EU urges Egypt rulers to end stand-off with Brotherhood
Last edited Mon Jul 29, 2013, 10:45 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Europe's top diplomat pressed Egypt's rulers on Monday to step back from a growing confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, two days after 80 of his supporters were gunned down in Cairo.
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Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief, became the first overseas envoy to visit the Egypt since Saturday's carnage, the second mass killing of Mursi supporters by security forces since he was overthrown by the army on July 3.
The bloodshed has triggered global anxiety that the army may move to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged from decades in the shadows to win power in the wake of Egypt's 2011 Arab Spring uprising against Hosni Mubarak.
Ashton, on her second trip to Egypt since Mursi's fall, met General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the head of the army and the man behind the overthrow of Egypt's first freely elected president. She also held talks with deputy interim president and prominent liberal politician Mohamed ElBaradei and interim Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy.
There were no immediate details on the talks. Earlier, Ashton said she would press for a "fully inclusive transition process, taking in all political groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood".
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/29/uk-egypt-protests-idUKBRE96O13O20130729
Egypt arrests more Islamists as EU official visits.
CAIRO (AP) -- Egyptian police detained two leaders of a Muslim Brotherhood-allied party in the latest in a wave of arrests of prominent Islamists following President Mohammed Morsi's ouster, while Europe's top diplomat held talks with the rival sides Monday to try to mediate an end to the country's increasingly bloody crisis.
It was European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's second visit to Cairo since Morsi was toppled nearly a month ago, underscoring the urgency felt after violence that has killed more than 260 people and all but dashed hopes of political reconciliation in the deeply divided country.
International concern has spiked after security forces killed at least 83 Morsi supporters in clashes outside their sit-in where they have been calling for his reinstatement in Cairo over the weekend. Human Rights Watch and field doctors interviewed by The Associated Press said many were killed by gunshots to the head and chest.
Security officials said Monday that a police captain died of wounds sustained during those clashes after being hit in the eye with birdshot from protesters. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_EGYPT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-29-10-15-32
= new reply since forum marked as read
Anyway, just wanted to be clear, the "you's" in my post were directed at Ashton and other politicians who weasel-word like this, not you
you didn't mean moi.
You have to understand, Mursi did NOT have control over the Army, the Courts, the Bureaucracy, Television, Newspapers or the Police. Those all stayed in the hands of Murabek's supporters.
The "Reforms" Mursi was supporting, did attack these groups AND their supporters from the people who control the economy of Egypt (and in the case of Egypt it is the same people running the army, the Bureaucracy and these "Private Companies"
but guess what was the first thing the Coup plotter did? They enacted the same laws. It was NOT the laws that were the concern of the Coup plotters, but who exercised that power against whom. The Coup Plotters did not want these rules to be used to take away what they had stolen from the Government the last 40-60 years (and that is what the Mos lem Brotherhood was about to do, NOT any attack on secularism or religious minorities).
Now, Mursi did pass some laws in favor of Islam, but the present government did not repeal them and in fact passed similar laws in the pass. Technically Egypt has been an Islamic State since at least the 1970s. It was against the law to convert FROM Islam, for at least 100 years, and NO ONE PROPOSED OR IS PROPOSING ABOLISHING THOSE LAWS.
As to dress, Mursi made no new law on dress, nor did he enforce any more rigidly the existing law (in fact even the Mos lem Brotherhood calls for "Modish" Dress not the full burqa).
In fact one of the groups that backed the coup, received from the Army a promise of even more religious restrictions then what the Moslem Brotherhood wanted. The Army gave them this promise so they can support the coup, so the Army brass could keep their ill gotten graft of the last 50 or so years.
If you go into the details of who supported what and why and ignore the massive amount of pro coup propaganda being spread not only by the present Egyptian Government but by our "Free Press" in the US and just review the FACTS, it becomes clear this is an ECONOMIC driven coup not a Religious Driven Coup and the people who are going to get hurt are the 60% of the Egyptians that consist of the lower 3/5 of the Country. The next 30% hope they come out on top, but in the long run they will also see a major drop in Income (This is typical of most such revolutions, the top 40% hates the idea of change for such change will affect they income negatively over the next 5-10 years, and then turn around. That is 10-20 years they be better off, does NOT off set the fact that over the next 5-10 years they be worse off. It is only when it becomes clear that they HAVE to go through that income drop does the top 40% accept the reforms needed. The problem is it appears most of the top 40% have NOT yet accepted that sad fact of life and thus support the coup.
Please note, when I use the term top 40% or top 10% I exclude the top .1%, for they are the ones driving this coup, they are using their syncopates among the top 10% to get the next 30% of the population to support them over the bottom 60%.
Please also note the bottom 10% are generally so disparate they will kill anyone cheaply. Out of that bottom 10% comes the actual killers. Some of the top 40 % will also join in, but they do so as "leaders" or other reason (i.e. being psychopaths). This is roughly how most economic revolutions (and counter Revolutions) break down. The real question becomes when does most of the 30% above the bottom 10% (i.e. excluding the top 10% of the populations) finally accept they have to HELP the bottom 60% against the top 10%. The problem with Egypt is that it appears to be right at that point, it may NOT be at that point but it is close. Thus the overthrow of Murabek and the present counter revolution. Unless the coup plotters are willing to do some drastic economic reforms (such as what happened in the US in the 1930s) that hurt the top 10%. It does NOT appear the leaders of Army of Egypt is willing to do those reforms and thus this Counter revolution is doomed. It may take another 10 years, but this government will fail, probably to an radicalized version of the Mos lem Brotherhood.
The above is what happened in Russia in 1905 (When that revolution was suppressed) for in 1917 the Czar's government was overthrown. In Eastern Europe a similar suppression occurred in 1918-1921 (The Chief reason the Allies did NOT march into Germany in 1918, was the massive unrest at home, massive strikes in France, Britain and even in the US, by November 1918 everyone they troops back home to suppress revolutionaries, these were in fact suppressed). When Stalin moved into Eastern Europe, many people in Europe were more then willing to welcome Soviet Troops into their Country. It is popular in the US to say Stalin took over those countries against the will of the people, but that does NOT seem to be the case. The fact Russian troops were around gave the Communists an upper hand (and plenty of assistance) in taking over these governments but the communists won out in those countries based on the fact they did have popular support in those countries, just like the communists had support in 1918-1921.
Do to these fears the US provided the Marshall Plan AND had Europe and Japan adopt universal medical coverage (and other social programs) to basically (and to a much higher degree given how organized the Communists were in Europe AND Japan) do what the US had done with the New Deal in the 1930s. Those two programs killed off the support for Communism in Western Europe and Japan.
Side note: Russia itself went into decay after Khrushchev died. Stalin knew how to keep his creation the Soviet Union running, Khrushchev seems to have had an idea how to change the Soviet Union to save Communism, but with his overthrow the people Stalin had picked to replace all the actual revolutionaries he killed off in the late 1930s, took over. Those bureaucrats were nothing but a new generation of the .1% of "Capitalist" societies. They spoke as if they were Communists, and then acted in their own best interests. This lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. I bring this up for my comments on the above is on REVOLUTION not communism. Revolutions tend to follow a pattern and Egypt sounds like it is following one. I only did this paragraph to point out this is a pattern of revolutions from below and to point out Communism failed for other reasons, but HOW revolutions from below occur is best seen in the above "communist" revolts. If you read those revolutions, these were all revolts of the people that the communists end up leading more do to the failure of anyone else to give the people the leadership they needed. In Egypt the Moslem Brotherhood is providing that leadership and thus why we have the infighting we are seeing. It is driven by economics not religion.
