No surrender, no going back...

So, the wily yet ruthless Guide of the Libyan Revolution was still in town and keen on taming his rebellious capital. Dont't believe the dogs in the media (who had announced his nocturnal escape to Venezuela). I'm still here, he boasted, appearing on Libyan state television, beneath an unwieldy gray umbrella...
The Guide unleashed his special forces and mercenaries into Tripolii's streets, while pro-Gaddafi supporters invested the capitlal's Green Square. Snipers hovered over the demonstrators on rooftops.
Groups of Land Cruisers with masked men wearing military uniforms with heavy guns just passed in front of my street heading to downtown. They are the regime's guards. God help us tonight. Helicopters are shooting down on people on the ground in Tripoli, one resident told the WP.
Libyan airforce jets also dropped small bombs on the protesting crowds, as one witness told the NYT.
I can hear some shots and and some airplanes...We are expecting a disaster tonight. I don't know if I'm going to be alive tomorrow, a Tripoli resident told McClatchy.
In the Fashloum district of Tripoli, residents erected barricades to protect their neighborhood.
In the Tajura area, dead bodies still littered the streets; wounded protesters lay there as well.
Airstrikes and the targeting of ambulances prevented their evacuation.
Some witnesses told the WP that mercenaries riding in ambulances were shooting demonstrators in the streets...
In short, it was an obscene amount of gunfire, one witness recollected. They were strafing these people. People were running in every direction.
An untold number of demonstrators were killed. One source counted 61 dead in Tripoli, according to Aljazeera.        
The bloodbath sparked worldwide condemnation.
Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, declared that the Gaddafi regime's tactics against demonstrators amount to crimes against humanity.
The prominent suni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who returned to Egypt last week after fifty years in exile, and spoke to the two-million-strong crowd on Tahrir Square Friday, issued a fatwa urging Libyan soldiers to turn on Gaddafi. I am issuing a fatwa to kill Gaddafi. To any army soldier, to any man who can pull the trigger and kill this man to do so, he declared on Aljazeera.    
The Guide finally addressed the nation this afternoon in a televised speech.
He refused to make any concessions, however and dismissed the demonstrators as rats and sick people.
A small group of young people who have taken drugs have attacked police stations like mice. They have taken advantage of this peace and stability. However, it is not their fault these young people; they tried to imitate what happened in Tunisia. However, there is a small group of sick people that has infiltrated in cities that are circulating drugs and money, the Guide affirmed.
He urged his fellow Libyans to eradicate these troublemakers for the good of the nation.
Go out to the streets, chase them, take away their arms, arrest them, prosecute them, hand them to security. The rebels are a bunch of terrorists, he claimed. He also asked them to demonstrate in support of the regime tomorrow...
More ominously, he announced that he had only begun to resist. I haven't even started giving the orders to use bullets, he said, and warned that he would cleanse Libya house by house, if the uprising did not end. 
Though he did disclose that he would reform the government, he nevertheless vowed that he was going to die here as a martyr.
Gaddafi thus seems intent on doing whatever it takes to save his regime, even if that entails waging war on his own people..
His opponents have no illusions on this question.
He will never let go of his power. This is a dictator, an emperor. He will die before he gives an inch. But we are no longer afraid. We are ready to die after what we have seen, one protester, Abdel Rahman, told the NYT.
The only thing we can do now is not give up: no surrender, no going back. We will die anyway, whether we like it or not. It is clear that they don't care whether we live or not, Mari Al Mahry, a resident of Al Bayda, in eastern Libya, told The Guardian
Gunfire was heard in the streets of the capital after Gaddafi's speech...
Yet, the butcher of Tripoli is doomed.
The regime's dignitaries are bailing out, one after the other...
The east of the country has fallen...
The support of the tribes is disintegrating...
The only question remaining is the following:
how many will he slaughter before Libya is finally free?  
(the photograph of Gaddafi addressing the nation is by AP photo/Libya State Television via APTN) 

This is the end of the game...

The unrest has now spread to Tripoli, after six days of violence in the east of the country...
Several hours after Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi's 1 AM televised speech on Monday morning, hundreds of demonstrators marched toward's the capital's Green Square, chanting slogans hostile to the regime.
Muammar Gaddafi, our leader, is leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are with him. The armed forces are with him. Tens of thousands are heading here to be with him. We will fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet, the Guide's son warned the nation.
Not only did the protesters not heed his words, but they seemed infuriated by them...
Young men armed themselves with chains around their knuckles, steel pipes and machetes, as well as police batons, helmets and rifles commandeered from riot squads. Security forces moved in, shooting randomly, wrote the NYT.
The People's Hall, Libya's Parliament, was torched, and the state television building attacked.
The mood is very tense here. We have heard that government buildings are on fire and locals are scared to leave their homes. Most foreigners are trying to leave, one hotel worker told The Guardian.
Protesters marching on Gaddafi's residence were targeted with live rounds, according to Aljazeera.
There are also reports that the Libyan Airforce is bombing targets in the capital...
The confrontation in Tripoli led to the deaths of at least 61 people, and maybe 200, the network indicated.
Benghazi, the nation's second largest city, has fallen, and is now under the control of the protesters...
Reinforcements sent to the city to assist the security forces entrenched in their military barracks defected to the opposition instead. The gunshots you hear are the gunshots of celebration, one Benghazi inhabitant told the NYT.
Other Libyan cities, such as Al Bayda and Sabha also appeared to be in the hands of demonstrators...
Support for Gaddadi continued ebbing on Monday.
The influential al-Warfalla and al-Zuwayya tribes condemned the regime's violent response to the demonstrations. We tell him (Gaddafi) to leave the country, a spokesman told Aljazeera...
A tribe in eastern Libya threatened to interrupt all oil exports to the west within twenty-four hours should the regime not cease all oppression of protesters, according to The Guardian.
The regime's dignitaries have also begun repudiating Gaddafi.
The Justice Minister and Libya's representative to the EU resigned on Monday.
Abdel Al-Howni, Libya's Arab League delegate, did likewise. I no longer have any links to this regime which has lost all legitimacy, he told new agencies.
Libya's ambassador to China followed suit...
This is the end of the game. The whole of the regime is crumbling. It will not be long before it is over, Libya's deputy ambassador to the UN, told Aljazeera.
Gaddafi's days are numbered.
The dictator assumed vicious and wanton violence would suffice to cow his people into submission.
It may have been a dangerous miscalculation.

