Saturday, January 15, 2011 The fall of Ben Ali Guest post by Kevin Ovenden: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/01/fall-of-ben-ali.html
Over the last quarter of a century the regime in Tunis has narrowed its social base. It swung behind US hegemony in the region. Its main policy internally became police repression rather than any kind of accommodation or integration of the constitutional Islamists, the union and the left. Wealth became concentrated in the hands of fewer families at top, including the extended family of Leila Trabelsi, the ex-presidents wife. The story of Ben Ali and Trabelsis rise is fascinating and tells you everything about the amoral, corrupt cliques that have so much power across the region. He was a motorcycle cop who climbed through the bloody ranks to become head of security. He was a filthy piece of work - the Lavrenti Beria of Tunisia. He had a penchant for using his position to take whatever woman he wanted, though inducements or directly through rape - think of Claude Rainess character in Casablanca without the charm, bons mots or pangs of conscience in the final reel. A friend of mine, the wife of a senior Palestinian official of the time, recalls her stay in Tunis. Ben Ali followed her car all through the backstreets until she came to a hotel. There, she got out, told him who she was and that her husband had no compunctions about suitable reprisals should he not back off. Forlorn, he did. Leila washed hair in a coiffeurs. She was attractive and presented well in European society. So the owner used her as a currier to smuggle high value items in from Paris. She was caught and put in the police cells. A grubby officer saw her and told his boss, Ben Ali that there was an attractive young woman in custody. She was brought to him. He told her she would be released if she agreed to be his mistress (he was already married). Under what was clearly some duress, she agreed. She bore two daughters. He rose through various positions - ambassador, interior minister and the like - and at her insistence secretly married her in a civil ceremony in, iirc, Poland: the then Tunisian president had outlawed polygamy. Then he made a pitch for the top job. She was expecting their son. He moved in to the Presidential Palace with his official wife, but Leila kicked up such a stink that he divorced and she moved in. Her brother, a small time mafiosi, overnight was transformed into one of Tunisias leading businessmen. Stellar advancement beckoned for the rest of the Trabelsi clan as Tunisia itself sank into the nightmare of police repression, corruption on a Croesian scale and slavish adherence to US/French policy interests, all glossed over in Washington, London and Paris, of course, as they encouraged tourism and then latterly the enforced one way flights of rendition to the black jails of the Tunisian desert. So - an endearing first family for life. Somehow I dont hear a Llyod-Webber musical in the wings, a la Evita: Eva Peron had in contrast infinite redeeming features. Ben Ali was not alone at the top of a pyramid of sadistic repression, grand corruption internally and pimping the country externally. The core of the movement of demonstrations and strikes is surely right in focusing the next steps on the complete clearing out of all those tainted by association with the regime. The caretaker President is already being targeted and the protests continuing. It is enormously significant that one of the most pro-western and seemingly stable dictators in the Arab world has fallen in a revolution. Only belatedly do events seem to be entering the calculus of Western policy makers and of potentates and princes in the Middle East. Sarkozy was looking forward to playing kingmaker in the unfolding crisis in another former French possession, Lebanon, as Western forces vainly try to get their ducks in a row to isolate Hizbollah and turn back the strengthening alliance between Turkey, Syria and Iran, thus shoring up their own interests and those of Israel. Just when they were starting to cohere a policy in the Levant, however shot through with wishful-thinking, the first revolution in the wider region for three decades enters the equation. Its a funny old world as someone once put it. ***** According to friends who I've just spoken to by phone, there is now a sharpening focus on dismantling the Mukhabarat and most repressive security apparatus and on the driving out the most reviled and corrupt members of the elite. The army and securitat are very largely intact and the barely formed emergency government is seeking to up the presence on the streets to bring the movement to heal. The second wave of the uprising is now taking place. The regime still lacks an interlocutor with the authority to calm the movement in the foolish hope of coming to an accommodation with what is essentially Ben Ali's apparatus sans Ben Ali. Discussion - largely semi-formal - is taking place everywhere in gatherings in neighbourhoods, syndicates, mosques and some larger workplaces. ..................................................................... Arab despots should heed events in Tunisia Presidents-for-life offering bogus protection against phantom terrorists are not reliable friends Editorial The Observer, Sunday 16 January 2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/16/observer-editorial-tunis ia-support-arabs The fall from power of Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine ben Ali is one of those widely unpredicted turns of events that hindsight quickly labels inevitable. Corrupt authoritarian regimes are generally brittle and Mr Ben Ali's was no exception. But few anticipated how quickly a spate of angry demonstrations could become a regime-changing rebellion. Other governments across the region, with populations hardly less repressed than Tunisia's, will look on in fear. Mr Ben Ali was considered by western diplomats to be a relatively reliable fixture. Under his 23-year rule, the country had the status of a minor player in North Africa avoiding involvement in wider Middle East disputes and carving out an economic niche as a Mediterranean holiday