CAIRO, (Reuters) – A bitter and, by turns, bloody confrontation gripped central Cairo today as armed government loyalists fought pro-democracy protesters demanding the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
At least six people were dead and 800 wounded after gunmen and stick-wielding Mubarak supporters attacked demonstrators camped out for a tenth day on Tahrir Square to demand the 82-year-old leader immediately end his 30-year rule.
A literal stone’s throw from the Egyptian Museum, home to 7,000 years of civilisation in the most populous Arab state, angry men skirmished back and forth with rocks, clubs and makeshift shields, as the U.S.-built tanks of Mubarak’s Western-funded army made sporadic efforts to separate them.
Away from camera lenses of global media focused on Tahrir Square, a fierce political battle was being fought which has wide implications for Western influence over the Middle East and its oil supplies. European leaders joined the United States in calling on their long-time ally to start handing over power.
His government, newly appointed in a reshuffle that failed to appease protesters, stood by the president’s insistence on Tuesday that he will go, but only when his fifth term ends in September. Mubarak continues to portray himself as a bulwark against anarchy or a seizure of power by Islamist radicals.
The opposition won increasingly vocal support from Mubarak’s long-time Western backers for a swifter handover of power.
“This process of transition must start now,” the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain said in a statement.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon added his voice.
They all echoed the message U.S. President Barack Obama said he gave Mubarak in a phone call on Tuesday. U.S. officials also condemned what the called a “concerted campaign to intimidate” journalists, after many were attacked by government loyalists.
Opposition leaders including the liberal figurehead Mohamed ElBaradei and the mass Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood rejected a call to talks from Mubarak’s new prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq. Only the president’s departure and an end to violence would bring them to negotiations, they told Reuters.
TRIAL OF STRENGTH
As he tended to some of those on the square who bore bloody marks from the fighting, doctor Mohamed al-Samadi voiced anger and defiance: “They let armed thugs come and attack us. We refuse to go. We can’t let Mubarak stay eight months.”
Protesters, who numbered some 10,000 on Tahrir Square on Thursday afternoon, have called major demonstrations for tomorrow.
It is a trial of strength in which the army has a crucial role as its commanders seek to preserve their institution’s influence and wealth in the face of massive popular rejection of the old order, widely regarded as brutal, corrupt and wasteful.
The government, which rejected assumptions by foreign powers that it had orchestrated the attacks on demonstrators, seemed to be counting on winning over the sympathy of Egyptians feeling the pinch of unprecedented economic dislocation.
“I just want to see security back on the streets so that I can go on with my life,” said Amira Hassan, 55, a Cairo teacher. “It makes no difference to me whether Mubarak stays or leaves.”
Prime Minister Shafiq sought to appease anger at home and abroad by apologising for the violence and said it would not happen again. But he insisted he did not know who was behind it.
The protesters in Tahrir Square, dominated now by a youthful hard core including secular middle class graduates and mostly poorer Islamist activists from the Muslim Brotherhood, have been inspired by the example of Tunisia, where veteran strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee last month.
But many other Egyptians have more respect for Mubarak and seem willing to let him depart more gracefully in due course.
Yet those supporting the calls for constitutional change and free elections saw the violence, unleashed on Wednesday by men they assume to be secret policemen and ruling party loyalists, as a mark of desperation of a president whose army called the opposition demands legitimate and pledged to protect the crowds.
It was a “stupid, desperate move”, said Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist and leading opposition figure. “This will not put an end to the protests,” he said. “This is not the Tahrir Square revolution, it is a general uprising.”
Though less numerous than earlier in the week, there were also demonstrations in Suez and Ismailiya, industrial cities where inflation and unemployment have fuelled the sort of dissent that hit Tunisia and which some believe could ripple in a domino effect across other autocratic Arab states.
