17 July,2012 07:17 AM IST | | Agencies
Now that's a low blow!
A crowd of tomato-tossing Egyptians taunted US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday with chants of "Monica, Monica."
The jeers - a reference to the affair her husband, former US President Bill Clinton, had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky - came as the secretary of state was visiting the newly reopened US Consulate in Alexandria.
Cheap shots: Egyptian protestors gather on a street yesterday near the US Consulate in Alexandria
The demonstrators also shouted, "Get out, Clinton," and threw shoes and water bottles in addition to tomatoes at her motorcade.
While neither Clinton nor her vehicle - which were guarded by police in riot gear - were struck by the flying objects, an Egyptian official wasn't as lucky.
The official was hit with a tomato in the face.
The protestors were angry over suspicions the United States helped the Muslim Brotherhood win recent elections in Egypt.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking at a ceremony to mark its reopening. Pics/AFP
A day earlier, angry crowds had gathered outside her hotel.
"I want to be clear that the United States is not in theu00a0business in Egypt of choosing winners and losers, even if we could, which, of course, we cannot," she said yesterday.
"We are prepared to work with you as you chart your course, as you establish your democracy,"
Clinton said the United States wanted to back a "real democracy" in which "no group or faction or leader can impose their will, their ideology, their religion, their desires on anyone else."
Clinton also met with groups of women and Christians who fear they will be relegated to second-class status during the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The consulate was closed in 1993 because of budget problems, but it has been reopened to boost the economy in the critical port city.
Clinton met on Saturday with newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, who is battling the military for control of the country.
