mubarak / marcos / endgame

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he will not run for a new term in office in September elections, but rejected demands that he step down immediately and leave the country, vowing to die on Egypt’s soil, in a television address Tuesday after a dramatic day in which a quarter-million protesters called on him to go.

Mubarak said he would serve out the rest of his term working to ensure a “peaceful transfer of power” and carry out amendments to rules on presidential elections.

in feb 86 marcos too was loathe to go.   until the very last minute marcos was trying to convince enrile to return to the fold.   the last phone call was feb 25 past 8 a.m.   enrile was getting ready to leave camp crame for cory’s inauguration in club filipino.   marcos suggested a provisional government that enrile would lead, but he marcos would stay on as honorary president.   huling hirit kumbaga.

President Obama, clearly frustrated by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s intention to retain his hold on power until elections later this year, said Tuesday evening that he has told Mubarak that a transition to representative government “must begin now.”

In brief remarks at the White House, Obama made no mention of Mubarak’s announcement that he had decided not to stand for reelection. Instead, Obama said he had told the Egyptian president in a telephone call that this was a “moment of transformation” in Egypt and that “the status quo is not sustainable.”

president reagan too was loathe to publicly and directly ask marcos to resign.   early in the morning of feb 24 he sent a private message that the marcoses would be welcome in the u.s.   also he gave instructions that marcos be “approached carefully” and “asked rather than told” to depart.   it was not until 7:30 in the evening that the white house finally “endorsed the provisional government of Mrs. Corazon Aquino, abandoning a 20-year ally in Mr. Marcos for the sake of a ‘peaceful transition’ in the Philippines.” . . . “Attempts to prolong the life of the present regime by violence are futile. A solution to this crisis can only be achieved through a peaceful transition to a new government.”

Angry demonstrators, fed up with Mubarak’s three-decade rule, jeered at the president’s remarks while watching his speech on TV in Tahrir Square on Tuesday night and chanted that he should go immediately.

Senior Egyptian opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei, who has expressed readiness to lead the country’s popular uprising, has said that the people’s message is clear and they want Mubarak out now and not in September.

After Mubarak’s address, the protesters said that this Friday would be the “Friday of departure” for the president and announced that they would be gathering at his palace on Friday afternoon.

in feb 86 while the coryistas were still focused on shielding the edsa camps from marcos forces, leftist groups, acting on the false alarm that the marcoses were gone, had moved on to mendiola, only to find that the rumors were false.   but it was these militants who baited soldiers to fire warning shots, which freaked out the marcoses who thought that the edsa crowds were coming to attack the palace.  (the coryistas came too but only after cory’s inauguration.) and so they started making plans to move out and asked the americans for transpo to get to paoay.   but paoay’s airport had no lights so they had to make a stopover in clark that night.   which gave the new government time to consider the implications of allowing marcos to get to paoay.   in the end cory ordered that the marcoses be flown out of the philippines to prevent further civil unrest.

yes, a nonviolent seige on the pharaoh’s palace, it’s time.

Comments

  1. UP nn grad

    Bert: that is what a few academic and other leaders of Egypt (and Tunisia) are studying the Philippines for. They want to know what Pilipinas did so Egypt can avoid it — where, after ousting Marcos, lo and behold the sons and daughters and cousins and uncles — wives, too Imelda!!! — in fact the same oligarchs and “magic names” are back in positions of power. Worse of course is the pervasiveness of corruption, poverty, joblessness, criminality. Egypt/Tunisia wants to avoid where democracy movement stumbles, wasting the opportunities!

  2. hmm parang they should have first studied how we succeeded in getting rid of marcos. there are key components. kailangan merong leaders ang oposisyon, with some sense of governance and central issues. yung failure after, when the same oligarchs reincarnated, iba pang course yon, advanced course na yon.

  3. UP nn grad

    How Mubarak transitions out of Egypt is still unclear. There are signs that the Egyptian Generals on both sides — constabulary/national Police and “regular”-army — have shaken hands. Truckloads of pro-Mubarak drove into Cairo passing several checkpoints manned by the regular army; then the pro-Mubarak surged into the civilians still demonstrating in Egypt, and this time, the Egyptian regular army did not do a thing.

    The civilians are also now seeing that the Egyptian National Police joining the regular army manning checkpoints.

  4. yes it looks like mubarak sicced his people (some of them his police in plainclothes?) on the people who want him out while the military watches, dedma. those guys on horse- and camel-back were a sight to see. ano yon, crowd-dispersal kuno. mubarak doesnt want to go. israel must like that. obama’s in a real fix.

  5. The Egyptian people are in a fix, used to the good life, now between the devil and the deep blue sea, they have a choice to make…Mubarak and his ilk, or, the Islamist and the Muslim Brotherhood.

    The choice is easy to make.

    In the Philippines, there is no Islamist nor Muslim Brotherhood.

    But, there are sharks and CROCODILES.

    And the sharks and crocodiles are wily, and the people naive, and so, they ousted Marcos.

    The rest was history.

  6. UP nn grad

    The Egypt/Mubarak happening should make people re-think the original EDSA people power. Egypt’s People Power is better than Pilipinas People Power because Egypt’s People Power is all-people as catalyst. No bishop or mullah making a call to the streets, the people-power-Egypt was people — no Enrile, no Ramos. The “best” they have – El Baridei — is an expat. His attractiveness is “neutral” versus “leader”.

    Pilipinas EDSA/PeoplePower was people rushing to the streets because Enrile/Ramos were under siege AND because RadioVeritas made a call to arms.

  7. ahh that’s the mainstream edsa narrative. people power didn’t rush to the streets at the call of the cardinal, or enrile-ramos who had illusions of leading a ruling junta. not on day one anyway. day two na sila sumugod, yes to protect the defectors, but they were wearing cory’s colors. enrile eventually had to give way to cory bec its what the people wanted. that was infinitely better than whats going on in egypt. where people power is leaderless and wont unite behind elbaradei whom they don’t now too well pala

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