– Con le misure liberiste introdotte da Mubarak, e approvate dall’FMI, i membri dell’alto comando militare hanno intascato enormi fortune personali mentre le forze armate si sono prese grosse fette di industrie statali privatizzate e di proprietà terriera.
– Il movimento di lotta dei lavoratori, che ha visto scioperi di massa l’8 e 9 febbraio, per aumenti salariali, occupazione miglioramento del tenore di vita e diritti democratici rappresenta una minaccia diretta agli interessi della gerarchia dell’esercito, ed una sfida implicita al dominio della borghesia egiziana.
– I militari sono intervenuti per mantenere il controllo della situazione, togliendo il potere a Mubarak, quando hanno visto il rischio che la sua permanenza potesse provocare l’intensificazione del movimento rivoluzionario.
– Nessuno dei partiti della piccola e media borghesia, compresa la Fratellanza musulmana e l’Associazione Nazionale per il Cambiamento di Baradei, ha condannato le minacce dei militari contro la classe operaia, hanno anzi sollecitato anch’esse a porre fine alle manifestazioni e agli scioperi, cercando al contempo di mantenere l’illusione sul ruolo dei militari.
– El-Baradei e soci stanno prepara
ndosi ad entrare nel regime militare; la prossima settimana il governo in carica sarà re-impastato inserendo personaggi dell’opposizione, secondo le dichiarazioni del primo ministro, Ahmed Shafik, al ministro Esteri britannico, William Hague.
– Ieri nelle maggiori città egiziane si sono avuti scioperi e manifestazioni di protesta sia nel privato che nel pubblico per salari condizioni di lavoro, destituzione di manager corrotti dei gruppi statali insediati con il regime Mubarak,
o sfidando l’appello della giunta militare al potere ad interrompere le lotte,
o e nonostante la giunta, capeggiata dagli accoliti di Mubarak, Mohammed Hussein Tantawi e primo ministro Ahmed Shafiq, avesse decretate festive le giornate di ieri ed oggi per evitare gli scioperi.
o Un ufficiale dell’esercito ha dichiarato a Reuters che i capi militari intendono vietare le riunioni sindacali, vietando di fatto gli scioperi.
o La BBC ha parlato di una serie di “mini-rivoluzioni”.
o Chiuse tutte le banche per decisione della Banca Centrale egiziana a seguito di uno sciopero dei dipendenti della National Bank of Egypt (NBE), la maggiore banca statale, che chiedono contratti a tempo indeterminato per i lavoratori assunti a tempo determinato; i lavoratori cercano di sfruttare la situazione di lotta sociale per avanzare le proprie rivendicazioni.
– Nel distretto di Nasr hanno scioperato e manifestato davanti al ministero del Petrolio migliaia di lavoratori di gas e petrolio; rivendicazioni economiche e politiche, tra queste: porre fine a licenziamenti arbitrari contro lavoratori che chiedono il rispetto dei propri diritti, riassunzione di quelli licenziati, aumenti salariali (mediamente sui $68), creazione di un sindacato indipendente, rimozione del ministro del Petrolio; fine dell’esportazione di gas ad Israele.
– Al Cairo hanno chiesto aumenti salariali (oltre la metà del salario va per l’affitto; cure ospedaliere a pagamento) centinaia di lavoratori dei trasporti (in sciopero da 4 giorni), di personale paramedico, di dipendenti di un tunnel chiave del Cairo, dell’Organizzazione giovani e sport.
– Hanno scioperato i dipendenti della compagnia aerea statale EgyptAir, chiedono la rimozione del capo della compagnia, come pure i 500 della Opera House; i dipendenti del ministero Educazione, con l’appoggio degli studenti, chiedono aumenti salariali, contratti a tempo indeterminato, destituzione del direttore del ministero.
– Manifestazioni di diverse centinaia per lo scioglimento del direttivo del sindacato ufficiale del regime, Trade and Workeers Federation.
– Fuori dal Cairo, sciopero nella grande miniera d’oro di Sukari, presso la città di Marsa Alam; aumenti salariali chiesti da dipendenti del turismo, presso le grandi piramidi.
