The Sidi Bouzid revolution: Ben Ali flees as protests spread in Tunisia

Founding statement of the 14th of January Front

Slideshows: 14 January ----- 22 January

La lucha de clases

machine translation

Tras una semana de unanimidad festiva y libertaria, una linea de clase comienza a dividir la sociedad tunecina. Se trata de una división territorial - que comienza a separar la avenida Bourguiba de la Qasba - y es también una división cibernética, en la que los mismos que utilizaban facebook para atizar la revolución hoy llaman a la calma y al restablecimiento del orden contra el proletariado insurgente. Se percibe una contracción inquietante. Hamida Ben Romdhane, director de La Press, que el día 13 elogiaba sumisamente las últimas medidas de Ben Alí, el día 20 exhibía en portada las presuntas joyas confiscadas a la familia Trabelsi y ensalzaba la revolución del digno pueblo tunecino. Hoy, día 25, La Press recula de nuevo y en distintos artículos condena las huelgas sectoriales convocadas por la UGTT y se pregunta si no se está yendo demasiado lejos. Al mismo tiempo llegan noticias de asaltos a los locales del sindicato en Gafsa, en el Kef y en Mahdia. En los teléfonos móviles se reciben mensajes invitando a apoyar a Mohamed Ghanoushi y a oponerse a las protestas. Y una primera manifestación progubernamental, portando consignas contra las huelgas y a favor de un proceso tutelado, se enfrenta en la avenida Bourguiba, a las 5 de la tarde, con un nutrido grupo que reclama la disolución del gobierno provisional. El inesperado discurso de ayer en la Qasba de Rachid Ammar, el héroe militar que se negó a aceptar las órdenes del dictador y al que se vincula con los EEUU, da toda la medida de una rápida involución que se refleja en ese espacio de libertad abierto o consentido por el gabinete en funciones. Se vuelve a hablar de censura, de opacidad, de discreto control sobre jóvenes y opositores.

El conflicto es palmariamente ya un conflicto de clases…

Tunisia protests turn violent (Al Jazeera)

Demonstrators have clashed with Tunisian police as peaceful protests demanding those loyal to the ousted government quit turned violent.

It was not clear how the clashes near the government offices in the capital, Tunis, began on Wednesday, but the Reuters news agency said that witnesses saw riot police use tear gas on hundreds of demonstrators, mainly teenagers and young men who threw stones.

(…)

Nazanine Moshiri Al Jazeera's reported in Tunis, said on Wednesday hundreds of protesters, who appear to be from rural regions, have been camping out at the government compound to make their voices heard.

"They want all members of the former ruling party out of the coalition government," she said.

"Rocks were thrown at the police, tear gas and water cannons were used against protesters. There have been numerous injuries. It is calm right now but tension is growing [among people from these areas].

"They say they are not going anywhere till the coalition government resigns. They do not want any members of Ben Ali's regime still in government," she said...

English version of that last link posted by sitcom: http://www.voltairenet.org/article168224.html
This is probably worth reading but definitely has elements of leftist conspiracy theory:

Hidden behind the pseudonym of Anonymous, the CIA cyber-command - already deployed against Zimbabwe and Iran - hacked Tunisian official sites, implanting a sinister message in English.

While this may be nonsense I'm sure there's a lot going on behind the scenes. It would be surprising if Western governments weren't trying to influence events. What this amounts to and how competently it is done is another question.

Video posted up this afternoon, I'm not sure if the footage is from today.

[youtube]o75PsBIjq6Q[/youtube]

From the International Marxist Tendency. The usual caveats apply.

Tunisia – for a national general strike against the Gannouchi government!

Wednesday, January 26 was marked by yet more massive demonstrations throughout Tunisia against the “national unity” government, whose key ministers come from the government of the hated dictator Ben Ali. The same dictator that the masses forced to flee two weeks ago.

The regional structures of the UGTT had called for general strikes in Sfax, El Kef, Sidi Bouzid, Jendouba, Kairouan, Siliana, Gabés, Nabeul and others. The strikes and mobilizations had a common slogan and a united aim: to bring down the government, which the masses correctly consider simply a continuation of the hated RCD regime of Ben Ali.

A government suspended in mid-air

Meanwhile, in the capital, thousands of youth, arrived from all corners of the country as part of the Caravan for Liberation, were still camped outside the government buildings. Attempts by the riot police on Monday and Tuesday to remove them had failed. General Rachid Ammar, the Chief of Staff of the Tunisian Army, who was removed by Ben Ali for refusing to use the army against the revolutionary movement, also attempted to get the demonstrators to clear the way and allow the government to work. Using the enormous authority that the Army and himself have gained by appearing to be on the side of the people against Ben Ali, he addressed the crowd.

He told them that their demands were justified and gave them guarantees that the Army would defend their revolution. He also gave them assurances that the Army “would respect the constitution” (though he did not say which one) and asked them, politely, to leave: “I would love it if this place was to emptied, so that the government can work”. Without appearing to be too close to the current government of Gannouchi (the former Prime Minister under Ben Ali), he also added that inside the government compound that the demonstrators have been surrounding since Sunday “there are not only Ministers, but also functionaries who are attempting to make the country work”.

And then he added an ominous warning: “your movement can be manipulated by other elements, to create a vacuum of power, and when there is a vacuum of power, the Army would have to intervene”. Neither nice polite words, nor veiled threats worked. The crowd applauded, ecstatically; sang the national anthem, praised the army general whom they see as having sided with the revolution... but remained solidly in the Kasbah esplanade, blocking the government building. The revolutionary youth who have marched to the capital have a very clear idea of why they are there: “The battle will be decided in Tunis. This is the reason why we have come. The government must be overthrown. They are like a cancer, which needs to be cleaned out, not a shred can be left behind" (see video of the sit-in outside the Prime Minister’s office)

This really shows the enormous power of the revolutionary movement at the present time and the extremely favourable balance of forces. The Chief of Staff of the Army is forced to go and speak to the people directly and asks them to please go away and allow the government to work, and when they refuse there is nothing he can do. Who has power in Tunisia? The streets or the government and the state?

Inside, having entered through some back door, the council of ministers met and announced that there was going to be an “imminent government reshuffle”. But the announcement never came. And 48h later, it still has not arrived. There were also rumours of a “Committee of the Wise” being formed, but nothing has yet come out of it. This really shows the enormous difficulties of the Tunisian ruling class (and their imperialist puppet masters) are encountering in finding a government which is acceptable to the masses and has some legitimacy. The revolutionary movement of the workers and youth prevents them from regaining full control of the situation.

On Tuesday we saw the first attempts of the counter-revolution to regroup. Gangs of thugs and militias from the RCD attacked union offices in Gafsa, Kasserine (West) Béjà (North), Monastir et Mehdia (Centre). In the mining region of Gafsa a gang of men armed with sticks, knives and chains, attacked the offices of the regional union and injured a number of trade unionists present. The Army intervened, firing warning shots in the air and evicted them from the premises. Also in the capital Tunis, a demonstration had been called in favour of the national unity government. This was part of a growing media campaign “against strikes”, “against chaos”, against “disrupting the economy”, and generally against “extremist elements within the UGTT”. Showing the real balance of forces, the demonstration gathered about 200 people and was quickly dispersed by protesters against the government despite having heavy police protection (see video). If the situation is not decisively resolved in favour of the workers and youth, then such demonstrations might grow and reaction can gain support in the streets. But at the present time, they are extremely weak.

Regional general strikes and mass demonstrations

It is in this context that the regional strikes are taking place today, Wednesday 26, and they could be crucial to force the downfall of the government. In the statement calling for the strike, the regional UGTT in Sfax made clear what were the aims of the movement:

After examining the general situation in the country and the latest political and social developments on light of our people’s revolution, and what is being plotted against it by internal and external conspiracies aimed to circumvent its objectives and gains, we decided to start a general strike on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 in defense of the demands of our people to overthrow the government of the former regime and to dissolve the Constitutional Democratic Rally. (see full text in English and Arabic).

This, and the other regional strikes are quite clearly political general strikes for the overthrow of the government, showing the revolutionary character of the movement of the Tunisian workers and the extremely advanced character of their demands.

