[News] Egypt protesters defiant as Omar Suleiman warns of coup

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Egypt protesters defiant as Omar Suleiman warns of coup

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/09/egypt-protesters-omar-suleiman-coup

Vice-president accused of creating a 'disastrous 
scenario', as demonstration in Tahrir Square enters 16th day

Egyptian protesters have reacted with a mixture 
of alarm and defiance to a warning from the 
vice-president, Omar Suleiman, that there could 
be a coup if they do not accept the regime's 
timetable for a transition to democratic rule.

Abdul-Rahman Samir, a spokesman for a coalition 
of the five main youth groups behind the 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/08/egypt-protest-crowds-mubarak-power>protests 
in Tahrir Square, said Suleiman was creating "a 
disastrous scenario" as demonstrations entered 
their 16th day, spreading from the square to the 
parliament building and other government offices, 
including the department of civil aviation.

"He is threatening to impose martial law, which 
means everybody in the square will be smashed," 
Samir said. "But what would he do with the rest 
of the 70 million Egyptians who will follow us afterwards?"

Khaled Abdel-Hamid, another youth organiser 
dismissed Suleiman's warnings. "We are striking 
and we will 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/protest>protest 
and we will not negotiate until Mubarak steps 
down. Whoever wants to threaten us, then let them do so," he said.

Protesters said the organisers were working on 
plans to move on to the state radio and 
television building on Friday, the day of the 
next big scheduled demonstration, and trying to 
draw powerful labour unions into support for their cause.

The protests are aready spreading. Teachers are 
going on strike and there have been walkouts in 
one factory in the textile town of Mahalla. About 
3,000 workers in companies owned by the Suez 
Canal authorities and based in Ismailia and Suez 
went on strike on Tuesday over pay and 
conditions, while workers in canal-owned 
companies in Port Said took industrial action on 
Wednesday, although the crucial shipping route 
was operating with little disruption.

Should shipping companies, however, decide to 
avoid the canal and sail round the Cape of Good 
Hope, 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/egypt>Egypt 
would lose a major source of revenue. Tolls 
collected reached $4.3bn (£2.7bn) from January to the end of November 2010.

Analysts from the French bank Credit Agricole 
estimate the crisis is costing Egypt $310m a day. 
Egypt's biggest tourist attraction, the Pyramids 
of Giza, reopened to tourists on Wednesday 
although tens of thousands of foreigners have fled Egypt amid the chaos.

In his comments on Tuesday night, Suleiman 
rejected any immediate departure for President 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/hosni-mubarak>Hosni 
Mubarak or any "end to the regime".

"We can't bear this for a long time," he said of 
the Tahrir protests. "There must be an end to 
this crisis as soon as possible." Speaking to 
editors of state and independent newspapers, he 
said the regime wanted to resolve the crisis 
through dialogue, adding: "We don't want to deal 
with Egyptian society with police tools."

If dialogue is not successful, he said, the 
alternative is "that a coup happens, which would 
mean uncalculated and hasty steps, including lots of irrationalities".

Osama Saraya, editor-in-chief of the 
pro-government newspaper Al-Ahram, who attended 
the meeting, said Suleiman did not only mean a 
military coup but a takeover by another powerful 
state apparatus or Islamist groups.

Mubarak has said he will step down at the end of 
his term in September, but the US is raising the 
pressure for speedy reform. The US 
vice-president, Joe Biden, spoke by telephone to 
Suleiman on Tuesday, saying the US wanted Egypt 
immediately to rescind emergency laws that gave 
broad powers to security forces, a key demand of the protesters.

While media attention has focused on developments 
in Cairo, protests have also occurred throughout 
the country. Cities across the Nile delta north 
of Cairo, those far to the south and others to 
the east have also had streets filled with demonstrators demanding Mubarak go.

"I want Mubarak to leave, I want all this system 
to leave, this system has all kinds of 
corruption," Mohamed Sabaie, a jobless 
25-year-old in the Nile delta city of Tanta told Reuters.

Farmers have also voiced support for the 
demonstrators. "The revolution is good 
 It will 
give us stability but the protest should stop and 
the president should be allowed to stay until the 
end of his term," said Fawzi Abdel Wahab, a 
farmer working a field near Tanta. "If the 
president doesn't do as he promised, Tahrir 
Square is still there and the youth will not die, they can go back."

About 300 demonstrators are estimated to have 
died in the unrest, but a comprehensive count is 
a long way off as some bereaved families hesitate 
to come forward. Human Rights Watch continues to 
warn that hospitals have been ordered to play 
down the numbers of casualties. It has condemned 
the arrest of an estimated 119 people in the 
crackdown on the protest and says it has evidence 
that <http://www.hrw.org/node/96255>five of those people were tortured.

An al-Qaida in Iraq front group, meanwhile, has 
urged Egyptians to join holy war and establish an 
Islamic state – the latest in a series of 
statements by Islamic militants supporting the 
protesters. The Islamic State of Iraq warned 
Egyptians against being deceived by "the 
malicious secularism, the infidel democracy and 
the rotten pagan nationalism," according to a 
statement posted on two militant websites.




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