US-backed Muslim Brotherhood unleashes bloody crackdown in Cairo
By Johannes Stern
6 December 2012
Muslim
Brotherhood (MB) forces supporting Egypt’s Islamist President Mohamed
Mursi are carrying out a bloody crackdown in Cairo. Amid intensifying
mass protests in the past two weeks against Mursi, the Islamists are
mobilizing their forces to try to crush strikes and protests.
In
scenes recalling the “Battle of the Camels”—when then-President Hosni
Mubarak’s thugs attacked protesting workers and youth on Tahrir Square
in the initial days of the Egyptian Revolution last year—MB cadres
together with forces of the Salafist Call and al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya
assaulted a sit-in of several hundred peaceful protesters in front of
the presidential palace in Heliopolis in Cairo.
The sit-in began
after hundreds of thousands of workers and youth protested, demanding
the ouster of Mursi and the cancellation of Mursi’s presidential decree,
granting himself dictatorial powers, on Tuesday night. It was one of
the largest mass protests against the MB and Mursi since Mursi’s power
grab two weeks ago.
Protesters marching toward Mursi's place on December 4 [Photo: Moud Barthez]
According
to eye-witnesses, thousands of Islamists stormed the sit-in Wednesday
afternoon. They destroyed tents, attacked participants with rocks and
sticks, and shouted: “The people support the president’s decisions”,
“Long live President Mursi,” and “We will cleanse the palace.”
In the evening and throughout the night, the Islamists intensified their attacks on protesters.
The
Islamists erected metal barricades to block off workers and youth
marching to the presidential palace. They cooperated closely with the
Central Security Forces (CSF). Ahram Online reported that
“Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters are standing right before the
palace, and there are two rows of Central Security Forces in front of
them.”
CSF units attacked anti-Mursi protesters at Roxy Square,
in Kahlifa El-Maamoun Street, and in other locations close to the palace
with tear gas and rubber bullets. Reportedly live ammunition was also
fired.
Protesters hurled back stones at the security forces and
the Islamist thugs, shouting: “Down, down Mohamed Mursi,” and “The
people want the fall of the regime.”
Imams incited the Islamist
crowd to use the utmost violence against protesters: “Chase them and
catch them in the name of God.” MB members and their Islamist allies
chased protesters through the streets, beat them, and threatened
everyone they caught using knives and other weapons.
Writing for Ahram Online,
Ahmed Feteha explained how Mahmoud Nabil, 24, had his arm broken by
pro-Mursi thugs. “He said that he approached a bearded man supporting
President Morsi and told him that what he and his colleagues were doing
is unacceptable. The bearded man, according to the victim, threw him on
the ground, and then another man used a hammer to break his arm.”
As
of this writing, hundreds of protesters were reportedly injured and at
least four people killed. The dead include Mirna Emad, a member of the
Socialist Popular Alliance Party and Taha Magdy of the Revolutionary
Socialists (RS).
The brutal crackdown is accompanied by a
vicious propaganda campaign by the state-controlled media and the
Islamists. On Wednesday the Islamist groups issued a statement accusing
protesters of “sabotaging” the country and threatening that
“non-peaceful protests are an offense to Egypt.”
When MB
militias brutally assaulted protesters, Essam al-Erian, the deputy head
of the MB’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), incited violence against
them.
He said that what is happening at the presidential palace
is “not clashes between supporters and opponents, but rather skirmishes
between the guardians of legitimacy and the revolution against the
counterrevolutionary attempts to topple legitimacy. There are thugs who
want to depose the elected president.” Erian called upon citizens to
“besiege those thugs and expose the third party, and those firing live
ammunition.”
Mursi is unleashing this wave of repression with
the full support of the US government and its European allies. They have
hailed Mursi for his reliability during last month’s brutal Israeli
onslaught against Gaza and the suppression of the Palestinians and given
him a blank check for the repression his regime is now unleashing.
After Mursi worked to isolate the Gaza Strip during the offensive, the New York Times
wrote that Obama felt he had a “connection” with Mursi developed over
six phone calls. It added that Obama had decided to “invest heavily” in
Mursi.
In an official statement, British Foreign Secretary
William Hague also signaled his support for Mursi. He said, “The UK
remains committed to supporting Egypt’s political transition and
strengthening democracy. We are in close contact with both the Egyptian
authorities and leaders of the opposition.”
On Tuesday Essam
al-Haddad, Mursi’s assistant for foreign affairs and member of the MB’s
Guidance Bureau, met on Tuesday in Washington with US National Security
Advisor Tom Donilon. The US embassy in Cairo issued a statement on
Wednesday on its Facebook page saying: “The two officials reaffirmed the
strategic relationship between the United States and Egypt.”
After
Washington’s long-time stooge Mubarak was ousted in mass working class
protests last year, US imperialism sees the Islamists as its new ally in
Egypt and entire Middle East to defend American strategic and economic
interests. The MB’s backers in the US see the Islamists as the ruling
class’s best hope to suppress the revolutionary optimism in the working
class created by Mubarak’s ouster last year, and also to intensify the
US war drive against Syria and Iran, which Mursi supports.
Before
the protests, Egypt’s new Prosecutor-General Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah
ordered investigations of the main figures of the liberal and secular
opposition. The leaders of National Salvation Front (NSF)—the liberal
leader Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nasserite Hamdeen Sabahi, former Mubarak
regime official Amr Moussa and Sayed Al-Badawi, the head of the liberal
Wafd party—are accused of inciting the overthrow of the regime as part
of a “Zionist plot.”
The Mursi regime’s invocations of a Zionist
plot are a cynical and absurd attempt to mobilize the most backward
elements of Egyptian society against protesters and the working class.
It recalls the propaganda of former dictator Hosni Mubarak, who also
sought to portray the mass protests against his rule as an Israeli and
American conspiracy. In reality, just like his predecessor Mubarak,
Mursi is backed by the US and works out his reactionary policies in
close discussions with Washington and the Israeli state.
In
fact, contrary to the bulk of the protesters, the NSF is not calling for
the overthrow of Mursi. On Wednesday they issued a statement demanding
the reversal of Mursi’s constitutional declaration and a new Constituent
Assembly to redraft the constitution. As the Islamists launched their
brutal attack on the protesters, the NSF called for a press conference
declaring itself to be “ready for real dialogue to sort out this
situation.”
The NSF speaks for sections of the Egyptian ruling
elite who are in conflict with Mursi over the distribution of power and
wealth inside the Egyptian state machine. However, their main fear is a
revolutionary movement of the working class; the more the threat of a
renewed mass uprising grows, the more they look for a compromise with
Mursi. Last week thousands of textile workers marched in the industrial
city of Mahalla al-Kubra against Mursi, and on Wednesday, striking
doctors issued a statement objecting to Mursi’s constitution.
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