Also very significant is the fact that the regional trade union structures and the revolutionary committees are increasingly taking over tasks of the administration of public and economic life. As well as the examples we have already mentioned in Siliana (where the regional revolutionary council has expelled the governor and effectively taken power) and Sidi Bou Ali, the Sfax UGTT also started to make decisions over the economy. The statement says:

From the keenness of the Regional Executive Bureau to provide basic and vital services to the citizens, we decide to exclude from the general strike the workers in the vital sectors especially hospitals and clinics, water and electricity, gas and bakeries, and municipalities graves, we also decided to secure trips from and to to the island Kerkennah.

So, not only the unions are calling a political strike to overthrow the existing government, but also they decided which sectors of the workers will continue to work under their authority in order to guarantee basic essential services. This is an answer to all those who cry and shout about “chaos” and “disruption”. As a matter of fact it is precisely workers’ power, workers’ control, which can guarantee order, but revolutionary order, not capitalist order. This was already demonstrated by the setting up of neighborhood self-defence committees to maintain order against the RCD and police gangs.

The demonstration in Sfax, the country’s second largest city and the most important industrial centre was huge, of historic proportions. Some reports talked of 100,000 demonstrators, and even the bourgeois media put the figure at “over 50,000”. The mood was extremely radical and angry as can be seen in these videos (video 1, video 2).

Amongst the slogans which the demonstrators chanted were: “the people want to bring down the government”, “Tunisia is free – RCD Out!”, "Tunisia is Free - Down with the government!" and showing a great awareness of the international repercussion of the Tunisian revolution: “Thawra hatta’l nasr (revolution until victory) – from Tunis to Cairo”. Another slogan that was heard on the demo was "Tunisia is Arabic - No foreign tutelage" and "Tunisia is Arabic - no American tutelage," in opposition to the visit of US Assistant Secretaryof State for Near East Affairs Feltman, who is currently in Tunisia. Many fear that the US had a hand in the way in which Ben Ali was replaced by a government stack with his own ministers and there is a deep felt anti-imperialist anger at the fact that now it is still meddling behind the scenes to abort the revolution. The demonstration ended with an appeal by the regional UGTT for the demonstrators to march on Tunis on Thursday 27, to join the Caravan of Liberation for the overthrow of the government. That is also the day fixed by the secondary teachers’ union for their national strike.

Similar mass demonstrations took place in towns and cities around the country, including Nabeul (video), Kairouan (video), Djerba (video), Kelibia (video), as well as in Tunis, where there were clashes with the police and the presence of provocateurs from the RCD.

The situation, as we have been stressing for a some days, is one where the workers and youth could take power relatively easily. The government is suspended in mid-air, forced to enter its own meeting rooms through the back door, not able to use neither the Army nor the police to crush the movement and looking desperately for a way forward. One final push on the part of the revolutionary movement would bring it down. A nation-wide general strike combined with workplace occupations and a march on the capital could topple the current weak government. An appeal to the Army ranks and to the police officers wanting to set up a union would paralyse the effective force of the capitalist state.

Down with the government! But what is the alternative?

However, in order to bring down the government an answer needs to be provided to the question: what to put in its place. Here is where there is more confusion and this confusion and lack of leadership has prevented the movement from taking power so far.

The legal opposition parties are part of the current government and they have no authority amongst the masses, as they played no role whatsoever in the revolution and stayed with Ben Ali right until the end. The former Communist Party (Ettijdad) is probably the worst of all. Having conditioned its participation in the government on there not being any RCD linked ministers, then stayed in the government anyway and went on to organise rallies and campaign in favour of it! They must subscribe to the Groucho Marx version of Marxism, based on the motto: “Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others”!

The leadership of the UGTT, the Executive Bureau, was also in favour of participating in the government and was forced by the more radical forces in the Central Administration Council (the Central Committee) to withdraw its ministers and later on to call for action to overthrow the government. As we speak, the EB of the UGTT is conducting frantic negotiations at the UGTT national headquarters with all sorts of liberal figures, human rights advocates, lawyers, etc, to put together a proposal for a new government which they will then present to the interim president Fouad Mebezza for his approval! This is parliamentary cretinism of the worst sort. The executive of the UGTT is under enormous pressure from below, from the revolutionary workers and youth to lead the struggle for the overthrow of the current government. However, instead of bringing it down through action, the UGTT leadership wants to ask the current government, politely, to appoint a new one!

But even amongst the most advanced elements of the revolutionary left in the UGTT and also in the smaller left wing political parties which were illegal until very recently, there seems to be no clear idea of what or how to replace the Gannouchi government.

The general strike call of the Sfax UGTT talks of “replacing it with a national salvation government in which enemies of our people are excluded.” This is a very good slogan, and one that is similar to that of the recently formed January 14 Front, which talks of “an interim government which enjoys the confidence of the people, of the militant progressive political, social, and trade-union forces, and of the youth.“ The January 14 Front has been formed mainly by the Party of Tunisian Communist Workers (PCOT), the Tunisian Patriotic and Democratic Labour Party, and some smaller left wing, Nasserite and left Arab nationalist currents.

The declaration of the January 14 Front correctly talks about the need to widen the scope of the committees:

The Front hails all the committees, associations, and forms of popular self-organization and invites them to widen their sphere of intervention to all that concerns the conduct of public affairs and various aspects of everyday life.

Basically it is calling the revolutionary committees to take power, to become real soviets. What is missing is the crucial aspect of the need to link them up at a local, regional and national level, thus becoming the basis for dual power nationally, not only at a local or regional level as it is already the case in some places.

Amongst the organizations in the Front is the recently created Left Workers League, which on January 24 issued a statement calling for: “achieving a Constituent and a people’s democratic workers government, with a social and economic programme which puts an end to the neo-liberal approach imposed by world capital.” This is clearly a more advanced demand, as it defines that the new government should be a workers’ government, a democratic government and a people’s government. The formulation is a bit confused, but if what is meant is that there should be a government that responds to the interests of the revolutionary masses of the working people who have made this revolution, then there is no objection.

But, how is such a government to be formed? In our opinion a revolutionary government cannot be based on any of the institutions of the old regime, but should be set up on the basis of the existing revolutionary committees and councils, the regional trade union structures and workers’ committees in the workplaces. A national assembly of delegates from these bodies should be convened in the capital, taking advantage of the presence of the revolutionary youth from all provinces. They should elect, amongst themselves, a provisional revolutionary government of national salvation to convene a constituent assembly within the shortest space of time possible.

In the same way that the revolutionary left within the UGTT has imposed its withdrawal from the Gannouchi government and the call for its overthrow, they should force the CC of the UGTT to adopt such a program for a national salvation government based on the revolutionary committees.

Down with the dictatorship and the capitalist system it served

The January 14 Front also calls for the expropriation of “the former ruling family, their close relations and associates, and all the civil servants who used their positions to grow rich at the expense of the people,“ as well as “to renationalise those institutions which have been privatized”. These demands are absolutely correct, and as a matter of fact, the expropriation of the properties of Trabelsi clan and all those associated to it would go a long way in giving such a government control over the key levers of the economy. If you added to that the properties of all imperialist powers which supported and benefited from the Ben Ali regime, then you would have abolished capitalism in Tunisia. However the Front does not go all the way in calling for a break with capitalism and instead talks of the need ”to formulate an economic and social policy which breaks with the liberal capitalist approach”, as if there was another approach to capitalism which would be nicer to the workers and the people.

It has to be said clearly that the ruling class is already extremely worried about the revolutionary movement of the workers encroaching on the sacred right of private property. This is how a business magazine described the situation:

"The Tunisian revolution has entered like a storm in the companies and public institutions. Directors are being chased away in parking lots and workers collectives are moving into self-management mode."

The article continues: "Tunisian workers, in companies and public institutions have brought the revolution to their workplaces” and “directors and managers of public companies have had to run seeking refuge, followed by a crowd of vindictive workers”. It concludes: “the hope of the government and the businessmen is that the movement will limit itself to those corrupt functionaries linked to the Ben Ali – Trabelsi clan. But it is not certain that this will be the case.

If there was a serious appeal on the part of the trade union left, for workers to occupy the workplaces and implement workers’ control, such a movement would spread like wildfire. There are already instances where the workers have demanded the opening of the books of their companies in order to investigate the corrupt dealings of the Trabelsi clan. The workers at the tax office have kicked out their directors and taken over the dossiers which shed light into some of those. The potential is there for a movement which not only sweeps away the whole of the undemocratic state apparatus of the dictatorship, but also does away with the capitalist economic system it served.

