Mursi wants Egypt at centre of Arab affairs, urges end to Syrian government

Egypt's president on Wednesday promised to put Cairo back at the heart of Arab affairs and made an impassioned appeal to Arab states to work to end the bloodshed in Syria, saying the time had come to change the Syrian government. By Yasmine Saleh and Ayman Samir.

Mohamed Mursi, making his first presidential address to the Arab League in Cairo, told Arab foreign ministers that Egypt and its people would "return to occupy their natural place at the heart of the Arab nation". Mursi, elected in June after last year's popular uprising forced Hosni Mubarak from power after three decades, said the time had come in Syria for "change and not wasting time speaking of reform. This time has passed now. Now it is time for change".

"The Syrian regime must take into account the lessons of recent and ancient history," he said in the speech in which he also talked of the revolt in Egypt.

Mursi also said a quartet of states - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and Egypt - would meet to discuss the Syrian crisis.

"The quartet which Egypt has called for will meet now," he said, without giving details.

An Egyptian delegate said the president's comments meant the four states were talking about what action could be taken but the formal formation of the quartet was still under discussion. He said no date had been set for its representatives to meet.

Tehran has backed Syria's government but the three other states want President Bashar al-Assad to stand down.

Analysts said the group was unlikely to agree on how to handle the crisis but said the initiative was a sign of how determined the newly elected president was to put Egypt back at the centre of regional politics.

FRESH APPEAL

As Mursi was leaving the podium, the Islamist president briefly returned to the microphone to say: "Syria, Syria, this is the arena to do something", pointing to the ministers below him, and then again saying "Syria" before stepping away.

It was the second such appeal for action in a week by Mursi. At the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Iran on Aug. 30, Mursi referred to Tehran's ally as an "oppressive regime" and said it was an "ethical duty" to back rebels.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in Syria since initially peaceful protests against Assad erupted in March 2011. Tens of thousands more have fled across its borders to neighbouring states to escape the violence. Nasser al-Kidwa, deputy to Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations-Arab League mediator on Syria, arrived in Cairo on Wednesday to join the talks with Arab ministers. Brahimi, who is expected to visit Cairo on Sunday, has described his bid to broker peace as "nearly impossible" but Kidwa told reporters at Cairo airport that "we have not lost hope" despite the difficulties facing the mission.

According to a draft of the resolutions obtained by Reuters and approved on Wednesday, ministers called on the Arab League chief and its special committee on Syria to follow up with the U.N. secretary-general to outline a "new vision" for Brahimi.

The draft also called for Nilesat and Arabsat, two regionally owned satellite firms, to stop broadcasts of Syrian state and private channels. Broadcasts of the three Syrian channels on Nilesat stopped before the draft was approved, with a Nilesat source citing unspecified contract violations.

Abdelbasset Sida, head of the Syrian National Council (SNC) opposition alliance, told Reuters he was disappointed by the resolutions, saying Arabs should work more closely with Europeans opposed to Assad's rule and put more presure on Syria's ally Russia.

He said Arabs should back "using all means including force against the Syrian regime to reach that end". DM

Source: Daily Maverick

'Egypt's Moment of Truth Has Arrived'

Freshly inaugurated Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi surprised his countrymen and the world on Sunday with a daring move to take back power from the strong grip of the military. In what has been widely seen as a well-timed, politically clever move, Morsi forced seven top-level officers into retirement, including Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. The head of the old-guard military leadership, Tantawi effectively took charge of Egypt via the powerful military council following the fall of former dictator Hosni Mubarak last year. Then, just before Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, took office on June 30, the military had most of his presidential powers removed.

But on Sunday Morsi's spokesman said that this constitutional declaration had been scrapped. The country now awaits the creation of a new constitution that will be approved via referendum, after which a new parliament will be elected.

Tantawi and his number two, Gen. Sami Anan, are set to be kept on as advisers in Morsi's government, and so far the military has not rebelled against the president's power play, which involved hiring younger officers as replacements. There was no "negative reaction" within the military, according to an anonymous official quoted by the official news agency on Sunday.

"I did not mean to send a negative message about anyone, but my aim was the benefit of this nation," Morsi said in a speech on Sunday. His spokesperson also said his decision aimed to "pump new blood into the military establishment in the interests of developing a new, modern state."

Celebration in Cairo

Morsi and his fellow Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood were not expected to act so quickly in removing the military from power, but the president appears to have taken advantage of a moment of weakness. The military has been embarrassed by its failure to thwart an attack by militants at the Sinai border that killed some 16 Egyptian guards, and has since launched a large deployment in the area.

