CAIRO – Police were back on the streets of the Egyptian capital on Monday, smiling at motorists and sticking close to each other, a stone’s throw away from burned-out shells of their police vans. Their two-day vanishing act remains unexplained officially, but it left the city prey to looters and jail-breakers, as residents formed self-defence groups to protecting their patches.
The authorities announced on Sunday night that the men in berets and black pullovers would be redeployed across Egypt. “People are angry with us. I don’t understand why,” said a police sergeant, seated in a 4×4 with a broken side window and pointing at a photograph of demonstrators and fires in a Monday newspaper. “Look what happens when we’re not here,” he said, declining to be named.
Cairo residents questioned by AFP put the disappearance of police at a time of an escalating showdown between authorities and demonstrators down to the political calculations of a regime in dire straits. “We are not being told the truth,” said Mina Roshdy, a 30-year-old resident of the upmarket district of Zamalek. “The government pulled out the cops to destabilise the country, to create chaos so that the people would welcome the return of security,” was his theory, shared by many Cairenes.
“That’s the aim: to frighten, in the hope that the people forget they must chase down the dictator. ‘It’s either me or chaos.’ It’s a classic case, but it won’t work,” he said. “In this country, you can’t trust the police,” said Roshdy. “One day they attack you, the next they defend you.” The policemen’s smiles and gestures to Cairo motorists on Monday were often met with insults. “I hate them! Look at them… animals!” shouted an angry woman in her forties.
