Egypt's bloodiest day

It's time for the Security Council to intervene. With a ruthlessness reminiscent of the Mubarak era, the military in Egypt has crushed a protest camp, killing more than 600 supporters of former President Mohamad Morsi.
For the country, groping for the past two years in search of an identity, Wednesday was the bloodiest day in decades. The army, a legacy of the ancient regime, has killed and killed with abandon, and the strategy to suppress dissent marks a bloody travesty of the Arab Spring. The one-month emergency that has been clamped is intended to serve the military's agenda, and will almost certainly deepen the crisis. Almost immediately, the army has arrogated to itself the unfettered authority to make arrests -- a power it had wielded for decades before the pro-democracy upheaval of 2011.
The Jasmine Revolution has virtually lapsed in the limbo of history; the experience of other countries in the Arab region is scarcely encouraging. The clock has been turned back in Egypt and the implications are devastating. The assault on the camps marks the end of the six-week stand-off with activists of the Muslim Brotherhood. Wednesday's show of state power has defied international pleas for restraint. The overt political role of the Muslim Brotherhood may also have met its eclipse.
And yet the post-Morsi army-backed establishment appears to have suffered a rift in the lute. This is more than obvious from the resignation of the new Vice-President, Mohamad ElBareidi, a former UN diplomat and winner of the Nobel Peace prize, who has played a radically different stroke, asserting that the conflict could have been resolved through peaceful means. The somewhat accommodating tone is at variance with the hawkishness of the likes of General Sisi.
The military has literally opted for overkill -- variously described as a "massacre" by Turkey and the Arab League and a "crackdown" by the USA. The facts will take time to disentangle, but certain points are clear. Over the past two years, Egypt has witnessed three phases of transition -- from the repressive dictatorship of Mubarak to the unsuccessful democracy under Morsi and now to the rule of the soldier's gun. And the process has been swift and savage. The Arab Spring, like many revolutions that start with wild optimism, has taken a harsh turn. There is now a chill over what seemed to be spring. The comity of nations must respond.

© The Statesman (India). All rights reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Asia News Network.