Update: 11:00 ET, Feb 4
With signs of fracturing within Egypt’s ruling elite, hundreds of thousands of people packed Cairo’s central Tahrir Square on Friday, chanting slogans, bowing in prayer and waving Egyptian flags to press a largely peaceful campaign for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak.
Read more here
UPDATE: 19:00 ET
The New York Times reports that the Obama Administration is discussing a plan for Mubarak to quit immediately, “turning over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats.”
Even though Mr. Mubarak has balked, so far, at leaving now, officials from both governments are continuing talks about a
plan in which, Mr. Suleiman, backed by Sami Enan, chief of the Egyptian armed forces, and Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi,
the Defense Minister, would immediately begin a process of constitutional reform.
Read more here
UPDATE 11:30 ET
The New York Times now reports that reporters covering the protests in Egypt are now “under broad assault.”
According to the Times, many journalists covering the protests were detained or attacked today, and representatives of human rights groups were also a target.
Egyptian security police raided the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, where many nongovernmental organizations operate, according to witnesses in Cairo. The police ordered people at the center to lie on the floor and disabled their mobile phones, the witnesses said. Two people were being interrogated.
The Egyptian state news agency asked foreign reporters and crews to move out of all the hotels near Tahrir Square in Cairo, the focal point of antigovernment protests, on Thursday.
Near the square, a group of journalists was stopped in their car on Thursday by a gang of men with knives, and turned over to military police, who held them briefly.
Read more here
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As Egypt and its people struggle through one of the most serious political and social crises in their history, most reasonable people and governments are sympathetic to the millions of Egyptians protesting as peacefully as they can to get rid of a dictator and with aspirations for more freedom, opportunity and a better life for themselves and their children.
I said most reasonable people because there are some from the far, far right who are using this crisis to instill fear, anger and divisiveness among us and, worse, to accuse the Obama Administration—the government of the United States—of having “orchestrated” the demonstrations, of being in cahoots with the Islamic Brotherhood and other radical elements in order to overthrow the Mubarak government, to bring a radical Islamic government to Egypt and, subsequently, to the entire Middle East—to establish a one world Islamic government, a “caliphate.”
I will not further dignify such rants, but will address another development.
Today we saw the crisis in Egypt intensify as thousands of pro-Mubarak supporters attacked the pro-democracy demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square
Some are praising and supporting the “spontaneous” pro-Mubarak thugs who by the thousands—many on horseback or riding camels–stormed Tahrir Square and attacked the peaceful demonstrators, viciously whipping, beating and trampling anyone in their path.
From eyewitness reports:
The pro-Mubarak thugs—10,000 to 15,000 of them—arrived in trucks and buses and armed with machetes, straight razors, clubs and other weaponry at “the appointed time.” Probably many of the same “irregulars” have been used in the past by Mubarak to intimidate the political opposition, to stuff the ballot boxes, etc…
Spontaneous demonstrations?
With such a heavy police and military security and roadblocks everywhere, miraculously the pro-Mubarak demonstrators managed to converge unencumbered on Tahrir Square and were allowed into the square by the troops surrounding it—no longer checking IDs, nor checking for weapons.
Spontaneous demonstrations?
They all chanted the same chants, had the same slogans, carried identical flags and large, well-made banners and neatly printed signs.
Spontaneous demonstrations?
Machine guns were fired, explosives and Molotov cocktails hurled at the anti-Mubarak demonstrators from surrounding buildings and rooftops while the Army watched.
Spontaneous demonstrations?
Some of the attackers who were caught had IDs showing them to be police dressed in civilians clothes. “Others appeared to be state sponsored ‘baltagiya’ (gangs) and government employees.”
Spontaneous demonstrations supporting Mubarak?
Or, as Mark Urban writes, sending club-wielding gangs of ‘supporters’ into action with the purpose of denying the pro-democracy protesters “the kind of iconic image of oppression that came out of China when a man stood in front of a column of tanks in 1989.”? (Urban continues, “the use of agent provocateurs to discredit political opponents by sparking acts of violence goes back centuries.”)
Or, by sending in organized and paid thugs to crack heads, create chaos give Mubarak, his interior security thugs, his police and his army the excuse for a final, total and bloody crackdown on the demonstrators and for once and for all “solving the problem”?
But perhaps the best description of the “spontaneous demonstrations” was given by our own Rick Moran.
In his “Mubarak Tries the ‘Rent-a-Thug’ Gambit,” he writes:
In the time honored tradition of dictators who have reached the end of their rope, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has decided to crack down on the demonstrations that have brought his regime to its knees.
Rather than use his army or uniformed police to do the dirty work, Mubarak has instituted a jobs program for thugs. He has hired several hundred – perhaps thousands – of bully boys to mix with pro-Mubarak demonstrators and beat the opposition senseless while being given free rein by the army to cavort through the streets tossing Molotov cocktails into the thickest concentration of protesters.
If you haven’t read Rick’s column, I highly recommend you do.
In his own inimitable way, Rick describes the truly “spontaneous” nature of the pro-Mubarak demonstrations.