destination. Meanwhile, the president, his wife and their extended family built a lucrative commercial empire. Political dissent has been crushed and media stifled. In a dispatch sent in July 2009 one of the secret cables published earlier this year by WikiLeaks the US ambassador to Tunis described rising frustration among ordinary Tunisians as a result of "First Family corruption, high unemployment and regional inequities". He also noted that major change would "have to wait for Ben Ali's departure". Tunisians clearly shared that view. The trigger was the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed student who set fire to himself in protest after police confiscated the vegetable stall that was his living. A wave of sympathetic protest then grew, becoming ever more determined in response to brutal attempts at suppression by police. While the mass mobilisation was sudden, the frustration it expressed has been a generation in the making. This revolution is demographic as well as economic and political. One in five Tunisians is aged 15-24 (as compared with around 1 in 10 in Britain) and youth unemployment is at least 30%. Joblessness is particularly high among university graduates. That is a phenomenon common to many Arab countries as a growing graduate population combines with a decline in the state's ability to provide public sector jobs, while private sectors remain underdeveloped. The result is a huge cohort of young people with too much time and not enough money. In Algeria, they are known as the "hittists", meaning the people who lean against walls an emblem of bored, disaffected youth. Members of this generation also have ways of sharing information online that, while sometimes disrupted by state censorship, cannot be entirely silenced. They are potentially a vast source of political upheaval. That is one reason why governments from Morocco and Algeria along the Mediterranean coast to Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the Gulf will be watching Tunisia with alarm. These are diverse states, but with common features: ossified politics and corrupt elites, lacking any governing principle other than the urge to resist demands for change from liberals and Islamists. They also suffer from cultural and academic sterility the suffocation of free thought that might seed political and social renewal. Stability for such regimes relies on a combination of state force and public apathy. It is the latter that changed so markedly in Tunisia. Especially worrying for other Arab leaders will be the fearlessness of the crowd, prepared to confront riot police firing live rounds. Authoritarian regimes rarely survive for long once the illusion of invincibility is shattered. In recent weeks, there have been angry protests over rising food prices and unemployment in Jordan and Algeria. There were riots in Egypt last November after disputed parliamentary elections. The lack of legitimacy does not mean Arab regimes are about to topple. The experience of communist states in eastern Europe in the 1980s shows that bankrupt systems can cling on in protracted, decaying endgames. But ultimately, they do fall. The comparison is revealing. During the cold war, western powers routinely supported the aspirations of captive citizens against their rulers. The west also cultivated dissident intellectuals, recognising the moral power that flows from the defence of open minds against closed systems. By contrast, the US and Europe have propped up blinkered, failing Arab regimes, judging them to be bulwarks against Islamist radicalism. It is a terribly misguided strategy, not least because it conforms to the jihadi narrative of a west hostile to the interests of ordinary Muslims. In Tunisia, the opposition is not especially Islamic. Mr Ben Ali's attempts to label the demonstrators "terrorists" in the early days of the uprising was a sign of desperation. Presumably, he hoped to buy US sympathy. Much past American policy in the region gave him grounds to think such a tactic might work. But there are signs of a more sophisticated approach coming from Washington. Last week, secretary of state Hillary Clinton spoke damningly of the failure by Arab states to modernise. Spreading opportunity to ordinary people, she said, was the surest guarantee against extremism. Europe has been slower to speak out on behalf of disenfranchised Arabs. France, the former colonial power in Tunisia, supported Mr Ben Ali until the very last moment. One minster offered to send riot police to help shore up the regime. The EU has an obvious interest in fostering political and economic regeneration on its Mediterranean border. The goal has often been discussed at regional summits, but progress is never made because modernisation means breaking up the power monopolies of corrupt elites. It takes a concerted effort of diplomatic and commercial power to encourage such regimes to change. The alternative, as has been proved in Tunisia, is violent change forced from below. It is unclear whether the country will emerge from this tumult with better leaders. There is at least potential for progress without Mr Ben Ali. That is a warning to leaders across the region. But it also contains a lesson for Europe and the US. Presidents-for-life offering bogus protection against phantom terrorists are not reliable friends. The surest allies for the long term are the ordinary people in Arab countries whose aspirations are being systematically thwarted. It is their friendship the west must be conspicuously courting. ................................................................ Tunisia: Gang violence mars celebration of popular uprising The sudden flight of ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has left a mood of confusion and fear. Soldiers and tanks controlled central Tunis but armed gangs continued to loot and burn amid fears that the ex-dictator's militia were behind the violence Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk, Saturday 15 January 2011 18.05 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/15/tunisia-protests-zine-al-abidine -ben-ali As hundreds of soldiers and tanks locked down a deserted central Tunis today, the debris on the city's main avenue told the story of a brutal repression which some feared had not come to an end. Amid the teargas cartridges, smashed-up shops and scorched pavements lay a sea of strewn shoes: one left flip-flop, a pair of torn baseball boots, a woman's fluffy slipper, a shiny black brogue. They had been left by people fleeing as police charged them, or dragged and beat them, during the peaceful protests that toppled the region's most repressive despot. Tunisia, the small Maghreb country famed for low-cost package holidays and miraculous economic progress, made history this weekend when a spontaneous people's uprising toppled Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the president who had ruled for 23 years and was today in exile in Saudi Arabia. Members of his family failed to join him with prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi confirming reports that several relatives had been arrested as they tried to leave the country. He did not say who they were, but described the arrests as a "provisional measure". Tunisia's population of 10 million people, known for their high levels of education and civic pride, became the first people in the Arab world to take to the streets and oust a leader. While the second interim president in 24 hours Fouad Mebazaa, a figure from the dictator's regime moved to form a hurried temporary coalition government, bringing in the opposition politicians who had been repressed, jailed and weakened under Ben Ali's rule, a mood of trepidation, confusion and fear for safety tempered the joy of the "Jasmine revolution". In the capital, Tunis, and other areas of the country, residents reported knife-wielding and balaclava-clad gangs attacking flats and houses. Organised groups were said to be attacking shops and factories. Many had piled into stolen hire cars and careered around the city and suburbs, stopping only to smash and burn. One young lawyer who hastily left his office in the centre of Tunis for the quieter southern suburbs said: "There's complete confusion and everyone is trying to understand who is behind this, whether it's Ben Ali's militia clinging on. Yes, there has been isolated looting of shops. But the gangs seem organised; they are inciting thieves. "They seem to be making trouble to convince public opinion that things were better under the dictatorship. Joy has turned to extreme caution and fear for people's safety." Throughout the day, sporadic gunfire was heard in Tunis, while the main train station was torched and smoke billowed over a supermarket as it was burned and emptied. Groups of Tunisia's notoriously brutal plain-clothes police, described as a kind of "north African Stasi", barricaded the Avenue Bourguiba near the Interior Ministry and stood guard on corners swinging clubs and batons. More than 40 people died in a fire at a prison in Monastir. One Tunisian prison director let 1,000 inmates escape after protests. As military helicopters hovered over Tunis and soldiers manned checkpoints on roads out of the city, intellectuals wondered how great a role the army was playing behind the scenes and whether there was a standoff between them and the police. "We don't know if the army are in total control; we don't understand if there are altercations between security forces or if there could be an insurrection," said Sana Ben Achour at the offices of the democratic women's movement. The leadership changes came at dizzying speed. Tunisia had witnessed four weeks of street protests, started by the plight of an unemployed rural graduate who set himself alight after his vegetable cart was confiscated by police. But the revolt against unemployment, police repression and the corruption of the autocratic, mafia-style ruling class was a revolution without a leader. When Ben Ali, dubbed a "Ceausescu of the sands", hastily and unexpectedly fled the country in his jet on Friday night, it left behind a confused vacuum. Ben Ali's long-time ally in the regime, prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, stepped in briefly, creating a sense of confusion and leaving open the possibility that Ben Ali could return. But yesterday the constitutional council declared the president's departure was permanent and gave Mebazaa 60 days to organise new elections. It was unclear who might emerge as the main candidates in a post-Ben Ali Tunisia: the autocratic leader has utterly dominated politics for decades, placing his men in positions of power and sending opponents to jail or into exile. In central Tunis, people began ripping down the ubiquitous portraits of Ben Ali that have adorned public buildings and roundabouts for years. "I called him Tarzan," said a printer watching two men pull down an awning of the Tunisian despot. As the first picture came down, another one was revealed behind it and another after that. But the older Ben Ali got, the younger he looked in each portrait, revealing the vanity of a man who liked to be filmed in soft focus and have his wrinkles airbrushed. Rage against the ruling dynasty, particularly the family of Ben Ali's loathed wife, Leila Trabelsi, dubbed "Madame La Présidente" or the "Queen of Carthage", continued today as the family's numerous villas and properties were ransacked and burned. The former hairdresser and her extended family had a grip on business, construction and foreign investment, living a lifestyle so lavish they would fly in food from other continents for parties. It emerged that she had fled the country in fitting style on board her "shopping plane". Ben Ali himself had landed in Jeddah, and was sheltering with the Saudi royal family, much like another African dictator on the run before him, Idi Amin. One resident of La Marsa, the bourgeois northern suburb of Tunis, said people had raided the family's villas and mansions, taking out what remained of their extensive car collection and going joy-riding. "That family drove Porsches while we couldn't afford to eat," said an elderly man. On the same day as President Nicolas Sarkozy made clear the former colonial power's "resolute support" for the popular uprising, Paris also