Egyptian regime begins US-backed talks with opposition parties

And:

International demonstrations support Egyptian revolution and
Imperialism and Egypt’s “democratic transition”




By Patrick O’Connor 
7 February 2011
The Obama administration has backed negotiations between the Mubarak regime and several Egyptian opposition parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Vice President Omar Suleiman, who led the discussions, which began yesterday, is now being groomed by Washington and its allies to head a military-dominated “transitional” government tasked with disorienting and, if necessary, crushing the mass uprising of Egyptian workers and young people.
Suleiman met with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, who repudiated previous pledges not to enter into talks with the government until Mubarak resigned. According to the Guardian, the Islamists absurdly declared that they “did not regard the meeting as negotiations but as an opportunity to hear the government’s position.” Suleiman also spoke with members of several political parties such as Wafd and Tagammu that were afforded semi-legal status and a small number of parliamentary seats under Mubarak’s dictatorship. Also included was a committee supposedly representing pro-democracy youth groups, independent legal experts and businessman Naguib Sawiris.
Mohammed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN nuclear weapons inspection program, said he had not been invited to the talks. However, a member of his National Association for Change group participated who was described by Al Jazeera as ElBaradei’s representative.
Suleiman afterwards released a statement, insisting there was a “consensus” among all involved for a “commitment to constitutional legitimacy.” The vice president pledged to confront the dangers of the “lack of security for the populace, disturbances to daily life, paralysis of public services, suspension of education at universities and schools, logistical delays in the delivery of essential goods to the population, and attempts at foreign intervention into purely Egyptian affairs and breaches of security by foreign elements working to undermine stability in implementation of their plots.”
Having slandered the anti-regime protest movement, Suleiman outlined a series of threadbare sops, including a pledge to form a committee comprised of “members of the judicial authority and a number of political figures” that is to spend a month considering possible constitutional and legislative amendments. Another bureau is also to consider complaints about the detention of political prisoners.
The vice president said that media and communications would be “liberalised” but stressed that the state of emergency—continuously in operation ever since Mubarak assumed power in 1981—would only be lifted “based on the security situation and an end to the threats to the security of society.”
The beginning of negotiations marks a further step towards the establishment of an interim government dominated by the military and Omar Suleiman, longtime security chief and trusted ally of the US and Israel, along with a civilian fig leaf of such figures as ElBaradei.
Egyptian state television reported Saturday the leadership of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) collectively resigned, including the president’s son Gamal Mubarak who had been head of the party’s “policies bureau.” Hossam Badrawi, a so-called “liberal voice” within the ruling party, was appointed the new secretary-general.
The Obama administration has rushed to endorse the Mubarak regime’s manoeuvres. On Saturday, the US envoy to Egypt, Frank Wisner, declared his support for Mubarak remaining in power until September. “We need to get a national consensus around the preconditions for the next step forward,” he told the Munich Security Conference. “The president must stay in office to steer those changes. I believe that President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical... He has given 60 years of his life to the service of his country, this is an ideal moment for him to show the way forward.”
The US State Department subsequently distanced itself from Wisner’s panegyric to Mubarak, claiming that Obama’s man in Cairo was speaking in a personal capacity only. Wisner’s remarks point to the sympathy the dictator still enjoys within sections of the US political establishment.
The Obama administration appears to have lost confidence in Mubarak’s ability to maintain control and is now clearly looking to Vice President Suleiman to play the leading role. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also appearing at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, declared that Suleiman was Egypt’s head of government. “There are forces at work in any society, and particularly one that is facing these kinds of challenges, that will try to derail or overtake the process to pursue their own specific agenda—which is why I think it’s important to support the transition process announced by the Egyptian government, actually headed now by Vice President Omar Suleiman [and] an orderly establishment of the elections that are scheduled for September.”
Clinton’s reference to social forces at work attempting to “derail or overtake the process” provide a telling insight into the fear in Washington that the anti-Mubarak movement will trigger the emergence of an independent movement of the Egyptian working class and even a social revolution.
Class issues are coming to the foreground in Egypt, and found reflection in Clinton’s adamant defence of the Egyptian capitalist state. “It is also important to support the institutions of the state,” the Secretary of State emphasised. “There are respected institutions that are functioning and effective within Egypt that need to be maintained. The army is a respected institution. The business sector, particularly the banking sector. There are many different parts of the society that will be essential for the kind of peaceful, orderly transition that we are all hoping for.”
A “transition” regime that rests on the military and is amenable to the banks—this, in a nutshell, constitutes the Obama administration’s strategy in Egypt.
There is much discussion in the American media over the “threat” posed by the Muslim Brotherhood. In reality, however, the middle-class Islamist organisation poses no danger to Washington’s manoeuvres. In the period after World War II, US imperialism promoted the Muslim Brotherhood as a counterweight to socialist and secular nationalist influences in the population. During the anti-Mubarak uprising, the organisation first outright opposed the movement of young students and workers, and only later participated in the demonstrations with the express purpose of encouraging Mubarak to concede some “reforms.” Now the Brotherhood has stressed its support for various bourgeois liberal forces, including Mohammed ElBaradei.
ElBaradei in turn is preparing for office. The American media has already begun its process of massaging and cajoling into line the likely civilian face of an interim government worked out between Washington, Suleiman and the Egyptian military command. Appearing on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday, ElBaradei was asked whether Egypt should preserve its treaty with Israel. “I think so,” he replied, before making some perfunctory remarks about the Palestinians’ right to establish an independent state. MSNBC host David Gregory quickly interrupted to chastise ElBaradei, declaring that viewers “will hear equivocation, and there will be great fear about a potential leader of Egypt saying that the peace treaty is not rock solid with Israel.”
Meanwhile, mass demonstrations continued yesterday in Cairo and Egypt’s other major urban centres. Protestors declared Sunday a “day of martyrs” and commemorated those murdered by the Mubarak regime’s police and provocateurs.
Suleiman told protestors, “We can say only go home. We want to have normal life. We don’t want anybody in the streets. Go to work. Bring back once again the tourists. Go to the normal life. Save the economy of the country.”
The military last night attempted to advance its line against demonstrators outside the Egyptian Museum, near Tahrir Square. Soldiers fired warning shots into the air and arrested three young people who were among those who refused to move back. The Guardian reported, “There are concerns that demands by the military to remove barricades blocking roads are a move towards breaking up the demonstration.”
Workers and youth urgently need to build new organisations of struggle—factory, workplace, and neighbourhood councils—to advance their independent interests.
In Tunisia, weeks after President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee the country and a so-called National Unity government was put in place, clashes between the government and the population continue. On Saturday, at least two people were killed and 17 injured after police shot into a group of protesters outside a police station in the northern city of El Kef. “About 1,000 people gathered in a protest in front of El Kef’s police station to demand the dismissal of the head of the police in the city for power abuse while exercising his duties,” a source told Reuters. In a separate incident, a man died after being hit by a tear gas grenade in clashes in Kebili, about 400 kilometres south of the capital Tunis. Police clashed with protesters who reportedly opposed the appointment of a new regional governor.

