It was almost derailed when a chasm between the revolutionary right and left developed, and the Salafis threatened to hold a counter march, one which might have resulted in bloodshed. Fortunately this disaster was averted by the preternatural stupidity of the ruling junta and their masters in Washington.
Both revolutionary factions were alerted to the fact that the real problem was the ruling SCAF, when the latter announced they were going to issue a set of principles for the writing of the constitution. Hitherto that project was to be left entirely to officials who were to be elected before the end of the year. These "principles" were an obvious attempt to subvert the process. So the two groups united and agreed on the following demands:
First of all there are the final demands of #July 29 million man Protest or as 27 parties , movements and coalitions from right , left and middle call it : The popular will and unity
1. The military trials for civilians to be ceased and re-trial of those The demands of July 29 Fridayprosecuted in front of military courts.
2. Speeding the killing of the protesters trials and to honor martyrs in the best way.
3. Assigning whole courts to ensure quick and just trials for ex-regime corrupted icons.
4. Maximum and minimum limit of wages.
5. Activating quickly the treachery act in order to exclude all those who spoiled the political life from participating in shaping our future.
Needless to say that maximum income restriction is entirely unacceptable to local and international capital, and has the military thugs now running the country wringing their hands.
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/07/july29-final-demands.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail
The SCAF has been in constant contact with their bosses in Washington:
Major General El Assar Goes to Washington
Here is the complete session of Mohamed El Assar , Member of SCAF and the minister of defense assistant at the U.S Institute of Peace. El Assar is the man responsible for American file in the ministry of defense , you can consider him as MOD’s Omar Soliman.
Hate him or love him I think this man among the real minds in SCAF , our military junta.
Soliman was Mubarak's right-hand man and ran Egypt's secret services which tortured and killed thousands of Egyptian dissidents over the years.
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/07/major-general-el-assar-goes-to.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail
Since the revolution just won't go away, of late the military dictatorship has taken to calling the April 6th movement, the spearhead and most radical element of the revolution, a traitorous group accepting money from and working at the behest of "Foreign interests." Coming from the SCAF this is rich indeed as they would not survive a minute without the backing of foreign interests.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Foreign groups are meddling in Egypt and stirring up unrest, Egypt's army chief said on Wednesday, days after protesters marched to the defence ministry to urge their military rulers to speed up reforms.
"There are foreign players who feed and set up specific projects that some individuals carry out domestically, without understanding," Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling military council said in an address to officers.
"It is possible that there is lack of understanding, that foreign players are pushing the people into inappropriate directions," Tantawi said, adding that such foreign parties "did not want stability for Egypt."
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE76R02C20110728
In an amazing counteroffensive ( how does one say "what balls!" in Arabic), the maligned have sued the government for defamation.
EGYPT: Activists to sue ruling generals over treason accusations
Two of Egypt’s most prominent political movements have announced they will sue the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces for “libel and false accusations" over comments made by a senior army official suggesting the organizations were receiving foreign funding and were involved in treason.
The announcement by the April 6th Youth Movement and Kefaya came two days after a statement issued by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces accused a number of political movements, specifically April 6th, of having hidden agendas and working against the country’s interests. The military blamed April 6th for "igniting strife between the army and the people."
The military added: “SCAF calls on all sects of the people to remain cautious and not to be led by such a suspicious plot, which aims to undermine Egypt’s stability.”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/07/egypt-activists-sue.html
In conjunction with the campaign to demonize the revolutionaries, the junta has tightened control on the press.
FEATURE-Egypt media gains reversed by military rulers
CAIRO, July 28 (Reuters) - - Hafez Al Mirazi spent weeks preparing for his new primetime talk show on state television. But one week before "Cairo Local Time" was scheduled to start, an army general ordered it put on hold.
Mirazi was told that the format for the show broke rules requiring more than one host, an explanation that the veteran journalist saw as an excuse to keep him off the airwaves of state television.
