Egitto, Medio oriente, proteste, lotte operaie
MARGARET COKER, MATT BRADLEY e TAMER EL-GHOBASHY
– In Egitto il nuovo corso di governo è stato imposto per decreto, senza che l’opposizione potesse dire a sua. Squadre di polizia militare hanno fatto irruzione nella piazza Tahrir e demolito le tende dei manifestanti, che hanno cacciato dalla piazza.
o In Egitto sta crescendo un’ondata di proteste operaie, scatenate dalla sollevazione che ha destituito Mubarak.
o Il Consiglio militare al potere in Egitto ha emesso un comunicato che chiede ai dirigenti sindacali di fermare scioperi e proteste, mentre migliaia di dipendenti pubblici, da autisti di ambulanza e lavoratori dei trasporti hanno protestato chiedendo miglioramenti del salario e delle condizioni di lavoro.
o Le piccole imprese commerciali e turistiche hanno lamentato forti perdite durante i 18 giorni di proteste.
– Il comunicato del Consiglio militare non prevede la revoca dello stato di emergenza, che consente alle forze di sicurezza di incarcerare chiunque senza imputazione e che vieta le manifestazioni di qualsiasi tipo.
o Il ministro Difesa, Hussein Tantawi, farà le funzioni di presidente (Tantawi è stato applaudito da molti funzionari Usa e di altri paesi per l’abilità mostrata nel gestire la crisi);
o Tantawi ha assicurato ad Israele che l’Egitto manterrà gli impegni di pace bilaterali;
o il governo sarà diretto dal primo ministro Ahmad Shafiq, e comprende molti funzionari ex militari fino a nuove elezioni, fra sei mesi.
– Il comunicato informa che il Consiglio militare si occuperà della stesura di nuovi emendamenti alla Costituzione, senza specificare quali.
o La Banca Centrale ha annunciato per lunedì e martedì la chiusura delle banche a causa dello sciopero di dipendenti di banche statali.
– Segnali di nuova instabilità le proteste per aumenti salariali di centinaia di funzionari civili della polizia di fronte al ministero Interni. Diversi sobborghi popolosi del Cairo sono fuori dal controllo di “legge e ordine”.
– Sabato si è avuto il primo incontro di un gruppo di giovani attivisti che hanno organizzato la prima manifestazione del 25 gennaio, e alcuni alti generali, nessun dettaglio è stato comunicato.
– Le dimissioni di Mubarak hanno incoraggiato i movimenti di protesta in tutto il Medio Oriente, che chiedono libertà politica:
o Sabato scorso, scontri tra le forze di sicurezza e migliaia di manifestanti in Yemen (le manifestazioni in Yemen sono state avviate per lo più da rifugiati egiziani, richieste riforme politiche e le dimissioni del presidente Ali Abdullah Saleh, con il quale domenica sono ripresi i negoziati) e a Bahrain, dove la ristretta opposizione sciita chiede riforme dai governanti sunniti.
o Migliaia di algerini – organizzati da una coalizione di leader dell’opposizione, sindacalisti e attivisti per i diritti umani – hanno invaso la piazza centrale di Algeri chiedendo riforme politiche; dispersi con gas lacrimogeni da migliaia di poliziotti dal presidente Boutlefika.
o I manifestanti hanno gridato: $155MD (le riserve in valuta estera derivanti dagli introiti petroliferi), e siamo ancora poveri.
o L’Autorità palestinese della West Bank ha imposto le dimissioni del gabinetto, e promesso elezioni parlamentari e presidenziali (a lungo rinviate) per settembre; Mubarak era il maggior sostenitore regionale della PLO.
o In Iran i leader dell’opposizione, Hossein Mousavi e Mehdi Karoubi (quest’ultimo agli arresti domiciliari), hanno organizzato per lunedì (14.2.) 35 città una manifestazione di solidarietà in con le rivolte egiziana e tunisina, appoggiata da sindacati e gruppi studenteschi.
o In Libia in vista manifestazioni per giovedì. Hanno fornito software per caricare sul web immagini e video anche con connessioni lente.
