Egypt's Al-Sisi Establishes Tyranny Mubarak Only Dreamed Of: Washington Should Stop Playing The Fool By Praising Cairo's Commitment To Democracy - Forbes
‘CAIRO—Egypt’s capital is crowded, busy, confused, and messy. Security isn’t obvious, until you get close to a sensitive site, such as the Interior Ministry. Blocks away the street is closed. There are metal fences, concrete barriers, and barbed wire. Uniformed and plain clothes security personnel. Armored personnel carriers. And multiple checks to get to the ministry’s door.
In Minya a judge handed down 683 death sentences against protestors in one case. The street leading to the courthouse was blocked by an APC topped by armed soldiers and backed by abundant security personnel. Tanks stood as sentinels at the Burja al-Arab prison, where ousted president Mohamed al-Morsi is being held.
The military has taken firm control, elevating its leader, Gen. Abdel Fata al-Sisi, to the presidency. He follows in the footsteps of dictators Gamal Abdel Al-Nasser, Anwar al-Sadat, and Hosni al-Mubarak. The uniformed services are a profitable caste for their members. Complained Kaled Badawy, one of Morsi’s attorneys, “we need a professional armed forces, not mercenaries which results in corruption.” The army permitted Mubarak’s ouster by street protests because he planned to turn military rule into a family dynasty, with his son as heir apparent.
Downtown Cairo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Morsi had no chance to succeed. He exhibited authoritarian and sectarian tendencies and made abundant political mistakes, playing into his critics’ hands. Moreover, he never controlled the bureaucracy or police. Indeed, the latter even refused to protect the Brotherhood’s headquarters from mob violence. Crony capitalists grown rich under Mubarak apparently manipulated markets to create artificial shortages and exacerbate economic hardship. Most important, the army never accepted Morsi and fomented the very demonstrations used to justify its seizure of power.
Had Morsi and the Brotherhood been defeated in a future election, they would have been discredited peacefully. However, the coup turned the movement’s members into angry victims. In Cairo they took over Rab’a al-Adawiya and al-Nahda Squares, just as the anti-Mubarak and anti-Morsi crowds had done in Tahir Square. As many as 85,000 protestors, including more than a few women and children, turned out.
The military government responded with a campaign of premeditated murder.
In its new report, “All According to Plan: The Rab’a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protestors in Egypt,” Human Rights Watch detailed the junta’s crimes. From the beginning the military used deadly force with no concern for casualties. In the aftermath of the coup, reported HRW, “security forces repeatedly used excessive force to respond to demonstrations, indiscriminately and deliberately killing at least 281 protestors in different incidents.” In fact, the army began using live ammunition against protestors just two days after the coup. On July 8, for instance, 61 demonstrators were killed by soldiers outside of the Republican Guard headquarters. On July 27 security forces cut down 95 “largely peaceful protestors” on Cairo streets. Medical personnel said the shootings were close range at people’s heads, necks, and chests.
The most horrific episode came on August 17, when the regime used overwhelming force against protestors in Rab’a and al-Nahda Squares. HRW found that the Sisi regime expected high casualties: “Numerous government statements and accounts from government meetings indicate that high-ranking officials knew that the attacks would result in widespread killings of protestors.”
The regime deployed soldiers, APCs, bulldozers, police, and snipers to destroy a vast tent village in Rab’a. The authorities intended to kill. Explained HRW: “security forces used lethal force indiscriminately, with snipers and gunmen inside and alongside APCs firing their weaponry on large crowds of protestors. Dozens of witnesses also said they saw snipers fire from helicopters over Rab’a Square.” In roughly 12 hours HRW figured that at least 817 and likely more than 1000 people were slaughtered. Kenneth Roth, HRW’s executive director, said: “In Rab’a Square, Egyptian security forces carried out one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history.”
In contrast, clearing Tiananmen Square in Beijing took twice as long and killed between 400 and 800 protestors. Moreover, reported HRW: “Security forces detained over 800 protestors over the course of the day, some of whom they beat, tortured and in some cases summarily executed,” according to witnesses. (Other groups, such as the International Coalition for Freedoms and Rights, put the death toll much higher.)
There was no respite for the wounded or those treating the wounded. Added HRW: “Security forces from the morning fired at makeshift medical facilities and positioned snipers to fire on those who sought to enter or exit Rab’a hospital.” After taking control of the square later in the day, regime personnel expelled the doctors and set fire to both Rab’a hospital and the field hospital.
The Sisi junta claimed that the protestors had responded with violence. HRW reported that hundreds of protestors tossed rocks and Molotov cocktails. But the group found only “a few instances” of gunfire. The government claimed eight dead, a small toll if the demonstrators had been as well armed as officials suggested, which itself seemed unlikely since the Interior Minister only claimed to have seized 15 guns. Concluded HRW: “the protestors’ violence in no way justified the deliberate and indiscriminate killings of protestors largely by police, in coordination with army forces.”
Western journalists were among the victims. Last month the
Washington Post’s Daniela Deane wrote about the murder of her husband, a cameraman with Britain’s Sky News, by a government sniper. Security personnel could not have mistaken him, with his camera, for a Brotherhood protestor.
.........................