Down with the national unity government! For a national general strike! For a revolutionary government based on the committees and the trade unions! For a revolutionary constituent assembly! For a revolutionary socialist Tunisia! For a Socialist Federation of the Arab World, with full democratic rights to all ethnic, national and religious minorities!

Tensión en la Qasba

Si todo hubiese obedecido a un plan, si se hubiese matado a 120 personas para remozar el viejo país e inscribirlo mejor en un mundo árabe sometido a los designios de Washington, si se tratase de asegurar mejor la continuidad introduciendo algunos cambios cosméticos, ahora habría que barrer las ascuas que el viento - siempre imprevisible - ha reunido en la Qasba. El pasado vuelve con inquietante rapidez. En su primera página La Presse publica la foto de la minúscula manifestación progubernamental realizada el día anterior en la avenida Bourguiba. La misma foto la publican también As-sabah y el Quotidian, aludiendo al deseo general de normalidad entre la población. La televisión, donde todavía no han salido las figuras más señeras de la oposición (Ben Brik, Marzouki, Hama Hamami), ofrece imágenes en directo (“Túnez a las diez de la mañana”) de calles atrafagadas y tranquilas, de honrados ciudadanos entregados a sus tareas cotidianas. Como en el Anciene Régime, “kulu shai behi”, todo va bien. Tal y como se temía el joven parado Haydar Allagui, se ignora, se desprecia, se silencia la Qasba, que hierve hoy - fruto de este aislamiento - con una particular tensión. El cansancio hace mella y afila los nervios. El aire festivo y peleón de estos días deja lugar a una atmósfera de amenaza que se prolongará todo el día. Se juega con los manifestantes. Se trata obviamente de hacerles dudar del éxito de su empresa y de interrumpir el contacto con el resto de la ciudad. También de separarlos del resto de Túnez, desde donde inútilmente tratan de llegar nuevos elementos retenidos en las carreteras…

machine translation

Tunisia may purge Ben Ali loyalists (Al Jazeera)

Tunisians have rallied for a fifth day outside the prime minister's offices in Tunis as the interim cabinet prepared for a crucial shake-up in response to calls for a clean break with the old regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the ousted president.

Thousands also took to the streets of Sidi Bouzid, an impoverished rural town in central Tunisia where mass protests that led to Ben Ali's ouster, first erupted.

"No to the theft of the revolution! Yes to the resignation of the government!" chanted the protesters on Thursday. Some of them waved Tunisian flags as the town held a general strike in a bid to mount pressure on the country's current leadership.

(…)

Clashes broke out on Wednesday near government offices in the old city. Riot police fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters, mainly teenagers and young men, who threw stones.

Despite the clashes, the interim government announced it would reduce the curfew, in place since the revolt, by several hours, effective from Wednesday night.

The protesters appeared to be Tunisians from the rural hinterland who have been camping out at the government compound.

They shouted at the security forces that they were the "police of Leila", a reference to Ben Ali's unpopular wife, who was seen as having excessive influence and lavish tastes.

Trade unions held a general strike in Sfax, Tunisia's second biggest city, and declared another strike for Thursday in Sidi Bouzid, the town where the uprising against Ben Ali started with a social protest last month.

(…)

On Wednesday, the justice minister highlighted the scope of that unrest: Some 11,029 prisoners - about a third of the country's prison population - were able to escape amid the chaos, he said. Of those, 1,532 prisoners are back behind bars and 74 other prisoners died in fires that broke out...

From the Tunisia Scenario blog

Instability and military rule

The protest I went to yesterday was definitely different then the protests that went on before the Revolution.

First of all it was two sided.

Though both sides were ridiculing Ben Ali and Leila, I think (once again, I'm not sure) the much bigger group was also ridiculing the UGTT, (the main labor union and a major impetus behind the revolution) demanding an end to the mass strike and an acceptance of the interim government.

The side waving UGTT flags was much smaller, and was basically being protected by soldiers.

The UGTT and their supporters want the interim government to be completely purged of all Ben Ali's ministers, or at least the most powerful ones. (defense, interior, etc) However, many of Ben Ali's former cronies (members of the RCD party) have been able to hang on to power and as a result all attempts at creating a unity government have collapsed. This has left Tunisia in a state of parliamentary limbo.

Perhaps people in other regions blame this on the RCD, but in my region almost everyone I talk to thinks that the RCD ministers should be allowed to stay, for the sake of stability.

These people have a point. Even though the RCD did terrible things, most(/all) of the opposition has absolutely no experience running a government. People who were unemployed bloggers or working in Paris a month ago now have prominent positions in government. Many people I talk to say that RCD members should be allowed to stay, at least for the next two months (after which there will be fresh elections).

Also the terrorists killing people in my neighborhood last week were almost certainly security forces loyal to the RCD apparatus. I doubt the military got them all, and a real purge of the RCD would probably mean more indiscriminate violence.

Another reason that people around my way feel amicable to the interim government is that almost all the highranking RCD party members are from my region.(the Sahel)

Regionalism here is at least as bad as racism in the United States, and the Sahel has gotten a lot of investment and development as a result of the RCD's patronage. While everyone in Tunisia sees Ben Ali as a criminal, most people around here want to keep their regional privilege.

In any case all this instability is making an overt military take over of the government more and more likely. General Rachid Ammar is the head of the army, and basically allied the army with the revolution at a very critical moment. No one has a bad thing to say about him at this point, and so far he hasn't seemed particularly interested in making himself the next Ben Ali. However, if the political chaos remains General Ammar will be under pressure from America (supposedly) and even common Tunisians to step in.

I have one close friend who lives in my neighborhood, but whose family comes from Sidi Bouzid. He hates the RCD and thinks that every high ranking member should be deposed and put on trial. I asked him if this was worth instability and he basically told me "whatever, the military can just take control."

From the Moor Next Door

Re: Algerian leftists & the winter uprisings: or, the weakness of political parties

The role of the Tunisian left in the winter uprising was critical. This has been widely noted. The communist tendencies are especially interesting to consider in relation to their Algerian cousins. The Tunisian parties have a broader base among students and workers than the leftist parties in Algeria do. While the Tunisian Communist Workers Party (PCOT) resisted co-optation by Ben Ali, the Algerian communists (PAGS and later Ettihadi) were supportive of and tolerated by the Algerian government. The major elements of the Algerian left took the government’s line during this winter’s uprisings directly contrasting with the Tunisian left’s decisive organizational function...

liveblog

2135 GMT: The Tunisian government was witness to a quick and major reshuffle today when 12 ministers - most loyal to former dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali - were replaced.

These include the minister of defense, finance and interior affairs while the minister of foreign affairs resigned earlier claiming it was in the nation's best interest. Prime Minister Mohammad Ghannouchi, however, remained in his position. The reshuffle on Thursday was a major demand of ongoing protests in Tunisia where after Ben Ali's departure, protesters now want all his allies out of the government too.

While Ghannouchi has promised that his government is a transitional one and will hand over power to an elected one as quickly as possible, many protesters want him out too since he's been an ally of Ben Ali.  

1800 GMT: Tunisian Foreign Minister Kamel Morjane has resigned.

Morjane has been under sustained pressure to leave the Cabinet because of his ties with and service to the ousted Ben Ali Regime. He was expected to be replaced this week in a reshuffle of Ministers.

1348 GMT: In Tunisia, more demonstrations and political uncertainty....

The anticipated Cabinet reshuffle has been delayed for a second day in a row. In Sidi Bouzid, the province where the current wave of protests started last month, thousands of people have demonstrated to demand the resignation of the transitional Government, chanting, "No to the theft of revolution, Yes to toppling the Government."

Tunisia's trade union confederation UGTT has supported the protest with the call for a general strike.

In Tunis, thousands have turned up in front of the Central Theatre to demand the Government step down.

Obstinación y contrarrevolución

Doce horas después sabremos que Mohamed Ghanoushi sigue en su puesto. El nuevo gobierno de transición, del que han salido todos los antiguos miembros del RCD, incluido Friaa, el odiado ministro del Interior, mantiene en cualquier caso al presidente y al primer ministro.

Pero todavía no lo sabemos. El día en que el pueblo tunecino cumple su segunda semana de vida no nos despierta el helicóptero militar sino el repiqueteo nutrido de la lluvia. Con el corazón encogido, pensamos en colchones y mantas empapados de agua y en cuerpos ateridos de frío. La Qasba, la casa del pueblo, de pronto se ha quedado sin techo.