Giordania, circa 3000 manifestanti hanno chiesto distribuzione di terra ad una della più potenti tribù beduine del paese.
Mideast Unrest Spreads – Protests Target Iran, Bahrain, Libya; Egypt Dissolves Parliament, Sets Elections
By MARGARET COKER, MATT BRADLEY and TAMER EL-GHOBASHY
– CAIRO—As Egypt’s new military leadership suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament and promised fresh elections, demands for similar political reform swept across the Arab world—from Libya to Iran—following the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.
– Egypt’s dramatic moves incorporate many demands issued during the mass demonstrations by doing away with the institutional framework that buttressed Mr. Mubarak’s three-decade rule. But the military’s new road map for governing Egypt in the short term came down by fiat, without input from the political opposition, raising questions about how deeply the military understands the democratic process and the demands of modern politics.
– On Monday, Egypt’s ruling military council issued a communique calling on labor leaders to stop strikes and protests to allow a sense of normalcy to return to the country, the Associated Press reported. The communique, read out by a military spokesman on state television, came as thousands of state employees, from ambulance drivers to police and transport workers, protested Monday to demand better pay and conditions. Egypt is in the midst of a growing wave of labor unrest unleashed by the uprising that ousted Mr. Mubarak from the presidency on Friday.
– Mr. Mubarak’s resignation has also emboldened protesters throughout the Middle East where opposition movements are aggressively calling for political freedom. Security forces and protesters clashed in Yemen and Bahrain on Sunday while thousands of Algerians, defying a ban on protests, flooded a central square in Algiers on Saturday calling for political reform.
– The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank ordered the dismissal of its Cabinet and said it would hold long-delayed parliamentary and presidential elections by September.
– And in Iran, opposition leaders planned a demonstration on Monday in solidarity with the Egyptian and Tunisian revolts. The streets of Tehran rocked to the chants of residents shouting "Death to the dictator" and "God is great" Sunday night, according to witnesses and videos posted on Youtube.
– Activists are calling for protests in Libya on Thursday, testing whether Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s 42-year regime will be forced to make political concessions.
– In downtown Cairo Sunday, the armed forces moved decisively to further normalize civilian life. During morning rush hour, squads of military police units rushed into Tahrir Square and broke down the tents of the entrenched demonstrators who have been protesting there since Jan. 25. They also pushed remaining protesters to the square’s periphery, breaking their hold on the area and reopening the road to bustling vehicular traffic.
– In a possible worrying sign of new instability, hundreds of civilian police officers demanding higher wages, protested in front of the Interior Ministry, the site of bloody clashes between the political opposition and these security forces two weeks ago. The lack of law and order throughout many of Cairo’s dense neighborhoods has become a major worry for many residents, and military leaders met earlier in the day with top internal security officials to agree on a plan to return civilian security forces to the city streets, according to state television.
– The Central Bank also announced that banks would be closed Monday and Tuesday, due to strikes by some state-owned bank employees and because of a religious holiday.
– Since taking control of the country on Friday, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has issued five communiqués which have scrupulously repeated its intentions to bolster democracy in Egypt and restore the stability lost during the nearly three weeks of protests and political upheaval.
Sunday’s statement, read on state television, indicated that the small group of army generals was ready to take radical steps to achieve those goals.
The military council is "fully cognizant that the true challenge that faces our dear country Egypt is to release the creative powers of every member of our great people by providing freedom, and facilitating democratic processes through constitutional and legislative amendments," the document said.
The nine-part statement issued by the council outlined in terse terms the military order of life for the next few months.
– It said that the Defense Minister, Hussein Tantawi, would act as the head of the country until new elections are held within six months. It also declared that the Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq and populated with many ex-military officers, would handle the day-to-day issues of government until elections are held.
– Late Sunday, a group of youth activists who organized the first demonstration on Jan. 25 met with some of the nation’s top generals, according to Bassem Kamel, one of the opposition members who attended the meeting. He wouldn’t divulge any details about the meeting.
Many of Egypt’s political opposition and democracy activists say that they welcome many of the goals outlined in the statement. They also expressed relief at the council’s definitive timeline for holding elections.
