| Written by IWL-FI |
| Monday, 28 November 2011 19:06 |
 The Square says Junta must goThe war cry of the hundreds of thousands of Egyptians is: Complete the revolution! El Cairo, Alexandria, Suez seethe in the heat of the struggle of a people that defends its achievements with tooth and nail and fights to make headway towards total liberation. This is so as none of the fundamental problems of the Egyptian toiling masses has been solved: unemployment as well as material conditions of living are still in a dramatic and unbearable state. Since last November 18th, the emblematic Tahrir Square has been the protagonist of massive demonstrations demanding the ousting of the Military Junta that replaced the dictator Hosni Mubarak last February 11th, after heroic 18 days of intense protests. This new wave of demonstrations broke out when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), as the Military Junta was dubbed, published a chart of principles for the new constitution, where they pretend to grant unlimited powers to the military. At the beginning, it was the Moslem Brotherhood who summoned for the protests, which soon accrued in numbers (hundreds of thousands of people swarmed out into the streets of various cities) and in radicalisation. At the moment we were writing these lines, the total of mortal casualties was estimated at 38, and over two thousand injured. The situation is so red-hot that popular pressure forced the provisional government, nominated directly by the Junta and headed directly by the now former Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to resign. The youth and the toiling masses, however, did not stop there. The Square got fed-up with manipulations and lies. The Square lost all patience and trust in truces. The Square wishes to get rid of the military Junta in the same way they had swept away the pro-imperialist tyrant, Mubarak. The masses against the political plan of “transition” of the Junta Egyptians are showing in the best possible way: in the streets, that they will have nothing to do with the political project of “transition” proposed by the military. Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantaui, who had been Mubarak’s minister of defence for 20 years and is now the head of the Junta, had promised to stay in power for only 6 months, until the elections of a constituent parliament and of a new government stemming out of the elections. However, the parliamentary elections were not summoned for September and not until 28 November and subject to a system confusing and antidemocratic (an election by phases that is to last until January 2012). As to the date of the presidential elections, the militaries started talking about 2012 or even 2013, but, because of the demonstrations, they are now compelled to fix the date for next June. From this point of view, it was the antidemocratic project of the militaries what triggered off the indignation of the masses. In the above mentioned chart, they established their intention of becoming “guarantors of the constitution” after the elections. This “constitutional protection” that the Junta is offering consists in denying political sovereignty to the future parliament. The chart poses that the members of the SCAF are to keep on acting as the “arbiters” using the power of the veto against any article they may not agree with and unrestrictedly free to define their own secret budget. This seems to be why the masses are still fighting. The hatred and the sensation of being fed up with the military government have been increasing. This goes to prove that the revolution has made great headway since Mubarak’s fall, when there was an important degree of confidence in the army as an institution.  Nine months later we can see that political experience has been corroding this confidence. During this time, all that the Junta did o said they would do clashed against the aspirations of a people that is making it clear that they are not about to give up their revolution. In declarations picked up by the newspaper EL País, an Egyptian worker, named Osama says that the military government were “all a bunch of thieves, the same as the other ones.” And he carries on, “If a stranger came to govern I might trust him. But the army? I know them all. I want something better than that for my youngest son. Adel, a teacher says, “If they pretend to settle down they would better be prepared. People already know their way to Tahrir.” Irritation accrued with the appointment of Kamal Ganzuri, former minister in the Mubarak administration, as head of the cabinet and that made the heat at the Square soar. Something similar happened when the spokesman for the Junta went to TV and, with absolute cynicism, apologised to the nation and asserted the summons to the elections for Monday 28th. But Egyptian people are fed up. They cannot believe any of the promises of the Junta. From the IWL we unconditionally support the struggle of the Egyptian people to defeat the repressive, responsible for the impoverishment and pro-imperialist Junta. We determinedly expose the brutal repressions that this government launches against Egyptian youth and working class who are out in the streets to demand freedom and democratic freedom and democratic guarantees. Consequently, we condemn all the attempts of betraying the struggle by means of pacts and negotiations that the Moslem Brotherhood and other sectors are carrying out with Tantaui’s Junta. The intense, sublime and resolute struggle we can witness at the emblematic Tahrir Square is part and continuity of the entire revolutionary process that North of Africa and the Middle East. The victory of the Egyptian people will be the triumph of the entire region. The victory of Egyptian toiling masses will be the victory for the world working class. |