CAIRO - To anti-military activists, the Egyptian revolution is not complete yet. To the military junta, the revolution has succeeded, thanks to the Army. As the first anniversary of the uprising against Mubarak draws nearer, Egypt is holding its breath as to what January 25 might bring. In the run-up to the first anniversary, the revolutionaries and the military rulers appear to be diametrically at odds. Crying foul over the way the generals have been running the transitional period, the anti-military activists are preparing for mass rallies across Egypt. “After greeting us warmly, the military have duped us in the most violent fashion,” Ahmed Harara, a dentist-cum-activist, said the other day. “We will take to the streets on January 25 to ensure retribution for the martyrs,” he added, referring to the protesters killed during and after the revolution against Mubarak. Harara, 31, is himself a symbol of what opposition activists regard as brutal violence exercised by the police and soldiers against pro-democracy protesters. He lost one eye on January 28 - a crucial day in the anti-Mubarak revolt - and then a police sniper shot out the other one on November 19, when clashes erupted between security forces and protesters in Mohamed Mahmoud Street near the iconic Tahrir Square. The activists, who largely inspired the anti-Mubarak uprising, have already started handing out leaflets and video clips exposing violence by the security forces and the military against their opponents. The activists are vigorously campaigning for the generals to transfer power to a civilian administration five months earlier than the date set by the ruling military council. The embattled military are sticking to their guns, warning of a ‘conspiracy' to incite a civil war in Egypt on January 25. The alleged conspiracy would be pursued by some disappointed military hopefuls and unnamed foreign powers. It would begin by provoking soldiers and triggering chaos around the country, the military claim, although they haven't provided any proofs to back up their allegations. In an apparent bid to win over their opponents, the generals recently announced a competition for designing a cenotaph commemorating the martyrs of the revolution, to be erected in Tahrir. The top design will win an award of LE100,000 (about $16,500). Kamal el-Ganzouri, the Prime Minister appointed by the military much to the dislike of the Tahrir protesters, has promised to co-ordinate with various ‘revolutionary' groups to arrange for ‘celebrations' on January 25. His opponents see this as a plan to reduce the significance of this ‘crucial' occasion by turning it into a festival allegedly aimed at giving a veneer of legality to the Government of el-Ganzouri, who served under Mubarak. Speculation is, meanwhile, rife that a court ruling will be pronounced in the case of Mubarak and former security aides in the days ahead of the first anniversary of the revolution. “The Mubarak trial is a card being manipulated by the [ruling] military council to allay an angry public and to prove that they [the military] are not in collusion with the former regime,” said Amr Hamed, a member of the opposition Revolution's Youth movement. “A tough ruling against Mubarak will not, however, diminish the strength of the protests planned on January 25,” he told the independent newspaper Al-Shorouk. “We will take to the streets this time to protest the crimes of the military council that have hampered the implementation of the revolution's objectives.”
