Egyptian Chronicles: Actually it is incriminating Mubarak

Hala Sarhan is back , oh yes she is back with her new show Nassbook on the new channel Rotana Masrya this week. She is back in a very tough competition in the Egyptian talk show night race that became even more powerful the TV series marathon in Ramadan. She is back and she showed yesterday a video that will force the media to speak about her and her show for the next couple of days.

In yesterday’s episode of her show Sarhan’s guest human rights lawyer Amir Salem revealed that a group of activists found the recordings of ERTVU building’s CCTV since January 25th till February 20th. What is this unique about these recordings is that we are allegedly speaking about CCTV cameras monitoring the streets around the the building in this critical time.

Hala Sarhan : Alleged ERTVU CCTV videos

I do not understand that scene in the beginning.Is that at the entrance of Maspero !? On what day that took place !?

Allegedly according to Mr. Salem the head of the news sector Abdel Latif El Manawy destroyed these recording on February 20th but fortunately there was a back up and he got it from honest employees in the surveillance department. We are speaking allegedly here about not less 500 GB.

Of course there are important questions we have to ask :

Why did he wait all that time to show these ?
Why did not the employees of ERTVU speak about these CCTV recordings before !?
Why was there a montage !? These clips should have been aired as raw.
We can’t be sure from the time stamp though in some clips because there are not cleared.

Now one of these videos showed the procession of camels and horses heading to Tahrir square on the sad February 2nd ,2011 with the knowledge of the Republican guards that let them pass so easily. This clip brought back the discussion of the SCAF and army’s involvement in that bloody battle especially their negative neutrality and the infamous debate of Hassan El-Rawany , the commander of the centralized Zone “ Cairo and Giza” with the doctors at Tahrir on February 3rd,2011.

That clip of February 2nd,2011 are incriminating former president Mubarak . Now allegedly the presidential guards division was protecting the TV building due to its importance. It is logic that the presidential guard would protect that building because Mubarak was scared at that time from an attempt to control it. The video clip shows that the presidential guard soldiers allowing the camels and horses to pass in their way to Tahrir square at Maspero building while protecting it. The question why did not the soldiers stop them !? Some would say that their only mission was to protect Maspero and I will answer and say ok why did not they shoot in the air two shots to stop that procession from advancing !?

Now why can this clip incriminate Mubarak !? Well simply despite presidential guards division is considered a part of the Egyptian army it follows directly the orders of the Egyptian president. Its commander follows the Egyptian president directly not the chief of staff nor the minister of defense. The commander of Presidential guard only follows the chief of staff or the minister of defense under exceptional circumstances by a delegation from the president himself like in 1973 or at the current time. Currently the presidential guard division is following SCAF and its head the minister of defense. The loyalty of presidential guard division is for the president and according to what I know they have got or used to have a special treatment in the army to ensure their loyalty. Among the division’s responsibility securing the capital and the vital buildings like the ERTU building in Cairo. You will think that there is an overlap between them and the centralized zone army , well there is no overlap because the centralized zone army protects the people and the capital while the presidential guards protects the capital for the president.

Now to understand clearly the role of presidential guard , we should go back when it was founded and why it was founded in 1960s. Before 1967 the Egyptian state was split between Nasser and Amar where Amar controlled the army. Nasser founded this division in order to secure himself against any coup from Amar or from the army itself. Already I believe that division has got its own intelligence service.

Why am I saying that !? Well because deliberately Mubarak spread military ignorance about the army and its divisions in the Egyptian society. Part of our problem with SCAF that we do not know much about the army and how they think other than they are military who should be in their barracks.

Till February 11,2011 SCAF was officially headed by Mubarak , till February 11,2011 Mubarak officially was the only man who gave the orders to the presidential guards. If the presidential guards did not get an order to stop that procession despite they knew it would head to Tahrir to clash with the revolutionary protesters then they got orders above. I think we can get Mubarak through that video Hala Sarhan showed.

Aside Official statements from army to the media field marshal Tantawy did not know about the camel battle and called Muabrak angrily , the army did not want to get involved so it would not be stained by Egyptian blood and there were martyrs from the army on that day at Tahrir square , there something should be clear here. The Egyptian army and the United States plus the whole world were waiting to know who would won in the last battle and that last battle was that the camel battle. The army took the side of the revolution after knowing that the Mubarak was losing.

These videos are not exclusive to Hala Sarhan and her show anymore , we need more discussions. They are not exclusive and other channels should discuss them.