Criticisms of the Higher Council of the Armed Forces are unfounded and threaten to drive a wedge between the army and the people, writes Galal Nassar Since the confrontation last Friday in Tahrir Square, the army's methods have been debated widely in the media, with prominent commentator Fahmy Howeidy writing a column for the newspaper Al-Shorouk entitled "The Military on the Defensive" in which he reviewed the role of the army as moderator of the country's political scene. Commenting on Howeidy's article, Hisham Abdel-Aal offered the following response on Al-Shorouk 's website: "we are now at a crossroads. Either the revolution will continue through dialogue and agreement on national principles, with political forces acting maturely, economic and political reform being introduced, and with attention being paid to the future and to development, thus leading to preparation for elections and for the formation of a responsible government, or we will descend into a state of chaos." "It is now clear that there are people who are trying to spread chaos and rabble-rouse, their aim being to control parties and political forces. Such people are blackmailing the Islamist movements, using them to rally demonstrators in an effort to pressure the army and the government in order to deter any attempt at reform in the country on the path to democracy. Such people are trying to make life difficult for the army in the hope that it may hand over power to them without elections." "These people do not want elections, a constitution, or reform. What they want is for the country to slip into chaos so that we will accept a solution that matches the interests of the West. They don't care about Hosni Mubarak. They don't care about justice and reform. These are merely the slogans they are using to rouse the rabble, put pressure on the army, intimidate political parties, and deter any progress towards democracy." In his original column, Howeidy had mentioned the supplement that the Armed Forces' Department of Morale had distributed with Al-Ahram last Friday. In it, the army offered its own interpretation of events before, during and after the revolution, denying any collusion between the Higher Council of the Armed Forces (HCAF) and the former president. In particular, Howeidy wrote that "those who organised the camel attacks and killed the protesters are the same ones that are now trying to divide our ranks in order to foil the revolution. The 25 January Revolution stands on two legs: the army and the people. If one leg is hurt, the whole thing will fall on its face and counter-revolution will win. The people have asked the army to take power at a critical moment. The people have asked the army to run the country for an interim period, until the political ground is levelled, and the army has done just that, protecting the revolution, embracing its legitimate demands, and guaranteeing progress during an interim period until the end of this year." "We have to be aware of any attempts to drive a wedge between the people and the army. Rumours and the exaggeration and misrepresentation of fact can only help the counter-revolution. There are people who want to turn the clock back and bring back the corruption of the former regime. I assure you that there is a clear plan to drive a wedge between the army and the people to make it look as if the revolution and the army are on a collision course or that the army is divided. The aim is to break up the unity of the people and the army and to shake the people's confidence in the HCAF that is moderating the interim period with great honour and honesty." Last Thursday, one day before the army supplement in Al-Ahram appeared, two members of the HCAF appeared on state television. Mohamed El-Assar and Tareq El-Mahdi met with reporters to dispel any misunderstandings about the army's role, the two generals being aware that the army was being accused of dragging its feet on matters of reform and the trial of corrupt officials from the previous regime. Meeting with a source close to the HCAF, the present writer was told that the HCAF was acting with caution and not reluctance. "The pace at which the youths of the revolution are moving is very fast," the source said. "This is to be expected, considering their age and the fact that revolutions want to achieve their goals as fast as possible. But the HCAF is part of an institution that doesn't make decisions before looking carefully into the situation and assessing its various aspects. This is why the pace at which the two sides are moving is so different." "Let us not doubt that the youths are well- intentioned in their zeal, and let's not doubt that the army is patriotic in its caution. The difference in pace, however, is what the enemies of the revolution are using to drive a wedge between the two sides. There may be external hands at work that are not pleased with the patriotic position of the army and that do not want the revolution to achieve its goals. There have already been signs of such meddling, for example in the YouTube clip in which two former army officers speak of corruption in the army and urge the youths to demonstrate against the Military Council. These two men called on army officers to take part in the Friday demonstration, with the men being seen in military uniform close to the podium." According to the same source, knowing something of the background of the two men is necessary to fully