Egypt crisis: protesters vow 'massive' demonstrations to dislodge defiant Hosni Mubarak

Furious Egyptian demonstrators have vowed to mount their biggest protests yet after President Hosni Mubarak dashed expectations by pledging once again to stay in office.

At the end of a dramatic day which saw the powerful army promise to give Egypt's protest movement all it wanted, raising hopes that the president would end his 30 year rule, Mr Mubarak instead said on television again that he would stay on till September.

The move enraged protesters and angered foreign powers, with the United States increasing international pressure on Mr Mubarak to quit.

After the president's speech, Barack Obama released a statement demanding an "unequivocal path toward genuine democracy" in Egypt, which has long been supported by massive US aid.

"The Egyptian people have been told that there was a transition of authority, but it is not yet clear that this transition is immediate, meaningful or sufficient," he said.

"Too many Egyptians remain unconvinced that the government is serious about a genuine transition to democracy, and it is the responsibility of the government to speak clearly to the Egyptian people and the world."

By Adrian Blomfield, and Nick Meo in Cairo 8:07AM GMT 11 Feb 2011

The Telegraph

Mubarak family fortune could reach $70bn, say experts

Egyptian president has cash in British and Swiss banks plus UK and US property

President Hosni Mubarak's family fortune could be as much as $70bn (£43.5bn) according to analysis by Middle East experts, with much of his wealth in British and Swiss banks or tied up in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles and along expensive tracts of the Red Sea coast.

After 30 years as president and many more as a senior military official, Mubarak has had access to investment deals that have generated hundreds of millions of pounds in profits. Most of those gains have been taken offshore and deposited in secret bank accounts or invested in upmarket homes and hotels.

According to a report last year in the Arabic newspaper Al Khabar, Mubarak has properties in Manhattan and exclusive Beverly Hills addresses on Rodeo Drive.

His sons, Gamal and Alaa, are also billionaires. A protest outside Gamal's ostentatious home at 28 Wilton Place in Belgravia, central London, highlighted the family's appetite for western trophy assets.

Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton University, said the estimate of $40bn-70bn was comparable with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries.

"The business ventures from his military and government service accumulated to his personal wealth," she told ABC news. "There was a lot of corruption in this regime and stifling of public resources for personal gain.

"This is the pattern of other Middle Eastern dictators so their wealth will not be taken during a transition. These leaders plan on this."

Al Khabar said it understood the Mubaraks kept much of their wealth offshore in the Swiss bank UBS and the Bank of Scotland, part of Lloyds Banking Group, although this information could be at least 10 years old.

There are only sketchy details of exactly where the Mubaraks have generated their wealth and its final destination.

Christopher Davidson, professor of Middle East politics at Durham University, said Mubarak, his wife, Suzanne, and two sons were able to accumulate wealth through a number of business partnerships with foreign investors and companies, dating back to when he was in the military and in a position to benefit from corporate corruption.

He said most Gulf states required foreigners give a local business partner a 51% stake in start-up ventures. In Egypt, the figure is commonly nearer 20%, but still gives politicians and close allies in the military a source of huge profits with no initial outlay and little risk.

"Almost every project needs a sponsor and Mubarak was well-placed to take advantage of any deals on offer," he said.

"Much of his money is in Swiss bank accounts and London property. These are the favourites of Middle Eastern leaders and there is no reason to think Mubarak is any different. Gamal's Wilton Place home is likely to be the tip of the iceberg."

Al Khabar named a series of major western companies that, partnered with the Mubarak family, generated an estimated $15m a year in profits.

Aladdin Elaasar, author of The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age, said the Mubaraks own several residences in Egypt, some inherited from previous presidents and the monarchy, and others the president has commissioned.

Hotels and land around the Sharm el-Sheikh tourist resort are also a source of Mubarak family wealth.

• Phillip Inman
• guardian.co.uk

Mubarak: 'If I Resign Today There Will Be Chaos

He told me that he is troubled by theviolence we have seen in Tahrir Squareover the last few days but that his government is not responsible for it. Instead, he blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned political party here in Egypt.

