Friday 14 January 2011 -- After a dramatic 24 hours when Tunisia's dictator president Ben Ali first tried promising liberalisation and an end to police shootings of demonstrators and then, this evening at 16:00, declaring martial law, he has finally fallen from office. While the rumours are still swirling, one thing is clear, Ben Ali has left Tunisia and the army has stepped in. The comments after this article contain continuous updates of the uprising.
The day began with a mass demonstration called by Tunisia's trade union federation, the UGTT, in the capital Tunis. Between 10 and 15,000 people demonstrated outside the Ministry of the Interior. The initially peaceful scene broke down at around 14:30 local time as police moved in with tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd, some of whom had managed to scale the Ministry building and get on its roof. From then on, the city centre descended into chaos with running battles between the riot police and Tunisians of all ages and backgrounds fighting for the overthrow of the hated despot.
Finally, armoured cars from the army appeared on the street and a state of emergency and curfew was declared with Ben Ali threatening the populace that the security forces had carte blanche to open fire on any gatherings of more than three people. Soon, however, he disappeared from view and the rumours began to circulate. The army seized control of the airport and there were reports of convoys of limousines racing to the airport from the Ben Ali families palace. Finally the official announcement came. Ben Ali is gone. Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi appeared on state TV to announce that he was in charge of a caretaker government backed by the army.
Tonight the long-suffering people of Tunisia may rejoice that their last four weeks of heroic resistance has finally seen off the dictator who ran the most vicious police state in North Africa over them for the last 23 years.
But tomorrow morning will find the army in charge. What will happen tomorrow and the days to follow is anybody's guess. But the people now know that they have the power to overthrow a long-entrenched dictatorship, how much easier to take on a new unstable regime.
Report by Workers Solidarity Movement
Comments
BBC videos
Taking the temperature on the streets of Tunis
Tunisia's new national unity government in tatters
Protest and clashes between school students and police in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania on Tuesday (machine translation).
On twitter: 'There have been protests inspired by Tunisia in Oman in front empty govt offices since bureaucrats work until 14:30.'
Also on twitter: 'Majority of European Parliament rejects resolution supporting Tunisian people.'
Did French customs topple Ben Ali?
First off, the answer to the question posed by the headline is - no, of course not.
A bit of contextualisation might be in order. The events in Tunisia are having some political fallout in France at the moment. Primarily this is just an excuse for another round of tit for tat in the ongoing culture war between left and right which is of no particular interest to anybody outside France (and a good number inside, tbh), apart from it will occassionally throw out numbers like the above story.
The whistlestop summary is that a couple of days before Ben Ali fell, the French foreign minister Michelle Alliot-Marie (aka MAM) announced in parliament that the French state, with its unparalleled experience in policing this sort of thing, stood ready to help Ben Ali restore order. Since Ben Ali fell the left have been calling foul on MAM, in return the right have retailiated by pointing out that a) Ben Ali and his RCD party were members of the Socialist International that the PS were part of, until a few days ago and b) the PS star mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has never said diddly about Ben Ali and the Tunisian situation, despite being Tunisian born himself, and blah, blah, blah, so it goes on...
So the above is another card in the game to prove that MAM is either a) an evil imperialist securocrat, hell-bent on parachuting the Foreign Legion into Tunis, or b) an enlightened humanitarian who exercised diplomatic discretion by holding up a vital re-up of CS through procedural means to secretly support the plucky Tunisians struggle for French-style liberal democracy.
N'importe quoi...
too good to miss. note the date
SI decision on Tunisia
still embodying the "values and principles" of the SI are e.g. Mubarak's NDP or the Mexican PRI
AP
Quite
Ahram online
NB that last para seems to contradict the AP story about Morjane returning to Tunis before the conference.
The top most viewed stories on al ahram show the current impact of Tunisia on the arab imagination - at least in Egypt.
1. Tunisie Telecom forced to delay its initial public offering
2. Market Report: Egyptian wave of self-immolation hits Stock Exchange
3. WB: Tunisian crisis proved addressing unemployment should be top regional priority
4. Algeria buys wheat to avoid shortage and unrest
5. French industry eyes Tunisia
6. Sharm Summit: The businessmen are coming
7. Tunisian uprising impacts economy: report
8. Switzerland considers freezing Tunisian president's alleged assets
some interesting stories in that lot.
Picking up on one of those stories...
