egypt massacre

7/27/2019 Egypt Massacre

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/egypt-massacre 1/8

Laxity of the world Brazenness of the army

Will-Power of the people

By: Khan Yasir

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.

(Hal Borland)

oday, the law of jungle prevails in Egypt which has been the cradle of human civilisations since

10th millennium BC. Life there is a stark contrast with the euphoria that was generated in the

wake of Arab Spring and the fall of Dictator Hosni Mubarak. Disciples of Mubarak are back to

haunt the nation as elected President Mohammed Morsi is still under house arrest. Scores of Muslim

Brotherhood leaders too are behind bars. As we know, it all began with General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi who

toppled the democratically elected government and suspended the constitution in a coup on 3 rd July

2013.

T

Egypt



Enraged by popular discontent and fury that erupted throughout the Egypt in shape of protests, General

Sisi in Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Al-Nahda Square bettered the record of General Dyer in Jallianwala Bagh.

In fact, Dyer offers no comparison, the brutality and brazenness that Sisi and his armed forces flaunted

on 14th August after storming through protest camps and slaying thousands indiscriminately, is actually

unparalleled. Though authorities insist that death toll is ‘only’ 638, independent observers are giving the

figures of around 5,000 including scores of women and children. More than 10,000 are reported to be

wounded. The struggle is still going on and so are the casualties.

World: silent or sadistic?

If international reaction to the coup and massacre was anything to go by it is more than an established

fact that we are living in world of hypocrites. Let’s begin with the superpower of the world, United

States of America, the upholder as well as the exporter of peace, liberty and democracy. John Kerry –

Secretary of State of USA – had earlier remarked that the coup was “restoring democracy”. After

pogrom of 14 August, he found the events only “deplorable” and “a real blow to reconciliation efforts”.

Reconciliation with whom? And for what purpose? Would Kerry advise the United States to reconcile

with Chief of Staff General Raymond T. Odierno if he chose to rebel and depose Obama in a coup?

Not to be left behind, Obama announced cancellation of the Bright Star joint Egyptian-American military

exercises as his reaction to the massacre. Dr. Ahmed Aref, Muslim Brotherhood media spokesman, was

not impressed. He divulged the open secret, “The US played a prominent part in the July 3 traitorous

military coup in Egypt. Now attempts are being made to exchange roles on the international stage”.



In his statements from the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has appealed to “both” sides

to resolve the violence. In a statement EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said: “We reiterate that

violence won’t lead to any solution and we urge the Egyptian authorities to proceed with utmost

restraint”. He said further, “Violence and continued political polarisation will further tear the Egyptian

economy apart”. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague also “condemned” the use of force. China has also

called for “restraint and dialogue”.

In this regard the response of many gulf countries, and especially Saudi Arabia, took many of their well-

wishers by a shocking surprise. In a statement issued to Al-Jazeera, King Abdullah is reported to have

called on Arabs to stand together against ‘attempts to destabilise’ Egypt. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,

its people and government stood and stands by today with its brothers in Egypt against terrorism”, he

said in a statement read on state TV. How I wished that the honourable king meant the rebellious

Egyptian army butchering people when he uttered the word “terrorist” and calling people to stand

against it! But my whims were shattered when I recalled that his government had pledged $5 billion in

aid to Egypt after Mohammed Morsi was ousted from the presidency last month.

Amr Darrag – an engineer who also served briefly as Egypt’s minister of Planning and International

Cooperation – in his article Egypt’s Blood, America’s Complicity (New York Times, August 15) has taken

this hypocrisy of world-powers by horns. He wrote, “Worse, shocking and irresponsible rhetoric from

the State Department in Washington and from other Western diplomats — calling on the Brotherhood

and demonstrators to ‘renounce’ or ‘avoid’ violence (even when also condemning the state’s violence)

— has given the junta cover to perpetrate heinous crimes in the name of ‘confronting’ violence. The

protest sites have been teeming with foreign correspondents for the last several weeks, and there has

not been a shred of evidence suggesting the presence of weapons, or of violence initiated by

protesters... The mediators’ most disastrous error was their choice to put pressure on the victims. In

their eyes, we were the cause of the crisis, not the illegal putsch that suspended the Constitution andkidnapped the president”.

