WATANI International
27 November 2011
It has been a flagrant case of déjà vu. Last week’s scenes of Tahrir Square teeming with angry throngs of demonstrators clashing with the security forces, fires erupting all around, and victims falling, vividly brought to mind memories of the last days of January. TV viewers who saw the scenes could not at first sight tell whether they had been shot on 28 and 29 January or later in the year, from 19 to 22 November
Yet the Tahrir clashes were only the tip of the iceberg; they were preceded with a string of violent incidents in regions throughout Egypt—in Aswan, Luxor, Sohag, and Damietta.
Huge losses in Damietta
In Damietta on the tip of the eastern branch of the Nile Delta where the Nile flows into the Mediterranean, the clashes were especially violent and prolonged. Under the pretext that the people desired a cleaner, healthier environment, they demonstrated demanding the closure of the petrochemical plant MOPCO, a joint venture with the Canadian Agrium. They blocked all the roads leading to and from Damietta and Ras al-Barr, the sea resort next to it on the tip where the Nile flows into the Mediterranean, even the small alleyways in surrounding rural fields. Under siege, the world-class Damietta port was closed for 11 days, suffering daily losses of EGP35 million apart from the fines and the threat that it should be declared unsafe for international trade. Life at Ras al-Barr came to a standstill as food and fuel supplies were depleted and the residents faced the spectre of starvation. MOPCO workers demonstrated before the Cabinet in Cairo to protest the injustice, claiming the plant was environment-friendly and that there was no reason it should close and they would join the ranks of the jobless. Worth noting is that the plant is ranked worldwide among nine plants wich best abide by stringent environmental standards. Finally, a settlement was negotiated according to which the siege was ended on condition of closure of the plant. Yet the protestors are not content, and insist on dismantling it altogether.
MOPCO chief executive officer Medhat Youssef said that the Damietta plant suffered heavy losses due to the protests and might be unable to repay its debts if it were forced out of the country.
“The factory is losing EGP19 million (US$3.2 million) daily due to the halt of production as a result of the protests,” he said. “The Egyptian banking system would also suffer if the factory moved out of Egypt since the company would not be then able to pay back its USD1.7 billion debt to Egyptian banks.”
Excessive force in Tahrir
The Damietta trouble, however, was nothing to compare with the unrest which by weekend erupted in Tahrir Square.
According to researcher and Watani journalist Soliman Shafiq, the mostly Islamist mass rally in Tahrir on Friday 18 November voiced demands that were shared by other national movements, namely, that a draft of constitutional articles proposed by Deputy Prime Minster for Democratic Change Ali al-Selmi be recalled or reviewed. The draft in question included provisions which gave broad powers to the military.
Negotiations between the Military Council and Islamist factions led al-Selmi to acquiesce to their demands, and the Islamists withdrew from Tahrir on Friday evening. On the following day, Saturday 19 November, only 29 protesters sat on in the square. They had been injured during January Revolution, had been promised medical treatment by the government, but were never able to get it. Among them was one blind person and two who had been disabled by their injuries.
Eyewitnesses, Mr Sahfiq confirmed, say that some 1000 security men accompanied by 10 armoured trucks descended on Tahrir Square Saturday to vacate the squatters in the most brutal manner. The disproportionate use of force was inexplicable.
Waves of thousands of protestors began to fill the square. Clashes followed with the security forces, especially when the protestors left the square to the nearby headquarters of the Interior Ministry and attempted to break into it. The scenes of excessive violence which ensued and have been broadcast by TV channels are by now all-too-familiar. The incident culminated in what Mr Shafiq describes as a second wave of the Revolution. And as in last January, the Islamists were not allowed to propagate their religious slogans, and the call was for a civil State. The youth took matters in their own hands, demanding a government of national salvation.
Election dilemma
Mr Shafiq believes it is no coincidence that the escalation in violence preceded the elections which were scheduled to begin on 28 November. “Obviously,” he says, “It was in the interest of the Islamist movements to exclude the liberal youth from going to the ballots. They miscalculated, however, given how matters got out of the hands of all organised movements and the Tahrir revolutionaries forced the government to resign last Tuesday evening.
“I fear that such incidents were not merely intended to manipulate the elections, but fall within a project that aims to disintegrate and destroy the biggest country in the region—Egypt,” Saad Hagrass, an economy expert, commented on the incidents. “When the communal ties that constitute the basis of national belonging are replaced by sectarian, doctrinal and tribal loyalties, it threatens the very nationalilty of Egypt.”
Mr Hagrass applauded the dismissal of the caretaker government and its replacement by one of national salvation, since it is the government that should have handled the crises of loss of national belonging. The most important goal in the upcoming period, he insists, is to defend the country##s entity, and regain social security.
For his part activist Nabil Sharafeddin sees that Egypt is witnessing a state of loose security. “With no Constitution and no parliament, and the relationship between the Military Council and the executive authority is not clear, attempts by the Islamist currents to dominate the community may lead to an Islamist State in the model of Iran and Pakistan.”