"It's not about my show... I am very worried because this incident is a common excuse for intimidating the media."
http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE75D27D20110728
Obviously Washington is watching this march closely. They initial plan was to wait out the revolution by trying to appease it while they delay and delay the demanded reforms. That hasn't worked, so they have postponed the elections. Now the counterrevolution directed by Washington has escalated to a more aggressive phase as an attempt is made to discredit the most determined groups at the core of the revolutionary movement. This has been accompanied by physical assaults by surrogates as happened recently in Abbasiya. Now in the run-up to the MMM tomorrow, an intense propaganda campaign has been launched by international capital and its media assets, some of it quite crude.
Egypt Hosts “Resistance” Conference Attended By Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad…
Resistance being code for terrorism against Israel.
http://weaselzippers.us/2011/07/27/egypt-hosts-resistance-conference-attended-by-hamas-hezbollah-palestinian-islamic-jihad/
How Not to Write About the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
In a ludicrously alarmist piece that appeared on the The Daily Beast, “Egypt’s Simmering Rage” Douglas Schoen and Randall Lane assert that “clearly and unambiguously” the political climate in Egypt is moving in a new direction that is “inimical to American and allied interests.”
They make this stunning accusation, that is likely to garner the undeserved attention of too many U.S. policy makers, on the basis of flimsy polling evidence, and they further slant their shoddy analysis with a misleading characterization of the military’s role in Egypt as protecting democracy “from the Islamists.”
[And yes The Daily Beast is the voice of reaction.]
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/2011/07/28/how-not-to-write-about-the-muslim-brotherhood-in-egypt/
And the Zionists are doing their part to keep the people of Egypt in chains.
Egypt-Sinai-Gaza: The Triangular Threat to Israel
In spite of the fact that no organization has taken responsibility for the series of attacks, all of which had a similar modus operandi, various elements in Egypt have pointed an accusing finger at terrorist organizations based in the Gaza Strip: al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad, and Jaish al-Islam. At this stage, it is not clear whether Palestinian Salafist elements in Gaza are behind the attacks, or whether it is Egyptian opposition elements.
Indeed it isn't clear, particularly as they left out the possibility of a Mossad false0flag operation.
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2011072814152/world/israel/egypt-sinai-gaza-the-triangular-threat-to-israel.html
Iran courts post-Mubarak Egypt, worrying allies
But once an elected government takes over from Egypt's interim rulers in coming months, it would have to be responsive to public opinion, Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Assar said in a speech to a think tank in Washington, suggesting that a different course is then possible.
Iran has been strongly courting Egypt since the February fall of Hosni Mubarak, seeking to break its isolation and extend its influence in the Middle East. The prospect has alarmed Egypt's allies — particularly Saudi Arabia and the Arab countries of the Gulf, as well as Israel, all of which fear increasing Iranian power in the Middle East.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-07-27-egypt-iran-relationship_n.htm
This propaganda campaign is in preparation for the military to quash the revolution and declare martial law, as Mubarak did after Sadat was murdered. This media dissimulation provides the pretext. If the SCAF is unable to bring the population under control and keep Egypt safe for capitalism, there will be another "humanitarian" intervention in affected opposition to military rule; or, in opposition to Islamists or other presumed threat which might come to power.
This theory is discussed quite frankly (and then dismissed) in The Economist, the voice of the British bourgeoisie.
Considering that the ruling generals have nurtured an image as neutral guarantors of revolutionary goals, their sudden hostility to one of the revolution’s primary instigators has jarred. Some attribute sinister motives to the army, pointing to evidence of attempts to plant plain-clothes agitators in protests and to mute the thriving independent press while encouraging state-owned media to portray protesters as hooligans. There are even whispers of a quiet alliance between the army and Islamist parties, aimed at securing a “Caesar option” whereby military rule will eventually be acclaimed by a weary people as a welcome alternative to chaos.