– A migliaia rivendicano alloggi pubblici a basso costo, finora assegnati per nepotismo, a Beni Sweif, città in miseria a sud del Cairo; occupati 60mila alloggi vuoti a Beni Sweif e Qalioubiya.
– In piazza Tahrir, ufficiali di polizia hanno manifestato chiedendo aumenti salariali.
– Circa 2000 manifestanti anti-Mubarak contro l’odiata polizia, Al-Jazeera ed altre reti non hanno potuto trasmettere i propri servizi dalla piazza.
– Indetta per venerdì un’altra manifestazione di massa, presentata come “marcia della vittoria”.
Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)
Strikes, workers’ protests spread throughout Egypt
– Large numbers of workers in Egypt’s main cities staged strikes and street demonstrations yesterday for higher wages, better working conditions, and the removal of corrupt managers of state-owned enterprise promoted under former President Hosni Mubarak. The movement of the working class is developing in defiance of the ruling military command, which has stridently demanded an end to all industrial action.
– The junta, headed by Mubarak’s henchmen Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, declared an unscheduled public holiday yesterday, apparently in an attempt to defuse the strike wave. The military also declared today a public holiday.
– Workers across many industries nevertheless mobilised yesterday, in both the public and private sectors. One BBC journalist commented, “There appears to be a whole series of mini-revolutions going on in the wake of the removal of Mr. Mubarak”.
– The Central Bank of Egypt ordered that banks throughout the country be closed because of a strike by workers in the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), the largest state bank. Hundreds of workers demonstrated outside NBE’s headquarters, reportedly demanding that temporary workers be granted permanent positions. “It’s part of the revolution,” the bank’s chairman, Tarek Amer, told the Associated Press. “They believe that it’s an opportunity—if they had any complaints and demands—and that there’s a higher probability of getting them answered.”
– Thousands of oil and gas workers employed by several companies are on strike and staged a protest yesterday in the Nasr City district of Cairo, outside the Ministry of Petroleum. According to blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy: “The workers have several economic and political demands, including putting an end to abusive management practices such as sacking workers who speak up for their rights, reinstating the sacked workers, raising salaries that roughly average LE400 [$68], establishing an independent union, impeaching the corrupt oil minister Sameh Fahmy, and stopping gas exports to Israel.”
– Also in Cairo, hundreds of public transport workers demanded higher wages outside the state television and radio building. One of the workers, Ahmed Said, who has worked as a driver for 18 years, told the Guardian that more than half of his wages goes toward paying rent and he is forced to feed his family of five on the rest. “There is just enough money for food… If a child goes to the hospital and we have to pay for that, then me and my wife do not have a meal. This is wrong. How can Mubarak be worth so much and we have so little? Before, we had to be careful. We would be arrested. But now we can talk. We need food. We have been on strike four days. The army cannot stop us.”
– Hundreds of ambulance paramedics demanding better pay parked about 70 vehicles in a row on a roadside along the Nile River in Giza district. Employees at a key Cairo traffic tunnel threatened to shut down the route if their wages weren’t raised. Several hundred people employed by the state Youth and Sports Organisation also demonstrated in Tahrir Square for improved working conditions.
– Among other reported struggles, workers with state airline EgyptAir went on strike at Cairo International Airport and successfully demanded that the company’s head, Alaa Ashour, be removed. About 500 employees of the Opera House have similarly accused the organisation’s chairman of corruption and demanded his removal. Workers with the education ministry in Cairo’s satellite 6th of October City also protested yesterday, demanding higher wages, permanent contracts for temporary workers, and the removal of the ministry director.
– The action was supported by several students. Kholoud Abdallah, from a secondary vocational school, told Al Ahram, “We have no books, no computers and we require these for study.”
– There were also reports of continued strikes by textile, steel, and post office state workers.