However in the world of selfish national interests in the name of diplomacy there are a few human

voices. If compared to other countries, France and Germany’s reaction was better. President Hollande of

France and Germany’s foreign minister Guido Westerwelle have personally summoned respective

Egyptian ambassadors to express their concerns and register their protest on the massacre.

However, voices like Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Tunisia’s Rashid al-Ghanouchchi

are rare. Since 3 July, Erdogan is calling for the UN and the Arab League to act immediately: “I am

addressing the international and domestic media which for hours relayed the legitimate use of pepper

spray by the police in Turkey, and for days broadcasted provocatively from Turkey. How many innocentcivilians have to die before they see what is happening in Egypt and broadcast this?” After massacre he

further said: Those who ignore the coup and don’t even display the honourable behaviour of calling a

‘coup’ a ‘coup’, or any international organization that remains silent and takes no action, has the blood

of those innocent children on their hands, just like those who carried out the coup. He also thundered,

“At this stage what right do you have to speak of democracy, of universal values, of human rights and

freedoms?”



Rashid al-Ghannouchi in a statement issued by An-Nahda Party on the 14 August itself strongly

condemned “this crime against the people of Egypt and its revolution” and also condemned “the grave

violations against women, children and other peaceful civilians”. He went on to “express its complete

solidarity with the Egyptian people and their right to regain their freedom and their rejection of the

overturning of their will”. He also called on all “Egyptian, regional and international parties to assume

their responsibilities in ending this terrible crime and supporting the Egyptian people’s struggle against

the coup”.

Meanwhile many people are thinking that award of Nobel Prize to erstwhile Vice-President of Egypt

Mohammed El-Baradei was either a kind of joke or a big mistake. However El-Baradei is taking his ‘Nobel

credentials’ very seriously and despite being an open supporter of this coup resigned from the interim

government in the wake 14 August massacre, “I cannot continue in shouldering the responsibility for

decisions I do not agree with and I fear their consequences. I cannot shoulder the responsibility for a

single drop of blood,” he said in a statement. One wonders why he didn’t resign after the earlier

massacres of 8th and 27th July? Wasn’t that “violence” in his dictionary? What are the reasons for his

resignation now? I think he has had some kind of premonitions regarding the failure of the coup andsuccess of the people and their will-power!

Army of the Pharoah

Amr Darrag, in his article mentioned above, also castigates General Sisi for his penchant for betrayals.

He argued that Sisi “...took an oath to uphold the Constitution; he suspended the Constitution. He took

an oath to loyally serve in the government; he toppled that government. And in the classic doublespeak

of military juntas, he loudly condemned the opposition for dealing with foreign powers, while he was

actively seeking the help of Western diplomats as well as the Persian Gulf sheikdoms that largely

financed his coup”.

A month after the coup, General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi in an interview with the Washington Post was

found blaming the instability on the White House, saying: “You left the Egyptians. You turned your back

on the Egyptians and they won’t forget that”. He claimed his officers had no choice but to depose the

government, saying: “I expected if we didn’t intervene, it would have turned into a civil war”. What he

did not say but definitely meant was: “a war on citizens is better than a civil war”.



This war on citizens he waged on thousands of peaceful protestors who would not have imagined that

the sun of their life will set at the dawn of 14 August 2013. These protestors have earlier faced the

wrath of the army during Ramadan. Many were killed even then while praying and fasting. But massacre

of 14 August was special in its brutality. They were shot to be killed in their heads and chests. Their

camps were bulldozed or burnt while women and children were still inside seeking shelter from the

effects of teargas. The people running for shelter were fired upon by snipers deputed for the task.