Tune in for a special one-hour "Nightline" with ABC News' Christiane Amanpour reporting from Cairo TONIGHT at 11:35 p.m. ET.

He said he's fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot, he says, for fear that the country would sink into chaos.

I asked President Mubarak about the violence that his supporters launched against the anti-government protestors in Liberation Square.

He told me, "I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other."

When I asked him what he thought seeing the people shouting insults about him and wanting him gone, he said, "I don't care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about Egypt."

I asked how he felt after giving the speech Monday night, saying he would not run for president again, and he told me he felt relief.

For now, Mubarak remains in the presidential palace with his family, heavily guarded by armed troops, tanks and barbed wire. We were joined by his son Gamal, who was once widely considered to be his successor. Mubarak told me it was never his intention to have his son follow him into office.

And he pledged his loyalty to Egypt. "I would never run away," he said, "I will die on this soil." He also defended his legacy, recounting the many years he has spent leading his country.

While he described President Obama as a very good man, he wavered when I asked him if he felt the U.S. had betrayed him. When I asked him how he responded to the United States' veiled calls for him to step aside sooner rather than later, he said he told President Obama, "You don't understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now."

He told me, "I never intended to run again. I never intended Gamal to be President after me."

Gamal, his son, was sitting in the room with us as he said this.

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
BY CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR

Feb. 3, 2011

ABC news

Egypt's real state of emergency is its repressed democracy

Egypt has recently held yet another fraudulent and farcical election. Ballot boxes were stuffed. Votes were bought. People who considered voting for the opposition were subjected to violence by professional thugs. And these transgressions have been well documented by human rights groups.

Democracy must mean more than merely going through the motions.

In theory, Egypt has a constitution and laws that reflect the will of its people. But in reality, the provisions are a hodgepodge that perpetuates the iron grip of the ruling regime. President Hosni Mubarak enjoys imperial powers. There is no legislative oversight of the military budget. No more than five people are permitted to assemble without permission to stage a peaceful demonstration. Universities have security forces on campus to ensure that students do not engage in political activities.

A recent constitutional amendment has made it almost impossible for an independent actor to run for president. Any candidate who is not a member of an officially sanctioned party is forbidden to have a headquarters or to raise funds. Political activists are often blocked from renting venues for meetings. In the 12 months since I began campaigning for reform in Egypt, I have received a flood of requests for interviews, but after the recent crackdown on the media hardly any local TV stations have dared to express interest in talking to me.

In theory, Egypt has multiple political parties. In practice, establishing such a party requires permission from a committee dominated by the National Democratic Party (NDP) - the political machine that has kept Mubarak in power since 1981. And any new party must exist for five years before it can field a presidential candidate.

In theory, Egypt has an elected president. But over the past half-century, the country has had only three rulers. There were differences in their style and vision, but all have presided over an authoritarian and repressive political system. For the past 29 years, Egyptian society has existed under a draconian "state of emergency," a tool that has allowed the president to suspend basic constitutional protections and that has been used to detain, torture and sometimes kill those who dare to dissent.

In theory, Egypt has a democratically elected parliament. In practice, one-third of the members of its upper house are appointed by the president. Of the 508 seats, 440 are held by members of the NDP. In no way is the Egyptian parliament representative of the Egyptian people. Although about 10 percent of Egyptians are Coptic Christians, the Copts hold only 3 seats in parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood, a religious movement that managed to win 20 percent of the seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections, was shut out of the November elections and now holds no seats. The Wafd, the largest liberal party, won six seats. Both boycotted the run-off vote because of the substantial fraud committed and documented during the first-round voting last month.

In theory, Egypt has a court system; in fact, legal decisions are often ignored when they run contrary to government policy.

Egypt's economic and social fabric continues to deterioriate. Despite annual growth in gross domestic product of 5 to 6 percent the past few years, there has been little to no trickle-down effect. The obscene gap between rich and poor worsens daily. The middle class has all but disappeared. More than 40 percent of Egyptians live on less than $2 per day. Nearly 30 percent are illiterate - a sad commentary for the culture that, more than 2,000 years ago, gave the world the Library of Alexandria. In Cairo, a mega-city of more than 15 million, half the population lives in shantytowns next to gated communities that rival the opulence in Southern California.

