Renowned Middle East journalist Robert Fisk speaks from Cairo on the historic uprising and how U.S. President Barack Obama has lost an opportunity to back a democratic movement in the Middle East. “One of the blights of history will now involve a U.S. president who held out his hand to the Islamic world and then clenched his fist when it fought a dictatorship and demanded democracy,” Fisk said. Watch he video below:
The United States Senate has passed a resolution by unanimous vote on Thursday calling on Egypt President Hosni Mubarak to transfer power to a caretaker government. The resolution was authored by Senators John McCain and John Kerry. Read the full text below.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
RESOLUTION
Mr. KERRY (for himself and Mr. MCCAIN) submitted the following resolution:
Supporting democracy, universal rights, and the peaceful transition to a representative government in Egypt.
Whereas the United States and Egypt have long shared a strong bilateral relationship;
Whereas Egypt plays an important role in global and regional politics as well as in the broader Middle East and North Africa;
Whereas Egypt has been, and continues to be, an intellectual and cultural center of the Arab world;
Whereas on January 25, 2011, demonstrations began across Egypt with thousands of protesters peacefully calling for a new government, free and fair elections, significant constitutional and political reforms, greater economic opportunity, and an end to government corruption;
Whereas on January 28, 2011, the Government of Egypt shut down Internet and mobile phone networks almost entirely and blocked social networking websites;
Whereas on January 29, 2011, President Hosni Mubarak appointed Omar Suleiman, former head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate, as Vice President and Ahmed Shafik, former Minister for Civil Aviation, as Prime Minister;
Whereas the demonstrations have continued, making this the longest protest in modern Egyptian history, and on February 1, 2011, millions of protesters took to the streets across the country;
Whereas hundreds of Egyptians have been killed and injured since the protests began;
Whereas on February 1, 2011, President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would not run for reelection later this year, but widespread protests against his government continue;
Whereas on February 1, 2011, President Barack Obama called for an orderly transition, stating that it “must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now.” He also affirmed that: “The process must include a broad spectrum of Egyptian voices and opposition parties. It should lead to elections that are free and fair. And it should result in a government that’s not only grounded in democratic principles, but is also responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people.”;
Whereas despite President Hosni Mubarak’s pledge in 2005 that Egypt’s controversial emergency law would be used only to fight terrorism and that he planned to abolish the state of emergency and adopt new antiterrorism legislation as an alternative, in May 2010, the Government of Egypt again extended the emergency law, which has been in place continuously since 1981, for another 2 years, giving police broad powers of arrest and allowing indefinite detention without charge;
Whereas the Department of State’s 2009 Human Rights Report notes with respect to Egypt, ”[t]he government’s respect for human rights remained poor, and serious abuses continued in many areas. The government limited citizens’ right to change their government and continued a state of emergency that has been in place almost continuously since 1967.”;
Whereas past elections in Egypt, including the most recent November 2010 parliamentary elections, have seen serious irregularities at polling and counting stations, security force intimidation and coercion of voters, and obstruction of peaceful political rallies and demonstrations;
and
Whereas any election must be honest and open to all legitimate candidates and conducted without interference from the military or security apparatus and under the oversight of international monitors: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate–
(1) acknowledges the central and historic importance of the United States-Egyptian strategic partnership in advancing the common interests of both countries, including peace and security in the broader Middle East and North Africa;
(2) reaffirms the United States’ commitment to the universal rights of freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of access to information, including the Internet, and expresses strong support for the people of Egypt in their peaceful calls for a representative and responsive democratic government that respects these rights;
(3) condemns any efforts to provoke or instigate violence, and calls upon all parties to refrain from all violent and criminal acts;
(4) supports freedom of the press and strongly condemns the intimidation, targeting or detention of journalists;
(5) urges the Egyptian military to demonstrate maximum professionalism and restraint, and emphasizes the importance of working to peacefully restore calm and order while allowing for free and non-violent freedom of expression;
(6) calls on President Mubarak to immediately begin an orderly and peaceful transition to a democratic political system, including the transfer of power to an inclusive interim caretaker government, in coordination with leaders from Egypt’s opposition, civil society, and military, to enact the necessary reforms to hold free, fair, and internationally credible elections this year;
(7) affirms that a real transition to a legitimate representative democracy in Egypt requires concrete steps to be taken as soon as possible, including lifting the state of emergency, allowing Egyptians to organize independent political parties without interference, enhancing the transparency of governmental institutions, restoring judicial supervision of elections, allowing credible international monitors to observe the preparation and conduct of elections, and amending the laws and Constitution of Egypt as necessary to implement these and other critical reforms;
(8) pledges full support for Egypt’s transition to a representative democracy that is responsive to the needs of the Egyptian people, and calls on all nations to support the people of Egypt as they work to conduct a successful transition to democracy;
(9) expresses deep concern over any organization that espouses an extremist ideology, including the Muslim Brotherhood, and calls upon all political movements and parties in Egypt, including an interim government, to affirm their commitment to non-violence and the rule of law, the equal rights of all individuals, accountable institutions of justice, religious tolerance, peaceful relations with Egypt’s neighbors, and the fundamental principles and practices of democracy, including the regular conduct of free and fair elections;
(10) underscores the vital importance of any Egyptian Government continuing to fulfill its international obligations, including its commitment under the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty signed on March 26, 1979, and the freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal; and
(11) ensures that United States assistance to the Egyptian Government, military, and people will advance the goal of ensuring respect for the universal rights of the Egyptian people and will further the national security interests of the United States in the region.
