By Philip Whitfield
CAIRO: All but mourning must be set aside. Moliere said if grief is suppressed too much it might well redouble. The greatest grief is that we cause ourselves, Sophocles wrote in the Oedipus.
It was proper for Field Marshal Tantawi to announce three days of public mourning. It was right to vow to track down the perpetrators of the worst massacre ever to occur at an Egyptian football match.
It is wrong for SCAF to adjudicate the issues. Their opinions are tainted by loyalty to their colleagues and codes of conduct that are peculiar to the security forces.
SCAF must retire to the sidelines for the inquisition on the massacre to get underway.
The primary issue cuts to the heart of the crime and, moreover, to the sorry state of security. Those who wielded lethal weapons must be identified, charged and tried. Some may be found guilty of manslaughter or even murder.
But will those responsible for allowing the massacre be arraigned? If the past year’s experience is anything to go by, they will not. The recidivists perpetuate their crimes. Those uniformed criminals and others occupying high places must not be allowed to pollute justice yet again.
Unfortunately Tantawi has already assigned blame. In his call-in to Ahly’s TV station he said securing the football match was the responsibility of the police force. He may be correct.
But he may be entirely wrong, deflecting reproach elsewhere. Tantawi can’t be allowed to get away with that. He can’t have it both ways: If SCAF assumes all power it must accept all responsibility for the consequences.
We know the police will lie to try to save their skins. We know that irrefutable evidence provided by TV cameras of people being killed, such as at Maspero, are distorted afterwards to fictionalize truth to permit culprits to escape prosecution.
That’s why Tantawi must yield the power of investigation to a panel headed by a judge of impeccable impartiality that is empowered to unearth the truth wherever the search may go.
A judicial inquiry should be ordered with wide terms of reference. The inquiry should consider every aspect of Egypt’s security, not just at Port Said’s Al-Masry Stadium and not only during the 90 minutes of the match and the mayhem that followed.
Why? Tantawi said this: If anyone is plotting instability in Egypt they will not succeed. Everyone will get what they deserve. Thus Tantawi opened the post mortem on the match far beyond the attack on the pitch.
Having said what he did, Tantawi must in respect for the families of the victims allow a judge trained and experienced to conduct the discovery stage unfettered by military codes and loyalties. It is not a job for someone who has a vested interest in protecting uniformed officers.
The evidence should be handed to the public prosecutor for justice to take its course in a civil court. Already there are allegations that require testing. What happened cannot be a coincidence, Ziad El-Elaimy, a Social Democratic Party MP claimed. This massacre and three armed robberies happened only one day after the Interior Minister came to parliament trying to convince us of the importance of maintaining the State of Emergency, he said.
The security forces are to blame for the large number of deaths, Adel Aql, a football association official said in an interview with ONTV. They are supposed to secure the fans’ exits with an iron fist. Protocol calls for them to close all gates leading to the visiting team’s fans until they are sure of their security, he added.
The Port Said MP Al-Badry Farghaly confirmed reports that the Port Said governor and the city’s head of security did not attend the match, which, Al-Ahram said is uncommon for matches between the two teams, who have a long rivalry.
That is another reason to appoint a non-partisan, independent judge to assemble the evidence and hand it to the pubic prosecutor to arrest the culprits and arraign them for trial.
There comes a major issue. Was the massacre premeditated?
Al-Ahram reports the trouble started in the second half of the match when a small group of Ahly fans raised a banner insulting their rivals and a security official and a medic saying Masry home team fans swarmed the field throwing stones, fireworks, and bottles at Ahly fans.
The conspiracy theorists would have us believe the fight was organized to influence parliament to abandon attempts to put an end to the State of Emergency, which Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi recently said would only be applied to acts of thuggery.
The terms of reference for the judicial inquiry should specifically include an explanation from the governor of Port Said and security chiefs as to where they were, why they were there and what they were doing on Wednesday.
The stability of society rests not only on the strength of the security forces; nor on the integrity of the new breed of parliamentarians who are demonstrating laudable discipline raising the tone of national debate.
All will be lost if the people cannot regain their self-confidence and confidence in the emerging ruling class. This is going to be extremely difficult under the constant glare of media attention and the eyes of the world trained on every twist and turn of this imbroglio.
There are extremely disturbing trends towards anarchic violence. The spate of daylight robberies and distain for the rights of women to walk unmolested are not isolated incidents. They illustrate how far a nation in denial has to travel to regain its stature.
How Egypt responds to the dreadful night in Port Said will determine the future State. Three days of mourning provide a solemn period of reflection.
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest and third by experience, which is the bitterest — Confucius.
Philip Whitfield is a Cairo commentator.