Thousands of Morsi's supporters reportedly gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to celebrate his success. But on the international level, there is some concern that he could use his new power to create an Islamist state.

Reaction from officials in Washington to Morsi's military shake-up was calm, however. "We had expected President Morsi at some point to coordinate changes in the military leadership to name a new team," said US Defense Department press secretary George Little. The most important thing, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland added, is that both sides "keep working well together to advance the goals of the democratic transition in Egypt."

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle expressed concern for the democratic future of Egypt, though. "These are fateful days for Egypt," he told daily Rheinische Post on Tuesday. "The future of the country will be decided by the citizens and the political institutions."

German media commentators on Tuesday praised Morsi's political skill, but expressed fears about the next steps he might take.

Conservative daily Die Welt writes:

"This is yet another development that is hard to interpret. It could be that, in a bid to gain better stature, Morsi has stepped out from behind the military's shadow and asserted the primacy of politics. That would be a first step in the necessary post-military state. But it could also be that Morsi is now beginning to remove the last big obstacle on the path to an Islamic government. Then the primacy of the military would be replaced by that of religion."

"But for the sake of the country, the region and the world, let's hope that Morsi is a brave man who can also show courage towards his own side in the same way he showed it towards the military. If this is the case, he has a balancing act ahead of him."

Conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"The Islamist appears to have handled the situation skilfully. … But much will depend on how Morsi exploits this new room to maneuver. He can lead Egypt into democracy, or he can choose further Islamization. The only certainty is that he must act."

"The expectations on the street are high. The Egyptians want a better future -- not tomorrow, but today. The first freely elected president will be measured by whether he can fulfil these expectations. But the revolution is taking place in fits and starts, and Egyptians' lives won't improve immediately this way."

Left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung writes:

"The political disempowerment of the military leadership is the most important development for Egypt since the fall of Mubarak. President Mohammed Morsi has shown great skill. He managed to split the military leadership and get the members of the military council to participate in their own political displacement. Simultaneously, Morsi also had the dismissed generals highly decorated once again, effectively honoring them away."

"With this, he has made himself secure in two ways: The retired military men remain legally untouchable, an important step in ensuring that they wouldn't organize any resistance for a possible putsch. And, as the new presidential advisers, they are not allowed to leave the country without his permission. That means that legal steps against them can't be ruled out for the future. The fact that the military has remained quiet so far speaks to the president's elegant tactics."

Financial daily Handelsblatt writes:

"Egypt's moment of truth has arrived: Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's Islamist president, had done what was practically unthinkable, and removed the military from power. No one knows whether this volte-face in the power struggle will last or if it will spark retaliation from the military. But it was overdue if the most populous Arab country wants to move on more than a year after the fall of its long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak."

"Egypt is going under economically. … That's why the country desperately needs peace and stability, in addition to the fact that success in the Egyptian revolution would send a positive signal to the entire region. … But the danger that a brutal power struggle might break out between the old guard and the Muslim Brotherhood unfortunately can't be ruled out. That's why economic aid from the West is even more important to help stabilize the country. But so far there has been little more than a few encouraging words."

Source: Spiegel

Ahdaf Soueif: Protesters reclaim the spirit of Egypt

Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif reflects on the determination of Egyptians, after the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak, to rebuild their country and reclaiming their national identity.

I have friends on anti-depressants who, over the last 20 days, forgot to take their pills and have now thrown them away.  Such is the effect of the Egyptian Revolution. On Friday night, Egypt partied. Chants and songs and drums and joy-cries rang out from Alexandria to Aswan. The defunct regime was only mentioned in reference to "we want our money back".

Otherwise, three chants were dominant - and very telling: One - "Lift your head up high, you're Egyptian" - was a response to how humiliated, how hopeless we'd been made to feel over the last four decades. The second was: "We'll get married, We'll have kids," and reflected the hopes of the millions whose desperate need for jobs and homes had been driving them to risk their lives to illegally cross the sea to Europe or the desert to Libya. The third chant was: "Everyone who loves Egypt, come and rebuild Egypt."

And on Saturday, they were as good as their word: they came and cleaned up after their revolution. Volunteers who arrived on Tahrir [Square] after mid-day found it spick and span, and started cleaning up other streets instead. I saw kids perched on the great lions of Qasr el-Nil Bridge buffing them up. I feel - and every parent will know what I mean - I feel that I need to keep my concentration trained on this baby, this newborn revolution - I need to hold it safe in my mind and my heart every second - until it grows and steadies a bit. Eighty million of us feel this way right now.

