Monday, January 31, 2011

Egyptian protesters turned to the army and to opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei to maintain momentum in efforts to unseat Hosni Mubarak, while the United States urged an “orderly transition” to democracy but stopped short of calling on embattled leader to step down.

The outcome of six days of unrest, which has killed more than 100 people, rocked the Middle East and rattled global investors, hung in the balance.

Thousands gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to acclaim ElBaradei, former head of the U.N. nuclear agency, as the man to lead a transition to democracy – a reform Mubarak’s U.S. and European allies also demanded in ever clearer terms.

ElBaradei was mandated by Egyptian opposition groups including the banned Muslim Brotherhood to negotiate with Mubarak’s regime.

“Change is coming in the next few days,” Baradei told the crowd, who again defied a night-time curfew and mingled easily with soldiers in U.S.-built tanks who looked on patiently.
“You have taken back your rights and what we have begun, cannot go back,” he said. “We have one main demand – the end of the regime and the beginning of a new stage, a new Egypt.”

Earlier, ElBaradei said he had a mandate to speak to the army and organize a handover to a national unity coalition.

“I have been authorized – mandated – by the people who organized these demonstrations and many other parties to agree on a national unity government,” ElBaradei told CNN.
“I hope that I should be in touch soon with the army and we need to work together. The army is part of Egypt.”
He called on Obama to “cut off life support to the dictator.” 

ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace laureate for his work with the U.N. nuclear agency, said it was only a matter of time before Mubarak, stepped down. He urged U.S. President Barack Obama to take a stand.
“It is better for President Obama not to appear that he is the last one to say to President Mubarak, ‘It’s time for you to go,” he told CNN.

Brotherhood leaders Essam al-Erian and Saad al-Katatni, who walked out of prison earlier Sunday after their guards fled, also addressed the crowd.
“They tried every way to stop the revolution of the people but we will be steadfast regardless of how many martyrs fall,” Erian said.

ElBaradei, a possible candidate in Egypt’s presidential election this year, dismissed U.S. calls for Mubarak to enact sweeping democratic and economic reforms in response to the protests. “The American government cannot ask the Egyptian people to believe that a dictator who has been in power for 30 years would be the one to implement democracy. This is a farce,” he told the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

“This first thing which will calm the situation is for Mubarak to leave, and leave with some dignity. Otherwise I fear that things will get bloody. And you [the United States] have to stop the life support to the dictator and root for the people.”

Obama urged only an shift in Egypt’s administration to take more account of popular opinion. But he remained cautious of abandoning a key Middle Eastern ally.

Obama spoke by phone Saturday with Saudi King Abdullah, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sunday to British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“During his calls, the president reiterated his focus on opposing violence and calling for restraint; supporting universal rights, including the right to peaceful assembly, association, and speech; and supporting an orderly transition to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people,” the White House said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, interviewed on several television channels, avoided taking sides and calling for the resignation of Mubarak. But she made clear the White House wants major change: “We want to see an orderly transition so that no one fills a void, that there not be a void, that there be a well thought out plan that will bring about a democratic participatory government.”

Asked if Mubarak had taken sufficient steps to defuse Egypt’s worst crisis in decades by appointing a vice president and naming a new premier, Clinton told ABC: “Of course not.” The Obama administration, she added, has not discussed cutting off aid to Egypt.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, another major aid donor to Egypt, called Mubarak: “She expressed expectations that the president and his new government take a committed approach to the announced reforms,” her office said, referring to the new prime minister named Saturday and change Mubarak promised.

But for many in the most populous Arab state, a more immediate concern is the looting and breakdown in order since police left the streets Friday and the soldiers who took over largely stood by, protecting only key buildings. State media said police were back late Sunday. The curfew was extended from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., state television said.

Thousands of convicts broke out of prisons across Egypt overnight after they overwhelmed guards or after prison personnel fled their posts. Among those who escaped were senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as members of Hamas. An AFP correspondent saw 14 bodies in a mosque near Cairo’s Abu Zaabal prison, which a resident said were of two police and 12 convicts.
State TV later reported that 1,000 escaped inmates were recaptured.

Earlier Sunday, Mubarak met Mubarak Sunday met with army brass seen as holding the key to his future.
State television said the embattled Mubarak visited central military command where he met his newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, the military intelligence chief. He also met outgoing defense minister Mohammad Hussein Tantawi and chief of staff Sami Anan. As he was meeting the army chiefs, two Egyptian fighter jets flew repeated low-altitude sorties over Cairo, deafening the city.
Mubarak has struggled to placate a nation angry at his three decades of autocratic rule with token gestures such as sacking the government.

Parliament speaker Fathi Sourour Sunday made another concession, saying the results of last year’s fraud-tainted parliamentary elections would be revised.

In other developments on Sunday, outgoing information minister Anas al-Fikki ordered the closure of Al-Jazeera’s operations in Egypt after the pan-Arab satellite channel gave blanket coverage to the riots. – Agencies