And:

International demonstrations support Egyptian revolution
By Robert Stevens 
7 February 2011
Up to 2,000 people demonstrated in London on Saturday in solidarity with the Egyptian revolution. The demonstration assembled at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square and marched for about an hour to the Egyptian Embassy. The protest was part of a day of international solidarity actions in support of the Egyptian masses.


On Friday, demonstrations were held in a number of other European cities, including Berlin, Paris and Madrid. In the French capital, the Reporters Without Borders organisation gathered at the Egyptian embassy to demand an end to attacks on journalists by plainclothes police and thugs.

On Saturday, protests were held in Paris and Vienna in Europe; New York, Washington, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Seattle, Atlanta and Calgary in North America; and Tokyo in Japan. Up to 4,000 people marched in Paris from the Republique Square to La Madeleine in support of the Egyptian masses. Among the slogans chanted were “Down with Mubarak” and “The people want the fall of the regime”.

In Vienna, around 300 protested in the main city square, the Stephansplatz. According to the Demotix web site, they were joined by protesters who had also demanded the fall of the Ben Ali Tunisian government in January.

In New York, demonstrators protested outside the United Nations building. In Los Angeles, protesters rallied outside the Federal Building, with some carrying banners demanding an end of US aid to the Mubarak regime. Several hundred demonstrated in Tokyo.

