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Video from the massive protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Hundreds of thousands join Egypt marches
Charles Onians
February 2, 2011 - 12:59AMAFP
Massive tides of protesters have flooded Cairo and Egypt's second city Alexandria for the biggest outpouring of anger yet in their relentless drive to oust President Hosni Mubarak's regime.
Several hundred thousand demonstrators on Tuesday massed in Cairo's Tahrir square protest epicentre for a "march of a million" set for the capital while similar numbers turned out in Alexandria, AFP reporters said.
As foreign governments scrambled to evacuate their nationals, the opposition said it would not negotiate with Mubarak, with Mohamed ElBaradei, who is emerging as a leader of anti-regime protests said Friday had been set as "departure day" for Mubarak.
The angry revolt in Egypt, in which an estimated 300 people have died, sent jitters through the region, with Jordan's king Abdullah II on Tuesday sacking the government of Samir Rifai after weeks of opposition protests demanding change.
In his place he appointed Maruf Bakhit as prime minister with orders carry out "true political reforms."
A committee of Egyptian opposition groups, which includes ElBaradei and the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, pledged there would be no negotiations with the regime until Mubarak "leaves," a statement said.
Protesters, including men women and children, swarmed Cairo's streets from early morning, joining hundreds who had spent the night on the square in tents or just sleeping on the grass, unbowed by the presence of troops and tanks.
The army, which has said it will not shoot at protesters, checked IDs and searched protesters before allowing them into the square. Civilians then checked IDs again, fearing plain-clothes police acting as agents provocateurs.
"I will stay here till I die," said a defiant Osama Allam.
"If I die now my whole family will be proud of me. This is what the Egyptian people need," said the 43-year-old lawyer, an effigy of veteran Mubarak hanging from nearby traffic lights, "Off with your head" daubed on his face.
"Freedom or death!" shouted Tarek Shabassi. "I'm ready to stay here 10, 20, 30 years. Dying means nothing to me because I've been dead for 30 years, since Mubarak came to power."
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in Geneva on Tuesday that according to unconfirmed reports, a total of 300 people have died in the anti-government unrest, with casualties "mounting on a daily basis."
In Alexandria, a vast crowd of smiling protesters massed in a light-hearted atmosphere in front of Qaed Ibrahim mosque near El-Raml station in the Mediterranean port before marching off down the corniche, an AFP correspondent said.
Many demonstrators waved Egyptian flags, including one scrawled with "Get out you scum, go be with Zine El Abidine', in reference to Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, forced into exile by popular protests last month.
Nearby a group of angry protesters carried Mubarak's symbolic coffin, shouting "Mubarak is dead without God's mercy."
In a bid to stem the burgeoning crisis, Mubarak announced a new cabinet that saw the demise of a widely feared interior minister, and his newly appointed vice president offered talks with the opposition.
But protest organisers denounced the moves as too little too late and announced an indefinite general strike, upping the pressure on Mubarak, in power for 30 years and facing the greatest ever challenge to his presidency.
It was hard to assess the immediate impact of the strike call, with many businesses closed over security concerns or because people were demonstrating.
While the police reaction to the strike and marches remains unknown, the military stated clearly it would not confront the demonstrators.
"To the great people of Egypt, your armed forces, acknowledging the legitimate rights of the people," stress that "they have not and will not use force against the Egyptian people," it said in a statement.
An increasingly embattled Mubarak has appointed his first-ever vice president and a new premier in a desperate attempt to cling to power.
A new cabinet unveiled on Monday did little to placate the protesters, but the departure of interior minister Habib al-Adly, whose notorious security forces have been accused of systematic human rights violations, was welcomed.
Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday that anger against routine police abuse and torture has been a driving force behind the protests.
"The Egyptian government's foul record on this issue is a huge part of what is still bringing crowds onto the streets today," Joe Stork, the US-based group's Middle East and North Africa deputy director, said in a statement.