- La revolución no es la capital -nos dice el periodista Fahem Boukadous. -La Qasba es sólo una de las muchas expresiones de protesta; un símbolo, sin duda, porque concita la atención de los medios, pero la revolución empezó en las regiones y allí sigue muy activa. Ayer se manifestaron 80.000 personas en Sfax y hoy la ciudad ha quedado paralizada por una huelga general. En Gafsa, en Sidi Bousid, en Tela hay concentraciones y protestas.

(…)

Fahem Boukadous, que había anticipado los cambios en el gobierno anunciados por Ghanoushi esta noche, se equivocaba sin embargo al garantizar el rechazo de la UGGT al nuevo gabinete. No participa de él, pero le reconoce legitimidad. Sin duda esa decisión voltea nuevamente la situación. La potencia de la UGTT ha permitido en estos días mantener la presión sobre el gobierno mediante huelgas y concentraciones; ahora este acuerdo aisla las protestas populares y las vuelve vulnerables. Como escribía Fathi Chamkhi a media tarde: “si esta nueva versión del Gobierno de Unidad Nacional se acepta mañana, se podría decir que el tira y afloje que dura desde el 15 de enero entre el campo revolucionario y el de la contrarrevolución, ha sido momentáneamente ganado por este último”. Es exactamente lo que ha ocurrido.

(…)

Tras el anuncio del nuevo gobierno por televisión, llamamos a nuestros amigos en la Qasba para conocer su reacción. Tras un instante de alegría y luego de desconcierto, nos dicen, se ha restablecido la normalidad; es decir, la obstinación. No hace falta que lo digan. A través del teléfono nos llegan los gritos: “degage”, “degage”, “degage”.

machine translation

From the EA liveblog

1010 GMT: Al Jazeera report that Belhassan Trabelsi, the brother-in-law of deposed Tunisian President Ben Ali, has been arrested in Canada.

We noted earlier (0820 GMT) that Trabelsi had been stripped of permanent residency by the Canadian authorities. He is reportedly in a Montreal hotel with his family.

0820 GMT: Canada has stripped Belhassen Trabelsi, brother-in-law of former Tunisian President Ben Ali, of his permanent residency.

Trabelsi could now be extradited to Tunisia to face fraud charges after millions of dollars were allegedly taken out of the country. He, his wife, four children, a nanny, and two bodyguards are reportedly staying at Chateau Vaudreuil, a hotel in Montreal’s West End.

Earlier this week Tunisia asked for international arrest warrants for President Ben Ali and members of his family.

Call for the formation of a front for the popular liberation of Tunisia

French

Spanish

English (machine translation)

While the world's attention was distracted by the uprising in Egypt...

Police destroy protest camp at Tunisian PM's office

Tunisian riot police broke up a protest camp in the capital on Friday, hoping to end days of demonstrations against a government that has undergone a major overhaul to meet some of the crowds' demands...

Police and soldiers tore down tents and removed bedding outside government offices on the fifth day of the sit-in and chased protesters through the streets after scattering them with teargas. Witnesses said several people had been beaten but hospitals had no word on injuries...

From the Moor Next Door

Vague thoughts on the Arab winter uprisings

The Winter Uprisings in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Yemen have shaken western and Arab confidence in the sustainability of the current models of “competitive” authoritarianism. These were not bread riots; they were illustrations of political gangrene. Tunisia’s strong man fled his fort; the Mubarak family is said to have gone on holiday to London in light of massive protests over days (these cannot be call riots in the way the Algerian or Tunisian ones were at some stages; these are political protests, demonstrations of plain dissatisfaction); rumors are circulating rampantly that Algeria’s president will announce a cabinet reshuffle that may replace the prominent Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia (see here for background). It seems clear that the old calculations for political succession in the polities hit by the Winter Uprisings must be revised...

"Finally this afternoon at 4pm [Friday] the police have attacked the Kasbah, killing Omar Auini, asphyxiated by teargas, and wounding at least 15 people, most of them with fractures in their hands and legs … As was feared yesterday the support from the UGTT for the government has seriously damaged unity in the square. From very early on small groups from Kasserine and Regueb have abandoned the rally to return to their towns. Some of them, according to what they tell us, have received money. Those that remain show themselves to be determined and militant, but the hours already seem numbered..."

El asalto de la Qasba

Cinco días ha durado el lugar más hermoso de la tierra.

Por fin esta tarde, a las 16 h., la policía ha asaltado la Qasba, matando a Omar Auini, asfixiado por los gases lacrimógenos, e hiriendo al menos a 15 personas, la mayor parte de ellas con fracturas en manos y piernas.

La mañana radiante ha iluminado una Qasba rala y dividida. Como se temía ayer, el apoyo de la UGTT al gobierno ha dañado seriamente la unidad en la plaza. Desde muy pronto, pequeños grupos de Qasserine y Regueb han abandonado la concentración para volver a sus pueblos. Algunos de ellos, según nos dicen, han recibido dinero. Los que se quedan, se muestran decididos y belicosos, pero las horas parecen ya contadas. Aisa, el hermano de Che Guevara, asegura que un coronel del ejército le ha anunciado el desalojo de la plaza para esta tarde. Se oyen menos gritos y menos cantos y por primera vez un grupo aparatosamente islamista se mezcla con la gente. Vuelan por el aire los primeros “La ilah ila allah” y algunas consignas inquietantes: “Tunis arabiya, tunis islamiya” (“Túnez árabe, Túnez islámica”).

Se han formado muchos corros, donde se discute la conveniencia de continuar o no la ocupación. Decenas de personas rodean a distintos oradores, cuyo aspecto y elocuencia, muy diferente del de sus oyentes, delata autoridad intelectual y formación política. En uno de ellos está Redha Barakati, escritor de 47 años y miembro del Partido Comunista Obrero de Túnez, quien insiste en la necesidad de romper toda continuidad con el régimen de Ben Alí y asegura su apoyo a los hermanos venidos de todos los rincones del país. En otro corro habla Osama Bouthalga, de la Asociación de Abogados, tan belicosa en estos días. Bouthalga trata de persuadir a los manifestantes de que se han conseguido logros enormes y ahora hay que defenderlos en los lugares de origen a través de la formación de consejos de defensa de la revolución. Esa es la posición también de los miembros de la UGTT, que reparten un panfleto de ambigua retórica en el que el sindicato se compromete a coordinar la relación entre los consejos locales y las instituciones, garantizando además medios de transporte para un retorno tranquilo y seguro de los rebeldes a sus hogares. Otro comunicado firmado por el Frente 14 de Enero -formado por los partidos de izquierdas- reitera por el contrario la necesidad de continuar la lucha hasta el final, considerando que no hay posibilidad alguna de cambios estructurales mientras Ghanoushi continúe ocupando el cargo de primer ministro.

Durante la comida, en un pequeño restaurante popular de la Medina, nos reímos mucho viendo la transformación del canal Hannibal, engendro de la familia Trabelsi, cuyo director fue arrestado la semana pasada por alta traición y liberado sin cargos algunas horas después. Un montaje de imágenes de las revueltas, con una música excitante, vuelve una y otra vez a la pantalla con la leyenda: “la voz del pueblo, la voz de la revolución”. Ahora es una cadena revolucionaria.

Todo es revolucionario salvo la realidad. A las 16 h. volvemos a la Qasba y nos llama la atención la presencia de dos oficiales del ejército que se mueven entre la multitud. Más tarde comprendemos que están avisando a los manifestantes del inminente desalojo. La reacción de los jóvenes es inmediata y furibunda. Algunos corren hasta los controles militares para llevarse las vallas y montar barricadas en el pasillo entre las jaimas y el ministerio. Otros, en una locura incoherente con el ambiente sereno y festivo de unos minutos antes, arrancan ramas de los árboles para proporcionarse bastones y rompen los escalones del Palacio de la Municipalidad para armarse de piedras y trozos de losa. El aire de la plaza se llena de un frenesí de percusión. De pronto, un tanque atraviesa despacio la explanada para abandonar el recinto. Unos cuarenta soldados armados de fusiles descienden desde la avenida 9 de Abril hasta la alambrada de espino más próxima a la Qasba y ocupan el ancho rellano del Palacio Municipal. Luego, enseguida, retroceden. Hablamos con un coronel que acaba de mantener una conversación a través del móvil; le decimos que no pueden permitir el desalojo y nos responde seco y cortés que ha recibido órdenes de retirarse, al mismo tiempo que nos aconseja que abandonemos cuanto antes el lugar. Comprendemos que la policía, apostada en la calle Bab Bnat, está a punto de cargar.

