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For the third consecutive day, police and protesters demanding the departure from power of the Army clashed Monday, November 21 on Tahrir Square in Cairo against a background of political crisis with the resignation of the interim government.
The violence that recall the worst of the "revolution of the Nile," killed at least 33 dead. Around midnight, some 20,000 people were still massed in the square, the Mecca of the anti-Mubarak, with thousands more in the adjacent streets.
"The people want the fall of Marshal!" Chanted the crowd to Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Minister of Defense of the "raise" fallen for twenty years before taking the reins of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (AFSC ) in power since the departure of Hosni Mubarak.
By late evening, the AFSC issued a statement calling for calm and urging political forces in crisis talks to find a way out. The generals expressed their "deep regret for the victims of these unfortunate incidents," said the official MENA news agency.
"We call on all members of the nation to exercise the utmost restraint to avoid further victims," said the army.
The Military Council does not, however, he accepted the resignation of the interim government, scheduled for Sunday. According to one military source, the AFSC would try to reach agreement on the name of a new prime minister.
The resignation of all cabinet members is a severe blow to the authority of the Military Council.
The burning of Tahrir Square comes a week before parliamentary elections on November 28, the first election of the post-Mubarak.
The morgue of the main hospital in Cairo received 33 bodies since Saturday. At least 1,250 people were injured, they say the Ministry of Health.
The authorities claim that the police did not open fire on protesters but most of the corpses in the morgue had bullet holes, according to a medical source.
"The military regime is dead, is dead," shouted the protesters. "Freedom, freedom!" intend it as well.
Other slogans aimed Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who was for twenty years the Minister of Defence of Mubarak and chaired the AFSC.
CLIMATE OF INSECURITY
Monday, the army assured that it did not take sides between the demonstrators and the police and had not attempted to remove the demonstrators in Tahrir Square.
The Interior Ministry has sought the protection of the army and similar protection can be offered to the protesters, said Gen. Said Abbas, Deputy Head of Central Command. (See)
"I saw the police beating women who were of age my mother. I want the end of military rule," said Mohamed Gamal, 21.
Part of the Egyptians are opposed to these events, wishing a return to stability given the dilapidated state of the economy. Other Egyptians, whose Islamist favorites elections, suspect the army to maintain a climate of insecurity to stay in place.
The army ensures that the violence will not prevent the organization of the first phase of parliamentary elections.
The generals planning to hold most of the power until the appointment by direct vote of the next president, which may not occur before the end of next year or early 2013.
"PRACTICES OF THE OLD REGIME"
The security forces have cleared internet video, whose authenticity could not be verified, showing police beating demonstrators, dragging by the hair and in one case, throwing a pile of garbage what appears to be a corpse.
Movement of 6-April at the forefront of protest against the Mubarak regime, said the agency Mena that the occupation of Tahrir Square would continue until its demands were not accepted.
He claims including the holding of presidential elections by next April and the formation of a government of national salvation instead of the AFSC.
Mohamed ElBaradei and Abdallah al Achaal, potential candidates for president, also called for the formation of a government of national salvation, the agency Mena reported.
The Muslim Brotherhood, whose party is the favorite of the elections, condemned the intervention of security forces in Cairo even if they themselves had previously removed from Tahrir Square. "It recalls the practices of the Department of the Interior of the former regime," they said in a statement.
The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said that Egypt lived a "dangerous time" while Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the UN, called on authorities to ensure the transition "(...) defense of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all Egyptians, including the right to demonstrate peacefully. "
Catherine Ashton, spokesman of European diplomacy, called for restraint and announced that the EU was ready to send observers to the elections on November 28.
(Source: Reuters)
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