Eighty million at least - because the support we've been getting from the world has been phenomenal. There's been something different, something very special, about the quality of the attention the Egyptian revolution has attracted: it's been - personal. People everywhere have taken what's been happening here personally. And they've let us know. And those direct, positive and emotional messages we've been receiving have put the wind in our sails. We have a lot to learn very quickly. But we're working. And the people, everywhere, are with us.

In the week before the protesters achieved their goal, Ahdaf Soueif reflected on some of the humorous and poignant moments in Cairo's Tahrir Square. What is happening on the streets and squares of Egypt is extraordinary; it's nothing less than millions of people re-finding their voice - and using it. They're using it to demand the removal of Hosni Mubarak and his regime - with everything that that regime entails: the corrupt cabinet, the fraudulent parliament, the mutilated constitution and the brutal emergency laws. And this common, over-arching demand is being given increasingly creative and individual expression.

The atmosphere on Tahrir Square is like - well, imagine a fair, where the product under scrutiny is politics, economics, governance, history and the law. Circles of people sit on what's left of the grass to talk, friends stroll arm-in-arm discussing, marchers go by chanting and singing, bands play old protest favourites and new-minted anthems. People carry home-made placards with their own messages.

The most common, of course is "Irhal!" ("Depart!"). But with the days passing, I've seen more impatient ones like "Irhal, my arm's hurting", "Irhal, I really need a shower", "Irhal, I can't find another joke", "Irhal means leave", and others. One man has outlined a huge airliner on the ground with used paper cups and keeps everyone out of its outlines because the plane's ready to whisk Mubarak away.
A huge sheet of plastic pockets has been hung up and the pockets are speedily filling with caricatures.

This revolution is so organic, so personal, so real, it has exploded reservoirs of creativity in everybody taking part. Each person coming to the square brings something: medical supplies for the field clinics which are still treating the people damaged by Mr Mubarak's police and thug militias, blankets for the thousands spending the night, cartons of water, biscuits. Teams of young volunteers collect litter. The resulting piles are labelled "National Democratic Party".

This is not to say that all is well with us. The government has, for the moment, withdrawn its police and its thug militias and the army sits on the periphery of Tahrir Square - to protect us. But the army has now put up barbed wire to narrow the entrances and exits and they're trying to move their tanks further into the square. When the young people lay down in front of the tanks Sunday night, they fired volleys of shots into the air and dragged away three young men and beat them. The situation was diffused when a well-liked public figure intervened.

This is what we older revolutionaries are doing - putting everything we have at the service of the brave young people who have cleared a space from which we can all join the effort to reclaim our state. Tahrir has become our civic space where leftists and liberals and Muslim Brotherhood discuss and sing and eat together. The other cities and towns of Egypt have sent popular delegations. The consensus is that the consensus will come out of Tahrir. And one thing that Tahrir has already given us is a sense of who we are.

People are actually articulating: "They said we were divided, extreme, ignorant, fanatic - well here we are: diverse, inclusive, hospitable, generous, sophisticated, creative and witty." In Philip Pullman's Northern Lights, the aim of the evil guys is to sever children from their spirits so releasing the energy needed by the government. Well, that's a brilliant metaphor for what we feel has been happening to us in Egypt. We were being deliberately severed from everything we hold dear, in the service of keeping the region subservient to American and Israeli interests.

And the only Egyptians to gain anything by this were the members and cronies of the regime who amassed spectacular wealth at the material, moral and emotional expense of their fellow-citizens. On Sunday in Tahrir, Christian masses were celebrated and Muslim prayers were said. We all prayed together for the young people killed by the regime since 25 January and before. Later, there was a wedding, and later still magicians and acrobats and small camp fires.

This enormous revolution that is happening in our streets and our homes is the Egyptian people reclaiming their state, their heritage, their voice, their personality.

Be with us.

Ahdaf Soueif is an Egyptian novelist and political and cultural commentator, who lives with her children in Cairo and London.

Source: BBC News

Egyptians Vote Today, but Islamic Opposition Group Is Barred

Egyptians are to vote on Wednesday in parliamentary elections that have emerged less as a challenge to President Hosni Mubarak's Government than a window on a widening rift between the Government and its outlawed Islamic opponents.