Nos retiramos hasta la segunda alambrada de espino a través de un pasillo de militares. Allí, en el flanco del Palacio Municipal, se ha reunido ya mucha gente, niños y mujeres incluidos, y todos esperamos expectantes y asustados junto al tanque, viendo maniobrar al furgón policial con el cañón de agua, el cual se aleja del recinto para dar la vuelta por detrás del Tribunal. En ese momento se oyen las primeras detonaciones y blancas cintas de humo blanco cruzan el cielo. La gente pide al ejército que haga algo y luego aplaude con ironía acusatoria a los soldados y canta el himno nacional. Todos recordamos con terror la manifestación del 14 de enero y los muertos de los días anteriores.

Durante algunos minutos, allí abajo, apenas a doscientos metros, se prolonga una batalla desigual. Vuelan las bombas lacrimógenas y se oyen insultos e impactos de piedra. Fugitivos pasan en medio de los soldados, que se abren a su paso y se unen a nosotros. Dos heridos, muy cerca de donde nos encontramos, son trasladados en parihuelas de brazos a las tiendas de la protección civil. La Qasba se vacía muy rápidamente.

Y luego, de pronto, a una velocidad vertiginosa, la ola negra de la policía se lanza contra nosotros. Una, dos, tres bombas lacrimógenas caen a nuestro lado y salimos en estampida, enganchándonos en la alambrada de espino. Nubes urticantes nos ciegan los ojos. Corro y corro, separada de mis amigos, junto a algunos jóvenes que se detienen bruscamente, cogen una piedra del suelo y la lanzan contra la policía antes de seguir corriendo. Junto a decenas personas me veo atrapada en una especie de alta meseta, detrás del Ayuntamiento, cortada por una valla, a tres metros por encima de la avenida 9 de Abril. Salto desde el muro sobre el capó de un coche aparcado en la calle y luego al suelo. Entonces oigo una voz asustada y apremiante y vuelvo la cabeza. Arriba, al otro lado de la valla, hay una mujer acompañada de sus hijos, dos niños de cuatro o cinco años, que no pueden bajar. Tiendo los brazos y los deposito sobre la acera.

Luego sigo corriendo calle abajo en medio de un aire picante, pero apenas cincuenta metros más allá un muro de policías nos está esperando, de uniforme y de paisano, armados de porras. A las mujeres y a los extranjeros nos dejan pasar; a los jóvenes les hacen retroceder a golpes con furia desencadenada tras dos semanas de contención.

Dos horas más tarde, en la oscuridad, el helicóptero vuelve a sobrevolar la ciudad. La recorremos en el coche, tensa y vacía, de vuelta al pasado. En la plaza del 7 de Noviembre, por delante del tanque, hay siete u ocho furgones policiales y decenas de policías que bloquean el acceso a la Avenida Bourguiba, completamente cerrada por todos sus flancos. Una familiar sensación de estado de sitio nos encoge el corazón.

¿Qué es lo que ha pasado? ¿Por qué el nuevo ministro del Interior -un juez, dicen, moderado y honesto- ha decidido inaugurar su cometido matando a Omar Aouini e hiriendo a 15 personas? Lo que nos cuenta una de las abogadas con la que nos ponemos en contacto es inquietante. La Asociación de Abogados, cuyo protagonismo en estos días nadie puede negar, había obtenido del ministro la promesa de que no se desalojaría por la fuerza la Qasba, dejándoles a ellos ejercer el papel de mediadores. Más inquietante aún: nos relata que la policía ha allanado a golpes -profanado, pues ni siquiera Ben Alí se había atrevido a hacerlo- la sede de la organización para buscar a los jóvenes allí refugiados. Nos anuncia acciones legales para liberar a los detenidos y prestar asesoramiento jurídico a los heridos.

Mañana volveremos a la Qasba. Todas las organizaciones y partidos, incluida la UGTT, han convocado una manifestación para pedir algo más moderado que la caída de un gobierno: el cese inmediato de toda violencia policial y el respeto al derecho de expresión y manifestación. Lo que era el desarrollo de una revolución se ha convertido de pronto en la asustada defensa de algunas pequeñas reformas.

Y esos jóvenes dispersados, esos bárbaros civilizadores, esos luminosos paletos a cuyos hermanos mataron en las cuatro semanas de protestas, ¿dónde están? ¿Han vuelto a sus pueblos? ¿Están escondidos por toda la ciudad? ¿Qué sentirán? ¿Qué pensarán?

El levantamiento del pueblo egipcio ha dejado a oscuras y diminuto el país del que surgió el primer impulso. No nos olvidemos de Túnez. La información raramente informa, pero protege.

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From the International Marxist Tendency

Reject the government reshuffle, the revolutionary people must take power

Finally, after a long wait, prime minister Gannouchi announced changes in the government of national unity which was formed in Tunisia after the overthrow of Ben Ali.

(…)

The composition of the new government is designed to appear as fundamental change, by removing the majority of ministers who were part of Ben Ali’s last government, but in reality to change nothing fundamentally.

(…)

Significantly, the Central Committee of the UGTT trade union met in the evening, after the announcement to discuss what position to take regarding this new government. The body voted in favour of accepting this government and Gannouchi as a prime minister, though the union itself would take no ministerial positions in it. The vote was 72 in favour, 11 against and 4 abstentions. Amongst those who voted against were 4 out of the 12 members of the Executive Bureau, as well as the representatives of primary and secondary teachers, health sector workers, postal and telecommunication workers, and also the regional structures of Sfax and Jendouba.

It is clear that the pressure on the trade union bureaucracy on the part of bourgeois public opinion was very strong. As we have reported before, the majority of the EB, headed by the general secretary Abdessalem Jrad, had in fact been loyal to Ben Ali right until the end. In the last few days all sorts of EU and US delegations have been in Tunis, and surely, part of their brief was to bring the UGTT leadership into line. Jrad has also announced that Gannouchi is “prepared to meet with the demonstrators” who have been blocking his offices for the last week.

In the last couple of weeks there have already been strong voices calling for a cleansing of the UGTT of pro-RCD elements. Now these will grow even stronger. It is very unlikely that the UGTT leadership will be able to sell a government headed by Gannouchi to the masses.

On Thursday, January 27, itself mass demonstrations and regional strikes took place again, demanding the overthrow of Gannouchi’s government of national unity. The focus was on Sidi Bouzid, where the regional UGTT had called a general strike. Like the day before in Sfax, the following was almost total and the demonstration was unprecedented both in size and militancy, with 20,000 participating.

(…)

As well as Sidi Bouzid, there were also marches in Bizerte, Tunisia, Kelibia, Mahdia (were teachers and students marched together), Monastir, Sousse , Sfax, where a regional strike had taken a day earlier, Kasserine, Tozeur, Gabes, El Kef, Siliana, where there was also a regional strike, Tataouine, Zarzis and many other cities and towns, including a large march in Tunis itself. Secondary education teachers also observed a national strike which had overwhelming support.

(…)

Today, Friday 28, there were repeated attempts to convince the revolutionary youth outside the Prime Minister’s office to clear off the sit-in. According to reports we have received, delegations from the UGTT bureaucracy and the Lawyers' Association tried in vain to convince them to leave. They failed and the youth remained firm in their struggle to clear out the old regime completely and were not satisfied by cosmetic changes.

In the last few days, the state has used all the methods at its disposal to try to remove the revolutionary youth from the regions. They were offered money, drugs, agent provocateurs were sent, the Army generals, trade union bureaucrats and lawyers tried to convince them. But they all failed. So finally, the capitalist state showed again its ugly face. Today in the afternoon, as we write these lines, reports are coming in of the Army withdrawing and the anti-riot police brutally attacking the sit-in and dispersing the youth with batons and tear-gas cannisters. They are now regrouping and are being joined by the local population in a big and angry demonstration...

Photo report of police attack on the Kasbah

On Friday, amidst the events in Egypt, we noted another significant development in Tunis, quoting two journalists:

We witnessed this afternoon how police and plainclothes stormed the demonstrators' camp at Place de Kasbah with tear gas and dogs. Very ugly scenes.