understand what is going on. The first, Hatem Mahmoud Abbadi, served in the Air Defence Corps before being dismissed from service in 2004 for marrying a Norwegian woman, an act that violates army regulations since all active officers are banned from marrying foreigners. The second, Sherif Mohamed Ahmed, was a colonel in the Signal Corps who decided to stay in America after finishing his scholarship and was dismissed from the service in 2006 as a result. In the eyes of the army, Ahmed is a deserter who decided that it would be better for him to stay in America than to come back home and serve his country. Ahmed, the source added, could have returned to the country, resigned from the service and started to live as a civilian and fight for reform. But this wasn't the course he took, choosing instead to make false claims about his connections with the army. As for Abbadi, the source said, he broke the army's regulations about marrying foreign women, a regulation that applies not only to army officers, but also to diplomats and people holding other sensitive positions in the public service. It is, of course, the right of any citizen to choose his partner, but to incite the people against the army is something altogether different. The source said that "I fully appreciate the enthusiasm of the Egyptian youths and their patriotism. But it is perhaps this very enthusiasm that makes them think that the HCAF is acting too slowly in seeking the trial of former officials and of Mubarak and his family. The youths are under the impression that the revolution remains incomplete because figures from the former regime, as well as its head, are not in prison. But the HCAF is eager to stick to the letter of the law and to hold proper civil trials, these being the only guarantee, if convictions are reached, that stolen money will be returned from abroad." "It would have been very easy for the HCAF to refer the officials in question to speedy military trial. But civil trials are the best way forward, since other countries are not likely to recognise anything else." One claim that has been made is that the HCAF has been too soft on the former president, some people claiming that members of the HCAF have been reluctant to bring their former boss to justice and the man who named them as his successors when he stepped down from power. The source denied any such reluctance. "Such stories are nonsense," he said. "If the HCAF had been loyal to the deposed president, why would it have taken the side of the people from the early days of the revolution onwards? Why would the army commanders have expressed their sympathy with the legitimate demands of the demonstrators in Tahrir Square? The army chose to support the people and acted to support their real legitimacy and not the false legitimacy the former regime claimed through rigged elections." "Perhaps some people want to blame the army for reversing some of its decisions or amending others as it has gone along," the source added, "as it did with the law on demonstrations and when it issued a constitutional declaration after the referendum on the constitutional amendments, although the declaration alone would have sufficed. Yet, what these things show is that the HCAF has been willing to respond to the demonstrators, even if belatedly." In the source's view, the army in fact cannot wait to return to barracks and leave the government of the country to the civil authorities. The army does not want to rule the country, and it has forgone several opportunities to do so. The army could have seized power in 1977 during the bread riots that erupted after the government raised prices. However, led by Field Marshal Abdel-Ghani El-Gamasi, it chose to go back to barracks. Similarly, Field Marshal Abdel-Halim Abu Ghazala directed the army back to barracks in 1986, when it was deployed following the insurgency of the Central Security Forces. Nevertheless, clashes occurred at dawn on Saturday between a number of protesters in Tahrir Square and a combined force from the army and Central Security Forces. One person died and 71 were injured, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health. The incident then led to strongly-worded criticism from revolutionary groups, presidential candidates and human rights activists, this not being the first time that the army has been accused of firing on demonstrators. In the face of such criticisms, the HCAF has responded by saying that the Tahrir Square sit-in violated the curfew and had to be dispersed in order to avoid traffic problems and to allow normal life to continue. This was an explanation that failed to appease the outcry against what some called an excessive use of force. The HCAF then took further action against members of the former regime, having National Democratic Party (NDP) member Ibrahim Kamel and several of his aides detained on charges of disturbing the peace and the former president and his two sons summoned for investigation into alleged financial irregularities. However, these acts on the HCAF's part do not seem to have allayed public mistrust, and the situation deteriorated when a pre-recorded speech by the former president was released on the Saudi-funded television station Al-Arabiya. In the recording, the former president offered no apologies for the past, but instead went on the offensive, threatening to sue his detractors for libel and denying any financial assets abroad. He must have