French industry eyes Tunisia
One question at the back of my mind has been what will happen to the large sector of the Tunisian economy that was directly owned by members of the families of Ben Ali and Leila Trabelsi. Nationalisation? Sale to foreign investors? Privatisation with an asset grab by the Tunisian business and political class? Attempts at self-management?
What Tunisia proved - and disproved - about political change in the Arab world
Tunisia crisis: live updates (Guardian)
Tunisia liveblog
le Parisien reports that Chebbi has announced that the first Cabinet meeting of new ministers will not take place until tomorrow now.
The excuse being that as the main order of business will be the general amnesty for all political prisoners (that opposition and civil socitey groups have been demanding for decades), the ministry of justice needs the time to get the paperwork together. Also on the agenda will be the separation of state bodies from the RCD (which has been the single party of power since independance). That's if they ever get to meet, that is. 24 hours is a long time in Tunisian politics just now.
Pues eso: revolución
One of the better reports I've seen from the ongoing protests in Tunis. In Spanish unfortunately.
Without God on our side
CEMB forum -- Ex-muslims discussing Tunisia
Here's a report from the Telegraph that's interesting because in passing it mentions 'revolutionary committees of workers ... set to strip power from state-appointed directors'. It doesn't give any more details and there's nothing to say how widespread this is, how these committees operate or how far they are going.
Some of the reporting that has come out of Tunisia has actually been quite good after the initial delay, but I suspect journalists may be missing things which are important but don't fit in with their worldview. There's plenty been written about role of the internet and the supposed Islamist threat etc, but very little about the organisation of the uprising, the unions and the left.
It's also worth noting that not much is being written about what is happening in the back country towns where the uprising began. If you take the view that politics is about the formation of governments and what goes on in the capital city then that makes a kind of sense but I'm not sure how far it deals with what actually matters in Tunisia at the moment.
Tunisia's new government implodes on day one
From the New York Times
Protests spread to the BBC?
BBC Arabic staff on strike over extra working hours (Al Arabiya)
From the liveblog
Since Friday, Yemen sees daily anti-government protests (Al Arabiya)
Photos
Video: RCD out
Video: how to leave the RCD
More videos
liveblog
Video: demonstrators demand new democracy
Mood in Tunisia lifts, but revolution may not be over (Guardian)
Welcome to post-Islamism (al-bab.com)
Some barricades being removed
I saw this on one of the francophone streams last night (nouvelobs?). Anyway, here's the ahram take:
33 Ben Ali relatives arrested
Obviously what we really want is interviews with UGTT militants and grassroots organisers, (especially, as Mark previously raised, what's really going on in the workplaces of the now fled, dead or arrested Benali - Trabelsi empire) along with news of what's happening in the interior cities like Kesserine and Sidi Bouzid. Looks like it's going to be while before any of that appears in the online anglo and euro news spheres.
In the meantime, faute de mieux, it appears that the UGTT translators have made more of an effort to translate their latest official releases into english, rather than french, contrary to what you might expect. See UGTT english statements
Obviously they're mostly predictably staid, cautious and timidly reformist. But there are still some interesting details.
For e.g. this from the first statement after the inital outbreak in Sidi Bouzid, dated December 21 -
Now I recall somewhere in the accounts I have read that Mohamed Bouzizi was not selling vegetables in Sidi Bouzid, he'd gone to one of the big towns on the coast and it was there that he was stopped by the police. Presumably he would have been unable to get a traders licence for a town he was not registered in (in the French system, your place of residence must be registered) even had he tried to. By the accounts it was after his encounter with the Police in whichever coastal town it was, that he returned to Sidi Bouzid and immolated himself in front of the local Mairie. There seems to have been a distinct regional tension underlying the origins of this intifada. All of which makes the lack of news from the interior more frustrating, but hey...
I was going to try and just pick snippets out of this, but it has diverse points of interest, so apols for length...
Tunisia debates a future without powerful Ben Ali party
Signs of a tension there between Houssine Dimassi and other opinions within the UGTT.
an interview with an exiled Socialist from Tunesia: http://cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004236
Staff kick out the CEO of an insurance company due to links with Ali's regime.
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessnews.com.tn%2FTunisie---Le-personnel-de-la-STAR-renvoie-le-PDG-dehors%2C520%2C23105%2C1
le Parisien: Warning shots fired over demonstrators