Bullets were continuously fired from helicopters as well. Even journalists, especially photographers,

belonging to different countries, were beaten, arrested, harassed and killed. Snipers were also deputed

to shoot at the hospital entrance gate. Teargas bombs were thrown from helicopters around the

hospitals making the air inside impossible to breathe. Hospital staff had to wear gas masks to work. The

inhuman forces also prevented ambulances from taking wounded protestors to nearby hospitals, after

the field hospital saturated with dead bodies and protestors with horrific burns and excruciatingly

painful injuries.

A critical care physician’s personal account is heart rendering. In the wake of massacre he was working

at the hospitals treating the throng of injured protestors. He mentioned hugely alarming numbers of horrible injuries. He described the hospital’s six-story building as well as the adjacent halls that were

completely full with corpses and injured protesters. He noticed that most of the live bullets were in the

upper half of the body, mainly in the head and the neck, with consequent lethal wounds. He saw

patients with their heads blown out and their brain matter on the floor.

Listen in his own words what happened next. He recollects, “At 5:00pm, a sniper’s bullets targeted the

hospital’s door once again, destroying it completely. Then, the sounds of gunfire became very intense

and close… Ten minutes later, police officers broke into the hospital. They looked huge with black

special-unit uniforms, and wielded huge guns that I had never seen before. They ordered everybody to

evacuate the hospital. We wondered what we had to do with hundreds of injured inside who were stillalive and whether we could trust those officers. However, soon we were rushed right out of the hospital

building. As I left the hospital, I told one of the officers that there were many injured people inside. He

shouted in my face ‘let them die, let them die!’ He then walked towards me with his huge gun with

ferocity and intent, trying to attack me. Fortunately, I managed to escape through the hospital’s

smashed glass door and the vicious officer got busy with others going outside the opposite section… I

walked into nearby streets, worrying I could be shot or arrested. However, the army and police were

apparently too busy with some remaining protesters inside the sit-in encampment. I looked behind and

saw huge plumes of smoke rising after officers burnt the hospital with everybody still inside: the dead

corpses and the injured ones who could not leave the hospital. I will never forget the last look of a 15-

year old nephew of a wounded man, the last case I dealt with: the man had been shot in the head butsurvived and came into the hospital accompanied this young nephew. I intubated him, leaving his

nephew to help him. While going outside, I saw the helpless looks of this young boy beseeching us,

seeking any help for his uncle. Most probably the uncle was burnt alive in the hospital. I’m not sure what

happened to that young boy”.

The atrocities of the army did not stop at killing a protestor, it went beyond. The families of the slain

protestors are having a hard time in getting a coroner’s report and a burial permit which the



government is persistently refusing to issue. The families are enforced to give statements that their

murdered family members died not from army’s bullets but due to natural causes or have committed

suicide. An eye-witness Mustafa reported that, “There were hundreds of corpses in the mosque and

only two doctors to issue the necessary reports. Bodies lay in the mosque in Egypt’s scorching August

heat, and soon the smell of death reached the streets. People had to purchase and use ice-blocks to

preserve the bodies”. Mustafa who went to collect the body of a friend told if it wasn’t for his deceased

friend’s family members sitting for hours and bringing along a lawyer as well as many relatives and

friends to pressure the doctors they wouldn't have been successful in getting the real coroner report.

Defiant people

The night of tyranny is very dark for Egypt but the

valiant people who are braving the rain of bullets and

teargas shells believe that even on the darkest, rainiest

days the sun is still there, just behind the clouds, waiting

to shine again. Several Muslim Brotherhood leaders are

detained, including Essam El-Erian and Mohamed El-

Beltagy, whose 17-year-old daughter was earlier killed.

Families are worried to identify the bodies of their loved ones as there are so many bodies to look for. A

protestor Tamer Magdy Shoaib – a 40 year-old resident of Cairo and a father of three children – was

among several thousands of those who were martyred on the fateful day. On August 14, Tamer’s family

tried for hours to contact him, but to no avail. His family members then went to Rabaa’s field hospital.