In Australia, up to 200 people, mostly of Egyptian and Arabic backgrounds, gathered outside the US embassy in Sydney on Sunday to demonstrate their support for the protestors in Egypt. Demonstrations have also taken place in Canberra and other Australian cities over the past two weeks.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, an afternoon rally was forcibly disbanded by Palestinian Authority (PA) forces, which have banned anti-Mubarak demonstrations in the name of blocking “illegal and unlicensed gatherings that could create a state of chaos.” Meanwhile, the PA has organised pro-Mubarak demonstrations.

The London demonstration was called by the Stop the War Coalition (STWC) and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. Marchers were met at the Egyptian Embassy by a group of several hundred mainly Egyptian protesters already demonstrating to demand the end of the Mubarak regime. Protests outside the embassy have been ongoing during the last week.

In what can only be described as deliberate provocation, the police guided what was a nearby, separate protest by Hizb ut-Tahrir—a right-wing Islamist organisation—to the front of the main demonstration as it arrived at the Embassy. This was clearly an attempt to falsely associate the anti-Mubarak march with the theocratic organisation’s call for an Islamic empire throughout the Middle East. This effort provoked protests from those on the STWC march.

While workers and young people came to the protest to express their solidarity with the Egyptian struggle, they were given no lead by the political organisations that called the demonstration. Called under the slogan, “Solidarity with the Egyptian People—Freedom for the Middle East”, the STWC rally was addressed by the long-time political opportunist and adviser to the Pakistani ruling elite, Tariq Ali. Also speaking was John Rees, an STWC officer and a former leader of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) until his resignation last year, and Judith Orr, the editor of the SWP’s newspaper. The latter two recently spent time in Cairo.

Whilst formally declaring their support for the millions protesting in Egypt, the STWC put forward a purely pro-capitalist programme centred on appeals to the British and other Western governments to help unseat Mubarak. The protest, the STWC stated, would send “a message to our own government that it needs to call for Hosni Mubarak to leave office immediately”.

Established in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, the STWC, comprised largely of the SWP, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Stalinist Communist Party of Britain, has opposed any independent mobilisation of the working class against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. None of these organisations have any independence from the political establishment.


In a filmed interview prior to the demonstration, Rees cited approvingly the comments of Prime Minister David Cameron, saying, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a British Prime Minister make so direct an undisguised attack on another head of state as David Cameron did. So I think the international community are now saying look we have vital interests in this part of the world. We cannot have a full-blown revolutionary process taking place. We want the lid put back on this as soon as a possible and we think that means you’ve got to go. So the pressure is definitely building up both domestically and internationally on Mubarak.”

Rees made no critique of the pro-capitalist opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei or the Muslim Brotherhood, claiming the latter, which has played no role in the mobilisation of mass opposition, had a “base predominantly among poor people”.

Explicitly ruling out any suggestion that the working class should seize the initiative and advance its own socialist solution to the crisis, Rees said, “it’s too early to say who will benefit most from the fall of Mubarak at the moment. Once Mubarak, goes I think there will be process of political sorting and debate and argument characteristic of revolutions where people will try to sort out which currents they want to back, who they trust, who they would like to see represent them.”

The STWC speakers put forward nothing more than a glorification of Arab nationalism, which has completely failed to free the Arab people from imperialist oppression. Tariq Ali was profuse in his praise for an “Arab renaissance” and praised the “Arab nation that has come alive again”. He sought to sow illusions in the bourgeois opposition movement in Egypt, claiming it could carry out progressive measures if it came to power. Ali said the “first thing a post-Mubarak government will have to do is end the siege of Gaza.”

Another speaker, Bernard Regan, from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said he was bringing greetings from the southeast region of the Trades Union Congress representing some 3 million workers. Regan said the revolution in Egypt showed the “capacity of people to organise themselves and take control of their own country. In that the trade unions are playing a key role,” he claimed.

This is a bald-faced lie. The official Egyptian trade unions have been and remain steadfast supporters of the hated Mubarak regime. As the mass movement began, the chairman of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, Hussein Mogawer, called on all trade union presidents “to prevent workers from participating in all demonstrations at this time.” According to the Al Masry Al Youm web site, Mogawer instructed officials to inform him round the clock of any moves or attempts by workers to join the protests.