By abolishing the parliament and the constitution, the military council removed institutions that many in the opposition considered toothless and illegitimate. Mr. Mubarak and his political allies used both institutions to bolster his rule and prevent political parties and opposition from functioning.
– But many political leaders also expressed concern with what the military council left out of the statement, including no mention of when it would lift the nation’s punitive emergency law, which allows security forces to detain anyone without charge and forbids public demonstrations of any kind.
– The communiqué said that the military council would oversee the writing of new constitutional amendments, but gave no detail as to what parts of the constitution it would focus on or whether it would seek guidance from experts from outside the military brass. Since Friday, the military has not contacted the major political opposition groups or the constitutional reform bodies that former President Mubarak had set up to help him cling to power while reform was under way, some opposition leaders said.
"The silence is very worrisome," says Ibrahim Moallem, the owner of one of Egypt’s largest publishing houses who was one of the elder statesmen heavily involved in the political liaison work over the last two weeks.
– Through the nearly three weeks of political instability in Egypt, the military has emerged as the country’s most respected institution, with many U.S. and other officials giving Field Marshall Tantawi high marks for his leadership skills during the crisis.
– On Saturday night, Mr. Tantawi spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak saying Egypt remained committed to their bilateral peace agreement, Israeli officials said. They said it was the first high-level contact between Israel’s government and Egypt’s new rulers.
The military’s move against the Tahrir protests Sunday appeared to be part of its stated desire to bring normalcy back to the capital. But the solders’ heavy handed tactics brought controversy as well.
Scuffles broke out early Sunday as soldiers broke down the protesters’ tents that had been blocking the roads in the square, and television showed footage of soldiers violently wielding wooden switches against the protesters who obstructed the clearance operation.
– Resistance subsided quickly, and the army was able to allow traffic to flow. Along the eastern edge of Tahrir Square, a row of tourism agencies opened their doors for the first time and workers there were seen mopping and sprucing up the offices that had been shuttered for 18 days due to the protests. Small business owners complained of taking sharp losses during this period.
– By the middle of the day, about 3,000 protesters were congregated at the eastern end of the square. Some were holding sit-ins in the central area, but without obstructing traffic.
"Just because the Pasha left, does not mean we’ve received everything we have been asking for," said Mohamed Naemtallah, a 30-year-old lawyer, referring to Mr. Mubarak’s departure.
Meanwhile, foot traffic resumed to the hulking government edifice known as the Mugamma, which houses much of Egypt’s sprawling bureaucracy. At the doors stood army soldiers, checking who was entering and exiting.
—Farnaz Fassihi in Beirut and Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem contributed to this article.
Protests Expand Across Arab Nations
– Protesters and security forces clashed in cities around the Middle East and North Africa over the weekend and Iran geared up for the first significant antigovernment demonstrations there in a year, as the popular revolt that forced out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak threatened to spark a new round of uprisings in the region.
Inspired by Egypt, about a thousand Yemeni protesters take to the streets of Sanaa calling for regime change. Video courtesy of Reuters.
In recent weeks as protesters swarmed Egypt and Tunisia, where the longtime ruler also was toppled, scattered large-scale protests have flared elsewhere and other Arab leaders have scrambled to defuse unrest by offering political and economic concessions.
– Many protest efforts had begun to dwindle. But Mr. Mubarak’s Friday-night resignation appeared to boost momentum for opposition forces around the region and raise the stakes for regimes trying to head them off.
– Yemen, Algeria, Bahrain and Jordan all were sites of new protests and clashes. The Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank ordered the dismissal of its cabinet, officials said Sunday, after calling new elections Saturday following Mr. Mubarak’s departure.
– In Iran, despite pre-emptive crackdowns and warnings by the government, long-quiet political opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi—the latter under house arrest—issued a statement Sunday supporting a protest that already had the backing of labor unions and student activist groups.
– The opposition Green Movement—which sprung up after the contested presidential election in 2009—issued a map of protest routes in 35 cities. They also made available software for Iranians to be able to upload pictures and videos despite slow internet connections. A Facebook page for the protest had more than 52,000 people pledging support and attendance by Sunday. They were being asked to each call 10 people randomly and encourage them to join in.