Place de Kasbah since 1700 (1600 GMT) controlled by military, all tents and installations vandalised. Also clashes between demontsrators and police in Av. Bourguiba and centre of city. Lot of tear gas. Plainclothes with sticks all around as well as groups of enraged young demonstrators armed with stones and sticks. Atmosphere tense and unclear what is going to happen next.

We added that Reuters had a brief reference to "police fir[ing] tear gas at anti-government protesters" but was far more concerned that "Islamists marched through central Tunis".

The German journalists who helped us were Thomas v. der Osten-Sacken and Bernd Baier, who work for the Weekly Jungle World. Osten-Sacken subsequently sent us a series of shots which put the day in context:

Photos

What the kids think

Today was my first day teaching teenagers post-revolution. Not surprisingly, it was an interesting experience...

My students are all 15 year olds who wear jeans and ironic trucker hats, and who listen to Lil Wayne and Justin Bieber, so I was sorta surprised how religious they are. Ben Ali's repression of religion really pissed them off, and the freedom to practice their religion freely was one of the things they looked forward to the most...

Se acabó la libertad

La policía, en efecto, tras dos semanas de contención, ha vuelto a adueñarse de la situación. Ayer rompió manos y piernas en la Qasba y durante todo el día han circulado listas sin confirmar de muertos y desaparecidos. Al menos veinte detenidos seguían esta tarde en comisaría. Y sobre la plaza de la Qasba quedaron ayer, entre mantas, jaimas y cacerolas, decenas de teléfonos móviles desperdigados. De muchos de los dispersados de ayer no se sabe nada. Entre tanto esta mañana, 12 horas después, mientras se repintaban las paredes de lo que fue durante cinco días el ministerio del pueblo, La Press publicaba en portada una fotografía de la concentración triturada con el titular: “en la Qasba la caravana de la libertad sigue las protestas”. La revolución es ya la marca -la chispa de la vida- de un gobierno que teje en la oscuridad y de una prensa que utiliza nuevos nombres para nombrar las mismas cosas.

Los inversores extranjeros se impacientan y EEUU, pendiente de Egipto, quiere sofocar definitivamente el foco tunecino. Las protestas, debilitadas por la claudicación de la UGTT, se reprimen ahora sin contemplaciones. A los tunecinos, que se habían acostumbrado a campar a sus anchas en la avenida Bourguiba, se les ha recordado durante todo el día que hay una ley marcial, que las manifestaciones están prohibidas, que es la policía, y no el pueblo, la que ocupa las calles. Bombas lacrimógenas y golpes de porra han escandido una jornada en la que los medios internacionales, volcados sobre Egipto, ni siquiera estaban presentes -o apenas- en la rueda de prensa de Human Rights Watch. Empezábamos a habituarnos a saltar y ahora hay que aprender de nuevo a correr...

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FLPT Front de Libération Populaire de la Tunisie is on Facebook

Closer to a libertarian position (?) than anything else I've seen so far. My French isn't up to much though so maybe someone else could give an opinion. Am I justified in borrowing the avatar?

Fuego bajo las cenizas

Hamida Ben Romdhane, director de La Press el 13 de enero, director de La Press el 30 de enero, escribe hoy un artículo titulado Mea-culpa, en el que arremete contra “los zalameros, adulones, calculadores y manipuladores” que durante años se han entregado lacayunamente al culto de la personalidad del dictador. “Hoy”, dice, “Túnez respira y nuestro periódico también. Desde el 15 de enero hemos cambiado porque nuestros periodistas han sido liberados del yugo de la dictadura por la revuelta popular. No hemos dudado un instante en lanzarnos en la brecha abierta por nuestra juventud hace ahora dos semanas”. El problema no es el objeto sino la adulación. Ahora se adula al pueblo al que se expulsa de la Qasba, a la juventud a la que se gasea en la Bourguiba, y con ello se demuestra que los mismos hombres y las mismas instituciones pueden ser sucesivamente azules, negros, amarillos o rojos. Antes se lo debían todo al dictador, ahora se lo deben todo al pueblo. Pero los periodistas siguen siendo los mismos y el periodismo igualmente declamativo, tiznado y rutinario...

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Interview with Islamist leader Rashid Al-Ghannouchi

The repression from the new, or not so new, regime continues...

"Going through a friend we let Al Jazeera know about the news received from Sfax. The answer is sincere: 'Tunisia isn't an international issue any more, it's a local issue.'"

La estrategia de la tensión

Alma Allende

Los padres que pierden a un niño vuelven de algún modo a no tener niño, pero no puede decirse que hayan “recuperado la normalidad”; la mujer que pierde a su amado vuelve a estar sin su amado, como antes de conocerlo, pero no puede decirse que “recupere la normalidad”. La Qasba hoy ofrece la historia dolorosa, inolvidable, contenida en la frase: “como si no hubiera pasado nada”. El gesto de borrar deja una huella imborrable; el gesto de limpiar deja una mancha indeleble, una ausencia blanca de fantasma encadenado a la piedra. No hay nada; hay por primera vez “nada”.

Hemos vuelto esta mañana a la Qasba, cerrada por sus cuatro costados por alambradas de espino. Los policías sólo dejan entrar a los funcionarios que trabajan en el recinto. Pero hemos podido ver desde fuera, y fotografíar, esa cal nueva que, como un lifting facial, revela una historia oculta, una antigüedad sofocada. Han hecho un buen trabajo, no cabe duda. Ni un rastro de pintada ni la coma de un grafito ni un jironcito de tinta negra. Ni siquiera sobre la piedra del palacio del primer ministro se puede localizar el menor rastro del bullicio palabrero que durante cinco días fundió política y vida en un presente puro sin porvenir.

No es verdad que el poder no tenga un centro. Los tanques y la policía protegen en la Qasba unas paredes. Nosotros las necesitamos al menos para escribir; y ellos las necesitan para imponer la mudez.

El día es frío, sombrío, lluvioso. En el café Univers encontramos a Selim, un viejo conocido miembro de Aministía Internacional. Su organización sigue tratando de establecer el número exacto de muertos producido durante las revueltas y se queja de la indiferencia de las nuevas instituciones, esas mismas que tratan de ocultar la continuidad y fundar su legitimidad en el sacrificio de las víctimas:

Una semana después de la caída de Ben Alí -dice- nadie había ido a Qasserine. Están frustrados y dolidos. Dicen que son ellos los que han hecho la revolución y nadie va a verlos. Se sienten robados. Les han robado su revolución.

Selim está asombrado de la lucidez política de los habitantes de las regiones, muy resentidos con la UGTT. También, obviamente, con los partidos que colaboran con el gobierno, el PDP de Najib Chabbi y el Tajdid (renovación) de Ahmed Brahim, ya legales bajo el dictador.

Han elegido muy bien sus ministerios, el de Desarrollo y el de Enseñanza Superior, pues les permiten tener un acceso privilegiado a las zonas populares y a los jóvenes. Han empezado ya su campaña electoral. Es el viejo orden, en el que se siguen confundiendo Estado y partido. Por eso no es raro que en las protestas se repita una y otra vez la consigna: “PDP y Tajdid, habéis vendido la sangre de los mártires”.

En ese momento suena su teléfono móvil y nos da la noticia: en Gafsa hay una gran manifestación y el ejército ha disparado al aire. La policía reprime duramente. Le preguntamos por esta vuelta -esta vez sí- a la vieja normalidad de plomo.

El aparato del partido trata de recuperar el control a través del terror y la represión.

Así parece. A las 12.30 de la mañana se ha formado un grupo nutrido de unas quinientas personas que suben y bajan por la avenida Bourguiba, del ministerio del Interior a la Puerta de Francia, con un cartelón que dice: “No estamos derrotados; seguimos luchando”. Han salido de la nada y se disuelven en la nada para cristalizar de nuevo unos minutos más tarde un poco más allá, como la hojarasca que traslada el viento -o la duna de arena-. Nos interesa saber quién les ha convocado y nos revelan su secreto. No ha sido un partido ni tampoco Facebook o el teléfono móvil sino la propia avenida Bourguiba, que se ha convertido, por decirlo en términos informáticos, en el espacio preestablecido para la movilización. Llegan allí en pequeños grupos, impulsados por una desazón individual, y se funden en el bulevar. De esa manera es difícil ejercer presión, pero es muy fácil intimidarlos y disolverlos.

