No break in Egypt's strife as vote nears
Share with others:
CAIRO -- With a milestone election just five days away, Egypt showed no sign Wednesday of recovering from a spasm of violence that has wrecked the campaign period and spiraled into a rebellion that now threatens the ruling military council's grip on the nation.
The bloodshed continued for a fifth consecutive day despite international appeals for calm and limited concessions put forth by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to address demands that it transfer power to a civilian transitional authority immediately.
The council ceded no new ground, however, and nobody could say for sure how to rescue a country whose uprising against authoritarianism had captured the world's imagination and inspired other Arab revolts.
"We're crying out for freedom," said Noha Mansour, 50, a pediatrician who joined the protest in Cairo. "They're treating the Egyptian people like cows, like we don't understand anything. So we must send a message: This is our revolution, and it's not finished yet."
The streets surrounding Cairo's Tahrir Square, sacred ground for the revolutionaries who stood united there against then-President Hosni Mubarak 10 months ago, were a battlefield. Thousands of protesters camped in the square Wednesday, forming a human cordon to protect a makeshift field hospital where the injured arrived around the clock from clashes in adjacent side streets.
Earlier in the day, Muslim clerics and other community figures brokered a brief cease-fire that collapsed at sundown, when fierce fighting resumed in the street leading from the square to the Interior Ministry.
The White House called for an end to the "deplorable" violence in Egypt and joined the United Nations in chiding the military rulers for using excessive force to put down a rebellion that protesters vow will continue until the council steps aside.
Nothing short of the resignation of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who has replaced Mr. Mubarak as Enemy No. 1 to the protesters, would be enough to clear the square now, protesters said. But when pressed as to who specifically should steer Egypt's transition should the military step aside, few could answer.
The military council seemed wedded to Mr. Tantawi's newly announced plan for accelerated presidential elections and a full handover of power by mid-2012, even as the death toll rose and pressure mounted from all quarters for a resolution.
Senior members of the council said on state television that elections -- the first since Mr. Mubarak's ouster -- would go on as scheduled, with one general predicting 80 percent turnout when staggered parliamentary polls open Monday.
The council also issued a statement insisting that soldiers hadn't fired tear gas or other weapons at demonstrators -- an apparent attempt to distinguish army troops from police units belonging to the reviled Interior Ministry. Both forces ultimately answer to the council as Egypt's highest authority.
In both Cairo and the port city of Alexandria, the nation's second-largest city, Egyptian soldiers moved in from rear positions to act as a buffer between the demonstrators and riot police.
First Published November 24, 2011 12:00 am