Vice President Omar Suleiman said Mubarak had tasked him "with opening immediate talks with the political forces to begin a dialogue around all the issues concerning constitutional and legislative reforms."
But with opposition groups saying they would not do so until Mubarak goes, there looked little likelihood of an early negotiated end to the uprising.
Nobel peace laureate ElBaradei told Al-Arabiya satellite channel that Mubarak should go by Friday.
"What I have heard (from protesters) is that they want this to end, if not today (Tuesday), then by Friday maximum," he said, adding that the Egyptians have marked Friday as "departure day."
"I hope President Mubarak goes before this and leaves the country after 30 years of rule... I don't think he wants to see more blood."
President Barack Obama has called for "an orderly transition to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people."
Washington's top US senator for foreign affairs said on Tuesday Mubarak should address his nation, a key ally of the United States, and promise that neither he nor his son Gamal will run in upcoming elections.
"It is not enough for President Mubarak to pledge 'fair' elections, as he did on Saturday," Senator John Kerry wrote in the New York Times.
"The most important step that he can take is to address his nation and declare that neither he nor the son he has been positioning as his successor will run in the presidential election this year," said the chairman of the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The daily also reported on Tuesday that Frank Wisner, a former US ambassador to Egypt, had been sent to meet Mubarak directly, but that officials would not say whether Wisner would urge him to leave office.
Amid the chaos, foreign governments scrambled to evacuate their nationals, and Washington authorised the departure of US embassy families. Foreigners again swarmed to Cairo airport in a scramble for flights out.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan postponed a planned February 8-9 visit to Egypt until the situation "returns to normal," Anatolia news agency reported.
International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in Singapore the IMF was ready to help Egypt, where rising food prices could have "potentially devastating consequences."
Standard and Poor's, meanwhile, lowered its debt ratings for Egypt a day after a similar move by Moody's, saying ongoing instability "will hamper Egypt's economic growth and adversely affect its public finances."
The Root: The Sparks Behind The Egypt Protests
An Egyptian boy holds a megaphone while protesting in Tahrir Square in central Cairo, Egypt. Protests continued unabated as thousands march to demand the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek.
An Egyptian boy holds a megaphone while protesting in Tahrir Square in central Cairo, Egypt. Protests continued unabated as thousands march to demand the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek.
Sunni M. Khalid is the managing news editor at WYPR-FM and has reported extensively throughout Africa and the Middle East. He reported from Cairo for three years for National Public Radio.
Since the days of the pharaohs, observers of Egypt have been hard-pressed to explain why the combination of grinding poverty, explosive population growth, high-level government corruption and repression of political freedom had not reached critical mass and led to an open revolt. No one is asking that now, as mass demonstrations continue to call for an end to the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. But why now?
The current turmoil was sparked, in part, by the revolt that forced Tunisia's reviled, longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee into exile in Saudi Arabia earlier this month. The "Jasmine Revolution," as it is being called, began as a protest against the economic policies of a corrupt government and then morphed quickly into a popular movement against the regime.
Autocratic Egypt mirrors Tunisia in many ways, only more so. President Mubarak, 82, came into office Oct. 6, 1981, when his predecessor, Anwar al-Sadat, was assassinated while reviewing a military parade. Mubarak, then vice president, was sitting next to Sadat. Wounded, Mubarak was spared by Sadat's assassin, Lt. Khalid al-Islambouli, who walked past him, saying, "Get out of my way. I only want to kill this son of a dog."
Since that day, Mubarak has placed Egypt under a 30-year "state of emergency," suspending what few civil liberties 80 million Egyptians had under its well-trampled constitution. Although Egypt has a parliament and has allowed the formation of a small number of political parties, there are severe limits on freedom of expression and civil society. Newspapers and websites have been shut down and bloggers prosecuted. Some human rights groups estimate that Egypt has 10,000 to 15,000 political prisoners.