Egypt urgently needs a new beginning. The voices of dissent are growing in number. We come from many orientations, from different vocations, from different parts of society, from different faiths. But we speak with a single voice in seeking social justice. We demand an accountable and transparent system of government, with meaningful checks and balances. We want economic opportunity for all Egyptians and the right to live in dignity and freedom. Together we are organizing around peaceful change. The international community ought to support our struggle for freedom and hold Egypt to its international commitments with respect to human rights. The rights of the Egyptian people should not be trampled in exchange for an elusive promise of stability.

The present pseudo-stability based on repression is a ticking bomb that is dangerously close to exploding. Lasting stability in Egypt, as in any nation, will come only through genuine democracy that responds fairly to the needs and aspirations of all its people.

By Mohamed ElBaradei

© The Washington Post

ًًWikileaks

Wikileaks: The Egyptian army did not want the son succeeds father

Long denied, both by President Hosni Mubarak as his heir apparent, Gamal Mubarak's ambition, 47 years, one day succeed his father as head of the Egyptian state, now seems almost certain. Powered in 2002 by his father as head of the instances of National Democratic Party (NDP), almost single party that presides over the destinies of Egypt for thirty years, Gamal Mubarak, a banker by profession, received in August, a poster campaign to glory in the big cities.

The script that runs the newsroom of Cairo would be: Hosni Mubarak is to the presidency in October 2011, elected then it is obviously one or two years later, the Rais, who would then have 84 or 85 years, is retired for health reasons and to ensure that the army, the main internal power, is not opposed to the coronation of his youngest son.

"A TYPE THAT DOES NOT EVEN COMPLETED HIS MILITARY SERVICE"

This scenario of dynastic succession, long ago that U.S. diplomats stationed in Egypt are working. In a confidential telegram of May 2007, obtained by Wikileaks and revealed by Le Monde , U.S. Ambassador Francis Joseph Ricciardone, the only one who dares to call in his writings of the Egyptian regime "dictatorship" , notes that already "the machine of PND can well, in time, organize an electoral victory "[for Gamal Mubarak].

Certainly, he notes, other potential candidate to succeed the Rais, Omar Suleiman , the intelligence chief, who hoped, there are still a few years, be appointed Vice-President [Mubarak, in power thirty years, is the first Egyptian ruler to never have appointed vice-president], "hates the idea of a President Gamal" . It is apparently not alone.

An Egyptian political analyst, received anonymously by the U.S. Chancery in September 2008, told the new ambassador, Margaret Scobey , that "the power base of Gamal is focused on the business community, not the military" . The army, which "must not forget is the true center of power in Egypt" - all the presidents of Egypt since the overthrow of the monarchy emerged from its ranks - do not like Gamal, "a type which has not even completed his compulsory military service " , noted another memo, whose ambitions and liberal reformists, including privatization, threaten its vested interests.

MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS: A RECIPE FOR CHAOS "

Under certain conditions, eg if Hosni Mubarak died before he could devote his son,"it is not impossible that the military refused to adouber Gamal and prefer a coup" , wrote already in 2007 Ambassador Ricciardone. Nothing has fundamentally changed since.
On January 6, 2008, Mubarak father evokes Chancery American qualities of his favorite son: "He's a perfectionist, an idealist always punctual" says Rais. Point, perhaps, but not with his promises.

Since 2005, Gamal Mubarak promised the Americans that every year "next year" , Egypt enact specific anti-terrorism legislation to "stop" the annual renewal of a state of emergency is an opportunity for various Egyptian security forces ( "1.4 million men" , according to another memo), to arrest and imprison about who they want and for as long they want. This law, enacted in 1967, has still not been amended. It is true that in October 2005, already the youngest President told his U.S. interlocutors that a reform of presidential elections to multiple candidates was, he said, "a recipe for chaos" .

Patrice Claude - Le Monde