No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.(Hal Borland)
Today, the law of the jungle prevails in Egypt,which had been the cradle of human civilisations since 10th millennium BC. Life there is a stark contrast with the euphoria that was generated in the wake of Arab Spring and the fall of Dictator Hosni Mubarak. Disciples of Mubarak are back to haunt the nation aselected PresidentMohamed Morsi is still under house arrest. Scores of Muslim Brotherhood leaders too are behind bars. As we know, it all began with General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi who toppled the democratically elected government and suspended the constitution in a coup on 3rd July 2013.
Enraged by popular discontent and fury that erupted throughout the Egypt in shape of protests,General Sisiin Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Al-NahdaSquarebettered the record of General Dyer in JallianwalaBagh.In fact, Dyer offers no comparison, the brutality and brazenness that Sisi and his armed forces flaunted on 14th August after storming through protest camps and slaying thousands indiscriminately, is actually unparalleled.Though authorities insist that death toll is ‘only’ 638, independent observers are giving the figures of around 5,000 including scores of women and children. More than 10,000 are reported to be wounded. The struggle is still going on and so are the casualties.
WORLD: SILENT OR SADISTIC?
If international reaction to the coup and massacre was anything to go by, it is more than an established fact that we are living in a world of hypocrites. Let’s begin with the superpower of the world, the United States of America, the upholder as well as the exporter of peace, liberty and democracy. John Kerry – Secretary of State of USA – had earlier remarked that the coup was “restoring democracy”. After pogrom of 14 August, he found the events only “deplorable” and “a real blow to reconciliation efforts”.Reconciliation with whom?And, for what? Would Kerry advise the United States to reconcile with Chief of Staff General Raymond T. Odierno if he chose to rebel and depose Obama in a coup?
Not to be left behind, Obama announced cancellation of the Bright Star joint Egyptian-American military exercises as his reaction to the massacre. Dr. Ahmed Aref, Muslim Brotherhood media spokesman, was not impressed.He divulged the open secret, “The US played a prominent part in the 3July traitorous military coup in Egypt. Now attempts are being made to exchange roles on the international stage”.
In his statements the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has appealed to “both” sides to resolve the violence. In a statement EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said: “We reiterate that violence won’t lead to any solution and we urge the Egyptian authorities to proceed with utmost restraint”. He said further, “Violence and continued political polarisation will further tear the Egyptian economy apart.” UK Foreign Secretary William Hague also “condemned” the use of force. China has also called for “restraint and dialogue”.
In this regard some Gulf nations’ reaction took many by a shocking surprise. In a statement issued to Al-Jazeera, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is reported to have called on Arabs to stand together against ‘attempts to destabilise’ Egypt. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its people and government stood and stands by today with its brothers in Egypt against terrorism,” he said in a statement read on state TV. His government had pledged $5 billion in aid to Egypt after Mohamed Morsi was ousted from the presidency last month.
AmrDarrag– an engineer who also served briefly as Egypt’s minister of Planning and International Cooperation – in his article Egypt’s Blood, America’s Complicity (New York Times, 15August) has takenthis hypocrisy of world-powers by horns. He wrote, “Worse, shocking and irresponsible rhetoric from the State Department in Washington and from other Western diplomats — calling on the Brotherhood and demonstrators to ‘renounce’ or ‘avoid’ violence (even when also condemning the state’s violence) — has given the junta cover to perpetrate heinous crimes in the name of ‘confronting’ violence. The protest sites have been teeming with foreign correspondents for the last several weeks, and there has not been a shred of evidence suggesting the presence of weapons, or of violence initiated by protesters… The mediators’ most disastrous error was their choice to put pressure on the victims. In their eyes, we were the cause of the crisis, not the illegal putsch that suspended the Constitution and kidnapped the president.”
However in the world of selfish national interests in the name of diplomacy there are a few human voices. If compared to other countries, France’s and Germany’s reactions were better. President Hollande of France and Germany’s foreign minister Guido Westerwelle have personally summoned respective Egyptian ambassadors to express their concerns and register their protest on the massacre.
However, voices like Turkish Prime Minister RecepTayyipErdogan and Tunisia’s Rashid al-Ghanouchchi are rare. Since 3 July, Erdogan is calling for the UN and the Arab League to act immediately: “I am addressing the international and domestic media which for hours relayed the legitimate use of pepper spray by the police in Turkey, and for days broadcasted provocatively from Turkey. How many innocent civilians have to die before they see what is happening in Egypt and broadcast this?” After massacre he further said: Those who ignore the coup and don’t even display the honourable behaviour of calling a ‘coup’ a ‘coup’, or any international organisation that remains silent and takes no action, has the blood of those innocent children on their hands, just like those who carried out the coup. He also thundered, “At this stage what right do you have to speak of democracy, of universal values, of human rights and freedoms?”
