The Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo is guarded by an army tank. The smoke seen behind is coming from the headquarters of President Mubarak's National Democratic Party.
LOOTERS MANAGED to break into the Egyptial Museum in downtown Cairo and destroy two mummies before the Army was able to secure the building, reports suggest.
Reuters says the country’s top archaeologist told Egypt’s state broadcaster that the museum had been raided by people taking advantage of the country’s anti-government protests, before the Army – and students – surrounded the building in a human chain to ensure that no more of the country’s treasures could be damaged.
“I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum, and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force,” Zahi Hawass said.
Egyptian citizens tried to prevent them and were joined by the tourism police, but some [ransackers] managed to enter from above and they destroyed two of the mummies.
The museum building stands next to the office block housing the national headquarters of the National Democratic Party of president Muhammad Hosni Mubarak, which was set alight by demonstrators as part of the upheaval in Cairo.
The museum also houses the majority of the collection of King Tutankhamen, as well as tens of thousands of other artefacts from ancient Egypt. AP reports that the building attracts millions of tourists from overseas every year – one of the reasons why so many civilians tried to protect it.
“I’m standing here to defend and to protect our national treasure,” said one. Referring to the looting of Iraq’s National Museum after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, another said: “We are not like Baghdad.”
AFP further adds that many residents of the impoverished al Sabtia neighbourhood that houses the museum took to the streets with knives and home-made weapons in order to pry back stolen goods from other looters.
They left some of the recovered items in a nearby mosque for safekeeping, where they will remain until they can be safely returned to the museum.
- My Egyptian friends – PLEASE PROTECT YOUR PHARAOHS! I am heartbroken to learn that two Mummies were destroyed yesterday. I still don’t know exactly which two Kings were desecrated, but your Pharaohs – all of them – belong not just to you but to the entire world!
- O my God……if this is true then I am very disappointed. It’s like Egyptian protesters shot their own feet!
- I doubt it was protesters doing this: more likely looters who wanted to sell things on the antiquities market.
The article isn’t quite clear enough though.I am happy that people protected things. They are right about the “National Treasure” part. I would love to visit Egypt someday. You have some incredibly unique items, and must be a fascinating place.Good luck with the whole freedom thing, shutting off the internet sure doesn’t make those in power look good. - Although I agree with what has already been posted, I would argue these are not National Treasures but treasures of the entire world.
- They want Repression of women, prohibition of education, high unemployment, radical Islam as Iran, Somalia and under Taliban rule…OBAMA == James Earl Carter 2011Sources in Egypt and West: US secretly backed protest
DEBKAfile Special Report January 29, 2011, 3:49 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Mubarak US backing Egypt uprising“Egyptian people and army are one”
Persistent claims were heard Saturday, Jan. 29 in various Egyptian and informed western circles that the popular uprising against president Hosni Mubarak, still going strong on its fifth day, was secretly prepared three years ago in Washington during the Bush administration.
Saturday morning, people rage across Egypt gathered steam from Mubarak’s speech after midnight, in which he declined to step down. After defying the night curfew, tens of thousands of protesters, estimated at 50,000, crowded into central Cairo’s Tahrir Square and began marching on the state TV building, calling on the soldiers in tanks ranged quietly around the square to oust the president. They shouted that the people and army were one.
Law and order is breaking down in Egypt’s cities. In Cairo looters are roaming through shops and smoldering public buildings and seizing empty residences. Rioting inmates are confronting armed warders and getting shot in Egypt’s biggest prisons. Political prisoners are escaping.
In defiance of the extended nationwide curfew, fierce clashes also erupted in Alexandria, Suez, Ismailia, Rafah and El Arish, with security forces firing live ammunition on surging protesters. By the afternoon, 100 people were dead and 2,000 injured across the country. The death toll Friday was estimated at 74 and more than a thousand wounded.
In Cairo, the hated Mahabharat security forces vanished off the main streets after failing to quell four days of protests. The military tanks and infantry units posted at strategic points in the capital have so far not fired a shot or interfered in the clashes. But the Interior Ministry’s elite security force fired live ammo on demonstrators attempting to storm the building.
The London Daily Telegraph headlined a story Saturday, apparently confirming confidential US documents released by WikiLeaks, which claimed that since 2008, the American government had secretly backed leading figures behind the uprising for “regime change.”
The US embassy in Cairo reportedly helped a young Egyptian dissident secretly attend a US-Sponsored summit for activists in New York. “On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and Install a democratic government in 2011,” the Telegraph reported.
The activist whose identity the paper is protecting is already under arrest.
DEBKAfile: If this is true, the Western observers who have concluded that the protesters have no leaders and are propelled into the streets purely by rage against the regime may not have the full story. The movement does have a leader whose identity is known to Washington and the demonstrations’ ringleaders – but not to Mubarak or his security services. They show every sign of being cut off from the prevailing currents in the street. It would also explain the steadfast insistence of President Barack Obama and all his spokesmen on forcing Mubarak to do the virtually impossible, i.e. to refrain from force against the opposition movement and introduce immediate reforms by means of national dialogue. His successors would be waiting in the wings to move in when they could expect to be embraced by the opposition.
Saturday, as the violence on the streets of Egypt mounted, the Muslim Brotherhood called for the peaceful transfer of power, thereby offering a bridge to span Obama’s call for national dialogue and the people’s demand for change.* As James Earl Carter supported Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, so does today Barack Hussein Obama II…
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