Gaddafi's guards started shooting people in the second day and they shot two people only. We had on that day in Al Bayda city only 300 protesters. When they killed two people, we had more than 5,000 at their funeral, and when they killed 15 people the next day, we had more than 50,000 the following day. This means that the more Gaddafi kills people, the more people go into the streets, 
Ahmad Jibreel, a Libyan diplomat, told Aljazeera.
Yesterday, in Benghazi, Gaddafi's security forces shot and killed sixty mourners...
Later that evening, the city had fallen...
Now people are dying we've got nothing else to live for. It's like a pressure cooker. People are boiling up inside. I'm not even afraid any more. Once I wouldn't have spoken at all by phone. Now I don't care, a blogger told The Guardian.
Fear, it seems, is changing sides.
The British Foreign Minister claims he has information indicating Gaddafi may be fleeing to Venezuela...
The Guide of the Revolution who was to fight until the last bullet may be reconsidering...
It would not be the first time a ruthless tyrant preferred to save his life, at the expense of his honor...    
(the photograph of protesters in Benghazi is by Alaguri/AP)              

Rise up...

Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a renowned Sunni cleric, returned to Egypt last week after fifty years in exile.
He spoke at the rally held in Tahrir Square Friday to commemorate the fallen in the Egyptian Revolution that toppled Mubarak, before a crowd of some two million…
Don’t fight history, he told them. You can’t delay the day when it starts. The Arab world has changed.
The thugs ruling in Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen, and especially Libya failed to heed the wise cleric’s words…
At least 173 protesters have already been killed in less than a week by the Libyan security forces, and that may be a conservative estimate. Some residents of Benghazi claim that more than 200 have been killed in their city alone...
The guide of the First September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, as Muammar Gaddafi is officially called, has obviously no intention of following in the footsteps of Mubarak and Ben Ali.
Incidentally, the guide berated the Tunisians for having evicted their president.
You have suffered a great loss, he also added. There is none better than Zine (Ben Ali) to govern Tunisia. I do not only hope that he stays until 2014, but for life…
Inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, Libyan activists had called for a Libyan Day of Rage on Thursday, February 17.
On this day five years ago, twelve demonstrators were killed by the regime’s security forces.
Yet, the Libyan uprising began earlier than anticipated.
On Tuesday, a prominent Libyan lawyer and human rights activist, Fathi Terbil, was arrested. He has been representing the families of the 1,200 activists killed in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, in 1996.
These political opponents of the regime were then buried in secret mass graves.
Terbil, on behalf of the families, has been demanding that the regime explain the reasons for the massacre and indicate the place of burial of the victims.
When news of the lawyer’s arrest spread, relatives of the 1996 victims gathered in front of the police headquarters in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, one thousand kilometers east of the capital.
Soon, hundreds then thousands of citizens of Benghazi joined them.
The lawyer was released but the gathering turned into a mass demonstration against the regime. Rise up, oh Benghazi, the day you have been waiting for has come; 
There is no god but God and Muammar (Gaddafi) is the enemy of God;
The people want the regime to fall, they chanted.
The writer Idris al-Mesmari, contacted by Aljazeera, told the network that the security forces were attacking the crowd. He was arrested shortly after the interview…
Though Libya possesses the largest oil reserves in Africa, it remains a country wracked by poverty and unemployment. Two-thirds of Libya’s 6.5 million inhabitants live on less than $2 a day, and 30% are jobless.
Yet, they have other demands reminiscent of those of their neighbors: freedom, democracy, justice, and an end to their despotic and corrupt regime.
The government announced that it would double the salaries of civil servants and release 110 political prisoners in an attempt to assuage the wrath of the demonstrators.
Sensing that this may be the time to rid the nation at last of Muammar Gaddafi, who has held absolute power since 1969, Libyans have been demonstrating for nearly one week.
Rise up Libyan women! You are half of the society. Bring your husbands and sons out, one woman from Tripoli, urged on a video.
On Thursday, the Day of Rage, protests erupted in eastern Libya, in the cities of Benghazi, Al Beyda, Zentan, Derna and Ajdabiya.
The east of the country, more hostile to Gaddafi, has long been neglected by the regime.
There were few signs of disturbance in the capital.
The regime had warned its opponents not to openly confront it, or rue the day that it did so. From Libya’s youth to anyone who dares to cross any of the four red lines, come and face us in any street on the ground of our beloved country, a widely disseminated SMS warned. The four red lines referred to Islamic law, the Quran, Libyan security forces and Gaddafi himself.
Yet, thousands demonstrated nevertheless.
What is astonishing is the bravery of the Libyans, who are running a great risk of disappearance and torture, Heba Morayef, of Human Rights Watch, declared.
The security apparatus responded ruthlessly.
According to multiple witnesses, Libyan security forces shot and killed the demonstrators in efforts to disperse the protests, Human Rights Watch stated.
In addition, there are reports that the authorities refused access to medical assistance to those demonstrators in dire need of it, and prevented ambulances from reaching the victims.
By Friday, the death toll had reached 84.
A doctor in Benghazi, Wuwufaq al-Zuwail, told Aljazeera that, on Friday, scores of bodies had been brought to his ward.
I have seen it on my own eyes. At least 70 bodies at the hospital.
Ahmed, a resident of Benghazi told Aljazeera that it’s a big, big massacre. We’ve never heard of anything like this before. It’s horrible. The shooting is still taking place right now. We’re about three kilometers away from it, and we saw this morning army troops coming into the city. You can hear the shooting now. They don’t care about us, he declared on Saturday.
Also on Saturday, the security forces stormed a makeshift camp erected in front of Benghazi’s courtroom by lawyers and judges.
They fired tear gas on protesters in tents and cleared the areas after many fled carrying the dead and injured, one protester told The Telegraph.
Furthermore, they attacked a funeral procession organized in honor of those killed the day before. Today, it’s a real massacre out there, Braikah, a doctor, told McClatchy.
Many of the dead were shot in the head and chest, the security forces clearly intending to kill them.
Snipers shot protesters, artillery and helicopter gunships were used against crowds of demonstrators, and thugs armed with hammers and swords attacked families in their homes as the Libyan regime sought to crush the uprising, wrote Nick Meo in The Telegraph.
With foreign journalists persona non grata, internet and phone services interrupted, Aljazeera and other foreign news outlets unavailable, the regime is doing its utmost to conceal its brutal crackdown.
In addition, there are reports that it has hired foreign mercenaries to do its dirty work.
In Shahhat, sixteen kilometers east of Al Bayda, two African mercenaries were killed and three others captured
A lot of thugs he’s (Gaddafi) employing are not Arabic speakers. They’re armed to the teeth and only use live ammunition. They don’t ask questions-they just shoot. Buildings and cars have been set on fire here, and the situation is getting worse. The dead and injured are everywhere. The mercenaries shoot from helicopters and from the top of roofs.
They don’t care who they kill, Fatih, 26 and from Benghazi, told The Telegraph.
There are also indications that some in the security forces, appalled at the brutality unleashed on the protesters, have switched sides.
Gaddafi is reacting to the protests with ruthlessness. Tanks are on the streets, and there are running battles between armed killers and protesters. Some of the soldiers have been so disgusted by what is going on that they have swapped sides, Omar, a young Benghazi civil servant, told The Telegraph.
Will the uprising resist this onslaught of vicious violence?
Some believe that the Libyans have no other option but to continue demonstrating come what may.
They’re not going to go back to their homes. If they do, he’ll finish them off. They know the regime very well. There’s no way to go back now. Never, never, an exiled opposition leader Abel al-Majid Mansour, told Anthony Shadid, of the NYT.
That is a facile claim to make from Oslo.
The pro-government Al-Zah al-Akhdar newspaper warned that the government would «violently and thunderously respond» to the protests, and said those opposing the regime risked « suicide », The Guardian reported Saturday evening.
The coming days are bound to be crucial.
Either the brave Libyans pursue their efforts and prevail in spite of the regime’s ruthless tactics, or the latter will succeed in cowing them.
Shall they at one point relent, or die trying and failing to overthrow Gaddafi?
But then, perhaps it is already too late for the dictator...
Reflecting on the events in Egypt, one Tahrir protester said this.
They (the regime) empowered us through their violence; they made us hold on to the dream of freedom even more. We were all walking around with wounds, but we still kept going.
May Gaddafi become the last, ultimate victim of his own brutality…
(the photograph of Muammar Gaddafi was found here)

