العقيد أركان حرب أحمد محمد على المتحدث العسكرى
نشر العقيد أركان حرب أحمد محمد على، المتحدث العسكرى، نص الخطاب الذى ألقاه الفريق أول عبد الفتاح السيسى، القائد العام للقوات المسلحة وزير الدفاع والإنتاج الحربى، باللغتين الإنجليزية والفرنسية، من أجل إطلاع الرأى العام العالمى على تفاصيل الخطاب المطول، الذى تناول معلومات جديدة حول خروج الرئيس المعزول محمد مرسى بعد أحداث 30 يونيو.
وفيما يلى نص الخطاب:
Speech Of General Abdelfattah El-Sissy
Commander –in- Chief, Minister of Defense and Military Production
During The Meeting with Armed Forces Officers at El-Gala’a Conference Center On 14th of July, 2013
___________________________________________
In the Name of Allah the Most Compassionate the Most Merciful
The Great People of Egypt…..
Today, Egypt stands at a critical crossroads, where we have to make choices. Nobody can dictate on the Egyptian people or impose a lifestyle, or ideology, which they do not accept especially with their timeless human experience and civilization, their realization of the historic role their nation has played throughout history, and their nation’s great contribution to human progress despite all obstacles, difficulties, hardships, and adverse circumstances.
The Egyptian Armed Forces, command and personnel, has made a choice: to serve our people with no reservation or reluctance and to enable our people’s free will so as to make their choice, because the people’s will is the collective wisdom of their relation with themselves, their environment, world, and age.
The Egyptian Armed Forces realized, ensured, and acted at the people’s disposal, not the opposite; in their service, not away from them. It receives from the people, rather than dictates them.
The Armed Forces approached the political process only because the Egyptian people summoned and requested it for this task based on realization and the reality of the January 25th Revolution that the Armed Forces is the entity which has the ability to redress imbalances, lost realities, and divergent trends.
The General Command of the Armed Forces has not pursued or requested this task; rather, it has always been committed to its doctrines, principles, and role towards its people. The Armed Forces’ position in modern time is obvious, and nobody has the right to misguide it to complexities unfamiliar to the Armed Forces doctrine.
Since January 2011 Revolution, the Egyptian Armed Forces identified its position and acted within the limits of its role, despite severe complexities and confusion of the political scene, whether because of what our country has gone through in the years before the revolution, or during the revolution period which was marked with confusion and uncertainty accompanied other revolutions in other times and locations.
The Egyptian Armed Forces could not ignore obvious realities of the economic slump as a result of greed, mismanagement, or disregard of upcoming generations’ rights, deterioration of social and living conditions for the majority of the people, and the resulting effect of societal tensions, accompanied by incorrect estimate, mismanagement, and erroneous judgment. The intent of reform halted for several reasons. The intellectual, cultural, and artistic status of Egypt which granted it the power of role model in its world was affected, and its status regressed at the regional and international levels.
I do not want to spend a lot of time pondering over the past; in fact, I’d rather tackle the present and the future because that is what we can choose from and act according to the people’s wishes and demands. At this point, all people’s segments stand at a crossroad. These segments rebelled in January 2011, then they discovered that what they attained was not what they sought and rebelled for. Simply, they recognized that their hopes were shattered, their plans deviated, and their perspective for the future plunged into darkness and blur that could not be accepted in the era of knowledge, enlightenment, and efficiency.
At all times, the Armed Forces was following the situation while bearing in mind two factors:
- The role it gladly accepted, believed in, and committed itself to, that is keeping away of politics.
- The second factor was that the Armed Forces shouldered the national responsibility whether in principle, or in being alert lest the political leadership in charge would assign the Armed Forces with tasks that contradict with its loyalty to the people and their right in directing it and stating its position.
When the last presidential elections took place, and brought a president representing a political faction, the Armed Force willingly accepted the people’s choice.
Then the political decision started to stumble, and the Armed Forces considered that any correction or amendment can only be done through one channel that is people’s legitimacy since the people are the only one who has the right to make such decision.
