Monday, January 31, 2011

The day Cairo burned with anger

Special Envoy in Cairo - Cairo burn it? The Egyptian capital seemed like sunken, Friday, January 28, under thick clouds of black smoke. A crowd of Egyptians galvanized by anger stormed all the symbols of the regime and set it on fire. Backing onto the National Museum, the headquarters of the National Democratic Party (NDP) of President Hosni Mubarak is in flames, and police barracks.

Armoured security forces, seized by the demonstrators burn before, sometimes, to explode in a deafening noise. Behind the white streaks of tear gas, fire spread, inflame billboards, palm trees, garbage littering the sidewalks. Several hours after the start of the curfew, imposed in 18 hours across the country, the situation seems out of control.

Thousands of protesters are still on the street. Unheard-of memory Egyptian: 60% of them aged 30 or younger, have lived all their lives under the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. The arrival of tanks in the city has not deterred the young, that nothing seems to scare them. This is hardly the military has managed to secure the buildings of the National Museum, to block any attempts of looting and, later, U.S.

and British embassies. The large popular mobilization against the Egyptian regime had yet begun peacefully. Long processions of thousands of people took as its starting point the mosques of the capital. They began their march after the great weekly prayer at midday. At one of their starting points, on the west bank of the Nile, the mosque of Mustafa Mahmoud Square in the fashionable Mohandessine, the imam gave his blessing, calling the faithful to "demonstrate for democracy ".

They went on chanting: "We are peacemakers!" and "The Egyptian people want the fall of the regime!". Among them, mostly young men, but also in gallabeya old, the traditional tunic, men in suits and ties, women covered their hair or the niqab in the wind. They brandished portraits of Gamal Abdel Nasser Che Guevara and Egyptian and Palestinian flags.

Much has screamed and cried a lot on Friday in the streets of Cairo. The security forces, deployed en masse, have occurred almost immediately with spears in water and tear gas thrown into the crowd. Some faint, puke their guts onto the pavement. Other collapse under fire rubber bullets.

Building entrances are devastated, wounded have been lying on the ground. Small groups are crammed into the darkness, taking their breath, red eyes, their faces sometimes blood. Those who did not dare leave their homes and provide them with onions vinegar - remedies of wealth against the effects of gas.

Hotels, including the most chic, have finally opened their doors. In the halls, transformed into a rear base, stunned and bewildered tourists, seeking by every means to leave, get acquainted with a host lost. An Egypt that some do not suspect. An Egyptian who chooses his words in English or French, to tell them: "Do you see our suffering?" When will you decide to help us? " Prevent at all costs that those parties parades across fail to establish a connection, was the government's strategy.

To this end, the Internet has been cut, then the mobile phone networks and part of landlines. Egypt found himself almost isolated from the rest of the world. In the evening, the airline Egypt Air announced it was suspending all its flights for at least twelve hours. During the first hours of arguments, the strategy seemed to work.

Deprived of all means of communication, the parades have long been isolated from each other, sometimes trapped between the police cordon. Under public pressure, these cords were sold one after the other, after violent confrontations. The grand highway interchange 6-October in the city center was turned into battleground tactics.

The construction of ultra luxury Ritz-Carlton, located nearby, serves as a reserve with stones and cement blocks that are balanced on the armored trucks. Then came a rain of plastic chairs, cans, anything that protesters have found, which struck the officers. In turn, surrounded by a crowd of more and more enraged many police fought and disarmed.

"The regime is gone!" Hoarse young brandishing trophies: a shield and a police baton. "Look!," He yells. It is when that authority? Where is this plan that does not answer us, who do not listen to us, who dare not even look at ourselves? The Egyptian people washing his honor today. " The crowd, left to itself, runs into the greatest disorder.

Everywhere, chaos and violence. "Where is the army?" We want the army with us! " It's another great slogan like a mantra repeated throughout the day. Within the opposition movements, that several weeks ago he murmurs that "a new military coup is the only solution in the absence of leader of the revolt." It is 20 hours in the streets of the capital that remains is a cop in sight.

Tanks have emerged, sparking cheers first, then repeating the anger when it turns out that it is the Republican Guard, the army unit closest to the president Mubarak, who has been sent. Around midnight, the Egyptian president addressed the nation. "I demanded the resignation of the government, he said, his face drawn but firm tone.

Tomorrow, I will form a new government that will resolve this situation." Cécile Hennion Article published in the edition of 30.01.11

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