As Violence Continues, Egyptian General Blames Protesters

After four days of street fighting with protesters that has left 13
people dead, Egypt’s military rulers faced calls on Monday from the
United States, the United Nations and a newly united front of Islamist
and liberal political leaders to stop the violence.

But in a scornful news conference, Gen. Adel Emara of the ruling
military council insisted that the military had never used violence
against peaceful protesters.

“The armed forces and the police pledged not to use violence against
protesters actively or even verbally,” he said. Instead, he said, the
protesters had deliberately provoked soldiers into clashes as part of a
plot “to destroy the state.”

Egypt will never fall, he declared, “as long as it has heroes from the
armed forces.” And rather than apologize for the military’s violence, he
threw back the challenge to the Egyptian news media: “Why don’t you
talk about the excessive use of violence by the other side?”

His defiant statements came hours after a predawn military assault on
Tahrir Square added three more people to the death toll, the latest in a
series of military attacks witnessed by journalists, captured on video
and broadcast across the Internet and on satellite television. Activists
used circles of bricks to mark the bloodstains left on the pavement.

Protest leaders said his remarks were the clearest sign yet of the depth
of the military’s determination to hold on to power even after the new
Parliament is seated early next year.

“We are definitely now living in a military coup,” said Shady el-Ghazaly
Harb, a young liberal organizer. “And the whole world should know.”

Since Sunday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations; the
European Union’s top diplomat, Catherine Ashton; and Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton have all urged the military to halt the violence,
leaving no doubt about the question of responsibility for keeping the
peace.

In a statement issued late Sunday from Washington, Mrs. Clinton said she
was “deeply concerned” about the violence. “I urge Egyptian security
forces to respect and protect the universal rights of all Egyptians,
including the rights to peaceful free expression and assembly,” she
said. “We call upon the Egyptian authorities to hold accountable those,
including security forces, who violate these standards.”

Mrs. Ashton of the European Union warned that the fighting threatened to
undermine confidence in Egypt’s parliamentary elections, which are
still in progress. “The democratic electoral process should continue in a
safe and transparent environment,” she said.

The severity of the military’s crackdown, even as the newly elected
Parliament begins to take shape, has restored a degree of unity that had
been missing among the civilian political factions, liberal and
Islamist, since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in February.
Perhaps most significant, Egypt’s powerful mainstream Islamist group,
the Muslim Brotherhood, agreed to join hands with liberals in demanding
the prompt end of military rule.

Dozens of newly elected members of Parliament, most notably the new
liberal icon Amr Hamzawy, sought to capitalize on their new authority as
Egypt’s first democratically elected representatives in more than six
decades. They were joined Monday afternoon by other candidates and
political leaders, including Mohamed Beltagy of the Brotherhood, on the
steps of Egypt’s high court to demand that the military turn over power
to the lower house of Parliament soon after its election.

They set a deadline of Jan. 25, the first anniversary of the protests
that began the revolution. And they called for the election of a
president by Feb. 11, one year after Mr. Mubarak left power.

A onetime civilian leader of the military-led transitional government,
Essam Sharaf, the former prime minister, added his voice to the calls
for the swift end of military rule. “Away from the language of
intimidation and mistrust, speeding up the transfer of all powers to a
civilian elected presidency is inevitable now,” he said in a statement,
noting that the military council has often professed to want to leave
power as soon as possible.