According to many international dispatches including a report by CNN, the protesters were peaceful and unarmed. A Guardian report stated, "The protesters were peaceful, and included many women and children." The pro-coup Egyptian television media, embedded with the army, broadcast several caches of arms to show that the protesters were not peaceful, only to be exposed that such arms were brought by the police to be "discovered."
Contrary to Gen. Ibrahim's claims, the police never used loud speakers or water cannons. They immediately started shooting the unarmed protesters with live bullets. European human rights observer Ahmad Mufreh, offered his vivid testimony on live television, asserting that the police started shooting at people with the intent to kill. In fact, the police never meant to provide safe passage; those who chose to leave through it were brutally beaten and immediately arrested.
By noon, the army and the police had breached the defenses of the Nahda Square and brutally cleared its protesters. However, it was not until 6 PM that they were able to assert full control over the Rabaa Al-Adawiyya mosque. The security officers then took down protesters' signs and banners and burned down their tents, even though many corpses were still inside. Dr. Ahmad Muhammad, a surgeon operating at Rabaa's field hospital, told Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr that he and other doctors were ordered to immediately leave or they would be shot, forcing him to abandon the patient he had been operating on and leaving him to die.
Another witness, Sameh Al-Barghy, an MB opponent and a graduate of American University in Cairo, told Al-Jazeera that although he had not been at the protest and was opposed to it in principle, he had gone to help shortly after he heard about the security crackdown. As his voice cracked, he said that he had witnessed a horrific massacre, when a group of protesters hiding in a building under construction was chased down by the security forces. He said that the police had entered the building and shot at point blank those who were hiding in the first two floors, before arresting the rest. Another witness said that he had seen two bystanders being shot in front of his eyes by the police without any provocation.
Another doctor at the field hospital at Rabaa mosque said on Al-Jazeera that he counted more than 2,600 bodies including 65 children. Asmaa El-Beltagy, the 17-year-old daughter of MB leader Mohammad El-Beltagy was among the casualties. Later in the evening, MB spokesperson Ahmad Aref proclaimed that over three thousand people had been killed on that day across Egypt, and that as many as ten thousand were injured, many seriously. The brutality and viciousness of the military crackdown is plain to see in the images captured in the links above and disseminated around the world. At least half a dozen journalists were also killed, including Sky News cameraman Mick Deane, and Gulf News reporter Habiba Abdelaziz. According to multiple witnesses, once in control, the security forces burned down the field hospital, the media center, and tents where the protesters' corpses were laid to hide the military's crimes.
To add insult to injury, the government has refused to hand over the bodies of the killed until their families sign a document that stated that the cause of death was "natural." In many cases the coroner left the cause of death blank. Many families refused to comply with such immoral request leaving many corpses unclaimed and in danger of decomposition. As human rights and civil liberties organizations around the world such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch strongly condemned the massacre in Egypt, the Arab Organization for Human Rights, dominated by secular and liberal elites strangely enough blamed the MB for the bloodbath.
What next? Back to Revolution 101
It is inconceivable that Gen. Sisi, Gen. Ibrahim, their civilian enablers, Western backers, and the perpetrators of these war crimes and crimes against humanity did not know or anticipate the degree of the carnage. Upon embarking on the coup, its leaders were determined to strike a fatal blow to the Islamists, particularly the MB. Each had its own motives. The secular liberals recognized that they could not win in free and fair elections against the Islamists in future elections after their successive defeats at the ballot box during the past two years. Thus, excluding or weakening the Islamists would allow the liberal and nationalist parties the space needed to occupy the political landscape for the foreseeable future.
Mubarak loyalists and elements of the deep state were eager to exact revenge against the MB, their staunch historical foes for the past three decades, for ousting them from power in the 2011 uprising. They were not only able to marginalize and subdue their opponents, but also made a successful comeback in their own right. Ironically, within 30 months, the counterrevolutionaries have now become the face of the revolution. They hope that June 30, the day of their comeback, will now replace January 25, the day of their ouster.
