Egypt: reactions after the death of former president Hosni Mubarak

Text by: RFI Follow

Hosni Mubarak died on Tuesday February 25 in Cairo. A three-day national mourning was decreed in Egypt from this Wednesday. The former president will be treated with all the honors of a "hero of the nation".

Publicity

" Hero of the nation ". This is the term used by the Presidency of the Republic and the army command in their condolences to the family of Hosni Mubarak . Prayer and official ceremony will take place at the mosque of Marshal Tantawi. A place of worship from which leave the military funeral of all the very high ranking officers of the army.

Jurists had nevertheless estimated that Mubarak did not have the right to such a funeral since he had been definitively condemned in a corruption case . Others, however, responded with the text of a law granting exceptional treatment to the "heroes" of the 1973 Egyptian-Israeli war.

As for the media, radio, television and newspapers, they insisted on Hosni Mubarak, the aviation commander during the war with Israel. All have ignored the bloody repression of demonstrators in Tahrir Square. Social media, on the other hand, is a battleground between the pro-Mubarak, who are rather present on Facebook, and his detractors who describe him as " dictator ", generally on Twitter. " Mubarak is dead, but we will not forget " is a hashtag repeated almost ten thousand times, implying the crimes of the former Egyptian president.

The population reacts

In Cairo, reactions are mixed within the population, between the nostalgic and the former revolutionaries who brought down Mubarak in January 2011, explains our correspondent in Cairo , Nadia Blétry .

Mostafa Mohamed is a 45-year-old taxi driver and he still cannot believe the death of Hosni Mubarak. He turns the radio button to find an information channel: he has heard nowhere that Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian head of state, is dead. For him it is a shock: “ I am sad. The man had qualities and faults but frankly, I consider that it is not for us to criticize him. He was not a bad man. Now it's hard. Education is expensive and even daily life is expensive . "

A nostalgia that is not shared at all by this thirty-something seated in a shisha cafe in the city center, which belongs to the Tahrir generation, the one who overthrew the head of state in 2011.

“ At first, he confides, I did not feel concerned by the death of Mubarak. Until the moment when I started to compare the time of Mubarak and that of Sissi today. Frankly, Sissi is worse in terms of freedom of expression, human rights, economic situation. But in the end, we all know that Sissi is just a result of the Mubarak period. So it's the fault of the former head of state and it makes me hate him even more . "

The majority of Egyptians probably feel more concerned about their economic situation than the death of the former president, while the country has become poorer in the past five years.

The repression under Hosni Mubarak

The rais had ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 30 years. He had been ousted from power after the January 2011 revolution and the gigantic demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo against the corruption of the regime and against the violence of the state. Demonstrations which he had severely repressed. He was then released by the military and sentenced to life in prison for the death of more than 800 people, but ultimately acquitted.

Mohamed Lotfy heads the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedom. He lived through this repression and, according to him, the current regime applies an even more severe repression than under Hosni Mubarak: “ Thinking of Mubarak, we also think of today. And it is said that despite all the brutality and the dictatorship of Mubarak, the current regime which continues to govern Egypt is no less brutal than the regime of Mubarak, if not even more brutal. There are still many opponents behind bars. Many people from different human rights movements are still arrested today . "

For Mohamed Lotfy, all this is only the continuity of what Mubarak had established in his time. " The current regime is a continuation of a regime that dates back two decades, including the Mubarak period: consolidate this police state of Mubarak and strengthen it with measures even more brutal, even more violent and repressive than under Mubarak . Indeed, we continued in this same repressive policy, if not more, than what Mubarak was doing. Many people take the risk: they speak up and pay the price. I paid the price, others paid the price and we continue to pay the price. But it is our mission . "

An exiled Egyptian Muslim, Amr Darrag knew the prison when Hosni Mubarak was in power. He also believes that the situation has greatly deteriorated since the current president Abd Elfattah al Sissi is in power. According to him, " there is a continuity between the Mubarak period and the Sissi period. But the way of doing it is different. Mubarak was intelligent enough to tolerate certain freedoms, certain opinions and a certain freedom of the press. This left space for people to express their opinions and make their voices heard . "

Amr Darrag recognizes that the situation under Mubarak had limits so as not to threaten either the president or his regime. “ This is the balance that Mubarak has managed to maintain very well. But Sissi is different, his policy is to ensure control by total elimination. He eliminated all those who represented the slightest opposition to his power . "

The missed meeting with Africa

Hosni Mubarak's story began with an attachment to Africa before he even became president. Anouar al-Sadat entrusted to his vice-president Hosni Mubarak all the African missions. For 15 years, the Egyptian president was at all the major African conferences and summits. A decisive part of the negotiations which will lead to the end of apartheid in South Africa and the release of Nelson Mandella takes place in Cairo under the patronage of Mubarak.

But in 1995, during the African summit in Addis Ababa, Mubarak was the victim of an attack in the Ethiopian capital. Since then, the rais has shunned major African meetings, recalls our correspondent in Cairo , Alexandre Buccianti . All except the African Cup of Nations. Under his presidency, Egypt has won the prestigious championship five times and still not after his departure.

Tense relations with neighboring countries

Egypt, a large country in Africa, turned away from the continent for a long time in favor of relations with the countries of the Middle East , in particular during the Mubarak era. Robert Solé, a writer and journalist specializing in the country, recalls that relations were moreover strained during his presidency in the West with Libya by Muammar Gaddafi, in the South with the conflicts in Sudan, and even in Ethiopia, which built the large Renaissance dam on the Nile which threatens Egypt's water supply.

“ Egypt has two borders which are 1,200 kilometers each and which disturb it considerably. It's Sudan in the South and in the West, it's Libya. Mubarak was in trouble with Gaddafi and Libya, and with Sudan. So he tried in Sudan to play a mediator role between the two Sudan. It needed stability on its southern flank, but that was not far away . "

As for the Renaissance dam in Ethiopia, the problem arose at the end of the Mubarak presidency. " He has seen countries bordering the Nile coalesce against Egypt," continues Robert Solé. The dam was a mistake on the part of the Egyptians. They initially tried to prevent it, they did not succeed. They tried to delay it, it didn't work either. Then they realized that even Sudan was no longer on the Egyptian side, that Ethiopia benefited from numerous supports. There, it was a big failure of Mubarak from which the current president inherits . "

Hosni Mubarak seen by the West

Has the West turned a blind eye to Hosni Mubarak for too long? This dictator who repressed any discordant voice in his country was considered to be the guarantor of a certain stability in the region. Jean-Marc de la Sablière was the French ambassador to Cairo between 1996 and 2000, a time when France, under Jacques Chirac, had a very close and cordial relationship with Egypt. For this seasoned diplomat, a distinction must be made between the internal and external policies of Egypt during the reign of Rais Mubarak.

" In foreign policy, there were only tributes," emphasizes Jean-Marc de la Sablière. Remember, he was the wise man, the man who guaranteed peace. He had a very reasonable relationship with Israel, and that is something that is difficult to question. Now on the internal situation, we also tend to see things a little based on what happened in 2011. The pillar of the regime was the army and remains today the army. At the end, there was also a security trend where there was a lot of police excess. We had gone from a situation where there was not only repression, a fierce fight against the Muslim Brotherhood, but where in addition, in society, there was the feeling that the police were really abusing. "

The former French diplomat nevertheless wonders: " Is it up to the West to distribute good points? I say that we must be very wary of interference in internal affairs . "

► Read also: Tribute of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hosni Mubarak

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