With the country's most influential Islamic organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, barred from competing as a political party, Mr. Mubarak's governing National Democratic Party is widely expected to maintain its commanding majority in Parliament, where it now holds 348 of 444 elective seats.

While Mr. Mubarak and his supporters have said they are committed to fair elections, the severe measures taken against the popular Islamic organization in recent weeks have underscored deep tensions that will not be measured in the polls.

"This election is like a play in the theater," Nabil Abdel-Fattah, an independent analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said in an interview today. "It certainly does not reflect political reality."

In the last week, dozens of Muslim Brotherhood leaders have been sentenced to prison terms and hundreds of their supporters arrested as part of what human rights campaigners say is a deliberate effort by the Government to disfranchise the country's largest political opposition movement.

With tacit backing from the West, the Government has defended the crackdown as a necessary step in its quest to suppress a campaign of violence by Islamic militants, who it says have drawn support and inspiration from the organization, which itself has long been outlawed.

Yet the Muslim Brotherhood has used the repressive measures as ammunition of its own as it renews its appeal to ordinary Egyptians, many of whom regard the Islamic organization as an important counterweight to what they consider a corrupt secular regime.

Permitted to compete only as independent candidates, members of the organization are running for only one-fourth of the seats and are not expected to play a large role in the outcome.

This election is the first in Egypt since 1987 that has not been boycotted by the major opposition parties, and television advertisements appearing on the Government-owned stations urge citizens to give their vote "to whoever deserves it."

But even as more than 4,000 candidates spent a final day on the hustings, the Government came under verbal attack from a prominent human rights organization, which declared itself "deeply troubled" about the climate in which the elections were taking place.

In a letter addressed to Mr. Mubarak, the New York-based Human Rights Watch/Middle East cited the measures taken against the Muslim Brotherhood, including the sentencing last week of 54 prominent members to prison terms of up to five years after a mass trial in military court.

Some of those sentenced had intended to run for seats in Wednesday's elections, and the human rights organization criticized their prosecution for nonviolent offenses as intended to keep them from taking part in the elections.

Even to students of Egyptian politics, many of the candidates' platforms this year are virtually indistinguishable, leaving their supporters to emphasize the symbols paired with names on Egyptian ballots.

Source: New York Times

Egypt Begins Crackdown on Strongest Opposition Group

After a series of raids and arrests that have weakened Islamic groups trying to topple the Government by force, Egyptian security forces have begun a crackdown against the country's most powerful opposition organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, which rejects violence.

The campaign, which includes the detention and interrogation of scores of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, signals a drive by the Government to curtail not only those movements that have carried out violent attacks, but also one that has come to dominate many municipalities, professional and labor associations and university faculties.

The confrontation pits the Government of President Hosni Mubarak for the first time against the intellectual authors of Islamic fundamentalism, who the President contends are merely terrorists. 'This Is the First Time'

"This is the first time this Government has linked us to terrorism," said Issam al-Irian, a senior Brotherhood leader, as he sat in a spartan office in central Cairo. "It is part of a wide move by the Government to curtail all forms of democratic participation. It is an expression of the Government's weakness. But by narrowing the opportunities for democratic participation, the Government is creating more problems that it is solving."

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, is the prototype for modern Islamic fundamentalist political parties throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Although it has been officially banned since 1954, with a membership estimated in the hundreds of thousands it is the largest Egyptian opposition movement -- legal or illegal -- and dominates many of the 14,000 private philanthropies that provide services from health clinics to primary schools.

Its assets, with backing from supporters here and in Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Brotherhood, which has its headquarters in central Cairo, calls for the establishment of an Islamic state by peaceful means. It rejects the violence used by outlawed organizations like the Islamic Group in their efforts to topple the Government. Control of Civic Institutions

But at the same time, the Brotherhood has mounted an aggressive campaign to take control of a variety of civil and charitable institutions. It now dominates the largest of Egypt's 22 professional associations, including the medical, engineering and legal groups. And, aside from the rejection of the use of force, the goals of the Brotherhood dovetail with those of the underground groups.

The wide reach of the Brotherhood is based on its charitable work, including scores of clinics, hospitals and schools. But it also appeals to many Egyptians, especially those in the professional classes, as the only credible opposition movement.

"The Brotherhood, among the professional class, owes its support to the fact that it is an effective protest movement," said Said al-Naggar, the head of New Civic Forum, a liberal think tank. "It is the only outlet many people have to express dissatisfaction with the current system. Many of the professionals do not necessarily support the Islamic ideology, although there is a feeling that Western-style opposition parties, whether socialist or democratic, have failed."