And:

Imperialism and Egypt’s “democratic transition”
7 February 2011
The talks taking place between the Egyptian regime of President Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the National Association for Change of Mohamed ElBaradei are a treacherous exercise in political duplicity. Their purpose is to confuse and suppress the revolutionary movement against the Mubarak regime, stabilize bourgeois rule in Egypt, and preserve the country as a reliable instrument of the interests of US imperialism throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
The Obama administration’s support for these talks, brokered by Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman under the cynical label of a “democratic transition,” is as reactionary as it is predictable. Once again, Washington’s rhetorical tributes to democracy are being exposed as hypocritical lies. The real aims of the Obama administration were revealed in the open declaration of former Ambassador Frank Wisner—who had been sent to Cairo to meet with Mubarak—that the dictator was playing a critical role. All the efforts of the administration are concentrated on orchestrating a fraudulent “transition” that will safeguard US interests in Egypt.
The reactionary character of these US plans is exposed by the man who has been chosen by Mubarak and Washington to preside over the “transition” —Vice President Omar Suleiman. This is a man who is implicated and has personally participated in the worst crimes of the Mubarak regime. He has, literally, blood on his hands.
The CIA’s point man for outsourcing torture to Egypt, Suleiman personally beat Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen falsely accused of terrorism in Pakistan and shipped to Egypt to be tortured. Habib was cleared of all charges and released in 2005.
Suleiman also helped the US manufacture false evidence to justify its illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. Before that war, he oversaw the transfer of Ibn Sheikh al-Libi from US to Egyptian custody; once in Egypt, al-Libi was tortured until he agreed to say that Iraq was giving chemical and biological weapons to Al Qaeda. This false testimony made its way into US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s 2003 report to the UN, calling for war.
The political myths of the “war on terror”—the claim that the key feature of the Middle East was the struggle between the values of “democratic” Western governments and Islamists like the Brotherhood—stand exposed by these negotiations. In fact, the main conflict is between the entire ruling class and the working masses, who have emerged as the main revolutionary force.
Originally, the reason given for US backing for dictatorships and monarchies throughout the Middle East was that authoritarian rule was a necessary evil in the struggle to limit Islamist influence. Now, Washington is treating the Islamists as a necessary evil in its struggle to maintain what it sees as a more fundamental objective: the maintenance of an authoritarian regime upon which Washington can rely.
The class reasons underlying this policy were laid out in a New York Times article that held up Turkey as a “map for Egypt.” The Times wanted the Mubarak regime to emulate the Turkish military’s support for the “dynamic private sector” created by the Islamist AKP government’s “opening” and deregulation policies. These policies have turned Turkey into a major cheap-labor export economy. The Times also cited Turkey’s quiet but good relations with Israel, a token of Turkey’s essential acceptance of US imperialism’s dominance in the Middle East.
With reports showing that half of Egyptian workers survive on wages of $2 or less per day, global investors doubtless hope to make fortunes from further “opening” Egypt, as long as the military regime and its yellow unions can suppress the working class. That is, Egypt is to be maintained as a reliable ally of the US military, a well-policed source of cheap labor, and a bastion of political reaction.
This underscores the semi-colonial character of US relations with Egypt, a country that is under the thumb of global imperialism.
Amidst all the political maneuvering and posturing, the concerns and interests of the Egyptian working class, peasantry and youth count for nothing. Not a single one of the social and political concerns that fueled the mass protests will be addressed. The protestors sought fundamental social changes: the dismantling of the police state, the ending of the dominance of major landowners in the countryside, and the raising of wages and living standards. The social forces with an interest in such change—the workers, the oppressed rural masses of Egypt, and the youth—will get nothing from these negotiations, except a cruel betrayal. The torturers will remain in power, protecting the strategic interests of US imperialism, the investments of international capital, and the wealth of the Egyptian ruling class.
The International Committee of the Fourth International states unequivocally: The interests of the Egyptian working class and the oppressed masses can be achieved only through the struggle for power on the basis of a socialist program. There is no other path to genuine democracy. Thus, there is a critical need to build independent organs of popular representation and to overcome the vacuum of political leadership—to pose an alternative to the Egyptian bourgeois state machine and the negotiations of Suleiman.

-----

Support this revolution and support the entire world. Spread these documents widely. General Joe