Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011

Egypt: Were the Army and the Cops in Cahoots All This Time?

The people of Cairo are now waiting to learn the toll from the battle of Tahrir Square on Wednesday. The clashes, which broke out barely an hour after the government allowed Internet connections to resume, have added a new twist to the drama that has gripped the Arab world's largest country: Has the army been on the side of the government after all?

Since military tanks moved in across Egypt on Jan. 28, the army has largely held the support of the anti-government demonstrators and the city's residents. "The whole military is supporting the revolution," said Taher Mohamed, a lawyer, as he headed into Tuesday's so-called march of millions. The sentiment was widespread: the army is neutral; it represents the people; it has refused to fire on demonstrators. Protesters hoping to see President Hosni Mubarak fall paused to shake hands with soldiers or cheer them from the tops of tanks.

But on Wednesday, busloads of Mubarak supporters armed with sticks and machetes as well as a small army of men on horseback were able to get through Cairo's many military and civilian checkpoints, advancing into Tahrir Square seemingly without hindrance from the military. All of this occurred on a day when pedestrians and drivers had to weave their way through practically impenetrable army roadblocks all around downtown Cairo.

As volleys of stones rained down across the pro-Mubarak and anti-Mubarak lines in the square, frantic protesters expressed their shock and horror that the army was not intervening to stop the violence. "The thugs are hitting us from every direction right now," says Mahmoud Afifi, an activist with the 6th of April youth movement, who spoke from the midst of the clashes. "The National Democratic Party paid them money to come in here and attack us. And we don't know why the army didn't stop them. We are very angry at the army now."

Some Egyptians had already raised their eyebrows at the sight of police officers taking up positions alongside soldiers at city checkpoints. The cops, who are unpopular because of their brutal methods, had been withdrawn from their stations after their Jan. 28 assault on the anti-government marchers. But were the cops and the soldiers playing on the same team? On Wednesday, the military called for the protesters to end their demonstrations, a day after Mubarak had delivered a speech in which he pledged not to run for re-election in September.

After that speech, a seemingly growing number of Egyptians said Mubarak's concession was enough and that it was time for life to return to normal. And before the clashes began, Mubarak supporters were greeted by sympathetic honking from cars and motorcycles stuck in traffic as the loyalists passed by. Those supporters, who began to take to the streets on Tuesday, were initially described as being paid by the ruling party. On Wednesday, however, it appeared that they included more than just government pawns among their numbers.

Nevertheless, for thousands of demonstrators in the square, Mubarak's decision to manage his way toward retirement was unacceptable, and they flooded back into Tahrir, pledging to stay put as long as it took until he left office. On Wednesday, at a midafternoon press conference in the liberal Tomorrow Party headquarters, a collection of prominent opposition leaders — ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to the liberal Wafd Party and the 6th of April youth movement — meeting under the banner of the National Coalition for Change firmly rejected the regime's proposal. "The demonstrations and the general strike will continue," the group members told the media. "We're not against negotiations, but negotiations will begin after Mubarak is gone," said George Ishak, a leader of the pro-democracy Kifaya ("Enough") movement and a member of the group.

Yet other opposition members decided on Wednesday that the concession would suffice and that they would be willing to negotiate with the regime in order to move the paralyzed country back toward normalcy and economic survival. These members represented the liberal Tagamu and Wafd parties as well as the nationalist Nasserist Party, according to the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.

What's happening now is a dramatic polarization of the streets between pro- and anti-regime forces. And with this backdrop, the army's reputation for neutrality has become a device for political drama and maneuvering. "I think that the regime is using everything to maintain its continuity in power," says Hala Mustafa, editor in chief of the Al Ahram Quarterly Democracy Review, which is published by the government-funded Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "And the neutrality of the army could be used from the regime to stay in power." It provides the regime with a way of denying the advantage of the streets to the protesters while keeping control of it. Says Mustafa: "As we saw, the army was neutral in the morning when they saw the other crowd arriving armed and on camels and everything. And they paved the way for them. And after that, they stayed neutral even as the battle turned bloody and finished."

Angry anti-regime demonstrators are now literally licking their wounds and planning ways to counter the Mubarak surge. "It's getting very crowded in here," shouts Marwa Nasser, an activist volunteering in a makeshift field hospital. "There are lots of face and head wounds," she says over the mayhem unfolding around her in a darkened side street of Tahrir Square. "They're beating them with stones and sticks, and it was all organized. They all came in at the same time, and some of them were thugs paid money to come here. Some are families of police officers."

If anything, she says, the experience has reinforced the activists' call for change. "No one is going home," she says. "We'll grow bigger, and it will continue without a doubt."

Would a peaceful show of support for Mubarak have undermined the persistence of the demonstrators in Tahrir? The point has become moot. For now, demonstrators who are either trapped by the violence or have chosen to remain in the center of the Egyptian capital after nightfall say the day's horror will only make their call for Mubarak's end more resolute. The violence, many believe, was orchestrated by the regime. And anger is boiling over.