Your trusted source

Press TV has conducted an interview with Franklin Lamb, international lawyer, about the Egyptian army’s Monday attack on supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi in the capital, Cairo. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview. 

- I want to get your assessment of the situation in Egypt, certainly today has been quite a decisive day, hasn’t it?

- Well it has been and it may indeed be remembered in history but not for exactly the reason necessarily that General Sisi has in mind.

Look, I think the fundamental point is that the Egyptian people after four, five decades held an election and one party won the election, the presidential election and then there was a parliamentary election. That party won that and then there was a referendum on the constitution and that party won that election and that’s got to mean something.

I know that Washington is shying away and the British government cannot quite bring themselves to say the four letter word, and that four letter word of course is “coup”. It was a military coup.

I am not competent or here to defend Morsi but the fact is obviously he made mistakes but now you have got right wingers in the US Congress saying we have got to cut off all aid until the right person is elected.

There is some candidates for Prime Minister, now looks like he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister but he is running for President. He is engaged in the largest American lobby forum ...and that is Mohamed ElBaradei. Obama likes him and the establishment seems to like him so there is that aspect.

They are trying to justify in the Congress as they started to say, people like McCain are trying to say, look, look, a majority of the people they wanted a change. Thereby justifying a military coup.

No, the constitution of Egypt like the constitution of the United States provides for recall. If you do not like the mistakes that Morsi made and that he was getting off to a very bad start arguably and he had lot of economic problems, you want to blame it all on him, well the fact of the matter is you recall him by democratic means.

If you are going to claim to be a democracy you got to have some democratic rules. So I am not terribly sympathetic with the military. It looks like we are headed for a civil war. I do not know, how do you stop it? I cannot see the military putting him back in office and holding a referendum, a vote on Morsi exactly happen, although I understand that the White House would not mind something like that.

So we are just going have to see but as your excellent report are saying, I think it has caught us all nearly in a condition of shock and where it is going to lead, we just gonna have to wait and see.

- Mr. Lamb, I want to ask you has the military essentially made a mistake here by thinking that the Egyptians were divided because certainly when the coup was carried out it did seem that the Egyptian society was divided but at this point everyone is condemning today’s violence even those who were anti-Morsi are condemning today’s violence, even Mohamed ElBaradei for example and even those who stood against Mohamed Morsi throughout the year that he was the President, certainly that would not have been the kind of conclusion the military would have wanted?

- No, no. I think they rushed into this thing; they were too much affected with the public demonstrations a little bit like in a different setting that NATO and the Americans, the French and the British rushed into Libya after there were some riots in Benghazi. I think they jumped the gun on this. I think they should have had more negotiations in the al-Nour Party aside input from other countries because this is very fundamental.

There is argument today in The New York Times David Brooks, a Zionist was saying all of the Egyptian people they cannot have democracy, they are not ready because and he used this word, they do not have the mental capacity. Well that is an outrageous statement but I think who may not have the capacity for democracy is the SCAF, is the Supreme Armed Forces Council.

So, I am nearly speechless on how this thing is going to work out but yes, the military made a huge mistake and it is going to be some way hopefully that different parties can come together, tamp this down and try to resolve it but I do not see a clear path to that. Obviously it is their country and they are going to have to see what they can do.

I do not think the outsiders can have much effect. I do not think the Americans have enough credibility or respect anymore in Egypt to have the kind of power they used to have.