Rashid al-Ghannouchi in a statement issued by An-Nahda Party on 14 August itself strongly condemned “this crime against the people of Egypt and its revolution” and also condemned “the grave violations against women, children and other peaceful civilians”. He went on to “express its complete solidarity with the Egyptian people and their right to regain their freedom and their rejection of the overturning of their will”. He also called on all “Egyptian regional and international parties to assume their responsibilities in ending this terrible crime and supporting the Egyptian people’s struggle against the coup”.
Meanwhile, many people are thinking that award of Nobel Prize to erstwhile Vice-President of Egypt Mohammed El-Baradei was either a kind of joke or a big mistake. However El-Baradei is taking his ‘Nobel credentials’ very seriously and despite being an open supporter of this coup tendered his resignation from the interim government in the wake 14 August massacre. “I cannot continue in shouldering the responsibility for decisions I do not agree with and I fear their consequences. I cannot shoulder the responsibility for a single drop of blood,” he said in a statement. One wonders why he didn’t resign after the earlier massacres of 8th and 27thJuly? Wasn’t that “violence” in his dictionary? What are the reasons for his resignation now? I think he has had some kind of premonitions regarding the failure of the coup and success of the people and their will-power!
ARMY OF THE PHARAOH
AmrDarrag, in his article mentioned above, also castigates GeneralSisi for his penchant for betrayals. He argued that Sisi “…took an oath to uphold the Constitution; he suspended the Constitution. He took an oath to loyally serve in the government; he toppled that government. And in the classic doublespeak of military juntas, he loudly condemned the opposition for dealing with foreign powers, while he was actively seeking the help of Western diplomats as well as the Persian Gulf sheikdoms that largely financed his coup”.
A month after the coup, General Sisi, in an interview with the Washington Post, was found blaming the instability on the White House, saying: “You left the Egyptians. You turned your back on the Egyptians and they won’t forget that.” He claimed his officers had no choice but to depose the government, saying: “I expected if we didn’t intervene, it would have turned into a civil war.” What he did not say but definitely meant was: “a war on citizens is better than a civil war.”
He waged this war on thousands of peaceful protestors who would not have imagined that the sun of their life will set at the dawn of 14 August 2013. These protestors have earlier faced the wrath of the army during Ramadhan. Many were killed even then while praying and fasting. But the massacre of 14 August was special in its brutality. They were shot to be killed in their heads and chests. Their camps were bulldozed or burnt while women and children were still inside seeking shelter from the effects of teargas. The people running for shelter were fired upon by snipers deputed for the task. Bullets were continuously fired from helicopters as well. Even journalists, especially photographers, belonging to different countries, were beaten, arrested, harassed and killed. Snipers were also deputed to shoot at the hospital entrance gate. Teargas bombs were thrown from helicopters around the hospitals making the air inside impossible to breathe. Hospital staff had to wear gas masks to work. The inhuman forces also prevented ambulances from taking wounded protestors to nearby hospitals, after the field hospital was saturated with dead bodies and protestors with horrific burns and excruciatingly painful injuries.
A critical care physician’s personal account is heart rendering. In the wake of the massacre he was working at the hospital treating the throng of injured protestors. He mentioned hugely alarming numbers of horrible injuries. He described the hospital’s six-storey building as well as the adjacent halls that were completely full with corpses and injured protesters. He noticed that most of the live bullets were in the upper half of the body, mainly in the head and the neck, with consequent lethal wounds. He saw patients with their heads blown out and their brain matter on the floor.
Listen, in his own words, what happened next. He recollects, “At 5:00pm, a sniper’s bullets targeted the hospital’s door once again, destroying it completely. Then, the sounds of gunfire became very intense and close… Ten minutes later, police officers broke into the hospital. They looked huge with black special-unit uniforms, and wielded huge guns that I had never seen before. They ordered everybody to evacuate the hospital. We wondered what we had to do with hundreds of injured inside who were still alive and whether we could trust those officers. However, soon we were rushed right out of the hospital building. As I left the hospital, I told one of the officers that there were many injured people inside. He shouted in my face: ‘let them die, let them die!’ He then walked towards me with his huge gun with ferocity and intent, trying to attack me. Fortunately, I managed to escape through the hospital’s smashed glass door and the vicious officer got busy with others going outside the opposite section… I walked into nearby streets, worrying I could be shot or arrested. However, the army and police were apparently too busy with some remaining protesters inside the sit-in encampment. I looked behind and saw huge plumes of smoke rising after officers burnt the hospital with everybody still inside: the dead corpses and the injured ones who could not leave the hospital….”