SEATTLE — Most of us Ethiopians are simply watching it like a movie. As if we were free people. When revolution is spreading like wild fire in Tunisia, Egypt and all over against brutal dictators, we Ethiopians are just watching. Stop it. We have work to do. We have a killer dictator terrorizing our people. We have a historical obligation to help topple a dictator in Ethiopia now so that he joins his friends Ben Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt. This is the moment we have been waiting for. Let us ride this storm of revolution that swept North Africa and the Middle East.
On Saturday, Egyptians will hold a protest rally against Mubarak in downtown Seattle. Let us come out and join our Egyptian friends in solidarity. I was told that TV, radio, and print media will be there to cover this demonstration. This is a golden opportunity to expose Meles Zenawi together with Mubarak in front of the Seattle and international media.
Please show up this Saturday at noon at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle.
Conditions in Ethiopia are more ripe for regime change than in any other country in the world. These are some of the facts:
1. The dictator, Meles Zenawi, has been in power for 20 years. He is the most despised politician in Ethiopian history.
2. The economy is in shambles with over 40 percent unemployment.
3. Millions of Ethiopians go hungry.
4. The regime is extremely incompetent, corrupt and brutal.
5. In the 2005 elections, Ethiopians voted by an overwhelming margin against the regime. Their vote however was stolen, and when the people protested, Meles unleashed a campaign of terror against them.
The 2005 Ethiopian uprising failed primarily due to the opposition party’s timidity, luck of creativity and absence of leadership. The people of Ethiopia were ready to remove the regime through the ballot box, and when Meles refused accept rejection, they revolted. Unfortunately, the opposition leaders blinked and exposed the people to horrific attacks that have left them traumatized to this day.
Tthe people of Ethiopia need not depend on one leadership. Like Egypt and Tunisia, the campaign to remove Ethiopia’s ethnic apartheid regime must be structurally decentralized while united in its common goal. At the right moment, the various political, civic, youth and other groups who are involved in the campaign will elect transitional leaders. Until then, every organization can play a valuable role in the campaign to free Ethiopia from the Meles regime.
The following set of recommendations [in Amharic] by Ginbot 7 is helpful and needs to be distributed widely by all Ethiopian media, civic and political groups who need to come up with their own ideas and suggestions as well.
Please help distribute the following message from Ginbot 7
Egypt’s pro-democracy protesters, who have so far rejected the idea of storming the presidential palace, are now planning to force Mubarak out of power on Friday.
The declaration was made by Dr Mohamed El Baradei, whom the protesters and opposition groups designated as their spokesperson.
Egyptians have marked Friday as “Departure Day,” El Baradei told the media last night after thugs hired by Mubarak savagely attacked peaceful protesters while the army looked on without any attempt to intervene.
In a hand-to-hand combat the lasted several hours, the protesters succeeded in chasing away Mubarak’s thugs.
On Thursday morning, as Mubarak’s thugs regrouped and returned, the army moved for the first time to stop the fighting.
The protesters, hundreds of thousands of them, are now planning to head for Mubarak residence following prayer on Friday morning. It is not clear whether the army will try to stop them. If they army remains neutral, the protesters can easily overwhelm the presidential guards.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Gandhi.
The people’s revolution in Egypt must succeed, otherwise tyrants in the region are going to feast and sharpen their military apparatus and jail thousands of those who camped out on the streets of the great Cairo, home to the pyramids and the great MAAT, queen of Justice.
I can imagine MAAT the queen of Truth praying for the protesters to hold on to the last human being and fight for their rights, die for the sake of creating a genuine moral economy that the Egyptian people have not seen for the last thirty years. I imagine in own my home land, the historic Ethiopia, the ruling regime strategizing in smoke filled rooms, on how to squelch an eminent Ethiopian uprising before it takes root. I imagine the tyranny’s think tanks laughing at writings such as this and defaming any outputs from the Diaspora as infective and idle. … [Continue reading.]