Backers of the Mubarak regime aren't taking a people-power revolt sitting down, apparently:
Several thousand supporters of President Hosni Mubarak, including some riding horses and camels and wielding whips, attacked anti-government protesters Wednesday as Egypt's upheaval took a dangerous new turn. In chaotic scenes, the two sides pelted each other with stones, and protesters dragged attackers off their horses.
The hours of turmoil were the first significant violence between supporters of the two camps in more than a week of anti-government protests.
The army is standing aside without trying to intervene. Protesters who once lauded the army for not participating in the crack down are upset with the army. The army wasn't on their side, of course. The army was holding the perimeter, so to speak, that the protesters could not move beyond in the scope and tactics of the protests. The army let the counter-protesters in just as they let the protesters in.
But this puts more stress on the army. Can they intervene to separate the two sides without fracturing? Can they watch the protesters get attacked without fracturing?
And where are the paramilitary police during all this? I suppose that the counter-protesters--whether by design or not--would give both the army and police a pretext to clear the public streets of all protesters.
One way or the other, the Egyptian government needs to persuade enough of the protesters that real change is coming and that they can safely go home. And they need to get their own side's people off the streets to keep this from spinning out of control into warring factions. It's a long way to September for elections to provide legitimacy to a new government. And a lot needs to be done to prepare for honest elections.
The last thing Egypt needs is a low level civil war while all that is done. If Mubarak leaves too fast without a credible caretaker ruler to hold things together until September, there might be a scramble for power (to either seize or retain it) that leads to more violence.
The uprising could be fracturing as the result of Mubarak's speech:
But the large majority were middle-class families, some of whom said Mubarak's concessions were enough and that they feared continued instability and shortages of food and other supplies if protests continue.
"I want the people in Tahrir Square to understand that Mubarak gave his word that he will give them the country to them through elections, peacefully, now they have no reason for demonstrations," said Ali Mahmoud, 52, who identified himself as middle-class worker from Menoufia, a Nile Delta province north of Cairo.
The movement against Mubarak, meanwhile, was working to prevent any slipping in its ranks after the speech and resist any sentiment that the concession may have been enough.
"We recognize deceit when we see it," said protester Nasser Saad Abdel-Latif. "No one will lose their energy ... We won't go until he goes."
One protest organizer said the regime was going all out to pressure people to stop protesting.
Crud. I went to sleep thinking we'd dodged a bullet, and woke up to find that the crisis is just different--not over.
UPDATE: Somebody wants chaos in Egypt:
Thousands of supporters and opponents of President Hosni Mubarak battled in Cairo's main square Wednesday, raining stones, bottles and firebombs on each other in scenes of uncontrolled violence as soldiers stood by without intervening. Government backers galloped in on horses and camels, only to be dragged to the ground and beaten bloody.
At the front line, next to the famed Egyptian Museum at the edge of Tahrir Square, pro-government rioters blanketed the rooftops of nearby buildings, dumping bricks and firebombs onto the crowd below — in the process setting a tree ablaze inside the museum grounds.
But who is it? The most radical protesters who want to re-enrage the more cautious protesters who might be inclined to declare victory and go home after yesterday's Mubarak declaration that he won't run in September?
Members of the ruling elite who hope to provoke enough violence (including a flaming musuem) to convince the military to side fully with the government and go all in to battle the protesters into submission so that reform might be forestalled?
Members of the security forces looking for an excuse that most Egyptians (and just as importantly, most soldiers) will accept as justifying a tougher security force response to protests in order to quiet the streets down?
Or a combination of them, of course.
Perhaps I should have known better, but I hoped yesterday would mark the end of the crisis despite hard work ahead. Maybe after a week or so, looking back, Mubarak's concession speech will still be the practical end despite messy (and bloody) loose ends that had to be collected after the speech.