Once there, they searched through hundreds of bodies but found no trace of Tamer. Then they were

told to go in nearby Iman Mosque where too hundreds of bodies were lying. After several hours’

exertion Tamer’s family eventually found their son, a dead and bloodied corpse. Tamer was a brave

man, he had four bullets in his body!



The critical care physician whom I quoted above also mentioned in his account that when he was leaving

the field hospital to go to serve in another one, he passed through a huge hall which was filled with

corpses of massacre victims, then through another hall which was filled with wounded protesters whose

cases were not very severe. The “not very severe” was defined in his words as: “they can survive for a

few hours without close care; but in normal conditions, they would need surgical operations

immediately”. He mentioned that one among those injured, who had been shot in his leg, looked at him

and said: Doctor! Why you stand like this? Please go and try to help some patient.

This is the spirit with which protests are continuing amidst every possible kind of repression. After the

crackdown of 14 August the military junta in Egypt had declared a month-long state of emergency.

However, this emergency and the fact that thousands of protestors were martyred only on 14 August

(Thursday) Muslim Brotherhood decided to ‘celebrate’ the Friday (16 August) as “Friday of Rage”. The

communiqué on their official website mentioned that despite what had happened they consider the

struggle to overthrow the illegitimate regime an obligation – “an Islamic, national, moral, and human

obligation – which we will not steer away from until justice and freedom prevail, and until repression is

conquered”. While declaring further that their “revolution is peaceful”, and that they “will continue tomobilize people to take to the streets without resorting to violence”. They pointed out that violence and

vandalism only aims at distorting the image of their peaceful revolt and finding justifications for the

coup leaders to continue to govern. For Friday of Rage they gave 28 starting points (actually mosques) in

Greater Cairo from where all the marches will eventually head to Ramsis square – the new centre after

Rabaa Al-Adaweya. Meanwhile, million-man marches will be held in all other Egyptian governorates. As

could have been predicted given the shamelessness of the army exhibited so many times recently, the

Friday of Rage too was coloured red with innocent blood of peaceful protestors throughout the country.

The next day on 17th August in yet another inhumanly violent assault Egyptian army have cleared Al-Fath

mosque (in Ramsis square) of protestors.

According to latest reports on BBC (updated 14:35 GMT on 18 Aug) Interim Prime Minister Hazem

Beblawi has put forward a proposal to legally dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood. A proposal to ban Al-



Jazeera is also under consideration (it must be noted that many other publications and channels are

already outlawed).

Though there seems no end to the suffering of people, they are adamant. Bodily, they are tired and

injured but their will is unconquered. Dr. Ahmed Aref, Muslim Brotherhood media spokesman declared

for the world to hear, “Egyptians alone will make the world respect their word. They alone shall imposetheir will and defeat the bloody military coup”.

It’s high time that the world recognise the basic and fundamental issue involved which is that: giving a

48-hour ultimatum to an elected president; deposing him; keeping him under house-arrest; silencing

opposition; and killing protestors – IS NOT DEMOCRACY. The forces that are behind President Morsi’s

ouster fear elections and democracy as they have lost continuously in that arena since the fall of

Mubarak. These people, in no sense of the term can be accused of ‘restoring’ democracy.

History is moving fast in Egypt, angels are busy in carrying pious souls to their heavenly abode, but the

demand of justice and fairness remains the same. In words of Amr Darrag this demand – the only wayout of the crisis – is as follows, “The legitimate government must be restored. Only then can we hold

talks for a national reconciliation with every option on the table. The reinstatement of Mr. Morsi is not

about ideology or ego. It is not political grandstanding. It is not a negotiating tactic. It is a pragmatic

necessity. Without this crucial step, without accountability for those responsible for the bloodshed and

chaos facing Egypt today, none of the promises of inclusion, democracy, liberty or life can be

guaranteed”.

(A slightly different version

of this article has been published

in Radiance Viewsweekly 25 August 2013)

egypt massacre

Documents