Story Time: a Tale of the Egyptian vampires (II)
Back to the days of Pharaoh, the king, and his entourages perished in the red sea and the people once again led a peaceful life. But then, many years after, several subsequent tyrannical Pharaohs would re-emerge like vampires, seeming to continue the action of the previous.
Such was the era of Gen. Gamal Abdel Nasser and his breeds of malevolent misanthropes after the revolution that overthrew the monarchy in 1952. Nasser’s reign was aptly described as the return of the Pharaoh for his brutal clamp down on the masses, particularly members of the Muslim Brotherhood (his perceived enemy) and the organization in general. The Brotherhood’s offense, perhaps was that it denied Nasser of support during his power struggle with Mohammad Naguib in 1954. Nasser faked an assassination attempt and used this as a pretense to massively and ferociously wipe out the Muslim Brotherhood. Not less 4000 members of the society were imprisoned with severe torture; several others were sentenced to death by various means and many others (including ordinary civilians who had no link with the brotherhood) were forcefully suppressed and killed during protests. If cruelty has a meaning, then its most manifest definition must be the Nasserite era in Egypt. The widespread jubilation at the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970 was a testimony to this. This vampiric trend continued from Nasser to Sadat and to Mubarak with increasing westernization and eternal influence.
Returning to July 2013, (read part I here: https://steemit.com/politics/@yussufayodele/story-time-a-tale-of-the-egyptian-vampires-i) in the serial conspiracy, political quagmire and build up to the coup, the military issued an ultimatum on July 1, 2013, giving the president 48 hours to resolve his differences with the opposition, failing which it will impose its own solution. But since when did the military become a mouthpiece of the opposition. The answer was in the leaked evidence, according to the Wall Steet Journal that opposition leaders, including Mohamed ElBaradei, held several clandestine meetings with the army leaders in November 2012, in order to discuss ways of removing President Morsi. There were also leaked audio tapes capturing el-Sisi discussing the rigging of the legal case against Morsi and the planning of the organized mass protests prior to the coup using the Tamarod group as a camouflage.
The military’s ultimatum was therefore not a surprise to Morsi and his supporters. The military had used the several opposition-sponsored protests (seeming to depict the president as autocratic and painting scenes of mass suffering and unrest) as vindication of its action. An example was the June 30 protest organized by Tamarod – the military public tool seen as anti-Morsi. The army claimed the protest had 14 million attendants and that it had collated 22 million signatures from a petition calling for Morsi to step down as president. These were later found to be false figures made up by the coup plotters.
The ultimatum passed and Morsi was placed under house arrest on July3. El-Sisi announced Adly Mansour as the interim head on July 4, 2013. This was followed by clashes between the Tamarod and pro-Morsi supporters on July 5 leaving 36 of the former dead. On July 28, Egyptian soldiers opened fire on pro-Morsi demonstrators staging a sit-in in front of the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo (where Morsi was detained) killing more than 50. With the backing of the military, Adly Monsour sworn in opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei…….. Mission accomplished!