Such fears are overblown. Egypt’s military has little experience or understanding of civilian life, and even less preparation for its current role. Being by nature conservative, xenophobic and more disciplined than Egypt’s fissiparous secularists, Islamist groups may seem natural partners in keeping order. Unlike most other parties, the Islamists laud the generals’ plan to postpone forging a new constitution until after the election of a parliament, which would then be asked to form a 100-strong constitutional congress. Yet their support does not reflect love for the army. Rather, it stems from confidence that elections will produce an Islamist parliamentary bloc big enough to prevent the adoption of a constitution they would deem too secular.
Overblown? The hell they are! Everything in the second paragraph is false. Egypt's revolutionaries as a whole may be fissaporous (prone to splintering), but the secular elements within it, a clear majority, have been remarkably monolithic at least thus far, exhibiting the kind of solidarity that revolutionary times can inspire.
http://www.economist.com/node/21524851
For their part, the revolutionaries have moved along a parallel track: They have quite cleverly taken to distinguishing the army from the SCAF, calling on the former to defend the country from the ruling cabal.
Indeed, Egyptians who want to transform their uprising into a veritable revolution have responded to the ruling SCAF by refining their definition of the identity of the armed forces. If the famous cry of the anti-Mubarak uprising enjoined the army to stand with the people against the regime, the current cry cleverly differentiates between the SCAF and the army, so that the army rank and file continue to be invoked by the revolutionaries as being on the side of the people - while the SCAF is presented as the political antagonist who seeks to maintain the Mubarak regime with some reforms, albeit without Mubarak.
I highly recommend this article. It's the best thing I've read on the Egyptian revolution. I wish I'd written it.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/201172885752615193.html
Meanwhile, the families of those slain during the uprising in January.have produced their own list of demands.
The martyrs’ families demand the following from the government and SCAF:
#July 29 Martyrs Demands 0011- The arrest of the officers suspected of killing the martyrs in order to stop their influence on witnesses , changing evidence and blackmailing both the families and the witnesses.
2- The speed in referring the rest of the killing of protesters cases to the criminal courts and the rest of legal procedures.
3- Setting up teams of the best prosecutors to investigate the cases.
4- The MOI to issue an official statement that includes an official statement to the Egyptian people generally and the martyrs’ families specifically and to recognize the protesters as martyrs not thugs.
5- Setting up a permanent committee from the martyrs families , their lawyers , the cabinet and the general prosecution to facilitate all the obstacles facing the trials.
6- To transfer the trials on air on TV channels without the permission of the judge.
7- Honoring martyrs , equalizing them with with the war’s martyrs.
8- Dismissing the minister of interior and the general prosecutor.
The families of the martyrs are extremely angry that the media is ignoring their demands statement , they are also extremely angry from the minister of interior Mansour El Eissawy who is insisting that many martyrs are actually thugs who were to break in to the police stations. The martyrs’ families are insisting that they are the ones at Tahrir square not thugs like what the media claims. There are currently 500 families at Tahrir square that are staying in shifts.
The martyrs’ families make it : They will not wait forever , otherwise that they will get justice by their own hands. Before you blame them and call them whatever you want , you must know that these people have waited for 5 months and got no justice. All what they got is seeing the police officers who killed their own boys and girls enjoying their lives in a cold blood. They had enough from their blackmail and threats , they had enough of going to the ministry of interior then going to the ministry of interior and the end find fancy officials telling that they can’t suspend the suspected police officers.
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/07/martyrs-families-demand-following.html
Here's a great brief analysis of the situation in Egypt.
Egypt may soon be due for an Arab Fall
I’m not surprised. Any time the military is in charge of a government, one can expect corruption and repression. Whether the people get to keep their revolution will depend in great part on those among the rank and file of the military because it is becoming more than obvious that the generals are no different from Mubarak. The question will become: Will the soldiers stand by the people or by the Generals?
It will be interesting to see what the coming weeks bring forth, but at least for now tension in Egypt is growing by the day as the military tighten the screws and begin to spew the propaganda and rumors.[1]
Tomorrow might be the most important day in the history of Egypt. May democracy prevail, insh Allah!
[1] http://my.firedoglake.com/iflizwerequeen/2011/07/27/egypt-may-soon-be-due-for-an-arab-fall/