said it would block suspicious movements of the family's assets in France. A government spokesman told French radio that members of Ben Ali's family were not welcome to stay in the country. For ordinary Tunisians, there was hope amid the uncertainty and apprehension. "We're a sentimental people," one teacher had said at the protests, explaining how dearly the educated lower middle classes prized the constitution and Tunisia's modernity. "More than 70 people have died, killed by the security forces. It's time for this to stop." In a country blanketed with secret police and their informants, people had long been afraid to talk politics. But now the authorities in the country's neighbours Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan are, with their own levels of authoritarianism, unemployment and repressive police, watching out for a contagion effect on their streets. Neji Brouri, 45, a key trade unionist in the journalists' union, is a writer who had been tracked, arrested and harassed by the regime for not toeing the line in the state-muzzled and totally censored press. His wife and family had endured decades of violence and pressure from the secret police. He said: "There is a mood of relief. But now we need a climate of freedom, human rights, civic freedoms to emerge. Gangs of militia are still trying to panic the country. The press of course is still in the hands of power. This isn't finished yet. We all have mixed feelings, there's joy but first and foremost people need to feel safe. People have been killed, tortured, followed, harassed, had their lives destroyed. Now there's a feeling the sacrifice was worth it. I woke up this morning thinking, was this all a dream? Now we have to prove it wasn't." ................................................................... 16 January 2011 Last updated at 09:04 GMT Tunisia seeks to form unity cabinet after Ben Ali fall http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12201042 Tunisian political leaders have started efforts to fill the power vacuum created by the fall of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali amid mass protests. Interim leader Foued Mebazaa - who was sworn in on Saturday - promised to form a unity government. The country appears to be mostly quiet, although gunfire was heard in Tunis during a second overnight curfew. The previous night had seen widespread violence, including looting, torching of buildings and deadly jail riots. Two people were reported to have been shot dead by soldiers near the interior ministry on Saturday. Some of the violence is being blamed on supporters of former President Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia on Friday. Election demand The BBC's Adam Mynott in Tunis says the immediate future of the country, thrown into unprecedented turmoil, is in the hands of the military. Mr Mebazaa, who until Saturday was the Speaker of parliament, has asked Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi to form a national unity government. "All Tunisians without exception and exclusion must be associated in the political process," Mr Mebazaa said in a televised address. map Opposition leader Najib Chebbi told France's RTL radio that he had already held talks with Mr Ghannouchi about taking part. He said his main demand was that elections should be held "within six or seven months" under international supervision. Under the present Tunisian constitution a presidential election must be held within 60 days. Another opposition figure, Mustafa Ben Jaafar, told Reuters news agency that he too had been contacted and called for "real reforms". Further talks are expected on Sunday. The exiled head of Tunisia's Islamist party, Rached Ghannouchi, said he would return to the country within weeks. Speaking to the BBC in London, he said Tunisians had got rid of a dictator, but they had a long way to go were a long way from bringing down the dictatorship. Gaddafi wades in The centre of Tunis has been sealed off by tanks and troops guarding key public buildings. Army helicopters are patrolling overhead. Residents in some areas have armed themselves with sticks and clubs, forming impromptu militias to protect their homes. Many attacks appeared to target businesses and buildings connected with the former president and his family. French-owned supermarkets were also looted and the main railway station in Tunis was badly damaged by fire. Saturday's deadliest incident appears to have been in the resort of Monastir, about 160km (100 miles) south of Tunis, where fire swept though a prison, killing at least 42 people. Inmates are believed to have been attempting to escape, as they did at a number of other jails where violence was reported. The leader of neighbouring Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, became the first Arab leader to speak out about the fall of the Tunisian president. He said the ensuing violence was "not worth it. "You have suffered a great loss... There is none better than Zine (Mr Ben Ali) to govern Tunisia," he said in a speech broadcast on state television. He added that he still considered Mr Ben Ali to be the "legal president of Tunisia". In the past month, protests have swept the country over unemployment, food price rises and corruption. Security forces used live ammunition against protesters and dozens of people died. Mr Ben Ali, who had been in power for 23 years, was only Tunisia's second president since independence in 1956. He conceded power on Friday after the unrest culminated in a giant rally against him in Tunis. .................................................................. Tunisia gripped by uncertainty Bands of looters go on the rampage while a fire in a prison apparently linked to the violence kills 42 inmates. Last Modified: 16 Jan 2011 09:01 GMT http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/20111167140864373.html Armed militias have taken to the streets of Tunisia following the toppling of longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, sowing fear among the population as the country's new leadership attempts to bring order and form a coalition government. Looting and deadly prison