Facing Calls to Give Up Power, Egypt Military Battles Crowds

CAIRO — Egypt’s military rulers struggled Sunday to contain an explosion of protests demanding their ouster, as a growing crowd of demonstrators pushed security forces out of Tahrir Square for a second night in a row and new clashes broke out across the country.

Egyptian troops, heralded as saviors when their generals ushered out President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11, led a new push to clear the square. And the battles took a more lethal toll: the Health Ministry said that at least six were killed, and doctors set up in the square said that the number could be twice that.

But the violence only seemed to reinforce the revolutionary urgency that had returned to the square, and when the army moved to push out the thousands of protesters, more than twice as many quickly flooded back.

“This is February 12!” said Abeer Mustafa, a 42-year-old wedding planner. “We have finally succeeded in reclaiming our revolution.”

The crackdown, including the reported use of live ammunition by troops, elicited condemnation across the political spectrum, joined by voices who had previously taken a more restrained tone toward the military council, from the liberal former diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Almost all the civilian parties called for an accelerated end to military rule before the drafting of a constitution — either an immediate handover to some civilian unity government, a turnover to the lower house of Parliament when it is seated in April, or after a presidential election, to be scheduled as soon as possible.

But while unity reappeared in the square, where Coptic Christians once again stood guard as their Muslim compatriots bowed to pray, the political class remained deeply polarized over what sort of civilian government might succeed the military. Liberals and Islamists continued to battle each other in back-room arguments over the question of what rules the military might set for the selection of a constitutional convention, even as the street protesters demanded that the military give up such authority.

In its first official response to the crisis, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces repeated its commitment to its “road map” of the transition, including next week’s elections, but it did nothing to move up or clarify its exit date, now set for some time after drafting of a constitution and electing of a president in perhaps 2013 or beyond. The council expressed “sorrow” over the situation. It said it had ordered an investigation and it asked the political parties to “contain the situation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/world/middleeast/clashes-in-cairo-continue-into-a-second-day.html?_r=1&ref=world

By: Joseph McGee