Friday, February 04, 2011

President Hosni Mubarak said Thursday he wanted to quit but that he feared his resignation would bring chaos to Egypt, as protesters demanding an end to his 30-year rule clashed with his supporters on Cairo’s streets.

Mubarak’s government has struggled to regain control of a nation angry about poverty, recession and political repression, inviting Islamist opponents to talks and apologizing for bloodshed in Cairo that left 10 people dead.
A bloody confrontation gripped central Cairo where armed government loyalists fought pro-democracy demonstrators Thursday in an uprising which is reshaping the modern history of this key U.S. ally and the Arab world’s most populous nation.

“I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go,” Mubarak, 82, who remains inside his heavily guarded palace in Cairo, said in an interview with ABC.
But “if I resign today, there will be chaos,” he added.
Mubarak blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned political party in Egypt, for the violence and said his government was not responsible for it.

The protesters are blaming Mubarak supporters for firing at the crowd and going to the square with knives and sticks.

“I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other,” Mubarak said.
Mubarak told ABC he felt relief after saying he would not run for president again, and said he had never intended for his son Gamal to be president after him, as had been widely believed. Gamal was in the room during the interview.

Asked how he was feeling, Mubarak replied: “I am feeling strong. I would never run away. I will die on Egyptian soil.”
Mubarak described U.S. President Barack Obama as a very good man, but when asked by ABC whether he felt the United States had betrayed him, he said he had told the U.S. president: “You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now.”

Asked how he felt about people shouting insults and wanting him gone, Mubarak replied: “I don’t care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about Egypt.”

Protesters, who numbered some 10,000 in Tahrir (Liberation) Square during the day, prepared to defy a curfew and sleep there ahead of a big demonstration they are calling the “Friday of Departure” to mark last week’s bloody “Day of Wrath” protest.
Egypt’s Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq said the interior minister should not obstruct peaceful marches Friday.

Vice President Omar Suleiman said Thursday the Muslim Brotherhood had been invited to meet with the new government as part of a national dialogue with all parties. But opposition leaders including liberal figurehead Mohamed ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood said again that Mubarak must go before they would negotiate with the government. Egypt’s liberal opposition Wafd party also said it had suspended talks with the government after violence it said was backed by the ruling party.

Suleiman, addressing protesters hunkered down in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, said: “End your sit-in. Your demands have been answered.”

Shortly afterward, relatives said seven leaders of the youth protest had been arrested after meeting ElBaradei at a cafe outside Cairo.

Suleiman, Mubarak’s newly appointed second in command and former head of the intelligence services, suggested that attacks on protesters could have resulted from a plot.

“We will look into [the violence], into the fact it was a conspiracy,” he said, adding that it could have been instigated by some “with foreign agendas, the Muslim Brotherhood, certain parties or businessmen.” Suleiman promised to release detained demonstrators and to punish those who fomented trouble.

Earlier, Shafiq apologized for the violence and the breakdown in law and order. Shafiq said he did not know who was responsible for the bloodshed, blamed by protesters on undercover police.

Egypt’s public prosecutor also issued a travel ban on former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly, former Housing Minister Ahmad al-Maghrabi and former Tourism Minister Zuhair Garana. Former National Democratic Party member Ahmad Ezz was also among those banned from leaving the country. Their bank accounts have also been frozen, state news agency MENA said Thursday.

The public prosecutor said those banned from travel were being investigated on suspicion of theft of public money, profiteering and fraud, among other charges.

Protesters in Tahrir Square, dominated now by a youthful hard core including secular middle-class graduates and mostly poorer Islamist activists from the Brotherhood, barely listened to Suleiman’s call, saying the concessions were too little and too late.

“Suleiman has not listened to the people’s needs. We want Mubarak to leave immediately, not to stick around for another six months,” said Mohammad Anis, 29, who works at the bourse. “We have refused dialogue and negotiation with Suleiman until Mubarak steps down,” he added.

The army’s role in shaping events is crucial. Only Thursday did soldiers set up a clear buffer zone around the square to separate factions after having stood by. That did not prevent new clashes, as groups pelted each other with rocks.

“Allahu Akbar, the army and the people are hand in hand,” chanted protesters barricaded in Tahrir Square.
Doctors in makeshift hospitals at the scene said at least 10 people were killed and 800 wounded after gunmen and stick-wielding Mubarak supporters attacked protesters on the streets.

“An hour-and-a-half ago, two people were rushed to me with gunshot wounds to the head. They were gasping and died. A third case followed which was severe,” said Yasser Tibi, a doctor.

Close to the Egyptian Museum, men fought with rocks, clubs and makeshift shields, as U.S.-built tanks from the Western-funded army made sporadic efforts to intervene.

A Reuters journalist saw protesters overpower someone they said was an undercover member of the security services.

Over a loudspeaker someone said: “Don’t beat him. Hand him to us and the organizing committee will hand him to the army. International media is watching us saying we are peaceful.”

Though less numerous than earlier in the week, there were demonstrations in Suez and Ismailia, industrial cities where inflation and unemployment have kindled the sort of dissent that hit Tunisia and which some believe could ripple in a domino effect across other autocratic Arab states. There were also protests in the port city of Alexandria. – Agencies