Eso es lo que ocurre hacia las 16. horas, cuando la concentración empieza a ralear por su propia naturaleza. De pronto, con la misma aparente aleatoriedad con que se ha formado, la policía carga duramente contra ella, utilizando bombas lacrimógenas y porras. Diez minutos de brutalidad bastan para “restablecer la normalidad”. ¿Por qué ahora y por qué con esa furia?

A media tarde, ya en casa, una conocida de Gafsa que trabaja en un café del Bardo me llama por teléfono y me pasa a una amiga suya de Sfax. Me pide por favor que avise a los medios extranjeros; en la segunda ciudad de Túnez las milicias han atacado escuelas y liceos, expulsando a los alumnos y golpeando a algunos profesores. No hay policía, los elementos del ejército son escasos y han amenazado con volver de noche para proseguir su obra de destrucción. Los sfaxianos están indefensos y asustados. La sombra de las milicias, ahora que los comités de autodefensa han bajado la guardia, vuelve para generar el clima de inestabilidad necesario para una involución. ¿Trabajan para el gobierno o contra él? ¿Son ciertos los rumores que dicen que las milicias han llegado a amenazar al nuevo ministro del Interior en su propio despacho? ¿O buscan intencionadamente alimentar la credibilidad del nuevo gabinete? En todo caso, los rumores forman parte de la misma estrategia de confusión e inseguridad, una fase indisociable -dice Boukadus, al que llamo pidiendo confirmación- de todo proceso revolucionario.

A través de una amiga avisamos a Al-Jazeera de las noticias recibidas de Sfax. La respuesta es sincera:

Túnez ya no es un asunto internacional sino local.

Hemos pasado, pues, a ser “locales”. Miedo local, represión local y luchas también locales. La linea entre localidad, normalidad y legitimidad es, por desgracia, extraordinariamente fina.

Lo bonito en esta noche un poco tensa -casi un regüeldo del pasado- es comprobar que Salem tiene razón y la memoria, junto a los rumores, los mitos y los imperativos utópicos, asciende de pronto en estos días desde raíces antepasadas. Un subidón de harisa reminiscente despeja las narices y las conciencias. Gente muy joven recuerda acontecimientos muy antiguos. Amin me confiesa que se ha pasado la noche anterior en vela leyendo sobre la historia de Túnez, de la que no sabía nada. Y cuando hablamos de los comerciantes de la Medina, atrapados en sus pequeños intereses y defensores a ultranza del orden frente al caos de los paletos de la Qasba -infinitamente más cultos, lúcidos y universales que ellos- resume en una frase lapidaria la situación:

Quieren un poco de libertad y un poco de seguridad, sin comprender que a causa de su mezquindad pueden perder las dos cosas.

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From the EA liveblog

1215 GMT: Over to Tunisia for a follow-up. Thomas v. der Osten-Sacken reports on developments on Monday:

Just came back from center of city. Some spontaneous demonstrations with maybe 1500 young people (mixed female and male) roam around. Peaceful and in a very good mood. No police at all seen. No tension at all in Ave. Bourghiba. People shout "Long live freedom" and "Vive La Revolution" and sing national anthem.

Meanwhile shops and cafes are open. A new grafitto seen: "People and police against dictatorship". This morning we have seen no plainclothes at all. Police are not wearing helmets anymore.

People we talked too are happy the eight ministers of [former ruling party] RCD resigned. Now they demand calm, because they want investors and tourists back.

Strong sentiment for a new Parliamentary secular constitution. The people are fed up with "Arab exceptionalism". They just want democracy, freedom, development, and to be part of modernity. They even don't call it an intifada.

...failing to mention that the demo on Ave. Bourghiba was attacked by police with teargas and sticks as it was breaking up anyway.

On twitter just now - something seems to be kicking off but I'm not sure what

RCD militias trying to spread panic. They won't succeed. We are Tunisians. We're freedom fighters.

Corrupted policemen are reorganizing and trying to spread panic. Be united and ruin their plans.

Tunisians, PLZ carry on protecting your neighborhood.

zawya.com

TUNIS, Feb 01, 2011 (AFP) - Hundreds of people rallied in the central Tunisian town of Kasserine Tuesday to press authorities to end a wave of violence and punish hooligans who looted public buildings the previous day, residents said.

Monday, hundreds of people ransacked and looted public buildings in violence which union officials said was instigated by members of the former RCD ruling party of ousted strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Mohamed Drbali, a member of a "regional comnmittee for the defense of the revolution" and trade unionist Sadok Mahmoudi, said police were nowhere to be seen during Tuesday's protest while army tanks were posted near official buildings.

The demonstrators appealed to authorities to take urgent action to end what they called "a chaotic and unstable" situation and demanded that those responsible for Monday's looting be punished, they added.

The officials also said local residents arrested 18 people late Monday, including one who confessed that he had been paid by officials of Ben Ali's RCD party "to stir trouble." ...

Drbali and Mahmoudi said six of the 18 arrested were later released while other other 12 were turned over to authorities.

Early last month, Kasserine and the nearby town of Thala were the scene of violent clashes between police and anti-government demonstrators which left at least 21 people dead.

Several officials of the powerful General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) in Kasserine have condemned what they see as a destabilisation campaign by the transitional administration set up after Ben Ali's fall on January 14...

UN reports higher death toll from Tunisia unrest

A United Nations team in Tunisia says at least 219 people were killed in the January revolt that led to the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

The head of the team said Tuesday the death toll includes 72 people who died in prison riots.
The official commented at the end of a week-long mission in the country organized by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Earlier, the Tunisian government reported a death toll of 72, although opposition groups had insisted the toll was higher...

New union formed, the CGTT. There were previous attempts to set it up a few years ago.

Naissance du second syndicat de l'histoire de la Tunisie

C’est une petite révolution dans la révolution. La centrale syndicale historique a désormais une concurrente : la Confédération générale tunisienne du travail (CGTT). Elle est dirigée par Habib Guiza et se veut plus moderne et moins politisée que son aînée, l’UGTT.

Premier nouveau-né de l’après Ben Ali, la Confédération générale tunisienne du travail (CGTT) a été constitué mardi. Basé à Tunis, le deuxième syndicat de l’histoire du pays sera dirigé par Habib Guiza, un ancien cadre de la puissante Union générale des travailleurs de Tunisie (UGTT), la seule organisation légale depuis l'indépendance.

Grâce à la CGTT, l’ancien secrétaire général de la section UGTT de Gabès (sud) dans les années 80 veut « impulser et promouvoir le mouvement syndical en Tunisie, permettre aux salariés d'y adhérer librement (...), et contribuer à la mise en place d'un ensemble de réformes visant l'amélioration et la modernisation des activités syndicales », selon l’agence officielle TAP.

Exemple démocratique

De fait, Guiza demandait depuis des années - sans succès - une autorisation pour créer son propre syndicat. « Il ne s'agit pas d'une scission au sein de l'UGTT. L'UGTT n'est pas en concurrence avec cette Confédération », a déclaré Abid Briki, le secrétaire général adjoint de l'organisation, qui rappelle que Guiza a quitté la centrale il y a plusieurs années. « Nous avons toujours défendu le pluralisme syndical et politique. Nous sommes désormais en démocratie. La création d'une nouvelle centrale en est un exemple », a-t-il ajouté.

En clair la CGTT se veut en rupture avec la forte politisation de l’UGTT. Le mouvement syndical tunisien est né dans la période proto-nationaliste des années 1920, sous l'impulsion de Mohamed Ali Hammi. Le 19 janvier 1925, celui-ci crée la première Confédération générale des travailleurs tunisiens, qui deviendra quelques années plus tard l'UGTT.

Racines nationalistes

De par ses racines nationalistes, l'UGTT a toujours été un mouvement très politisé, participant notamment au gouvernement après l'indépendance, avant de s'opposer frontalement au président Habib Bourguiba en organisant de longues grèves dans les années 70 et 80. Sous le régime du président déchu Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, elle était devenu le seul contre-pouvoir disposant d'une implantation à l'échelle nationale - avec le mouvement islamiste Ennahda, dont les membres ont été persécutés.

Mais de fortes dissensions sont apparues en son sein à la fin des années 1990, une partie de ses dirigeants étant accusés d'avoir été récupérés par le pouvoir. Il n’en reste pas moins que lors de la révolte qui a provoqué la chute de Ben Ali le 14 janvier, l'UGTT a retrouvé un rôle de premier plan, encadrant les manifestations dans le pays, avec notamment des grèves tournantes dans les principales villes.

