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- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2011 19:59:46 -0800 (PST)
Mubarak names deputy, protesters defy curfew
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Reuters – Egyptian soldiers sit on top of an armoured vehicle in Cairo January
29, 2011.REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
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By Edmund Blair and Dina Zayed Edmund Blair And Dina Zayed – Sat Jan 29,
5:38 pm ET
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt's street protesters pushed President Hosni Mubarak into
naming a deputy who might in time succeed him, but thousands went on defying a
curfew and urging the army to join them in forcing Mubarak from power
immediately.
Police shot dead 17 people at Beni Suef, south of Cairo, as pressure mounted on
Mubarak from allies in Washington and Europe to restrain his police and speed a
democratic transition that would end his 30 years of one-man rule.
Thousands marched in Cairo by day, unmolested by troops who manned tanks on the
streets. After dark, police there opened fire in at least one incident, looters
roamed for booty, and the national tax office was set ablaze. Recalling eastern
Europe in 1989, one analyst called it "the Arab world's Berlin moment."
In naming intelligence chief Omar Suleiman vice-president, many saw Mubarak
edging toward an eventual, army-approved handover of power. The 82-year-old
former general has long kept his 80 million people guessing over succession
plans that had, until this week, seemed to focus on grooming his son Gamal, 47.
Gamal's hopes now seem remote. The promotion of Suleiman, 74, a key player in
ties with the United States and Israel, and the appointment of another military
man, Ahmed Shafiq, as prime minister pleased some Egyptians worried about
looming chaos.
According to various estimates about 100 people have been killed during the
week, in the capital and other cities. Medical sources say at least 1,030
people were hurt in Cairo. Among the dead were three policemen killed in the
capital.
President Barack Obama met Vice President Joe Biden and national security
adviser Tom Donilon to discuss unrest in the Arab power that is a linchpin of
U.S. Middle East strategy.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the Egyptian government "can't
reshuffle the deck and then stand pat."
"He is just like Mubarak, there is no change," one protester said of Suleiman
outside the Interior Ministry, where thousands were protesting. The last
vice-president was Mubarak himself, before he succeeded the assassinated Anwar
Sadat in 1981.
Later, police opened fire on a crowd hundreds strong at the ministry. A Reuters
reporter saw one protester fall wounded.
"BERLIN MOMENT"
"This is the Arab world's Berlin moment," said Fawaz Gerges of the London
School of Economics. "The authoritarian wall has fallen, and that's regardless
of whether Mubarak survives.
"The barrier of fear has been removed. It is really the beginning of the end of
the status quo in the region."
The prospect of even greater upheaval across the Middle East -- regardless of
whether it is the crowd or their rulers who get the upper hand -- is prompting
some investors to see risks for oil supplies that could in turn hamper global
economic growth.
More immediately, Egypt's vital tourist industry is taking a knock. In
prosperous parts of Cairo, vigilantes guarded homes, shops and hotels from
looters. Thieves at the Egyptian Museum damaged two mummies from the time of
the pharaohs.
Of Suleiman's appointment, analyst Gamal Abdel Gawad Soltan said: "This is the
beginning of a process of power transfer."
At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jon Alterman said: "I
can't see how this is not the beginning of the end of Mubarak's presidency. It
seems that his task now is to try and manage the transition past his
leadership. I have a hard time believing that he will be the president in a
year."
Many saw Mubarak's concessions as echoes of those made two weeks ago by
Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Just a day later, Ben Ali had fled his
country, deserted by an army which preferred to back less hated figures in his
government.
Tunisians' Internet-fed uprising over economic hardship and political
oppression has inspired growing masses of unemployed youth across the Arab
world, leaving autocratic leaders worried.
With the French and British leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: "We
call on President Mubarak to renounce any violence again unarmed civilians."
The European trio also called for "free and fair elections" -- something that
few doubt would end the grip of the establishment build up around Mubarak.
ISLAMISTS
Like other Arab leaders, the president portrays himself as a bulwark against
the West's Islamist enemies. But Egypt's banned opposition movement the Muslim
Brotherhood has been only one element in the week's events. It lays claim to
moderation.
"A new era of freedom and democracy is dawning in the Middle East," Kamel
El-Helbawy, a cleric from the Brotherhood said from exile in London. "Islamists
would not be able to rule Egypt alone. We should and would cooperate."
A Brotherhood lawyer in Egypt told Reuters that Mubarak's hesitation to meet
protesters' demands had increased appetite for change. Abdel-Moneim
Abdel-Maksoud said Mubarak should step down -- but that an interim government
was needed to preserve order for some months until free elections.
On the Corniche promenade alongside the River Nile in Cairo, people stayed out
after the curfew deadline, standing by tanks and chatting with soldiers who
took no action to disperse them.
At one point, dozens of people approached a military cordon carrying a sign
reading "Army and People Together." Soldiers pulled back and let the group
through: "There is a curfew," one lieutenant said. "But the army isn't going to
shoot anyone."
THE ARMY'S MOMENT
While the police are generally feared as an instrument of repression, the army
is seen as a national institution.
Rosemary Hollis, at London's City University, said the army had to decide
whether it stood with Mubarak or the people: "It's one of those moments where
as with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe they can come down to
individual lieutenants and soldiers to decide whether they fire on the crowd or
not."
In Alexandria, police used teargas and live ammunition against demonstrators
earlier on Saturday. Protests continued in the port city after curfew,
witnesses said.
So far, the protest movement seems to have no clear leader or organization.
Prominent activist Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Laureate for his work with
the U.N. nuclear agency, returned to Egypt from Europe to join the protests.
But many Egyptians feel he has not spent enough time in the country.
"Hosni Mubarak has not heard the people," ElBaradei told Al Jazeera, renewing
his call for the president to step down.
Banks will be shut on Sunday as "a precaution," Central Bank Governor Hisham
Ramez told Reuters. The stock market, whose benchmark index tumbled 16 percent
in two days, will also be closed on Sunday. The Egyptian pound fell to six-year
lows.
(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed, Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed, Sherine El
Madany, Yasmine Saleh, Alison Williams and Samia Nakhoul in Cairo, Alexander
Dziadosz in Suez, Arshad Mohammed in Washington and Peter Apps, Angus MacSwan
and William Maclean in London; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Ralph
Boulton)
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