Despite all of that, the Armed Forces, represented by its command, recognized that it should offer some advice based on its patriotic role, and it did. At this moment, I would rather not repeat before you how often the Armed Forces has expressed its opinion about some policies and many decisions, also, I would rather not nominate the occasions when the Armed Forces expressed its reservation on various actions and procedures that were surprising.
On all occasions, the Armed Forces remained committed to what it perceived the electoral legitimacy. However, such legitimacy started to act in a contradictory manner to its source and origin. Such source of legitimacy lies in the hands of the people, who solely possess it and has the right to grant it to whomever they wish, hold him accountable for it, and withdraw it from him if their wish became clear and undoubted.
The Armed Forces preferred to avail the opportunity to the political powers to bear their responsibility, and to work together in agreement and harmony in order for the nation not to fall in a trap of political polarization where all state tools are exploited against the concept of the state. Yet, in contradiction with the public consent on which the state is founded, the concerned parties, despite the opportunity they had, and the extra time they were offered, failed to achieve the promise and hope.
Since the very early beginning of the crisis and before the statement of the Armed Forces on which it offered a road map ,the General Command of the Armed Forces expressed its wish that the Presidency would resort to the people and call for a referendum by which the people state their final word. The Armed Forces sent envoys to President Mohamed Morsi with one clear message.
Amongst these envoys were his Prime Minister, and a trusted law expert, wishing that the president, on his own, would decide to call on the voters for a referendum to affirm his legitimacy or deny it. The reply to the message came in an absolute refusal.
When the People’s will became clear without any doubt, and it was inevitable to use the safeguards of legitimacy, including the state itself against the source of legitimacy, the people by such mass rallies cleared any doubt and uncertainty.
Since the people were concerned that the state’s tools might be used against the people and their hopes, the Armed Forces had to make a choice and it did.
In fact, the scope of polarization with its depth and risks, in addition to the incompetency of the players to shoulder their responsibilities, imposed what they were not ready for or prepared to withstand its consequences.
Thus, the Armed Forces adhered to one goal, affirming the people’s legitimacy, and assisting them in restoring their genuine right “the right to choose and to make decision”.
All the people’s segments and strata, men, women, and youth, the people’s Army, state institutions, political parties, pioneers of thought, culture, and art.. all of us stood at new crossroads. Amidst all these complexities and uncertainties, we had to make sound choice and decisions with no possibility of error or misconduct.
The Armed Forces envisaged to complement its approach to national rather than political arena. As a result, it proposed a future roadmap which would enable the right free choice. This roadmap which was announced before the people and in the presence of people’s representatives especially Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church, was just a framework for a safe path to survive the deadlock, and confront future great responsibilities.
Unfortunately, these responsibilities were grave, exhausting, and perilous, but we had to meet these challenges with all due defiance, efficacy, and hope.
The roadmap ensures integrity by assigning the Chairman of the Supreme Constitutional Court the post of the president reflecting the right of choice and decision of the people.
All the nation’s segments do not seek confrontations or violence, rather they refrain from them. All national segments have to realize that the opportunity is still available for all political sides and ideologies to contribute for the sake of the nation.
The Arab world, the globe in general, and international players stand astonished before what the Egyptian people had done, the youth in particular, to grant themselves once again the right of choice, right of taking decisions independently, and right of shaping the future with their discretion and perspiration with the bless and guidance of Allah.
Egypt is satisfied with the world stance on the latest developments, and it assures the Arab nation that Egypt will remain as it has always been up to their expectations.
Egypt calls on the world powers to realize and be assured that Egypt is always in the side of freedom, justice, and progression. It seeks close relations, desires peace, and realizes its might to shape the future.
Egypt calls on the entire world's peoples, in Africa and Asia in particular, to be assured that Egypt will be always up to its historic role and responsibilities before the world's nations and civilizations acknowledging that they are all one human civilization.
The Egyptian people fully realize, acknowledging the historical responsibility and legitimate aspirations, that they are at crossroads and face choice, decision, and path predicaments. They know the necessity of assuming their role in contributing to the history movement once again.
May Allah guide the Egyptian people and their Armed Forces, direct their steps, and inspire their free choice, whereas, the burden is huge and threats are imminent and dire. May Allah help us find the path out of this crisis and attain the people's hopes.
May Allah save the great people of Egypt.
And peace be upon you.