– Several hundred people also staged a demonstration outside the Mubarak regime’s official trade union[e] body, the Trade and Workers Federation, demanding that the federation’s board be dissolved. Union[e] bureaucrats inside the building reportedly exchanged volleys of bricks and bottles with demonstrators outside, before they were separated by soldiers.
– Outside of Cairo, workers went on strike at the enormous Sukari gold mine, near the southern town of Marsa Alam. Near the Great Pyramids, about 150 tourism industry employees protested for higher wages.
– The Associated Press also reported that in Beni Sweif, an impoverished city south of Cairo, “thousands demanded the distribution of promised state-built, low-cost apartments that are often awarded on the basis of nepotism”. Police admitted that local people have occupied 60,000 empty units of such housing in the provinces of Cairo, Beni Sweif and Qalioubiya.
– Police officers demanding higher wages staged a provocative demonstration in Tahrir Square yesterday morning.
– About 2,000 anti-Mubarak protestors held a counter-demonstration against the widely hated police, but Al Jazeera and other media outlets were forbidden from broadcasting any footage from the square. This censorship appears to be part of the military’s effort to remove all the protestors from Tahrir Square and project an image of a return to “normality”.
– Another mass rally, however, dubbed a “victory march” has been called for Friday.
– The military council issued a statement yesterday demanding an end to the strikes. “Noble Egyptians sees that these strikes, at this delicate time, lead to negative effects such as harming the security of the country which causes disruption in all institutions and facilities of the state,” a military spokesman declared. “[Strikes] negatively affect the ability to provide for the needs of citizens and disrupt the process of production and work in state sectors … and they negatively affect the national economy.”
– This statement comes after an army official told Reuters that the military leadership intended to ban union[e] meetings, effectively forbidding strikes. It stands as a sharp warning to the working class as to the policies the army hopes to ultimately carry out.
– The military has been the central pillar of the Egyptian capitalist state ever since the 1952 Free Officers Coup. Under Mubarak’s IMF-approved “free market” measures, the senior command amassed enormous personal fortunes as the military appropriated vast swathes of privatised state industry and landed property.
– The workers’ movement for higher wages, jobs, improved living conditions, and democratic rights represents a direct threat to the army hierarchy’s lucrative interests, as well as an implicit challenge to the rule of the entire Egyptian bourgeoisie.
– The latest developments underscore the military’s concern over the emerging movement of the working class in the final days of Mubarak’s rule. Mass strikes erupted February 8 and 9, continuing up until Mubarak made his televised speech on February 10 in which it had been expected he would announce his resignation, but instead strove to cling to power.
– According to a detailed account published by Al Ahram, the dictator had intended to step down but was persuaded by his wife and son Gamal not to. When this threatened to provoke a further upsurge in the revolutionary movement, the military stepped in and seized power to try to maintain control over the situation.
– Notably, none of the official middle class “opposition” parties—including the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed ElBaradei’s National Association for Change—has condemned the military’s threats against the working class. Striving to maintain illusions in the role of the army, these forces have urged an end to the demonstrations and strikes.
– ElBaradei and his colleagues are now preparing to enter the military regime.
– Britain’s Foreign Minister William Hague said yesterday that Egypt’s Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq told him that the current government would be reshuffled to include opposition figures by next week. While the successful elevation of these “opposition” forces would open up opportunities for the individuals involved, for the Egyptian working class it would signify no more than providing a civilian fig-leaf for the military government.
– Prominent anti-Mubarak activists, Google executive Wael Ghonim and blogger Amr Salamahey, met with representatives of the military council. They were reportedly told that the army plans to rewrite the constitution within ten days—entirely behind the backs of the Egyptian people—and put it to a referendum for ratification within two months.
The military has yet to announce when it will deliver on its pledge to rescind Mubarak’s draconian emergency legislation. It has also remained silent on whether it will release the many political prisoners who remain in detention.
– The Independent’s Robert Fisk asked: “Is this because there are prisoners who know too much about the army’s involvement in the previous regime? Or because escaped and newly liberated prisoners are returning to Cairo and Alexandria from desert camps with terrible stories of torture and executions by—so they say—military personnel.”
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