CAIRO - Al Tahrir Square in central Cairo is precariously developing into a battlefield for Army supporters and detractors four days after a bloody confrontation between the Army and some protesters left one civilian dead and more than 70 wounded. Several groups of activists stood in the middle of the Stalinist Square and locked horns on Monday over whether this was an appropriate time for Egyptians to pour their venom on the Army, which started running Egypt's affairs after Mubarak stepped down as president on February 11, for what they called its reluctance to bring Mubarak to court. “Mubarak wears shorts and enjoys his life by the beach in Sharm al-Sheikh, while the Army does nothing to bring him to account for the mistakes he had committed against the people of this country for 30 years,” said one of the people who converged on the square. “The Army is complicit in this.” Few of the spectators who stood around this man seemed to agree with him. But few of them spoke as well. Few nodded in agreement, but the majority shook their heads in disagreement. Inside and around the square, the situation seemed to be evolving into a show of force and terror by the detractors of the Army. Most of them – ready to pick a fight with whoever deviated from their estimate that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was corrupt – chanted slogans critical of the Army. They barricaded all entrances to the square, using metal bars and barbed wire, turning this iconic centre of the Egyptian revolution against Mubarak into a colony. Few people, however, were ready to call it a colony of the revolutionaries now amid reports that some of those who make the show in Al Tahrir Square are paid thugs by the members of the formerly ruling National Democratic Party who want to spoil the relationship between the people and the Army and also launch their own counter-revolution. “They do not look like the revolutionaries we saw here during the 18-day revolt against Mubarak,” said one passer-by, describing the protesters on the square. “They look like inmates who had just been let out of prison.” Many of the people who stood on Monday metres away to watch the anti-Army campaigners chanting their slogans and turning the square into a place for dirt and garbage agreed. Tens of them stood at the entrance of the square from the Egyptian Museum and tried to reason the protesters out of their anger at the Army. “We should not destroy the last remaining power allied with the revolution,” said one woman who seemed to be on her way home from work. “Even if some of the generals of the Army are not good, this is not good time for us to criticise them,” she added. The man in front of her – wearing a dirty shirt and growing a beard – used a microphone to make her voice unheard to the rest. The people who repeated the anti – Army slogans after him were similarly badly dressed. Most of them held plastic bags in their hands where perhaps they kept their clothes in case they decided to spend the coming nights in the square. Not away from where these people launched into their demonstration of anger against the Army, street children and several homeless individuals were searching inside a charred army bus for something they could take. Some of them insulted each other. Others went into two tents they erected in the middle of the square to have some sleep. But even as the centre of the Egyptian capital seemed to be totally blocked to traffic and foreigners, no Army personnel could be seen in the whole area. Nobody was talking about democracy any more. Nobody was speaking any elevated language about change.