The army considers itself the defender of the nation and its institutions and wants to retain its economic and social privileges. It does not want to subject itself to any meaningful civilian oversight. The precedent set by the January 2011 uprising, they reasoned, might one day weaken the military or even compel it to give up its privileged status in society, as their counterparts in Turkey eventually had to do. The generals waited for the right moment to strike and end the public's dalliance with democracy in order to delay, if not altogether end, the coming of that dreadful day when they become accountable to the people.
Many youth groups were disillusioned and frustrated with all parties. They were able to throw out the face of Mubarak's repressive and corrupt regime. But given their disappointment and impatience with the slow progress, they thought they could just as easily get rid of what they perceived as the arrogance or incompetence of the MB. In the process, they naively not only handed back control to the military, but also made the dream of establishing a genuine democratic system based on the rule of law ever more distant. The army appointed a 77-year-old puppet prime minister, and a cabinet largely composed of Mubarak loyalists. Out of 25 governors, the military appointed 19 generals including many Mubarak-era officials. To the military, taming and controlling the population was its top priority. So much for the promise of empowering the youth.
Liberals such as Mohammad ElBaradei convinced themselves that they could ally with the military at the expense of their ideological foes, the Islamists, instead of democratically competing at the ballot box. Soon, ElBaradei awoke to the hard reality that brute force and violence is the military's preferred tool to settle disputes, not the messy compromises of democracy. The Nobel peace laureate then had to resign in disgrace. His fellow peace laureate Barack Obama did not fare better. He also failed the democracy litmus test by not condemning the coup when it was announced or standing up firmly for democracy and the rule of law. However, the day after the bloodshed, Obama condemned the violence, which he said the interim government and security forces were responsible for. The statement was a step in the right direction, even though it was not strong enough, since it equivocated on its support for the restoration of the constitution and the democratically-elected deposed president.
Foreign powers care very little for Egypt or its people. Time and again, the West has proven that its rhetoric of lofty ideals and values are sacrificed at the altar of short-term interests. Historically, the U.S. has often been more concerned about the security of Israel than serving its own long-term interests. Israel had considered Mubarak a strategic asset for three decades. It was the main reason the U.S. had to prop him up at the expense of supporting and building democratic institutions in the country. If Israel or its supporters in the U.S. favored Sisi and feared the ascendance of the Islamists, the U.S. would most likely then favor the military over the democratic will of the Egyptian people regardless of the consequences, which would actually put the long-term U.S. national security interests in the region in peril.
Both Secretary of State John Kerry and EU Foreign Chief Catherine Ashton had expressed reservations about the intervention by the Egyptian military chief. But when it mattered most, they accepted its aftermath. When the government cracked down using bloody tactics comparable to Libya's Gadhafi or Syria's Assad, Western governments were restrained in their criticism. When the pro-coup government declared a state of emergency after the crackdown, instead of rejecting it outright, the West shamefully accepted it hoping that "it would be lifted soon." To be credible, the call for the UN Security Council by several Western countries must include the referral of Egypt's coup leaders to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face the charge of crimes against humanity. There is a ample evidence already assembled on the Internet and through live witnesses to prove this heinous crime.
The ruthlessness of the coup and the brutality of the crackdown have solidified in the eyes of the Islamists and many pro-democracy Egyptians the immense challenges they face. The January 25 uprising was not a complete revolution. The revolutionary partners handed it over to the military, which was eventually able to assemble the political building blocks needed to restore the old coalition of the military and the deep state at the expense of the real objectives of the revolution.
Undoubtedly, the military coup has veered Egypt off the democracy track. The most effective way to get back on it is for ordinary Egyptians from all political strands to once again descend to the streets by the millions to challenge the authoritarianism and brutality of the state. Egyptians must reclaim their revolutionary zeal. They must also aspire to regain their unity: Muslims and Christians, men and women, young and old. The defining factor should be a true and genuine commitment to democratic principles and the rule of law. That means an absolute rejection of the military coup and the army's intervention in politics, as well the purging of all corrupt elements of the deep state. That entails an absolute repudiation of any sectarian conflict.
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