We did it...

It was 6:01PM, and it lasted but some thirty seconds...
Taking into consideration the difficult circumstances the country is going through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the post of president of the republic and has tasked the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to manage the state's affairs, the Vice President Omar Suleiman declared on Egyptian television.
Hosni Mubarak had just resigned, and the armed forces were now in charge of the nation...
Only the night before, Mubarak had vowed not to step down.
The thousands that had gathered in Tahrir Square expecting to celebrate the news of his departure were bitterly disappointed.
Thousands shouted Irhal! (Leave!), in unison, as their hopes of victory at long last were dashed by the old autocrat's obduracy.
The response from the people here is massive and direct. He can be as stubborn as he likes, but the will of the people is clear, Fakhr El-Sanhoury, a twenty-six-year-old architect, told Jack Shenker, of The Guardian.
Some people here worry about what is going to happen next, but I'm not scared. Just like the Tunisians did to Ben Ali, we will follow their example. We have won, whatever comes next, Nisma Saïd, a secretary, told Shenker.
Nisma was right.
Less than twenty-fours later, the despot was gone, driven away by his people's rigteous wrath...
Mubarak is gone, but the regime is still in place.

There will be time tomorrow to worry whether or not  the army will respect its previous pledges to honor all of the Egyptians people's demand, and is ready to cede power to civilians of the opposition...
Tonight, they have earned the right to celebrate a glorious victory, obtained in just three weeks.
For 18 days we have withstood tear gas, rubber bullets, live ammunition, molotov cocktails, thugs on horseback, the scepticism and fear of our loved ones, and the worst sort of ambivalence from an international community that claims to care about democracy. But we held our ground. We did it, Karim Medhat Ennarah, a protester, told The Guardian.
Mubarak resigned thirty-two years to the day after the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran.
Wael Ghonim, a spokesman for the opposition sent this message to the Iranians, shortly before Mubarak's departure. I would tell Iranians to learn from the Egyptians, as we have learned from you guys, that at the end of the day with the power of people, we can do whatever we want to do. If we unite our goals, if we believe, then all our dreams can come true.
This was the great lesson of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings.
Once the people acquire sufficient faith in their ability to take control of their own destiny, they are invincible...
May their example inspire all the oppressed in the Middle East and elsewhere...
It can be done...
The Tunisians and now the Egyptians have just done it...
(the photograph above is by Suhaib Salem/Reuters)

We are getting our country back...