The atrocities of the army did not stop at killing a protestor; it went beyond. The families of the slain protestors are having a hard time in getting a coroner’s report and a burial permit which the government is persistently refusing to issue. The families are enforced to give statements that their murdered family members died not from army’s bullets but due to natural causes or have committed suicide. An eye-witness Mustafa reported, “There were hundreds of corpses in the mosque and only two doctors to issue the necessary reports. Bodies lay in the mosque in Egypt’s scorching August heat, and soon the smell of death reached the streets. People had to purchase and use ice-blocks to preserve the bodies”. Mustafa who went to collect the body of a friend said if it wasn’t for his deceased friend’s family members sitting for hours and bringing along a lawyer as well as many relatives and friends to pressure the doctors they wouldn’t have been successful in getting the real coroner report.
DEFIANT PEOPLE
The night of tyranny is very dark for Egypt but the valiant people who are braving the rain of bullets and teargas shells believe that even on the darkest, rainiest days the sun is still there, just behind the clouds, waiting to shine again. Several Muslim Brotherhood leaders are detained, including Essam El-Erian and Mohamed El-Beltagy, whose 17-year-old daughter was killed.
Families are worried to identify the bodies of their loved ones as there are so many bodies to look for. A protestor Tamer MagdyShoaib – a 40-year-old resident of Cairo and a father of three children – was among several thousands of those who were martyred on the fateful day. On 14August, Tamer’s family tried for hours to contact him, but to no avail. His family members then went to Rabaa’s field hospital. Once there, they searched through hundreds of bodies but found no trace of Tamer. Then they were told to go to nearby Iman Mosque where too hundreds of bodies were lying. After several hours’ exertion Tamer’s family eventually found their son, a dead and bloodied corpse. Tamer was a brave man, he had four bullets in his body!
The critical care physician whom I quoted above also mentioned in his account that when he was leaving the field hospital to go to serve in another one, he passed through a huge hall which was filled with corpses of massacre victims, then through another hall which was filled with wounded protesters whose cases were not very severe. The “not very severe” was defined in his words as: “they can survive for a few hours without close care; but in normal conditions, they would need surgical operations immediately”. He mentioned that one among those injured, who had been shot in his leg, looked at him and said: Doctor! Why you stand like this? Please go and try to help some patients.
This is the spirit with which protests are continuing amidst every possible kind of repression. After the crackdown of 14 August the military junta declared a month-long state of emergency. However, this emergency and the fact that thousands of protestors were martyred only on 14 August (Wednesday) Muslim Brotherhood decided to ‘celebrate’ the Friday (16 August) as “Friday of Rage”. The communiqué on their official website mentioned that despite what had happened they consider the struggle to overthrow the illegitimate regime an obligation – “an Islamic, national, moral, and human obligation – which we will not steer away from until justice and freedom prevail, and until repression is conquered”. While declaring further that their “revolution is peaceful”, and that they “will continue to mobilise people to take to the streets without resorting to violence”. They pointed out that violence and vandalism only aims at distorting the image of their peaceful revolt and finding justifications for the coup leaders to continue to govern. For Friday of Rage they gave 28 starting points (actually mosques) in Greater Cairo from where all the marches will eventually head to RamsisSquare – the new centre after Rabaa Al-Adaweya. Meanwhile, million-man marches will be held in all other Egyptian governorates. As could have been predicted given the shamelessness of the army exhibited so many times recently, the Friday of Rage too was coloured red with innocent blood of peaceful protestors throughout the country.The next day on 17th August in yet another inhumanly violent assault Egyptian army have cleared Al-FathMosque (in RamsisSquare) of protestors.
According to latest reports on BBC (updated 14:35 GMT on 18 Aug) Interim Prime Minister HazemBeblawi has put forward a proposal to legally dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood.
Though there seems no end to the suffering of people, they are adamant. Bodily, they are tired and injured but their will is unconquered. Dr. Ahmed Aref, Muslim Brotherhood media spokesman declared for the world to hear, “Egyptians alone will make the world respect their word. They alone shall impose their will and defeat the bloody military coup.”
It’s high time the world recognised the basic and fundamental issue involved: giving a 48-hour ultimatum to an elected president; deposing him; keeping him under house-arrest; silencing opposition; and killing protestors – IS NOT DEMOCRACY. The forces behind President Morsi’s ouster fear elections and democracy as they have lost continuously in that arena since the fall of Mubarak. These people, in no sense of the term, can be accused of ‘restoring’ democracy.
History is moving fast in Egypt; angels are busy in carrying pious souls to their heavenly abode, but the demand of justice and fairness remains the same. In the words of AmrDarrag, this demand – the only way out of the crisis – is: “The legitimate government must be restored. Only then can we hold talks for a national reconciliation with every option on the table. The reinstatement of Mr. Morsi is not about ideology or ego. It is not political grandstanding. It is not a negotiating tactic. It is a pragmatic necessity. Without this crucial step, without accountability for those responsible for the bloodshed and chaos facing Egypt today, none of the promises of inclusion, democracy, liberty or life can be guaranteed”.