– Already on Sunday night in Tehran, residents were heard chanting "God is great" and "Death to the dictator," according to witnesses and videos posted on YouTube. Meanwhile, the government deployed antiriot police across main squares in Tehran, suggesting the potential for violence.
– Yemeni demonstrations during the weekend came despite recent moves by the government and opposition leaders to tamp down tensions. The protests started as a small rally of mostly Egyptian expatriates who converged onto streets of the capital, San’a, Friday after the news of Mr. Mubarak’s resignation.
– Yemeni anti-government protestors, right, scuffle with government supporters during a rally demanding political reform and the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa, Yemen on Sunday, Feb. 13, 2011. Several thousand protesters tried to reach the central square in the capital but were pushed back by police using clubs.
– Numbers swelled to more than a thousand by the early hours of Saturday morning, according to eyewitnesses. The protesters clashed with pro-government demonstrators before security forces intervened and arrested several from both sides.
– On Sunday, Yemeni protesters turned out again, clashing briefly with security forces and government supporters, according to eyewitnesses. Security officials weren’t reachable to comment.
– Opposition leaders agreed Sunday to restart long-stalled negotiations with President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who made a number of political concessions earlier this month, including a promise not to run again in 2013. Mr. Saleh canceled a trip to the U.S. later this month, Yemen’s state news agency reported Sunday.
– In the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, the Shiite opposition has seized on the wider regional unrest to press demands for reform from the kingdoms’s Sunni Muslim rulers. Over the weekend the kingdom pledged to ease media restrictions, and promised each Bahraini family a special grant of about $2,650.
A succession of rallies and demonstrations, in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Algeria have been inspired directly by the popular outpouring of anger that toppled Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. See how these uprisings have progressed.
– On Sunday, security forces set up checkpoints at villages outside the capital, Manama, while police units patrolled shopping malls and other public areas. In the Shiite village of Karzakan, a few miles west, security forces dispersed with rubber bullets and tear gas a crowd of protesters who were marching toward a highway after a local wedding. Local men scrambled to carry one man, shot in the leg, away from the scene for treatment.
"The police wouldn’t use the tear gas for nothing," said Nada Haffadh, a member of the Shura council, the appointed upper chamber of Bahrain’s parliament. "Yes, we want people to ask for their rights, but it must be within the law."
Opposition groups bombarded social-networking sites with calls to stage a major protest Monday.
"People are really boiling, contempt is very high," said Abdul Jalil Khalil, a parliamentary leader from one of the largest Shiite opposition groups.
– Two people were reported wounded Sunday in Jordan when gunshots were fired at a protest near the city of Mafraq, northeast of the capital, Amman. The Agence France-Presse news service reported around 3,000 demonstrators had blocked a road near a university campus. The protest, over allocation of lands to one of Jordan’s powerful Bedouin tribes, came as Jordan’s King Abdullah II met with U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who is in the region.
– On Saturday, thousands of Algerians defied a government ban to flood a central square in Algiers and call for political reform. The government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika deployed thousands of security forces, who used tear gas to disperse crowds called to the streets by a coalition of opposition leaders, trade unionists and human-rights activists.
– Protesters shouted "Power Out," and "$155 billion, and we’re still poor," a reference to the major oil-producing country’s estimated foreign-exchange reserves.
– Palestinian leaders in the West Bank said they would hold long-stalled parliamentary and presidential elections by September, after the resignation of Mr. Mubarak, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s strongest regional supporter.
– The Palestinian leadership has been put on the defensive by leaks about concessions it offered to Israel in peace talks that collapsed more than two years ago. Shaken by that setback, it appeared more vulnerable to the sort of popular protests sweeping the region.
– Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat offered his resignation Saturday, taking responsibility for the leaks. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to ask Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to form a new Cabinet with higher representation for Mr. Abbas’ Fatah movement.
Mahmoud Alul, a leading member of Fatah, said the call for elections is part of a strategic shift away from negotiations with Israel and toward a renewed campaign for international recognition of a de facto Palestinian state.
—Benoit Faucon, Richard Boudreaux and Joel Millman contributed to this article.