had time to hide his assets, the army's critics then said, blaming the HCAF for allegedly giving the former president's family the time needed to move any assets out of sight. Yet, according to the source interviewed by the present writer the HCAF had merely left the task of pressing charges against members of the former regime to the country's properly constituted legal authorities: the prosecutor-general and investigating magistrates. Since day one, the source said, the HCAF had wanted the due process of law to be followed. In its view, the country should not be ruled under extraordinary laws, and all defendants should be tried by regular judges and have their day in a civilian court. There was an irony, the source said, in the fact that those who are demanding democracy are the very same as those who are demanding that the HCAF use extraordinary measures. With tensions running high, presidential candidates, including Amr Moussa and Mohamed El-Baradei, called for a meeting with the HCAF in order to discuss the situation and explore ways of restoring trust between the army and the people. Some of the current tensions are due to the public's misunderstanding of the HCAF's role. Explaining this point, analyst and politician Mustafa El-Feki has said that "the HCAF that is ruling Egypt now is nothing like the officers of the 23 July 1952 Revolution. The members of the present HCAF are not revolutionaries, and they have no revolutionary principles to defend. They are merely the guardians of the revolutionary demands. They were truthful when they said that they didn't want to remain in power and that they longed to go back to barracks. We should not make excessive demands on them, and we should not try to alienate them from the people." For his part, Ayman El-Sayyad, editor of the monthly magazine Weghat Nazar, had this to say: "the army is a major component of the 25 January Revolution and should not be treated as an institution that hasn't taken part in the revolution. In fact, since the first days of the revolution, the people trusted the neutrality of the army, seeing it as acting patriotically. From day one, the people wanted the army to protect them. When the first message came through from the army, it said that it was taking sides with the people and the demands of the revolutionaries and that it would not fire on demonstrators. The army paid tribute to the blood of the martyrs." "Since then, demands have increased and so has the insistence that the regime and its government and figures should go. The confidence that the people had in the army before the revolution, consolidated during the first days of the revolution, was among the reasons for the success of the revolution. Today, the most important weapon to strike at the achievements of the revolution would be to undermine the trust between the people and the army, since this would bring down the last defences we have left. It would also undermine peace and stability and unleash the demons of chaos -- exactly what the leaders of the counter-revolution want to see happen." Returning to the army's first communiqué issued during the revolution, in this communiqué, issued in the name of the HCAF led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the army declared its support for the people's demands, describing them as legitimate and stating that the HCAF would remain in open-ended session in order to discuss the measures that needed to be taken to preserve the homeland and protect the achievements and aspirations of the people of Egypt. This could only mean one thing: that the army was assuming power and that Mubarak had only hours to quit, either through resignation or dismissal. Mubarak ultimately stepped down on Friday 11 February, but the army's history of siding with the people started long before that and long before 10 February when Communiqué No.1 was released. According to the military source, the army had deployed on the streets on 28 January not just to preserve law and order, as Mubarak had wanted, but in order to protect the protesters. "The army began siding with the people long before the revolution," the source said. "The people rejected attempts to bequeath power, watching in horror as the men who were making arrangements to bequeath power kept denying that they were doing so in public. It is no secret that the position of the military on this issue was the same as the position of the rest of the nation. The great people of Egypt, the army believed, were not a herd of cattle that could be passed on from father to son, and this was utterly rejected by the army." "It is fortunate for the country that the 25 January Revolution happened in the year planned for presidential elections. Otherwise, come the month of August, the scene would have been very dangerous. It is no secret that the army's representative in the government, acting against the wishes of the regime, had intervened to halt the sale of banks and other major national institutions that were being offered up for privatisation. He also stopped the government giving the contract for a railway connecting Cairo and 10 Ramadan City to a company owned by close associates of the regime." "Speaking at a cabinet meeting three years ago, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi told former prime minister Ahmed Nazif and his ministers that they were selling off the country, 'the soil of which we liberated with our blood,' and