riots have erupted throughout the country after mass protests forced Ben Ali, who had been in power since 1987, to flee to Saudi Arabia. "There is a real sense of fear right now on the streets," said Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Tunis, the capital. Many residents, running out of bread, milk and petrol, have decided to arm themselves and barricade their homes, Moshiri said. Some are forming local groups to defend their own neighbourhoods. Three different armed groups appear to be attempting to assert power, she said: Police, security forces from the interior ministry, and irregular militias allied with Ben Ali's former regime. Among Tunisia's population of roughly 10 million people, 250,000 are in the police force, she said. "People are telling us right now they trust the army far more than they do the police," Moshiri said. Ben Ali family member killed On Sunday, the AFP news agency reported that a member of the president's extended family had died of a knife wound two days earlier. Imed Trabelsi, a nephew of Ben Ali's wife, died in a military hospital in Tunis, a staff member told the AFP. He was the first person in the president's extended family reported to have died as a result of the uprising. Follow Al Jazeera's complete coverage Salim Shayboub, Ben Ali's son in law, also reportedly has been arrested. Trabelsi was an influential businessman and became more widely known after he was mentioned in a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks that said he was reported to have stolen a yacht belonging to the chairman of the powerful French financial firm Lazard. The new president Fouad Mebezaa, the speaker of parliament, was sworn in as the country's new president on Saturday and promised to create a unity government that could include the long-ignored opposition. It was the second change of power in the North African nation in less than 24 hours. After Ben Ali fled on Friday, prime minister Mohammed Ghannouchi went on state television to announce that he had taken power in accordance with the constitution. Amid the political instability, looters emptied shops and torched the main train station in Tunis. Soldiers traded fire with unidentified armed men in front of the interior ministry. The widely-followed Tunisian blog Nawaat posted video of what it said were army troops confronting armed militia Troops were patrolling the capital on Saturday and a state of emergency was in force. The Reuters news agency reported that squads of men in civilian clothes were driving through Tunis at high speed, shooting randomly at buildings and people. Soldiers and plainclothes security personnel dragged dozens of suspected looters out of their cars at gunpoint and took them away in lorries, according to a report from the AFP news agency. "The army is all over the place in Tunis, they are trying to check cars and control people going by," Youssef Gaigi, a blogger and activist based in Tunisia, said. Black smoke billowed over a giant supermarket in Ariana, north of the capital, as it was torched and emptied. Soldiers fired warning shots in vain to try to stop the looters, and shops near the main bazaar were also attacked. Riots target Ben Ali family interests Some rioters appeared to be targeting businesses owned by members of Ben Ali's family. In Tunis, a branch of the Zeitouna bank founded by Ben Ali's son-in-law was torched, as were vehicles made by Kia, Fiat and Porsche - carmakers distributed in Tunisia by members of the ruling family. Public television station TV7 broadcast phone calls from residents on the capital's outskirts, describing attacks by knife-wielding assailants. Amid the turmoil, Tunisians have organised themselves to protect their neighbourhoods, Amine Ghali, a democracy advocate in Tunisia, told Al Jazeera. "There is a serious security issue, but people are getting organised. They are standing in front of their neighbourhoods, forming neighbourhood committees ... they are trying to be as calm as possible and trying to help the military," he said. Residents of some Tunis neighbourhoods set up barricades and organised overnight patrols to deter rioters. In El Menzah neighbourhood, dozens of men and boys armed with baseball bats and clubs were taking turns on patrol - just as a broadcast on Tunisian television had urged citizens to do. "This isn't good at all. I'm very afraid for the kids and myself," Lilia Ben Romdhan, a mother of three in outer Tunis," said. 'Militia' fears There are fears that some of the violence is being carried out by armed factions allied to Ben Ali, with Reuters quoting an unnamed military source as saying: "Ben Ali's security is behind what is happening." Gaigi, who had been part of the protests that brought down Ben Ali, indicated that the army's presence was required because the police force had broken down. "Several militias, which are actually doing some of the looting are part of the ministry of the interior, or police members, and they are co-ordinated by heads of police and intelligence in Tuisia," he said. "We heard the army have captured some of these people but there is still a lot of work to be done." Indeed, top Ben Ali adviser and the former head of the president's security General Ali Seryati was reported to have been captured by civilians. Deadly prison fire In a sign that Ben Ali's rule was over, workers were taking down a portrait of the former president outside the headquarters of his RCD party on Mohamed V Avenue in the centre of Tunis. Meanwhile, a fire on Saturday at a prison in the Mediterranean coastal resort of Monastir killed 42 people, coroner Tarek Mghirbi told The Associated Press news agency. Witnesses told Al Jazeera that other prisoners had escaped and reports said that some prisoners had been shot as they made their escape bid. In Mahdia, further down the coast, inmates set fire to their mattresses in protest. Soldiers opened fire, killing five inmates, a local official said. Breakouts were also reported at three other prisons and a report from The Associated Press news agency said that an official at one facility had let 1,000 inmates escape following protests at the prison. Thousands of tourists have been evacuated from the Mediterranean nation following the unrest. ................................................................... 