Cairo, March 16: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toured Tahrir Square in central Cairo on Wednesday, visiting the heart of the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak from power in Egypt after 30 years and shook the Middle East.
“It’s just a great reminder of the power of the human spirit and universal desire for freedom and human rights and democracy,” Clinton said. “It’s just thrilling to see where this happened.”
Clinton smiled and shook hands with the Egyptian citizens who surrounded her during her unscheduled 15-minute walk through the square.
“To see where this revolution happened, after all that it has meant to the world, is extraordinary for me,” she said before entering a meeting with interim Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.
Clinton made an unscheduled stop to the site Wednesday during a two-day visit to Egypt aimed at encouraging the Egyptian people and their transitional leaders to hold true to the ideals of democratic reforms that propelled the revolution.
Clinton is the highest-ranking US official to visit Egypt since Mubarak was ousted last month and she has pledged America’s support for the transition.
She’s meeting with Egypt’s army chief and prime minister before heading later Wednesday to Tunisia, where she will be bringing the same message.
The success of Tunisia’s anti-government protests in January fuelled similar revolts across the Arab world.
In the early days of the uprising, which began on January 25, the square was the scene of violent clashes between demonstrators and police, who failed to quell the revolt with their until then effective heavy-handed tactics.
The police where then withdrawn from the streets and the army was deployed, surrounding the square with tanks but staying on the sidelines.
When protesters were charged by Mubarak supporters on camels and horses on February 2 the army looked on.
But despite the clashes, demonstrations became both protests and festive gatherings of hundreds of thousands. After Mubarak quit on February 11, hundreds of thousands gathered to celebrate his departure.
Much of the anti-Mubarak graffiti has been cleaned away, traffic again flows through the square where several thoroughfares meet and cobbled pavements are being repaired after they were torn up to provide projectiles.
——-Agencies