Tahrir Square is filling up at an unusually brisk pace tonight.
Is it in anticipation of tomorrow’s march of millions, or of a more momentous event to occur later this evening?
The president is to address the nation tonight.
The Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed forces met this afternoon, an extremely rare occurrence and without the president. An army official announced that all the demands of the crowd would be met...
Is Mubarak about to resign, thus?
Have the Egyptian people prevailed?
Demonstrators are already dancing in the streets…
The Prime Minister indicated that Mubarak was still president and that nothing had changed…Nothing?
Today, thousands of doctors and students demonstrated in the streets of Cairo and headed toward Tahrir Square, joining a movement whose vitality shows no sign of faltering.
Some three thousand lawyers did likewise, as did engineers, journalists and public transport workers, including bus drivers.
Even some journalists at the pro-government daily al Ahram went on strike, to protest the newspaper’s biased coverage of the unrest.
Protesters have now spent two days and two nights in front of the Parliament building, opening up a new front in the confrontation with the regime.
Yesterday, 6000 workers at the Suez Canal Authority participated in a sit-in. Striking textile workers blocked roads in Mahalla, 2,000 pharmaceutical workers went on strike in Quesna, and 5,000 unemployed young Egyptians marched in Aswan, demanding the resignation of the governor.
The unrest is spreading, for Egyptians are no longer fearful of voicing their grievances.
Not all the demonstrators have a political agenda per se, and many are demanding higher salaries and better working and living conditions. Yet, their activism is reinforcing the anti-Mubarak opposition.
Protesters are more emboldened and more determined by the day. This is a growing movement, it’s not shrinking, Ahmad Salah, an activist, told Aljazeera.
Vice President Omar Suleiman however, warned the protesters that the unrest would have to cease. We can’t bear this for a long time. There must be an end to this crisis as soon as possible. We don’t want to deal with Egyptian society with police tools, he declared yesterday.
Was the Vice President suggesting that a coup might be in the offing should the uprising not come to a swift conclusion?
Continued unrest would lead to the dark bats of the night emerging to terrorize people. There was only one alternative to the current, gradual transition process, he claimed: a coup... which would mean uncalculated and hasty steps, including lots of irrationalities.
Was the Vice President threatening to impose martial law if the opposition did not cease its daily demonstrations, now accompanied by social strife?
I mean a coup of the regime against itself, or a military coup or an absence of the system. Some force, whether it’s the army or police or the intelligence agency or the (Muslim) Brotherhood or the youth themselves could carry out creative chaos to end the regime and take power, he said.
This, however, did not deter the opposition activists from pursuing their campaign.
We are striking and we will protest and we will not negotiate until Mubarak steps down. Whoever wants to threaten us, then let them do so, Khaled Abdel-Hamid, an activist belonging to the youth movement, told The Guardian.
And I am telling this to Omar Suleiman. He’s going to watch this. You are not going to stop us. Kidnap me, kidnap all my colleagues. Put us in jail. Kill us. Do whatever you want to do. We are getting back our country. You guys have been ruining this country for 30 years, Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who was released earlier this week after twelve days in detention, told CNN.
The regime however, reiterated its threats today.
We have to preserve the Constitution, even if it is amended.
If chaos occurs, the armed forces will intervene to control the country , a step which would lead to a very dangerous situation, Aboul Gheit, Egypt’s Foreign Minister, declared today.
The regime had been clearly hoping that once a transition process had been announced, the unrest would gradually subside, alleviating pressure on Mubarak and the government.
The fact that it has not, quite the contrary, may explain its more intransigent attitude.
The Foreign Minister rebuffed US demands to repeal the emergency law, which gives the security apparatus sweeping powers, while the Vice President has steadfastly refused to consider establishing a transitional government that would include opposition leaders.
A more robust confrontation with the protest movement now seems likely.
The regime is taking a hard line and so negotiations have essentially come to an end.
Suleiman’s comments about there being a danger were shocking to us all. It was a betrayal of the spirit of negotiations, and is unacceptable. The regime ‘s strategy has been just to play for time and stall with negotiations. They don’t really want to talk to anyone, Diaa Rashwan, a member of the opposition organization the Council of Wise Men, told The Guardian.
Although the regime has striven to project a more benign and civilized demeanor, it has continued arresting. and torturing those it suspects of participating in the demonstrations.
The director of the Egyptian initiative for Personal Rights in Cairo, Hossam Bahgat, told The Guardian that he suspects hundreds if not thousands of Egyptians may have disappeared, abducted by the army.
One protester recounted his ordeal to Chris McGreal, of The Guardian.
They put me in a room. An officer came and asked me who was paying me to be against the government. When I said I wanted a better government he hit me across the head and I fell to the floor. Then soldiers started kicking me. One of them kept kicking me between my legs. They said I could die there or I could disappear into prison and no one would ever know. The torture was painful but the idea of disappearing in a military prison was really frightening.
Some people, especially the activists, say they were interrogated about any possible links to political organizations or any outside forces. For the ordinary protesters, they get slapped around and asked: « Why are you in Tahrir? » It seems to serve as an interrogation operation and an intimidation and deterrence, Bahgat added.
I think it becomes pretty obvious by now that the military is not a neutral party.  The military doesn’t want and doesn’t believe in the protests and this is even at the lower level, based on the interrogations, Heba Morayef, of HRW, told Chris McGreal.
The journalist Robert Tait, of RFE/RL was himself abducted and detained for some twenty-eight hours.
In this hotel, there are only two items on the menu for those who don’t behave-electrocution and rape, the Mukhabarat thug told Tait and the numerous other detainees.
Fellow Egyptian detainees were ruthlessly beaten and abused with an electrocution device.
Get the electric shocks ready. This lot are to be made to really suffer, a guard said as a group of newly abducted Egyptians were brought in. Holding a British passport, Tait was spared this treatment.
I had flown to Cairo to find out what was ailing so many Egyptians. I did not expect to learn the answer so graphically, he wrote.
It is not only Mubarak that must leave and leave now, but his regime must be dismantled, including his ruthless security apparatus.
If Mubarak leaves, will not the military be tempted to seize power?
Will the armed forces jettison Mubark in order to preserve the regime?
We are not there yet!
Mubarak has spoken tonight and rejected the protesters' injunction to step down.
Satisfied with what I have offered the nation for more than sixty years, I have announced I will stay with this post and I will continue to shoulder my responsibilities, Mubarak declared.
We will not accept or listen to any foreign interventions or dictations, he added.
The president, defiant and highly pleased with himself, will remain President, come what may...
The struggle continues.
Tomorrow's march of millions will give the Egyptian people the opportunity to respond...
The old autocrat will fall.
It is only a matter of time...
The photograph above was taken on Egypt TV by APTN/AP)

Suleiman the democrat...

Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, who fought against Israel in the 1967 and 1973 wars, became the head of the country’s intelligence services in 1993.
A close confidante of Hosni Mubarak, he saved the president’s life (and also his own for he was traveling with him) when he insisted that the latter ride in an armored car while on a visit to Addis Ababa in 1995, thereby foiling an assassination attempt…
As head of intelligence, Suleiman was closely involved in nurturing relations with Israel. His duties also included waging a ruthless war against Islamic extremist groups within Egypt, which he succeeded in eradicating.
Recent WikiLeaks cables reveal that the Vice President has only contempt for the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization he invited for talks last Sunday, which consists of, in his words, liars who only understand force.
He has cunningly manipulated the threat the Islamic movement supposedly represents to deflect Western pressure to democratize Egypt’s authoritarian regime.
Suleiman claimed that the MB (Muslim Brotherhood) had spawned different Islamic extremist organizations, most notably the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Gama’a Islamiya (Islamic Group), according to a cable written in February 2006 by the US ambassador, Francis Ricciardone.
In a previous cable, the ambassador wrote that the regime has a long history of threatening us with the Muslim Brotherhood bogeyman.
Suleiman was also an active and effective participant in the Bush/Cheney extraordinary renditions program.
The CIA seized alleged Al Qaeda operatives abroad and would then transfer them to Egypt so that Mr. Suleiman’s services could interrogate them. Torture was standard operating procedure. As another former ambassador recalled, he was not (a) squeamish man by any means…  
Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, an Al Qaeda militant, was captured by the Pakistanis in November 2001 and handed over to the US at Bagram base, in Afghanistan.
He was then sent to Egypt, where Suleiman’s task was to convince him to confirm the Bush contention that Saddam Hussein was assisting Al Qaeda, and that the Iraqi dictator intended to provide biological and chemical weapons to the terrorist organization…
Libi confessed and the information extracted formed the basis of Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations in 2003, justifying the Bush/Cheney claim that Iraq presented a dire and imminent threat to the security of the United States…
The information provided by Libi turned out to be nonsense, but was the direct by- product of Suleiman’s interrogation techniques.
They were killing me, Liby declared later. I had to tell them something…
Not surprisingly, the Israelis trust Mr. Suleiman. There is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Suleiman succeeding Mubarak, a 2008 US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks indicated.
Suleiman is an imposing man. He’s pretty wily, very polished and extremely intelligent. People are scared of him, for obvious reasons, a former British ambassador, David Blatherwick, told The Guardian.
He is not known to be a progressive thinker. Nobody would consider him to be a democrat, Steve Cook, of the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Guardian.
This is the man Washington believes is best suited to manage the transition process designed to lead to the establishment of a functioning democratic regime…
We hear that they are committed to this and when we press on concrete steps and timelines, we are given assurance that that will happen, Hillary Clinton told NPR.
A clear road map has been put in place with a set timetable to realize the peaceful and organized transfer of power, the Vice President declared Tuesday morning.
The US fully supports this process therefore, and now believes it is counterproductive to demand Mubarak’s resignation for that would lead to snap presidential elections, which could prove detrimental to the establishment of a genuinely democratic regime in the country. That risk could be avoided however, if a Mubarak resignation was followed by the suspension of the constitution, such that an interim government would have sufficient time to prepare fair and free elections. This is one of the opposition ‘s demands…
Free and fair elections demand preparation we are told, for the constitution must be amended. It is important to kind of look over the horizon. You don’t want to get to September and have a failed election and then people feel: What did we do, what was the point of all this, Hillary Clinton declared on Sunday.
The process must not be rushed!
Washington and Mr. Suleiman jointly believe that what must be averted at all cost is instability. Mubarak’s departure would have adverse consequences on the transition process. Other people who have their own agenda will make instability in our country, the Vice President suggested…
Yet, the man now custodian of the democratization process does not believe the country is ready for democracy and will not be until the people here have the culture of democracy, he insisted.
In addition, he accused the demonstrators of being manipulated by foreigners and Islamic groups. It’s not their idea, he said referring to the demands of the protesters. It comes from abroad…
The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs,condemned the Vice President’s remarks.
The notion that Egypt isn’t ready for democracy I think runs quite counter to what we see happening in Tahrir Square and on the streets in cities throughout the country. It’s clear that statements like that are not going to be met with any agreement by the people of Egypt because they don’t address the very legitimate grievances that we’ve seen expressed as a result of these protests, he said.
Should we be entrusting Egypt’s future to this man?
Yes, since our paramount objective here is not allowing the emergence of a democratic regime per se, but preserving the stability of the country, even if that entails it should remain an authoritarian one.
This sort of « orderly transition » in post-Mubarak Egypt is more likely to usher in a return to the repressive status quo than an era of widening popular participation, Joshua Stracher, an academic, wrote in Foreign Affairs.
It plays right into the hands of the regime. The longer this goes, the better it is for Mubarak, Suleiman and the rest of the military-dominated leadership, said Steve Cook.
I fear the administration is heading toward acceptance of the perpetuation of the Egyptian dictatorship in all but name, Robert Kagan, of the Brooking Institution, told Politico.
What do Egyptians make of the US position?
Don’t gamble on a leader-put your money on the people, a doctor, Lotfy Abdul-Mageed, told the Washington Post.
Others however, were not surprised, yet neither need nor want Western support.
If the United States supports the revolution, it is good for the United States. If they do not, it is an Egyptian issue, Islam Lofty, a lawyer, told the NYT.
In the end, does it matter what Washington says or does?
The administration is being hammered but it has no leverage to influence events, Steve Cook told The Guardian.
Hillary Clinton did concede as much.
Now the Egyptians are the ones who are having to grapple with the reality of what they must do, she said.
Indeed, and all the opposition groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood, have demanded the immediate resignation of President Mubarak.
Today, hundreds of thousands, according to Aljazeera,  protested in Cairo demanding, once again, Mubarak’s immediate departure.
If, ultimately, the warnings and proclamations of Western leaders  matter little on the ground, why are they not wholeheartedly supporting the brave Egyptian people who are demanding not only that Mubarak step down, but also those rights we already possess and take for granted: freedom of speech, freedom to choose one’s leaders and to earn a decent living…
The Obama administration obviously wants to support democracy. But the US has been backing the military regime in Egypt for 30 years, Andrew McGregor, of the Jamestown Foundation, told the NYT.
It is high time that we ceased supporting a sclerotic, authoritarian regime that is morally bankrupt and that has been preying on the population for much too long.
It is the regime itself that has become a source of instability, precisely that which we wish to avert at all cost…
We should be insisting on its downfall, therefore, so Egypt can transform itself, with our help if it wants it, into a functioning and vibrant democracy.
Supporting the people of Egypt instead of its current rulers is the only sensible thing to do. It is also the only ethical thing to do.
Who would we be if we did not say we stand on the side of the people, asked Chancellor Angela Merkel?
Saying that we are on their side is grossly insufficient.
The time has come for Western democracies to withdraw all support for the Mubarak regime, and help the Egyptians create their own future, on their terms, not ours…
(the photograph above can be found here)

This is our revolution...