15 January 2011 Last updated at 00:51 GMT Could other Arab countries follow Tunisia's example? By Roger Hardy Middle East analyst, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12198039 Arabs everywhere identified with Mohamed Bouazizi. When the 26-year-old Tunisian graduate - despairing of getting a decent job and abused by the police - set fire to himself in a public square, his story resonated far beyond his provincial town. When he later died of his injuries, he became both a symbol and a martyr. Now the unrest sparked by his self-immolation has led to the downfall of one of the region's longest-serving autocrats. Unable to quell the unrest, despite making a string of televised concessions to the protesters, the 74-year-old President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali simply vanished from the scene. While the impact of the unrest on Tunisia is uncertain, its impact on the region is already apparent. Arabs identified with the young Tunisian because his problems - unemployment, corruption, autocracy, the absence of human rights - are their problems. Throughout the region there is a dignity deficit. What is more, in an age of globalisation, regimes can no longer cut their citizens off from news. The Arab media - even in countries where they are constrained - could sense their audiences' thirst for news about Bouazizi's death and the extraordinary drama it triggered. They could not keep silent, as they might have done in the past. 'Message to the West' But if the Tunisian protestors have sent a message of defiance to Arab rulers, they have sent a rather different message to the West For decades, Western governments depicted Tunisia as an oasis of calm and economic success - a place they could do business with. They turned a blind eye to President Ben Ali's harsh suppression of dissent - and ignored the fact that, while the elite prospered, ordinary Tunisians suffered. In Washington, President Barack Obama has been quick to denounce the excesses of the Tunisian police, and voice the hope that the country will move towards a more democratic future. As the riots continued in Tunis, his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - at the end of a visit to the Gulf - delivered a blistering critique of corruption and political stagnation in the region. The Obama administration - stung perhaps by criticism that it has been too timid on these issues - seems to have sensed that it has to speak out or lose credibility. Several dangers lie ahead. One is that Tunisia falls into chaos - a scenario that would convince Arab rulers to cling more tightly to power rather than sharing or relinquishing it. Another is that the unrest may spread. It is already apparent - and for broadly similar reasons - in neighbouring Algeria. In a string of Arab countries, succession issues loom as ageing autocrats confront the unmet aspirations of their youthful and rapidly growing populations. Mohamed Bouazizi's life and death sum up the condition of the Arab world today. ................................................................. Three questions for Marwan Bishara Al Jazeera's senior political analyst comments on the timing, success and meaning of the Tunisian uprising. Marwan Bishara Last Modified: 15 Jan 2011 07:54 GMT http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/2011/01/20111157937219109.html Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, comments on three crucial issues. The recent dramatic change in Tunisia has come as a surprise to most. How do you explain its success, timing and speed? The simplest and perhaps the most accurate answer was "provided" almost a century ago by Tunisian poet Abu Al-Qasem Al-Shabi (Schebbi), in his Defenders of the Homeland which became the most popular verse in Arab poetry, and used in the Tunisian national anthem: "When people decide to live, destiny shall obey, and one day ... the slavery chains must be broken." Unlike the short-lived uprising in neighbouring Algeria or recent socio-economic protests in other Arab countries, the popular Tunisian uprising was immediately supported by all the opposition groups, from the Islamists to the Communists, as well as by the labour unions, which helped it spread to all major parts of the country, including the influential north. Likewise, the great degree of pent-up tension after decades of dictatorship, especially the last quarter of a century of police state under Ben Ali, allowed the situation to explode once the lid was removed in the early days of the protest against unemployment. How does such an unpopular oppressive regime stay off the radar of the international community? The so-called international community has been traditionally silent about totalitarian practices and abuses within its member states, except in cases where certain Western countries or powers have invoked questions of regime oppression either as a tool of foreign policy or championing the cause of human rights for public consumption. So that when those regimes, as in Tunisia, co-operated with their Western counterparts on economic or strategic issues, their abuses of power have been generally ignored. Much of which explains Western leaders' silence or confusion regarding the Tunisian "uprising", but their rush to support the "uprising" of the Iranian opposition following the elections last year. Call it hypocrisy. But what does Tunisia have to offer? For US and European leaders, Tunisia's deposed president had been considered a staunch ally in the war on terrorism and against Islamist extremism. As it is well known and reported by international human rights groups, he exploited this Western support to crack down on peaceful dissent. During a 2004 visit by Ben Ali to the White House, in advance of Tunisia's hosting of an Arab League summit, George Bush, the then US president, praised his guest as an ally in the war on terrorism, and praised Tunisia's reforms in "press freedom" and the holding of "free and competitive elections". The