We head back to the camp in the morning for 10 and catch the meeting informing us of the flight details. First flight to depart at 4pm, bus to get to the airport at 1pm. 8pm flight, bus departs camp at 5pm; 12am flight assemble 9pm, 4am flight assemble 1am.
Fascinated with the proceedings Juana?
First flight: Turkish team 1, VP groups A&B, Team America, VP leadership, Jordanian group, Al Jazeera TV.
2nd flight: Turkish team 2, VP groups C&D, VP leadership, Jordanian 2nd group
3rd flight: Turkish team 3, VP teams E, F, G
4th flight: Turkish group 4, Jordanian Group 3, George Galloway
So its time to leave Lattakia and the lovely people who have been looking after us.
Its another celebratory send off from the airport.
The flight is short and when we land at the airport it seems as if everything is going to be fine. George G does a short announcement to the press that are waiting that he has been told by the Governor of Sinai that we are going to move on through to Rafah. We are greeted by local members of the Red Crescent - young people most of them under 20 who give us plastic flowers. However a short time later things get a bit difficult. It seems the visas we are being issued with are being stamped with entry and exit at the same time and there is a local General who tells Kevin the authorities are going to hold on to our passports and we can move on and get to the vehicles and take them to Rafah. He clearly does not understand that everyone has their own vehicle and we will not be going anywhere without both our passports and the rest of the convoy members who will not be arriving until tomorrow. We stage a sit down protest for our passports to be returned. In the middle of this chaos we receive news that the second flight has been diverted to Damascus. We are told this is due to engine trouble but we don't know for sure and hope it is not an exercise to separate us. The protest turns noisier as time goes on.
Some people are catching a bit of sleep on the floor. In the end we are there for 6 or 7 hours before the passports are returned and we move on to crash out for a few hours in a couple of local hotels (dusty, run down).
The next day we are picked up by a bus and taken to the port compound at El Arish sea port. We have to show our passports to get in and these are compared to the list the authorities have. From now on if we want to leave the port compound then we have to hand our passport in and only a small number of people are allowed to leave at a time. By 4 pm the final arrival of members of the convoy has arrived. There have been significant difficulties for the arrivals of all flights and stories of physical struggles with the authorities and bus doors being shut on someone causing injury. The convoy members are by and large exhausted and disorientated after the confusion and delayed long travel.
George G, Zaher and Kevin are going into negotiations with Egyptian authority representative as it has become clear that there is a question mark over some of the vehicles that we are to be allowed to take in. At around 6.30/ 7pm we are informed that the Egyptian representative has left the compound and has left saying the 47 American-bought vehicles (cars) are not going to be allowed through. This is in contrast to the agreement reached at Aqaba. The convoy members are not going to take the reversal of the agreement lying down and a protest is staged at the gates of the port compound about this. It is noisy and one of the gates unfortunately comes off its hinges while the protestors are rattling it.
For several hours from now there are convoy members at the gates gathered, sometimes chanting, sometimes sitting, some walking about the area to the front of the gates which is now surrounded by rows of riot police and a large tanker which is the container of water for the water cannon.
I eventually leave the crowd as it is sitting peacefully and someone is singing prayers in Arabic. I end up sitting in a vehicle in the port talking to some members who are not happy. I am sitting there when a member arrives at the door and he has a golf club in his hand he says the front of the convoy is being attacked by the riot police. He agrees I should take the golf club away as no-one should be putting themselves in a position where they may injure another, injure themselves or be arrested. I go to lock it in my cab, whilst doing this a member Majid runs past me injured and we both jump in my cab - he tells me to get in the back of the vehicle as he feels the cab will not be safe. We can't do this as the back is full of aid. The fear is that the riot police will enter the compound and start to damage the vehicles. After a short time I decide to get out and walk up to see what is going on. As I walk towards the gate I can see a hail of stones coming down on the crowd at the front, shouting, things being broken and general mayhem. The noise and chaos seems to continue for some time - there are guys running about extremely agitated, some are holding their heads, bleeding, I can see some lying injured away at the back of the crowd being treated under lights by those with some medical experience. A short distance away I can see a convoy member attempting to mediate in a situation where there are some Egyptian security staff that some agitated Turkish members are trying to get to. It appears these staff are nothing to do with the riot police of the authorities but have unfortunately been identified as possible Muhabarat by extremely upset individuals. The situation is calmed down. A Team Leaders meeting is called. I go up and all the Team Leaders VP organisers and George G are gathered. George asks us to agree on what the sequence of events was and it appears that shortly after the Egyptian negotiator left the port compound the riot police and other non-uniformed members of security outside. During the evening it appears that non-uniformed security have gathered missiles in the form of pieces of paving slabs and made piles of these behind the riot police lines. When some members of the US convoy have come in from town surprising the riot police they have been treated in a heavy handed way, this has elicited the convoy members from the front of the protest to move towards the fracas, next the lines of riot police have moved towards the crowd and the agent provocateurs have begun launching their missiles onto the crowd. The crowd responds by defending itself, several members have been caught up and some arrested. There are some Egyptian police who have barracked into a room inside the port compound. While we are having the meeting Ellie comes up to say that we should take action to prevent the conflict from starting up again as convoy members on the ground are paranoid that the police are re-grouping to attack and enter the port and are therefore getting ready to defend, moving forward towards the gate which could antagonise the police and spark further incident. So we go down and move among the crowd calming people down. This for me also involves standing in front of a vehicle and preventing it from driving up towards the gate. I also speak to a group of convoy members who are very agitated to ask them to be patient and calm at this point and they do listen. The main calming point is when the Turkish members return to their vehicles as this provides a significant signal to the convoy as a whole that the incident is over.
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