It was a new day in Tahrir on Sunday, the thirteenth in the Egyptian people’s struggle to overthrow the reviled Mubarak regime.
Approximately one million people (according to Aljazeera) attended this day of the martyrs, during which both Christian and Islamic services were held to commemorate the victims of the uprising.
The atmosphere however, remained festive and a wedding was actually celebrated on the square Sunday afternoon.
Yet, there were signs that the army was attempting to remove some of the makeshift  barriers erected by the occupants as protection from hostile outside forces, and moving inside the square. As a result, some youths resorted to sitting down in front of the tanks to immobilize them…
As banks and shops began reopening, Vice President Omar Suleiman invited opposition forces to discuss constitutional reform.
Washington and other Western capitals support this process, and the man leading it, the Vice President.
That (an orderly transition) takes some time. There are certain things that have to be done in order to prepare, Hillary Clinton said, in a speech given at a conference on security in Munich.
At the same event, Chancellor Angela Merkel made a similar statement.
There will be change in Egypt, but clearly, the change has to be shaped in a way that is peaceful, a sensible way forward, she declared.
The West clearly fears that the current revolutionary process could subvert the current order, creating a vacuum that would then be filled by forces (anti-Western Islamic forces) imposing an agenda hostile to its security interests.
The Palestinian precedent must also be haunting them: free and fair parliamentary elections were conducted in 2006 with Western support. Our friends, The Fatah of President Abbas, were trounced by Hamas, an Islamic movement opposed to the peace process with Israel.
Washington and the EU are keen on making sure such an outcome is not replicated in Egypt…The establishment of a democratic regime would be the desired outcome, as long as its leaders are pro-Western and Israeli…Elections must not be organized to soon, for only one party is currently sufficiently organized and influential to win them, the Muslim Brotherhood. President Obama claimed on Sunday evening that elements of its program are anti-American, according to Fox.
Revolutions have overthrown dictators in the name of democracy only to see the process hijacked by new autocrats who use violence, deception and rigged elections to stay in power, Clinton added.
In light of such a risk, Washington prefers supporting the old autocrats, those it knows well and has been subsidizing for thirty years. If stalwarts of the old regime such as Suleiman supervise the transition leading to new elections in September, the greater the chance, it is hoped, that Egypt’s new leaders will pursue policies compatible with US and Israeli interests in the region.
To say that Mubarak should stay and lead the process of change, and that the process of change should essentially be led by his closest military advisor (Suleiman) who’s not the most popular person in Egypt, without the sharing of power with civilians, it would be very, very disappointing, Mohamed ElBaradei told Reuters.
There remained some confusion however, concerning what role, if any, Mubarak should play in this process. We need to get a national consensus around the pre-conditions for the next step forward. The president must stay in office to steer those changes. I believe that President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical-it's his chance to write his own legacy, declared Frank Wisner, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Egypt, on Saturday. This did not reflect, apparently, the official position of the United States.
In light of what’s happened the last two weeks, going back to the old ways is not going to work. Suppression is not going to work. Engaging in violence is not going to work, President Obama had declared on Friday.
He did not demand however (nor did the Europeans) that Mubarak resign.
Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq confirmed on Saturday that the Egyptian president would not step down before the end of his term, which expires in September…
Vice President Suleiman, thus, met with members of the opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood, a party banned over fifty years ago, but that is tolerated in the country.
Suleiman did make some concessions. He called for the formation of a committee to examine possible amendments to the constitution that would permit free and fair elections; the prosecution of corrupt officials; measures to promote the freedom of the press; the lifting of the emergency law when conditions allow and the release of political prisoners currently in detention.
The Muslim Brotherhood however, was not satisfied.
We cannot call it talks or negotiations. The Muslim Brotherhood went with a key condition that cannot be abandoned, that he (Mubarak) needs to step down in order to usher in a democratic process, Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a spokesman for the organization, told Aljazeera. If they were serious, the parliament would have been dissolved, also a presidential decree ending the emergency law, he added.
Mohamed ElBaradei, who was not invited to participate, also criticized the Vice President’s approach.  The process is opaque. Nobody knows who is talking to whom at this stage. It’s managed by Vice President Suleiman. It is all managed by the military and that is part of the problem, he told NBC.
The process initiated on Sunday satisfies the leaders of the current autocratic regime, and those of the West.
Yet, who consulted the main protagonists, that is to say the Egyptian people, so diversely represented at Tahrir Square?
The movement’s particularity is its amorphous nature and fundamental democratic character.
I was expecting to find the Wafd were the leaders, or the Brotherhood were the leaders. There are no leaders at all, one demonstrator told the NYT.
It is led, or rather, inspired and motivated by Egypt’s youth.
Those young men defended Egypt. They took the bullet, a leader of ElBaradei’s National Association for Change, told the NYT.
It is inside the Square that the demonstrators elaborated their own political agenda.
When the government shut down the web, politics moved on to the streets, and that’s where it has stayed. It’s impossible to construct a perfect decision-making mechanism in such as fast-moving environment, but this is as democratic as we can possibly be, a young demonstrator told Jack Shenker, of The Guardian.
Protesters debate the future of the nation.
Their delegates meet to refine this agenda and the proposals that are greeted with the loudest cheer and applause when communicated to the crowd by the PA system are adopted.
The regime is trying to demonize protesters as agents of foreign powers, fomenters of chaos and so on. But go down to Tahrir, sit on a corner, and within five minutes you’ll be in the middle of a spontaneous political discussion-the energy of people’s ideas is inspiring. It’s down there that the legitimate voice of the protesters and our revolution can be heard, Hossam el-Hamalawy, a journalist, told Shenker.
The revolution is now in the custody of the streets, and that is where its future lies, not in the White House, nor the Presidential Palace in Heliopolis.
What we have here is the opposite of a vacuum; we have democracy in action on the ground in Tahrir Square. We are full of hope and ideas, and our gallant young people are guarding our periphery, the author Ahdaf Soueif wrote in The Guardian.
The words of people are stronger than guns, one protester named Mohammed mused.
In the words of Anthony Shadid, Tahrir has become an idea as much as a place…
Those in the Square and elsewhere have been victimized, brutalized, robbed, disenfranchised  and at best, ignored for over thirty years. The notion that Mubarak and his henchmen can be entrusted with the transition process the aim of which is to establish an authentic and functioning democracy is absurd.
Either the people or the regime will prevail; there can be no accommodation.
It’s in the streets now. It’s the people of Egypt protesting. We have no future. Either we die, or this regime goes completely, Omar Ghoneim, a businessman, told Anthony Shadid of the NYT.
I am doing this for my son. Mubarak has to go because with Mubarak my son has no future…The government is Mubarak’s government, not our government. I will stay here until Mubarak leaves. I will stay here days, months, years, an accountant called Ismael told Chris McGreal of The Guardian.
But we cannot be afraid to free ourselves. I’m 30 years old and I’ve never voted in an election because they were always corrupt and fake. We are going to stay until he goes, Ahmed Moar, a university professor, told The Guardian.
The authenticity and power of the messages being hurled from Tahrir Square should not be ignored in Washington D.C.
Many Egyptians fear that the US, even Obama’s US, will do whatever it takes, even sacrificing their interests, to preserve the current regime, even in a diluted form, in order to protect Israel.
Egypt is not against America. I don’t want the Americans to tell my country what to do. All Egyptian people must decide. America has an agenda. It is not our agenda and this is our revolution, Ismael added.
What are the objectives of the revolution?
The former opposition presidential candidate, Ayman Nour tried to summarize the people’s fundamental demands:
*the eradication of the police state and its repressive apparatus;
*the formation of a national unity government tasked with drafting a new constitution;
*the organization of free and fair elections.
First and foremost however, Mubarak must leave, and leave now.
In essence, Ahdaf Soueif poses the fundamental question: can a people’s revolution that is determinedly democratic, grass-roots, inclusive and peaceable succeed?
It is the responsibility of all those who believe in freedom, justice and democracy to ensure that it does.
Crucially, this responsibility belongs to those who represent us, Mrs. Merkel, MM. Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy.
It is the revolution of the Egyptian people, which they have paid for with decades of abuse, and we have no right to strip it away from them, in order to preserve a sclerotic, corrupt regime which we foolishly believed could foster stability in the region.
Only a functioning democracy can achieve this, not brazen despotism.
So let us, at the very least, if we can manage no better, get out of their way, and allow them to finish what they have so valiantly started…
(the photograph of Christians and Muslims commemorating the fallen in Tahrir Square is by Amel Pain/EPA)




.
 

Vintage Mubarak...

