The head of Egypt's ruling military council has warned Egyptians about elements that he says seek to drive a wedge between people and the armed forces.
"We will confront all these attempts with the utmost firmness," Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi said in a statement published Wednesday in the state-run newspaper Al-Ahram.
He reiterated that the military council is committed to handing over power to an elected civilian government through fair and free elections.
Tantawi’s statement is the first since the Maspero violence on 9 October. Human rights activists accuse military forces of involvement in killing protesters there.
The SCAF has denied that military forces intended to kill protesters, saying that the military personnel who were driving armored vehicles lost control and were confused, so they hit protesters unintentionally.
The military council has also accused protesters of lighting military vehicles on fire, and it accused some Coptic priests and public figures of inciting protesters to storm Maspero building.
The SCAF’s repeated statements on the existence of “subversive elements trying to drive a wedge between the army and the people” has angered many people in Egypt.
Activists believe that the military council has been repeating such statements since the toppling of former President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February without disclosing the identity of the “subversive elements” involved in violent incidents.
Egyptian human rights activists have also accused the military council of following the same policies of Mubarak’s regime in tackling sectarian issues through reconciliation meetings between Copts and Muslims and not through transparent investigations.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
