They call it Democracy – backed by the guns of market hungry military profiteers, their brow smeared the blood of the poor

Egypt military orders rival crowds to quit palace area
6 December, 2012 – By Marwa Awad and Edmund Blair – Reuters

CAIRO: Egypt’s Republican Guard ordered rival demonstrators to leave the area around the presidential palace in Cairo on Thursday after fierce overnight clashes that killed seven people.

Islamist supporters of President Mohamed Mursi withdrew, but the opposition promised more protests there.

The presidency announced that the Republican Guard, whose duties include protecting the palace, had set a 3 p.m. (1300 GMT) deadline for supporters and opponents of Mursi to quit an area they had turned into a battleground.

The military played a big role in removing President Hosni Mubarak during last year’s popular revolt, taking over to manage a transitional period, but had stayed out of the latest crisis.

Mursi’s Islamist partisans had fought opposition protesters well into the early hours during duelling demonstrations over the president’s decision last month to expand his powers to help him push through a mostly Islamist-drafted constitution.

A Reuters witness said the hundreds of Mursi supporters who had camped overnight near the palace perimeter left before the military deadline passed. Dozens of Mursi’s foes remained, but were kept away by a barbed wire barricade guarded by tanks.

An official of the opposition National Salvation Front, who asked not to be named, said more protests would take place.

“We are planning marches later today, most probably taking off from Tahrir Square, disregarding the Republican Guard’s decision. We had many injuries last night, and we are not going to have their blood wasted.”

The commander of the Guard, which has deployed tanks and armoured troop carriers to help police pacify the area, said the intention was to separate the adversaries, not to repress them.

“The armed forces, and at the forefront of them the Republican Guard, will not be used as a tool to oppress the demonstrators,” General Mohamed Zaki told the state news agency.

Mursi himself, silent in the turbulence of the last few days, will address the nation later in the day, state television quoted a presidential adviser as saying.

The president discussed how to stabilise Egypt with the army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is also defence minister, and cabinet ministers, the presidency said.

After the sustained clashes of Wednesday night, the streets around the palace were much calmer in the morning, apart from a brief bout of rock-throwing between the hundreds of Islamists and dozens of opposition partisans still at the scene.
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