Some eight days after the start of the Egyptian people’s revolt, and which some have called a revolution, Mubarak’s supporters finally took to the streets, as if on cue.
Tens of thousands of them stormed Tahrir Square, hitherto the bastion of those demanding the President’s resignation.
In ten minutes, there will be a big fight here-it is an old game, the oldest game in the regime, one observer at the scene told the NYT.
Indeed, shortly, before 230PM, the violence began, instigated by Mubarak’s supporters.
The assault appeared well planned. Just twenty-four hours after Mubarak‘s speech during which he told his people he had no intention of stepping down, but would serve until the end of his term, and President Obama’s statement demanding that the political transition begin now, the old autocrat unleashed his supporters, brazenly announcing to all that he had not conceded defeat, on the contrary.
Mubarak is saying a big « F… you » to the United States and a big « F…you » to the Egyptian people, unfortunately. He’s saying, « you want me to leave? I will not leave. You will not intervene in my domestic affairs. And I will kill my people», Amr Shalakany, a professor at Cairo University, and the American University in Cairo, told McClatchy.
Some of his supporters arrived by bus. Some were reportedly paid 50 Egyptian pounds ($10 or so) to attend.
The onslaught started when Mubarak’s supporters threw projectiles at anti-government demonstrators thronging the square.
With our blood, we sacrifice for you, oh Mubarak, they chanted.
One hour later, the baltageya, or thugs in local slang, riding horses and camels, charged into the crowd wielding sticks and truncheons, striking all those within their reach…
The confrontation lasted some twenty hours, as each side lashed out at the other with clubs, sticks, bottles and rocks.
« He won’t go, » President Hosni Mubarak’s supporters chanted on the other side. « He will go, » went the reply. « We’re not going to go », reported Anthony Shadid, of the NYT.
Later Wednesday night, Mubarak supporters resorted to more lethal weapons, such as firearms and Molotov cocktails, thrown from rooftops onto opposition demonstrators below
Eight were killed, and some 890 injured during the violence, including some journalists (such as CNN‘s Anderson Cooper, who along with his crew was beaten up). Some two dozen others were also arrested.
Tellingly, the army refused to intervene.
Why don’t you protect us, the protesters complained to the idle soldiers?
Because of the mounting violence, the demands of anti-government demonstrators became more radical.
The people want the execution of the president. Mubarak is a war criminal, some shouted, according to the NYT.
They want to take the revolution from us. We are ready to die for the revolution, Mohamed Gamil, a dentist, told the NYT.
Who were the violent Mubarak supporters?
Many opposition demonstrators suspect that they were civilian-clad policemen, officers who vanished from the streets last Friday.
The strategy of sending in the thugs after making half-hearted promises was vintage Mubarak. The tactic is familiar to political observers, for he’s employed the same approach in national elections-assuring Western allies of fair polls and instead rounding up opposition candidates and dispatching foot soldiers to rough up supporters, wrote Hannah Allam of McClatchy.
Some Mubarak militants that were caught by opposition members possessed police identification cards. Some were severely beaten.
Not all were stalwart or opportunistic supporters of Mubarak, however.
Some attended because they considered that the concessions Mubarak had announced during his TV address (not seeking reelection, and amending the constitution to allow fair and free elections, for instance) were sufficient. There was no need to humiliate the President and demand his immediate departure..
People should leave Tahrir Square. The president has made the concessions he was asked for. So now people can go home. If he tries to undo the changes, we can always go back again, Mohamed Megahid, 30, told The Guardian.
On Thursday morning, bursts of gunfire were heard again in Cairo.
Clashes then erupted near the square.
This time however, the army did step in, positioning its tanks so as to separate the antagonistic factions.
Moreover, as more and more opposition demonstrators returned to the square (between 50 and 100,000 according to The Guardian), they remained firmly in control of this anti-Mubarak stronghold, and determined to pursue their campaign.
Yesterday was a slaughter. I will not leave Tahrir. I will be here until Mubarak leaves or I die, Mustafa Mohammad told the LAT.
The Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq actually apologized for the violence although a government spokesman denied the authorities had anything to do with the tragic events. I offer my apology for everything that happened yesterday because it is neither logical nor rational, he declared.
The opposition made it quite clear however, that it will not negotiate with the current regime, reflecting the will of the streets.
This is Mubarak’s mafia and they are trying to terrify us, Mohammed Ali, a twenty-three-year-old demonstrator told The Sydney Morning Herald, referring to the pro-Mubarak militants. We are not interested in negotiations. It’s been 30 years of talking. Mubarak has to leave.
The opposition has asked the Egyptian people to take to the streets again Friday, hoping that a massive turnout (which they have called the Departure Day demonstration) will finally convince Mubarak that it is time to leave.
Yet, it is not clear what will happen should, in all likelihood, he refuse to do so.
The lack of an effective and articulate opposition is also a legacy of Mubarakism.
The problem is that for 30 years, Mubarak didn’t let us build an alternative. No alternative for anything, Adel Wehba, an opposition supporter told Anthony Shadid of the NYT.
If I resign today, there will be chaos, Mubarak told Christiane Amanpour, of ABC News, this afternoon. The old autocrat has lost all sense of reality.
Chaos risks engulfing the entire nation if he does not leave and leave now.
It is clear that Egypt’s youth, having discovered its power and potential after eight days of revolt, will not tolerate any other denouement than Mubarak’s departure
What we want is simple-democracy. We don’t want Mubarak’s son as the next president; we want free elections and the right to choose the best candidate for president.
The mood here is positive among young people. We feel we are doing something very great. We feel the country is now ours and that we can change anything, Mohamed Saad, a young Egyptian, wrote in The Guardian.
Saad and millions like him have just sealed Mubarak’s fate…
(the title of this post is borrowed from this McClatchy piece; the photograph above of Mubarak supporters confronting opposition demonstrators is by AP)

Welcome to a free Egypt...

