FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT
SUMMARY
The confrontation between security forces and a crowd made up mainly of Coptic Christian protesters in central Cairo on October 10th left at least 24 people dead and some 200 injured, making it the bloodiest outbreak of violence since the February 11th revolution. The incident reflects the steadily increasing tensions in Egypt as the unity apparent in the early days of the revolution has given way to sharp divisions over a host of issues. One of the main causes of the discontent is the failure of the ruling military council to come up with an acceptable plan for the transition to civilian rule.
Confrontation escalates
The latest confrontation in Cairo had been brewing for almost two weeks It stemmed from an incident in a village in the far south of the country on September 30th when a crowd of Muslim men set fire to a church. Many of the details of this incident remain in dispute, even the question of whether the building concerned should properly be described as a church. However, it is clear that the incident struck a nerve with many of Egypt’s Coptic community, who are thought to account for about 10% of the total population of 83m. There have been several other similar incidents over the past six months, which has led to accusations from Coptic leaders that the military authorities are turning a blind eye to an aggressive Islamist campaign to suppress Christian rights.
In order to highlight these concerns a group of activists staged a series of demonstrations outside the state television headquarters in Maspero, a few hundred metres north of Tahrir Square, demanding, among other things, the dismissal of the governor of Aswan province, Mustafa Sayed, who had angered Copts by claiming that the building in the village of Marinab did not have a licence to hold religious services. This claim has been vigorously contested by the Coptic Church, which is reported to have submitted documents to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) showing that the building was a well-established place of Christian worship.
Different perspectives
The situation escalated on October 10th when thousands of people set out on a march from Shoubra, a northern district of Cairo where many of he city’s Copts live, to support the Maspero protesters. According to an eyewitness account published by Almasry Alyoum, the marchers were first pelted with rocks from an overpass as they approached central Cairo, and then confronted by troops driving armoured personnel carriers (APCs) at speed directly at the crowd. According to this account, many of the dead and injured had been run over by these vehicles; others had been hit by bullets fired by the troops from these APCs.
The state-run media presented a starkly different account, blaming the violence on the marchers and on supposed agents provocateurs who had infiltrated the crowd and opened fire on the security forces. State television and the government-controlled Al-Ahram newspaper both portrayed the events as an assault by Copts on the national army, a slant that belied subsequent efforts by the prime minister, Essam Sharaf, to reject any notion of sectarian conflict. Readers’ comments on the Al-Ahram reports included many virulent attacks on Copts; others pinned the blame on suspect former regime elements trying to undermine the forthcoming elections, or on outside elements—an unholy alliance of Iran, Israel and the US. One comment in the name of KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] girl drew parallels between the actions of the Copts and the recent riots by Shias in Saudi Arabia, and suggested that they were being orchestrated by the same external sources. Mr Sharaf lent currency to this kind of speculation through his own references to “hidden hands” (both external and internal) and a “conspiracy”.
Buck stops with the SCAF
One of the versions of the “conspiracy” is that the army council itself is colluding with former regime elements to destabilise Egypt and thereby allow the SCAF to prolong its hold of power, either directly or through discrediting the revolutionary political forces to such a degree that they lose popular support, allowing reactionary forces to win the elections. Such accusations surfaced after the assault on the Israeli embassy in Cairo in early September, and have gathered force since the Maspero incidents. This is probably overstating the sense of purpose of the military council and its leader, Field-Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi. The SCAF’s hold on power is indeed starting to look like a permanent fixture, but this has come about mainly because of its repeated miscalculations and improvised decision-making, rather than as a result of any grand design.
The latest political timetable put out by the SCAF entails a lower house parliamentary election being held between November 28th and January 10th, followed by a upper house election finishing in March and a referendum on a new constitution towards the end of 2012. The SCAF will continue to hold on to sovereign power until a new elected president takes office. The SCAF envisages the presidential election taking place after the referendum on the constitution, which would mean that Egypt would continue to be subject to military rule for most of 2012, and perhaps well into 2013. Prospective presidential candidates and many of Egypt’s political parties have argued that there is no reason why the presidential election cannot be held sooner, under the provisions of constitutional amendments approved in a referendum in March this year.
The increasingly heated disputes about such constitutional issues and the repeated breakdowns in security could lead the army council to conclude that it has no option but to call the whole process off and declare military rule for a prolonged period. There is no suggestion that this is an outcome that the SCAF has ever sought, but it could yet transpire largely because of its own blunders.
Source: Risk Briefing
