Military rule in Egypt
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 14/02/2011
Reporter: Ben Knight
Hosni Mubarak's 30 year regime has ended and power has been handed over to the military. The new rulers say that their rule is temporary and will only last until democratic elections are held - but civil rights groups have say that protesters have been detained and tortured by the army.
Transcript
HEATHER EWART, PRESENTER: Now to Egypt's tentative new dawn. After 18 days of pro-democracy demonstrations, President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year regime is over, leaving the military in charge. The generals say their rule is temporary and will only last until democratic elections are held, which could be as soon as six months away.
But with civil rights groups claiming scores of protesters have been detained by the Army and some are being tortured, the question now is whether the military will keep their word. The ABC's Middle East correspondent Ben Knight reports from Cairo.
BEN KNIGHT, REPORTER: The most important thing to know about the Egyptian Army is that apart from being the biggest military force in the Middle East, it's also Egypt's biggest and richest business conglomerate.
Behind the tanks and the guns, it has massive interests in manufacturing, agriculture and real estate. It owns resort hotels and factories that make everything from cars to dishwashers to olive oil.
Some estimates say it makes up more than 10 per cent of the country's economy.
And if these soldiers rise high enough in the ranks, they know they'll be rewarded for their loyalty with a healthy slice of the action.
The military has been the power behind the throne for 60 years.
TARIQ OSMAN, AUTHOR, 'EGYPT ON THE BRINK': People say the regime has fallen. I argue the President has fell; the regime has not. Because the regime that has ruled Egypt for the past 60 years is still, or has been, the military establishment, which continues to control the situation today in Egypt. So effectively the structure's the same.
BEN KNIGHT: And it has the most to lose if Egypt moves to a democratic system of government. So why is it that the Egyptian people are so prepared to let the Army take over their revolution, and why do they trust them to keep their promises? Well, not everyone does.
MOHAMMED SIRAGH: The people lost some confidence in the Army, especially since Wednesday and Thursday when the lynch mob - basically the doors were open for the lynch mob to come and attack the people here in Tahrir (inaudible) and they continued supporting the President until now.
BEN KNIGHT: Mohammed Siragh was helping his fellow protesters clean up Tahrir Square on the weekend, but unlike most of them, he's not planning on leaving just yet.
MOHAMMED SIRAGH: So we wanna see the process beginning so that we have tranquillity in our hearts, that we can leave (inaudible). Everyone knows that if anything goes wrong or if they try to do any snake work, we're gonna come right back.
BEN KNIGHT: It's hard to overstate just how popular the Army is in Egypt. Most importantly, it's never turned its guns on the people, and in the Middle East, that's a proud claim to make. Egyptians have long felt that if their government ever turned on them, it would be the Army that saves them. So when the police disappeared from the streets in January and the Army arrived, they were welcomed as heroes.
These are the real men, the biggest sacrifices. The heroes.
BEN KNIGHT: Some individual soldiers even joined the protests. But the beginning of the end for Hosni Mubarak was when the Army commanders publicly supported the people's demands and promised not to fire on them. Now, it's over, and long-time democracy activists like Hisham Kassem still can't quite believe it's happened.
HISHAM KASSEM: I'm still absorbing it. I still am. I choke sometimes when I think about it. Amazing. I've always worked hard for this, but today, for the first time in my life, I'm proud to be Egyptian. I really am. I love the way we did it. Peaceful.
BEN KNIGHT: Hisham Kassem was the publisher of Egypt's largest daily newspaper until 2006, but for 20 the years he's been one of the few vocal opponents of the Mubarak regime. So, does he trust the Army to keep its word?
HISHAM KASSEM: I do, yes. The only other option is bloodshed. If the military try and stay in power, you know, as a de facto governing council, my forecast or my analysis, definitely not. It's too much, it's not something anybody can handle, you see? It just won't pass by. Egypt has changed after January 25.
BEN KNIGHT: But the Army's leadership has not. Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi is 80 years old, and as head of the Army, he also chairs the military council that will now rule Egypt until it holds democratic elections. Again, he seems an unlikely choice. Leaked cables have described him as Mubarak's poodle, resistant to change and without the energy or world view to do anything other than maintain the status quo.
Yet four times in the past week, he's promised the Egyptian people that all of their demands will be met and on time.
Tariq Osman believes the Army will simply be unable to go against the momentum for change.
TARIQ OSMAN: It is supported by tens of millions in the massive block, demographic block of the Egyptian middle class; a clash, even if it's only psychological clash between the military and these aspirations of the millions of the middle class, in my view is unlikely.
BEN KNIGHT: Egyptians might seem comfortable with the huge change they're about to undertake, but some of their neighbours are not. In Israel, the talk has all been about what happens when the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood becomes the next ruling party of Egypt.
HISHAM KASSEM: I can't tell you how much time I spent explaining, OK?, to different American administrations, diplomats, etc. that that is not the case, that the Brotherhood have been trying to get to power for 82 years and they have failed. That they are there because Mubarak is preventing people like me from going out on the streets, OK? That they're working through mosques. Mubarak was not able to close mosques so that became the clear, visible opposition of Mubarak.
BEN KNIGHT: But he says Israel can stop worrying that its peace treaty with Egypt is about to be torn up.
HISHAM KASSEM: We will prove to the world, OK?, that this is not a radically Islamic country, that we refuse to be identified politically as Muslims, OK? This is our religion, not our political affiliation. And, um, ah, I guess that's the only way we're going to defuse that fear.
BEN KNIGHT: But for Egyptians like Mohammed Siragh, the focus will be much closer to home.
MOHAMMED SIRAGH: And so we wanna make sure that the corruption is not going to seep back in and destroy what we've done so far. So we wanna maintain our strength and momentum to make sure that nothing will seep through the cracks.
HEATHER EWART: Ben Knight with that report from Cairo.