The authorities had done their utmost to limit the turnout for the March of Millions yesterday in Cairo. Roads between Alexandria and Cairo had been blocked, rail service and public transportation in the capital interrupted.
Yet, the crowds that reached and demonstrated in Tahrir Square were simply unprecedented.
Hundreds of thousands?
Aljazeera estimated that over two million Egyptians filled the square and adjacent areas to demand that President Mubarak resign at once.
Egyptians from all walks of life, many accompanied by their children were there and demanded to be heard at last.
Peasants from southern Egypt joined Islamists from the Nile Delta, businessmen from upper-class suburbs rubbed shoulders with street-smart youths from gritty Boulaqin in a square that served as a vast tapestry of a country’s diversity joined in the bluntest of message: Mr. Mubarak must surrender power.
« Go already», read one sign held aloft. « My arm’s starting to hurt », wrote Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick in the NYT.
McClatchy’s Hannah Allam and Shashank Bengali described the scene thus:
All day long, protesters chanted « leave! » It came from the mouths of children draped in the Egyptian flag, bearded clerics in turbans, teenagers dancing to a drumbeat and elderly women with tears in their eyes. Long before the president’s speech, cameras flashed and video recorders rolled as the protesters documented what they hoped would go down in Egyptian history as the end of Mubarak’s regime.
« In my whole life, I’ve never known another president, and suddenly I can’t imagine how he can stay for even one more day, » said Tasneem Osman, 26. « He has to go. He will go. »
With information more and more difficult to obtain, as internet and mobile phone services were shut down by the authorities, rumors swirled in Tahrir Square. Some protesters cheered at the news that President Mubarak had fled the country. Alas, from the protesters’ point of view, this turned out not to be…
Google, Tweeter and Say now devised a system, speak2tweet allowing Egyptians to send Twitter messages by phone (Wednesday morning, however, the internet services were partially restored).
Originally, the huge crowd was to march on the Presidential Palace eight miles away, but the undertaking seemed too perilous, potentially leading to clashes with the army, which has, for the time being, refused to confront the demonstrators.
In the early evening, a huge television screen was installed in the square, broadcasting Aljazeera, a network officially banned by the authorities (it has now, once again, become available).
The determination of the Egyptians present seemed intact, even after a week of protest: everyone is out there to deliver a clear message to the system that we are not going to let go. We want our voices to be heard, one protester told The Guardian.
Moreover, the weeklong revolt has led to a virtual economic paralysis.
The stock market, which lost 17% last week, has been closed for four straight days.
The transportation of goods around the country has ceased due to a general lack of security. Shops and banks are closed, ATMs are empty and tourists are feeing the country.
Hence, most Egyptians did not receive their January salary as they are paid in cash, and none is available…
Life is therefore, becoming difficult, putting additional pressure on the protagonists. on President Mubarak, compelled to find a quick solution to the crisis, and on the demonstrators, obligated to choose between satisfying their material needs, and thus abandoning the struggle, or pursuing their political agenda and accepting the hardships that ensue.
Things are tough, but I’m more concerned about getting this government out of power. We can get by on less, Ahmad Ismail, a young real estate agent, told the NYT.
The pressure on President Mubarak to resolve the crisis has been intensifying.
The magnitude and intensity of the demonstrations convinced the Obama Administration last weekend that the days of the Mubarak regime were numbered.
As a result, and at Hillary Clinton’s behest, Frank Wisner, a former ambassador to Egypt, was dispatched to Cairo to try to convince Mubarak to leave the scene…
Yesterday, in a NYT op-ed piece, unequivocally called Allying Ourselves With the Next Egypt, John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote that the stability of his country hinges on his willingness to step aside.
The message was clear. Mubarak was now recognized as an impediment to the emergence of a new, democratic Egypt.
Kerry also urged the President and his son, Gamal, hitherto considered his designated successor, not to run in next September’s Presidential election.
He also recommended that the US reorient its financial aid to Egypt, currently almost exclusively directed towards the Egyptian military, in support of Egyptian society.
Although he did not formally ask for the President’s resignation, he concluded his article thus,
It is vital that we stand with the people who share our values and hopes and who seek the universal goals of freedom, prosperity and peace.
For three decades, the United States pursued a Mubarak policy. Now we must look beyond the Mubarak era and devise an Egyptian policy.
The old autocrat was now clearly on his own…
As a result, President Mubarak told an expectant nation during a television appearance last night that he would not seek reelection next September.
I will say, with all honesty and without looking at this particular situation, that I was not intending to stand for the next elections because I’ve spent enough time serving Egypt. I’m now careful to conclude my work for Egypt by presenting Egypt to the next government in a constitutional way.
Yet, he also made it quite clear that he would serve the remainder of his term, which expires in September.
The events of the past few days impose on us, both citizens and leadership, the choice between chaos and stability. I am now absolutely determined to finish my work for the nation in a way that ensures its safekeeping, he added.
He was also defiant, vowing that no one would drive him from the homeland he had served for so long.
The Hosni Mubarak who speaks to you today is proud of his achievements over the years in serving Egypt and its people. This is my country. This is where I lived, fought and defended its land, sovereignty and interests, and I will die on its soil, he declared.
The demonstrators in Tahrir Square, who followed the speech on television, were deeply disappointed. Leave, they chanted.
Leave, have some dignity, others shouted.
The President’s concessions were deemed insufficient, too little too late.
The people said it clearly: they want a new democratic regime and this regime has lost its legitimacy.
I would have liked that President Mubarak would listen to the sounds of the millions that went out today, Mohamed ElBaradei told Aljazeera.
You see all these people, with no stealing, no girls being bothered, and no violence.
He’s trying to tell us that without me, without the regime, you will fall into anarchy, but we have told him, No, a demonstrator told Anthony Shadid of the NYT
The Egyptians no longer need Mubarak. He no longer protects his people, or the nation, but has become an obstacle to the development of their vast potential…
Nor is he serving the interests of his country, but only his own, at the expense of those of his people.
President Obama called Mubarak shortly after he had addressed the Egyptian nation, to inform him that the crisis could not wait until September to be resolved.
What is clear, and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak, is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now, the President said.
Though not asked to do so, it is clear the President was hoping that Mubarak would resign as soon as possible, for, as he declared, the status quo is impossible.
Meanwhile, the situation on the ground was becoming more volatile.
Thousands returned to Tahrir Square (many have been there since…last week).
Some 3,000 of pro-Mubarak supporters also took to the streets this morning.
Some clashed with pro-democracy activists in Tahrir Square.
Thousands and thousands of pro-Mubarak supporters are now pouring into the square, Peter Beaumont, of The Guardian, reported this afternoon.
Fearing that the current situation was untenable and could degenerate into violence, the army issued a statement asking the demonstrators to go home.
Your message is received…Your demands became known. And we are here and awake to protect the country for you, not by power but by the love to Egypt. It is time to go back to normal life. You have the power to allow Egypt to return to normal life. We are with You. We will continue to secure our country, a Defense ministry spokesman declared this morning.
It seems that the pro-democracy camp intends to occupy Tahrir Square massively again on Friday, after mid-day prayers, hoping to force Mubarak from power at last.
Mubarak’s supporters seem intent on defending the old autocrat’s regime…
Mubarak should have done the honorable thing and resigned.
His legacy may now include helplessly presiding over a popular revolt that then degenerated into a violent bloodbath…
(the photograph of yesterday's demonstration in Tahrir Squrae is by Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo)