding to what he must have understood as incoherent noise, emerging from undifferentiated masses that could be allayed by the appearance of compromise. Arab state autocracies had long been accustomed to approach their people with either contempt or condescension. They were no longer skilled at any other art of communication (although Muhammad Shafiq, the new prime minister, has been trying to do his best in those arts). Clearly, autocratic deafness was a major factor in escalating the revolution. Many protestors suggested to me that what Mubarak said on January 28 would have resolved the crisis had he said on January 25, when he said nothing. What he said on February 1 would also have resolved the crisis, had he said it on January 28. And what he said on February 10 meant that there would no longer be an honorable exit to the man who just a couple weeks before appeared to be the strongest man in the Middle Eas.
When none of these concessions succeeded in diffusing the crisis, Mubarak’s new appointees had no serious arguments to explain why he wanted to stay in power for just a few more months, and in the face of a determined revolt that did not in fact challenge many other parts of the system. On Feb. 3 his new prime minister said that it was not common in Egyptian culture for a leader to leave without his dignity. He cited as evidence the salute given to king Farouk as the free officers forced him to leave Egypt in 1952! And on the same day, his new vice president opined that it is against the character of Egyptian culture to so insult the character of the father, which he claimed (in a moment of forgetfulness of the revolution just outside) Mubarak was to the Egyptian people. And the president himself asserted on that same day that he could not possibly resign, since otherwise the country would descend into chaos--astonishingly, still not realizing what everyone else in the country knew: that it was already there.
In the absence of autocratic deafness, all successful politicians, including manipulative ones, know that one art of maneuver consists of anticipating your audience’s or enemy’s next step, so that you are already there before it is too late. Here we had the exact opposite situation: a lethargic autocracy, having never known serious contest, was unaware of who its enemies had become, which in this case was more or less the vast majority of the country. That on February 2 some of Mubarak’s supporters found nothing better to do than send camels and horses to disperse the crowd at Tahrir, seemed to reflect the regime’s antiquated character: a regime from a bygone era, with no relationship to the moment at hand. It was as if a rupture in time had happened, and we were witnessing a battle from the 12th century. From my perspective in the crowd, it was as if they rode through and were swallowed right back into the fold that returned them to the past. By contrast, popular committees in the neighborhood, with their rudimentary weapons and total absence of illusions, represented what society had already become with this revolution: a real body, controlling its present with its own hands, and learning that it could likewise make a future itself, in the present and from below. At this moment, out of the dead weight of decades of inwardness and self-contempt, there emerged spontaneous order out of chaos. That fact, rather not detached patriarchal condescension, appeared to represent the very best hope for the dawn of a new civic order.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/561/the-egyptian-revolution_first-impressions-from-the-field_updated-
| | HM out of the picture, away from the pyramid | Tax is invented here - 12.02.2011 06:23
Hosni Mubarak: Egyptian president's political career
How the ex-Egyptian leader went from stepping in after his predecessor was assassinated to becoming the target of a popular uprising
guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 February 2011 22.48 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/01/hosni-mubarak-egypt-president-political-career#/?picture=371662717&index=40
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Egypt protests enter their 16th day – in pictures
Thousands of Egyptians protest outside the parliament building in Cairo, several blocks from Tahrir Square, in the movement's first expansion out of the area, to demand the assembly's immediate dissolution
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 February 2011 14.20 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/09/egypt-protests-pictures
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Day 17 of Egyptian protests
Thousands of workers from various unions across Egypt went on strike today, as rumours spread of President Hosni Mubarak's resignation
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 February 2011 14.46 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/10/egypt-protests
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Egypt protests: day 18 - in pictures
Demonstrators continue to rally against the government after President Hosni Mubarak refused to resign
guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 February 2011 15.07 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/11/egypt-protests-day-18-in-pictures
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Tent city, Tahrir Square, Cairo
Guardian photographer Sean Smith looks the tent city set up by protesters in Tahrir Square, Cairo
guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 February 2011 17.00 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/11/egypt-protest
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Egypt reacts as Mubarak resigns
Scenes of joy erupt in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the centre of many of the protests over the last 18 days
guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 February 2011 18.16 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/feb/11/egypt-middleeast
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/09/egypt-protests-live-updates-9-february
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/feb/10/egypt-hosni-mubarak-resignation-rumours?intcmp=239
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/feb/11/egypt-protests-mubarak
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/feb/11/egypt-hosni-mubarak-left-cairo
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/11/hosni-mubarak-resigns-egypt-cairo
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/11/hosni-mubarak-future-prosecution-fears?intcmp=239
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http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/08/live-blog-feb-9-egypt-protests
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/10/live-blog-feb-10-egypt-protests
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/10/live-blog-feb-11-egypt-protests
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/11/live-blog-feb-12-egypt-protests
| | CIA achter destab. regio & puppet El Baradei | Tijdsgeest - 15.02.2011 14:14
El Baradei word naar voren geschoven door de westerse media als nieuwwe kandidaat voor Egypte. Echter Al Jazeera denkt dat hij geen kans maakt.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/webster-tarpley-cia-fuels-mob-rule-in-arab-world-to-change-power.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg6QTL8QjU4
ElBaradei is lid van the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, ( http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/Search%20Results.aspx?keywords=Mohammed+El+Baradei), een NGO (non-governmental organization) met een jaarlijks budget van 12 miljoen dollar, gefinancieerd door Carnegie, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation en George Soros Open Society Institute. George Soros is lid van de Uitvoerende Commissie.( http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/Search%20Results.aspx?keywords=ElArabei)
Kortom: dit is een geopolitieke stuurgroep voor de wereld elite.
Het feit dat ElBaradei nu vooruitgeschoven wordt, zou bij elke protestant, die nu vecht om onder het juk van de NWO uit te komen, alarmbellen moeten doen afgaan.
Ook Zbigniew Brzezinski is lid van de International Crisis Group. ( http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/Search%20Results.aspx?keywords=Brzezinski)
Opmerkelijk feit is, dat Brzezinski in 2010 een speech voor de Trilaterale (CFR) hield, waarin hij zijn "angst" voor globaal ontwaken, kenbaar maakte.
Zie hier de video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oDBlABD01U0
http://www.prisonplanet.com/brzezinskis-feared-global-awakening-has-arrived.html
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