Mubarak's National Democratic Party has dominated parliamentary elections, so much so that the country's judiciary has denounced them as not even being remotely free or fair. The most potent opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood — which has been portrayed as the Islamist bogeyman — is banned from contesting elections as a political party. The Brothers, running as independents, managed to win 20 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections five years ago — but were unaccountably shut out in polls last fall.
The Egyptian economy grows at an official rate of 6 percent, but that's far too small to absorb the growing numbers of job seekers entering the work force every year. Or feed the 100,000 new Egyptians born every month. Unemployment is officially 20 percent, but underemployment is twice that rate. Food prices, although subsidized, have gradually increased. New five-star hotels, shopping malls and resorts have gone up, but they cater to a small, wealthy Egyptian elite and foreign expats.
Traditionally one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign assistance, Egypt has annually received between $1 billion and 2 billion in military and economic assistance since the Camp David peace agreement. Meanwhile, presidents from Carter to Obama have ever so gently prodded Egypt to make political reforms, mindful of Cairo's pivotal role in the region in supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives, as well as opposing al-Qaida and Islamist extremists.
Egypt may have continued to stumble along, but its future collided with the present. Here's what happened.
First, Mubarak, who perpetually dyes his hair black, has nonetheless grown older and visibly infirm. The president fainted while making a televised speech seven years ago — the broadcast was immediately cut until he was revived. Last year, Mubarak had gall bladder surgery in Germany and was forced to spend two months there in the hospital.
What worried Egyptians and U.S. policymakers was Mubarak's refusal to name a vice president, someone who could step in. But a possible successor emerged — Gamal Mubarak, the younger of the president's two sons. Within the last 10 years, the 47-year-old former banker made a meteoric rise from relative obscurity to the deputy secretary general of the ruling party.
The younger Mubarak participated in cabinet meetings, reportedly even selecting some of the ministers. Recently he began to make public addresses in his father's place. This raised fears of a father-to-son succession in the Arab world's first republic.
Presidential elections are scheduled for September, but the elder Mubarak has not officially announced that he will seek a fifth term. This fueled speculation that he would step aside for his son to emerge as the presidential candidate of the ruling party and his successor. Posters promoting the younger Mubarak started appearing on the streets of Cairo last fall, leading to a round of protests.
Egypt's continuing turmoil has ended such speculation, when late last week Mubarak named his shadowy intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, 74, as his vice president.
The sudden selection of Suleiman, the head of the dreaded Mukhabarat, or secret police, has not gone over well with the opposition. His rise to prominence began in June 1995, when he ordered Mubarak's bulletproof limousine transported to Ethiopia. Suleiman was sitting next to Mubarak when assassins ambushed the vehicle driving into the Ethiopian capital. The bullets bounced off the limo, and Suleiman became perhaps Mubarak's most trusted confidante. He personally handles Egypt's sensitive security negotiations with Israel regarding the Palestinians, specifically the besieged Gaza Strip.
What does this mean for Egypt and the United States?
If Mubarak resigns, Suleiman would succeed under the constitution. But because of his age and poor health (he has survived four heart attacks), he may, at best, play a role as the army's caretaker, while a broad-based provisional government prepares Egypt for truly democratic presidential elections in the fall.
A democratic Egypt's ties with Washington could change considerably in the future. The Egyptian public has not supported the Mubarak government's role of cooperating with Israel's economic siege and blockade of Gaza. Nor is there any public enthusiasm for thawing the country's "cold peace" with the Jewish state. A new Egyptian government would probably not abrogate the Camp David accords, or support a return to war, but it could mean severely downgrading existing ties with Israel. This could lead to new friction with both Tel Aviv and Washington.
While a new Egyptian government would probably continue to support Washington's war against al-Qaida, a government truly reflecting public sentiment would likely be quite critical of the American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So while there is widespread public admiration for America and Americans, this has never been the case for American foreign policy. Once Mubarak leaves the scene, an Egyptian government reflecting popular sentiment would not automatically make Cairo an enemy of Washington. But the days when Egypt could be regarded as a close friend and reliable ally are probably over.
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