But there is a price for effective organization. Women, for example, must wear the hejab, or head scarf, if they want to enter the Physicians' Union, a former leftist stronghold with a membership of 80,000 that is now controlled by the Brotherhood. Low-Cost Appliances

"The Brotherhood provides loans, cars, furniture and even electrical appliances to union members, at low cost," said Mohammed al-Farhat, who is not a member of the Brotherhood. "The union gives the physicians and their families the best quality health care at a minimal price. They have a reputation for being honest and careful with union funds." That reputation has wide appeal in a country whose Government is seen as thoroughly corrupt.

Until now, the Government concentrated its efforts on battling the Islamic Group, which has waged a two-year campaign of violence in which nearly 400 people, mainly police officers and militants, have been killed. But security forces have killed one militant commander and captured several others, putting the underground groups on the defensive.

"The security situation over all is much better now than a few months ago," a Western diplomat said. "This has made it easier to do this. The Government has the energy and the manpower available to go after what it sees as a second-tier organization."

But Brotherhood leaders say the Government wants to silence the only effective opposition in a country that nominally has a multiparty system, but where the same ruling group has been in power since 1952.

While refusing to lift the ban on the Brotherhood, President Mubarak has, until now, allowed it to operate. Brotherhood members were even permitted to run in parliamentary elections in 1988, although the candidates ran as members of the tiny Liberal and once-moribund Socialist Labor Party, both of which the Brotherhood now controls. Election Fraud Alleged

The main opposition parties, including the Socialist Labor Party, have boycotted subsequent parliamentary elections because of what they say is fraud. But the tolerance of the Brotherhood appears to have ended. For the first time, President Mubarak has begun referring to the group as a "terrorist" organization in public statements.

Government officials say documents discovered in February at the office of a company that had links to the Brotherhood directly tied the organization to violent groups.

They also say a defector from the underground armed movement detailed payments by Brotherhood supporters to armed factions.

And they have angrily criticized Brotherhood leaders for organizing a demonstration by hundreds of lawyers last month that turned violent. The demonstration was called to protest the death in police custody of a lawyer who defended jailed militants. Government critics and human rights groups say the lawyer, Abdel Harith Medani, was tortured to death. The Government denies the charge.

"The Brotherhood is a ring trying to agitate disturbances on the street," said Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi. "And this is also what the terrorists and the murderers are doing with their explosions and assassinations." Spiritual Leader Questioned

The Government has taken a number of steps in its new campaign against the group. Hamed Aboul-Nasr, 81, the ailing spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, was called in for police questioning for two days this week, accused of writing anti-Government leaflets and inciting the lawyers' protest last month. Parliament has canceled the right of professors to elect the deans of university faculties, many of which are now dominated by the Brotherhood.

Mayors and village council members, many of whom belong to the Brotherhood, will be appointed by the Government rather than elected.

Brotherhood members, including most of the senior leaders around the country, have been arrested. A prominent clergyman was recently prevented from delivering a sermon to thousands of worshipers. And editors and reporters from Al Shaab, the paper of the Socialist Labor Party and a strong fundamentalist voice, have been hauled into court and imprisoned in recent weeks for articles critical of the Government.

The crackdown worries many who fear that if the Brotherhood leaders are driven underground or imprisoned, they could call on their followers to join the armed movements. Comparison to Algeria

"I never believed that the Brotherhood represented the moderate branch of the Islamic movement," said Hussein Ahmed Amin, Egypt's former Ambassador to Algeria and a prominent writer. "It was a matter of the distribution of roles. The Brotherhood preached a moderate line to get into Parliament and the Labor Party, which it came to dominate, as well as to appeal to those who wanted change, but deplored violence.

"But the origin of the trouble in Egypt is the same as in Algeria. The rise in militancy is caused by the failure to create a democratic system, by social and economic grievances, Government corruption, a lack of housing, unemployment, immigration from the rural areas to the cities and a lack of competing ideologies. The Islamic movement will not disappear with repression. And if the Government presses the Brotherhood too hard it could become more overtly radical and put all its energy into acts of terror."

Brotherhood leaders are not shy about echoing such a threat.

"If our supporters believe we cannot achieve our goals peacefully," said Mohammed Maamoun al-Hodaiby, the spokesman for the Brotherhood, "then they may turn to more radical means to achieve them.

"What do you expect?"

Source: New York Times