same was repeated in 2008 by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, who praised the improved "sphere of liberties" when human rights abuses were rampant in Tunisia. In once instance, at least 200 people were prosecuted against the backdrop of socio-economic protests in one southern mining town, Redhayef. When certain European officials criticised Tunisia's human rights record, they generally praised its economic performance. France is Tunisia's leading trade partner and its fourth largest foreign investor, while 80 per cent of the country's trade is with the European Union. Arguably, the neoliberal economic opening to Western investments has played no small part in the deterioration of the economic situation in Tunisia and other Arab countries. ...................................................................... Monde 15/01/2011 à 18h08 Les gouvernements arabes craignent une contagion de la révolte tunisienne Silence radio ou déclarations très prudentes et mesurées ce samedi de la part des dirigeants des pays arabes. Du Soudan à l'Egype et la Jordanie, tour d'horizon. http://www.liberation.fr/monde/01012313944-les-gouvernements-arabes-craignen t-une-contagion-de-la-revolte-tunisienne La plupart des gouvernements arabes restaient prudents ou silencieux samedi après la chute du président tunisien Zine El Abidine Ben Ali sous la pression de la rue, mais la Ligue des Etats arabes a appelé les forces politiques en Tunisie à être «unies pour le bien du peuple». Alors que de nombreux pays occidentaux ont plaidé pour une transition pacifique vers la démocratie, la rue arabe a manifesté son soutien au soulèvement tunisien, mais dans la région, dominée par des régimes autoritaires, la plupart des gouvernements sont restés prudents. La déchéance de Ben Ali est un avertissement pour eux, face à des populations en proie à des problèmes souvent proches de ceux des Tunisiens. La Ligue arabe a demandé «à toutes les forces politiques, ainsi quaux représentants de la société tunisienne et aux officiels, dêtre unis pour le bien du peuple et pour réaliser la paix civile». La Ligue a appelé de ses voeux un «consensus national qui permette de sortir le pays de la crise tout en garantissant le respect de la volonté du peuple tunisien». Le Soudan a salué «le choix du peuple tunisien de déterminer lui-même son futur politique», et assuré de son respect des «choix démocratiques du peuple», selon un communiqué du ministère des Affaires étrangères. Le Qatar a sobrement indiqué quil respectait «la volonté et le choix du peuple tunisien», et lEgypte a elle aussi affirmé «son respect des choix du peuple tunisien,» se disant «confiante que la sagesse des frères tunisiens ( ) empêchera le pays de plonger dans le chaos». Au Caire, dès vendredi soir, des dizaines dEgyptiens avaient partagé lenthousiasme dun groupe de Tunisiens qui célébraient devant leur ambassade le départ de M. Ben Ali, aux cris de «Ecoutez les Tunisiens, cest votre tour les Egyptiens». Sit-in en Jordanie En Jordanie, où la grogne monte contre linflation et le chômage, une cinquantaine de syndicalistes ont organisé un sit-in samedi devant lambassade de Tunisie à Amman et appelé à la propagation de «la révolution tunisienne». En Irak, un député sunnite modéré, Talal Zobaie, a souligné dans un courriel que ces événements constituaient «un avertissement très clair à tous les dictateurs et régimes totalitaires de la région, qui négligent leurs peuples et ignorent leurs droits démocratiques fondamentaux». Au Koweït, seuls les députés de lopposition islamiste ont réagi, saluant «le courage du peuple tunisien» qui a «montré lexemple, et envoyé des messages par dizaines aux régimes arabes». LArabie saoudite sest cantonnée à confirmer officiellement avoir donné refuge à M. Ben Ali par «considération pour les circonstances exceptionnelles que traverse le peuple tunisien». En Libye, le numéro un libyen, Mouammar Kadhafi, devait sadresser samedi «au peuple tunisien frère», a annoncé lagence libyenne Jana, ajoutant que le président tunisien déchu avait parlé «samedi au téléphone» avec le colonel Khadafi, avec qui il entretenait des relations privilégiées. En Palestine, dans un communiqué tout en prudence, lOrganisation de libération de la palestine (OLP) a rendu hommage «au courage sans précédent des Tunisiens et au sacrifice héroïque (dont ils ont fait preuve) pour parvenir à leurs exigences». LOLP, qui regroupe les principaux mouvements palestiniens à lexception du Hamas et du Jihad islamique, na pas mentionné le dirigeant déchu, dont elle était proche. «Nous soutenons nos frères, le peuple de Tunisie, dans le choix de leurs dirigeants, quels que soient les sacrifices», a déclaré le ministre de lIntérieur du Hamas, Fathi Hammad, saluant «une mise en application de la volonté du peuple qui a été patient pendant de longues années». (Source AFP) .................................................................... 13.01.11 Tunisia: A Moment of Destiny for the Tunisian People and Beyond? by Dyab Abou Jahjah http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/jahjah130111.html On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian man of 26 years old, heads towards the municipality of Sidi Bouzid, a Tunisian provincial city. He walks calmly towards the entrance of the building with the intention of protesting. Bouazizi, who was unemployed despite holding a university degree as an IT engineer, was gaining his daily bread as a street vegetable-seller before the police confiscated his stall. Now he was determined to let his voice be heard and to protest this injustice along with the corruption it reflects and the lack of opportunities he is facing despite his application to study and manifest willingness to accept any possible job, including selling vegetables in the street. When the young man set fire to himself in front of City Hall, he marked a day after which Tunisia and possibly the whole Arab world will never be the same. Immediately after the people of Sidi Bouzid heard about the act of the young man, thousands of people took to the streets in indignation, protesting peacefully against the corruption, injustice, and lack of job opportunities. They chanted slogans like "You gang of thieves, employment is a right" -- the gang of thieves they refer to being the "Trabelsies" -- as they are known to the whole Tunisian people -- that is the family of Leila Ben Ali, wife of the Tunisian dictator Zinelabidine Ben Ali who has been in power since 1987, after a bloodless coup against his mentor, Lahbib Bourguiba. Since then Tunisia has become one of the most harshly governed of the Arab countries run by an iron fist, where all opposition has been eliminated or tamed. The Trabelsies and their lacqueys grew to become a controlling elite monopolizing most of the country's resources. The situation is so extreme that it is said that one hundred people control the whole of Tunisia today and dictate its policies in pursuit of their personal gain. Tunisia has become the byword of what is meant by speaking of a Kleptocracy. In a country that despite everything has a high level of education, with wide internet use and a highly critical population, it was sooner or later going to lead to a confrontation between government and people. That the protest started from the southern parts of the country, generally the more marginalised and oppressed, is also no surprise. The reprisal was swift and harsh: already on the first day there were reports of deaths and wounded. Other people soon followed Bouazizi's example and either set themselves on fire or attempted suicide in other ways. The message is clear: the people are desperate, and they feel they have nothing to lose any more. In another era we might not have even heard of this clash, but with cellular phone cameras and Facebook, the official and western media blackout was breached. Images of the protest, videos, firsthand testimonies, articles drafted by the protesters themselves have gone all over the place in cyberspace. The regime has always had a dodgy relationship with Facebook and the internet and tried now to control the flow of information. But through proxy-servers the story was still being told. Al Jazeera was the only news channel that made headlines of the protests, earning itself the wrath of the regime that has described its coverage as conspiratorial. This particular conspiracy theory has not been limited to the media. The regime maintains that it embraces the whole protest movement, all thugs steered by a foreign agenda and aiming at destabilising the country and undermining its fabulous and unique success story. Amongst the protesters it is feared as a result that the regime will resort to bombings attributed to Al Qaida to validate these claims. Similar tactics were used in the 1990s when, as Jennifer Noyon chronicles in "Tunisia's 'Managed Democracy'," "by carefully emphasizing the alleged terrorist character of An-Nahda, the regime was able to undermine the movement's legitimacy in the eyes of the people and to jail and repress its members." Ben Ali, best friend of the European Union and especially France in his strong support for a type of militant secularism, has hardly an enemy to his name but his own people, so to speak about foreign aggressors is rather surreal. Despite the fact that his corrupt and oppressive style of governance is well known to the EU, Europe remains a fan of the dictator and structurally finances projects that are controlled by what, Wikileaks has revealed, the American administration regards as little other than a mafia. This is no surprise to most Arabs, because we are used to the west supporting our dictators. Democracy would involve some kind of implementation of a people's agenda that is not sufficiently pro-Western for Europe or the USA to live with. Emboldened by European support, and after the death of Bouazizi who succumbed to his burns on January 4, the regime went berserk, opening fire at demonstrators and killing fifty people in three nights. As videos circulated on Facebook showed shocking images of youth shot dead in the head or in the heart, this has galvanized larger crowds onto the streets. What started as a spontaneous uprising now looks more like a revolt, the geographical spread of the protests reaching Tunis, the capital, where today artists protesting against the severity of the repression were beaten and humiliated by the police. But, above all, major protests were reported in three populous and notorious neighbourhoods of Tunis, Al Tadamon, Al Tahrir, and Al Intilaka. Protest has even reached the North West for the first time and there is some talk of casualties in the city of Beja. It seems that the momentum is still building after twenty-five days. Could this be a popular revolution to topple the regime? This scenario cannot be excluded. There are already signs of dissent among some army units following the sacking of army commander Ben Amar for allegedly refusing to shoot at the protestors. Neither can the possibility of a military putsch to substitute one dictator for another. One thing is sure: there is a political awareness being created now among the Tunisian people and especially among the youth -- a sense of historic possibility that what was deemed impossible may actually be within reach. The effect of this is even being felt on the streets of Algeria where thousands of youth, who were copying the demands of "the Tunisian Intifada" as people are calling it now, clashed with police. Across the Arab world, peoples are experiencing hope, and the regimes are afraid: all the Arab people and all the Arab regimes. The most famous of Tunisian poets, Abolkacim Ashabi, once wrote a famous poem that we all learned in school across the Arab world. Its best-known verse reads: "If the people one day decide to live, fate must answer and the chains must break." Bouazizi's martyrdom may have triggered a popular revival, many now believe, which will ensure that it is only a matter of time before Ashabi's prophecy is fulfilled. Dyab Abou Jahjah is founder and former president of the Arab European League. This article was first published in openDemocracy on 13 January 2011 under a Creative Com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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