Existence is Resistance

Recapping on the oppressive Egyptian government and their tactics used on convoyers.

Hotel Hostages? (M1 of Dead Prez, Cynthia McKinney and Councilman Charles Barron included)

As some of you already know, we are currently back in Cairo after our 12/14 hour ordeal at the Suez Canal Bridge Checkpoint. Good news is that we have now reunited with the entire convoy so that when we return, we will be 200+ strong. Even though, I must add that our 4 vans of 50 members that held out the other night were outstanding and had an extreme impact. We did not back down, even when they had triple the amount of people surrounding us including police, military, riot police and intelligence officers.

We are now all back with the others in the hotel….however are not allowed to order coaches or buses to pick us up until the Foreign Ministry approves us leaving Cairo. We are harassed at every single movement out of the hotel, sometimes not allowed to move at all. Every single member went to their respective embassies and got the peice of paper stating that they are entering Gaza at their own risk. Oh, and it cost them a total of $30 each to do so. George Galloway is back in Cairo, Cynthia McKinney, Lowkey, M1 from Dead Prez and Mazzi all arrive today.

Later int he day I get a call from the Foreign Ministry stating that they are granting us permission on the following terms:

1) We only have 24 Hours in Gaza and anyone that overstays will not get out for a few months until they breifly open the border again
2) We can not take the best of $1M that was donated by US citizens which brought the 47 vehicles that were sitting in Alexandria and that if we did want them to go through they would have to pass through the Israeli Checkpoint and not the Egyptian.
3) We have to give an itemized list of every single thing we are taking with expiration dates for each item (bearing in mind we had already packed 9 trucks with medical aid and supplies)….

We wanted to negotiate after a meeting with all members. Plus we had to wait for them to give the OK to leave the hotel. It was now a waiting game.

Here is Nancy’s re-cap on the Suez Canal on July, 16.

Suez Canal – 52 Convoy Members vs. Egyptian Government

Photos, waving flags and joy as we packed our first 4 vans ready to head to Al-Arish (a city 30 mins from Gaza) where we were to meet the rest of the convoy members the following day. Little did we know that whilst we were en route, excited as anything that we were finally progressing on our mission, the Egyptian Intelligence and secret service were setting up a blockade for us by the Suez Canal Bridge (Salam Bridge Checkpoint). We get to the checkpoint and our vans are ushered to the left lane where the military and riot police were already posted up front, sides and as soon as we pulled in, right behind us.
Some cheap suit wearing grey haired guy comes up and instructs his people to count all the people on the buses. He then asks for all of our passports (this seemed to be a ritual in Egypt – everyone HAS to see your passport for you to move an inch). He comes back twenty minutes later and says that unfortunately the road had been closed up ahead into Al-Arish due to a security concern as we are targets…I asked him “Targets why? For taking medical aid?” It really didnt sound right to me. I felt like it was just an excuse to hold us back. Ten minutes later the man told me he couldnt let us pass because we didnt have permission from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. We went back and forth for an hour or two telling him that 4 Foreign Ministries were informed months before hand and upon our arrival into Egypt until Fatima and I had enough so we went back to the buses and asked everyone if they were willing to stay and refuse to move. Without hesitation, everyone said yes. The cheap suit guy (who we later found out was the head of the Egyptian Secret Service) was mad as hell. He kept screaming at us to keep everyone on the buses. Funnily enough looking back now, he was screaming at his own police and military also telling them to guard each bus so that noone got off. They really weren’t doing too much. He was just walking around each bus screaming. I start calling Al Jazeera, BBC, Al Quds TV and anyone else who would listen. We named the cheap suit wearing man “Colonel Cheapsuit” as he refused to give us his name, even when the Embassies we spoke to asked for it. I told Colonel Cheapsuit that he was embarrassing Egypt in front of all these Americans and especially in front of a New York City Councilman Charles Barron who was still sitting on the bus with the others in over 100 degree weather. I called Mr. Barron out of the bus to talk to these people. They grab him a chair and start getting worried. They got especially worried when he had enough and told them it was ridiculous that they would stop us from crossing as we are taking humanitarian aid and that he was putting in a call to the Whitehouse. They started running around me asking me in Arabic “Is he calling Obama? Is he calling Obama? Why? Why?”. I couldn’t help but laugh at them.
After the calls were put into the Whitehouse we called the American Embassy in Egypt who conferenced in the Israeli Foreign Ministry. This we could not understand (well we could but were disgusted). The American Embassy then tell us the reason we can not pass is because each individual needed an Affridavit stating the embassy was not responsible for their safety once in Gaza. They stated this was a “new rule”. So Fatima, the National Organizer for Viva Palestina decided she would head back to Cairo and get the papers needed. As she attempted to cross the street to get a cab about 100 officers, military and secret service officials jumped on her man handling her in a very uncalled for manner. The brawl was on…about 60% of convoy members ran to her aid and everyone kind of had someone in a neck or arm grab position. Colonel Cheapsuit strolls over and says “Noone leaves without every bus leaving back to Cairo”. We refuse. He screams at everyone to get on the buses and again, we refuse. He tells the drivers of the buses to get in the buses and drive back or they will be arrested. However, Fatima was one step ahead and had already confiscated the keys. After a while it got too hot for the older folk with us and we had to give the keys to the drivers in order to turn on the Air-conditioning.
There was nothing within walking distance for miles and by 2am had run out of water and food. An officer kindly offered to get us food and drinks, however, when he returned he said there was no food but three cases of bottled juice. The juice had expired in 2005 and poor Widad (convoy member from Texas) was the one to realize it after a large swig. So the dehydration went on. We played football until our ball was confiscated. We layed out blankets for people to sleep until they were confiscated.
Seeing that we had minimal battery power in our phones and internet access, we asked everyone to turn off their phones and we used them one by one until battery was dead in order for us to last for as long as we could with communication access to the outside world. I remember falling asleep for about an hour around 8am and then being woken to people cheering and clapping. “We can go through, we can go through” were the chants. I get out of the bus and go up to Colonel Cheapsuit, grabbed his arm and thanked him profusely. He shook me off with a look of disgust but I put it down to it either being because I am a female or because I was one of the organizers and was partly responsible for him not being in his bed sound asleep. We get on the buses and as soon as we are backing up out of the checkpoint my driver turns around and says “you know he is sending us back to Cairo right?”…he hadn’t even finished talking when I flew out of the bus side door and started banging on all the windows of the buses ahead telling them to stop and get out…”he’s trying to send us back to Cairo – stop the bus, stop the bus – get out – get out” I screamed.
Oh boy….did Colonel Cheapsuit hate me now….the look on his face when everyone got off again was priceless. He told the drivers to keep backing up and run us over. Thats when my Blackberry Storm made me love it. We made a human chain behind each bus and refused to move. I took a picture of the chain and sent to Mariam. As soon as it said “Message sent” the battery died. It started getting intense and the riot police moved in closer. The military came with their big blue metal tanks with no windows and parked up all around us.
We then decided that for the safety of the convoy members, health of the older folk and chances of the rest of our convoy passing through this checkpoint that our only choice was to retreat and go and get every single peice of paper they aked for and come back 200 strong all together. Some of us cried on the way back to Cairo….we were a couple of hours from Gaza and now we’re going backwards. The one thing I was refusing to do for the last 14 hours.