that the army wouldn't allow it." When the HCAF took sides with the Egyptian revolution, the source said, this was not with the intention of taking power, but rather in the hope of protecting the country and its people. Perhaps one day the details of what happened during the 17 days of the revolution will emerge. When this happens, the source said, the honourable position of the Military Council will be known to all. "No one in the Military Council, and certainly not its chief Field Marshal Tantawi, was looking for power. All the Council wanted to do was to protect the interests of the nation and the future of the homeland. Former president Hosni Mubarak spent an hour trying to persuade Tantawi to assume the post of vice- president, or even to form a government to succeed that of Nazif. But he refused. This took place on 28 January, when Mubarak was trying to hide the deeds of his regime behind the unblemished record of the army. When the HCAF finally took charge, it agreed unanimously to hand over power to an elected civilian authority as soon as possible. For the past two months, the HCAF has scrupulously debated every decision it has taken and has made every decision unanimously." Yasser Rezq, editor of the newspaper Al-Akhbar, published an article last Sunday in which he examined the causes of the recent tension. In his article, Rezq wrote that "some people are calling for the formation of a presidential council containing civilian and military men. But who will take the decision to form the presidential council and who will select its five members? Is it not the HCAF that will do so? And will we not then waste valuable time afterwards debating who was selected and who was left out? Would it not be more advisable to focus on the transfer of power?" "We now have a national reconciliation committee led by Abdel-Aziz Hegazi whose mission is to draft a new constitution ready for consideration by the Constitutive Committee that will be elected by the members of the People's Assembly and the Shura Council at their first meeting at the end of September. The draft constitution would be an optional tool, something which the Constitutive Assembly will be free to use or not to use as it wishes. However, it may facilitate the assembly's mission and shorten the time needed to finish preparing the new constitution, now set at a maximum of six months." "The elections to the People's Assembly and the Shura Council will take place in September. Most likely, the elections will take place using a mixed system of party lists and individual candidacies, a system that should give various currents and independents the chance to be represented in parliament and thus diminish the chance of certain currents to monopolise the parliament as would happen were the elections to be held on the basis of individual candidacies alone." "This method will also diminish the chances that remnants of the old regime will manage to infiltrate the parliament through the use of money or clan alliances. Most probably, the presidential elections will be held before the end of this year, and the new president will assume power under the new constitution if the Constitutive Assembly ends its work in two or three months as planned. On the other hand, he may have to operate in the first few months of his presidency under the terms of the constitutional declaration, at least until the constitution has been drafted and submitted to a referendum." "The scenes that took place last Friday will not be the last attempt by the former regime to drive a wedge between the people and the army. But the awareness of the people and the vigilance of our revolutionary youths and the loyalty of our honourable men on the HCAF will save us from the perils of sedition." Some people have warned that mistrust between the army and the people, if allowed to continue, may lead to the collapse of the state. Some say that what is happening in the streets now has gone beyond removing the Mubarak regime and is teetering on the destruction of the institutions of the state. The deterioration of the country's security and economic situation is already worrisome, which is why it is more than ever important for the nation to support the army in its quest to maintain good relations with the people. The country has just had a referendum on the constitutional amendments approved by 77.8 per cent of the people, a sign that the political wheels are in motion. Lawyer Mortada Mansour has a further interesting take on the current situation, arguing that what has happened in Egypt so far has not been a revolution. Revolutions change the economic and social system, which has not happened yet in Egypt. Revolutions also have leaders, which has not been our case. The decisions now being made in the country are not being made by the revolutionaries, but by the HCAF. As a result, Mansour has argued, what we are seeing in Egypt is not a revolution in the proper sense of the word, but a youth uprising whose demands have also been embraced by the people as a whole. The result has been a state of chaos, with what happened in Cairo Stadium being a microcosm of what's going on in the country as a whole. The media is going down a one-way street in its attacks on the former regime, Mansour said, warning too of the attacks on the police and the courts. "We may have pushed the police beyond their point of endurance. Let's not now do the same to the army," Mansour said.