Revendiquant aujourd'hui 350 000 adhérents, elle s'est retirée du gouvernement de transition après y être brièvement entrée. Plusieurs de ses cadres réclament désormais la création d'un Conseil pour la sauvegarde de la Révolution, qui validerait les réformes qui doivent être votées par un Parlement encore dominé par le RCD, l'ancien parti de Ben Ali.

More about the CGTT. The first link is to a statement from them. It might be useful if someone with better French than me had a look at it. I'm assuming they will be closer to the autonomous unions in Algeria and Morocco and to the CNT-F and Spanish CGT, but I'd welcome any views on this.

La CGTT réclame sa légalisation

Facebook page

Some background, though it's history now

Constituted several months ago, the new Tunisian trade union, the CGTT, has not been able, until now, to begin its activities, the authorities refusing to recognize it. Prohibition of a press conference, refusal to recognize the trade unions created in Tunis, Gafsa and Gabès, convocation by the police force of the one of leaders of the new trade union: Habib Guiza, the gestures are multiplied in the direction of a refusal by the Authorities to accept the existence of this Trade union. Confident in the legality of their initiative and in their actions (let us recall here that the Tunisian legislation, following the example of the ILO conventions, does not require prior approval of the authorities for the constitution of trade unions), the leaders of the CGTT seem to plan, if current blocking continues, to submit to the ILO a complaint against the Tunisian government for violation of the international standards as regards trade-union freedom. Will this step be taken during the annual session of the ILO which has just opened in Geneva and which will continue for nearly 3 weeks? It would, in any case, be a major event, the last time that a complaint of this kind was deposed against the government goes back 30 years, to the time of the events of January 26th, 78 and to the attempt at dismantling of which the UGTT was victim.

Attariq El Jadid – Saturday, June 7, 2008

ocelot

I doubt the CNT-F or the Spanish CGT would recognise themselves in this vision of a new unionism for our times.

Actually I suspect from some of the wording in the text you've translated that it reflects discussion in the Euro-Mediterranean union network (Red Sindical Euro-Mediterránea, previously the Red Sindical Euro-Magrebi before Egypt was drawn into it.).

There were no Tunisians at the last meeting in Oran on 16 January, but this may be because they were otherwise occupied with events in Tunisia. The unions and groups that were present were the ODT from Morocco, SNAPAP, CLA and CNES from Algeria, the CGT from Spain and the CNT-F and Solidaires from France. Tunisians have gone to some of the previous meetings. Other European unions at previous meetings have included USI-Roma and a couple of the Italian base unions, I think Unicobas and CUB. The CGTT was also at the i07.

zabalaza

Between 28th April and 1st of May 2007 about 250 militants from five different continents came together in Paris, France for the CNT-F organised International Syndicalist Conference i07, a follow-up to the industrial Syndicalist Conferences held in San Francisco, USA, in 1999, called i99, and that held in Essen, Germany in 2002, called i02.
...
What is particularly interesting to us, and the focus of this article, is that, for the first time, the Industrial Syndicalist Conference had a significant African presence this year, with delegates representing trade unions from Algeria (Snapap), Morocco (UMT, CDT, ANDCN, poor peasants, FDR-UDT), Tunisia (CGTT), Guinea (CNTG, CEK, SLEG), Ivory Coast (CGT-CI), Djibouti (UDT), Congo DRC (LO), Mali (Cocidirail, Sytrail), Benin (FNEB, UNSTB, AIPR), Burkina Faso (UGEB, CGT-B, AEBF) and Madagascar (Fisemare)...

Towards an anarcho-syndicalist strategy for Africa
ocelot

Mmm. I'm afraid, going on the texts on their site, it appears more Blairite than revolutionary syndicalist.

I don't see anything revolutionary in the text you translated, but is there anything anti-revolutionary (or 'Blairite') either? I'm not suggesting that the CGTT or the other autonomous unions in North Africa are ideologically anarcho-syndicalist or revolutionary syndicalist. Possibly some of the European base unions might be a better comparison. Again I'm open to other people's views on this.

From CGT North Africa

En Túnez sigue el pulso entre el pueblo y el gobierno

machine translation

From Alma Allende

¿Quién gobierna Túnez?

machine translation

------

Entrevista a Fahem Boukadous, periodista y militante del Partido Comunista Obrero de Túnez

machine translation

Sit-in of Tunisian External Communication Agency (ATCE) staff

Unconfirmed report on EA liveblog

2030 GMT: Two protesters were killed in northern Tunisia after police opened fire on protesters, it is being reported. We have no direct confirmation from Tunisian authorities, though. 

Confirmation...

Four people died in clashes between protesters and police in the northwestern Tunisian town of Kef on Saturday, union activists and witnesses said.

Several hundred demonstrators had been calling for the city's police chief, Khaled Ghazouani, to be sacked for abuse of power, the government news agency TAP reported.

The situation degenerated when Ghazouani slapped one of the protesters and the crowd tried to rush the police station and set it ablaze.

Police opened fire, killing two demonstrators, aged 19 and 36, and seriously wounding three others, said union sources and an interior ministry source.

Two of those injured later died of their wounds, union activists and a local resident told AFP later Saturday.

A union source said Ghazouni had subsequently been arrested and the situation was calm late Saturday.

The official TAP news agency meanwhile reported the arrests of two members of the security forces suspected over the deaths of two detainees in Sidi Bouzid, in the centre of the country.

On Friday, several hundred people had demonstrated in front of the police station there after medical staff at the local hospital said they had found burn marks on the victims' bodies.

In the ensuing unrest they had burned three police cars, a witnessed told AFP.

…

In Tunis meanwhile, dozens of members of Tunisia's main trade union rallied calling for a shakeup of its hierarchy.

"Get lost rotten managers!" members of the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) chanted in front of the union's Tunis headquarters, calling on its secretary general Abdessalem Jrad to step down.

"We ousted (Tunisian president Zine El Abidine) Ben Ali, the time has come to settle accounts with the UGTT's bureaucratic management which flirts with the transitional government and betrays its base," activist Habib Ayadi said.

The UGTT was a key player in the protests that ultimately ousted Ben Ali on January 14.

It briefly joined the transitional government of Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi before its members resigned -- although it has offered qualified backing of the since-reshuffled interim government.

A new splinter union, the General Confederation of Tunisian Workers (CGTT) was announced on Tuesday.

In an effort to get the country back to normal, Tunisia's transitional government announced a two-hour shortening of the curfew, which now begins at midnight and ends at 4:00 am (0300 GMT).

Only a few dozen young people still stage peaceful rallies against the former ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) party on the city's central Habib Bourguiba artery, until recently the scene of massive protests.

At one end, a few armoured vehicles belonging to the army are parked in front of the interior ministry. But the machine guns once stationed there are absent.

Photo from Sidi Bouzid today - I'm not really sure what this is about

Edit: see last paragraph of next post

One dead in fresh anti-government unrest

Tunisian minister suspends ex-ruling party

Tunisia's interior minister on Sunday suspended all activities of the country's former ruling party amid the most serious protests since the country's autocratic president fled into exile less than a month ago.

Fahrat Rajhi suspended all meetings of the Democratic Constitutional Rally, known as the RCD, and ordered all party offices or meeting places it owns closed — ahead of a demand to dissolve the party, a ministry statement said.

...

The announcement came hours after crowds pillaged, then burned a police station in the northwestern city of Kef a day after police shot dead at least two demonstrators. It was the worst violence in Tunisia since Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, ending 23 years in power.

Protests have also erupted in other corners of the North African country, which is being run by a caretaker government before presidential elections to be held in six to seven months.

...

Crowds attacked a police station in Kef on Sunday, pillaging documents and equipment and setting it afire, TAP reported. The army responded by encircling local government buildings to protect them, but tension was high.

...

In Kebili, in the south, a youth hit by a tear gas canister was killed. He was among a group of demonstrators trying to attack a National Guard post to protest the appointment of a local governor, the news agency reported.

In the mining town of Gafsa in the center-west, the newly appointed governor, Mohamed Gouider, was forced to leave his new post in a military vehicle provided by the army amid a large demonstration by crowds demanding his departure and a "total rupture with the symbols of the old regime," TAP reported.

Similar demonstrations were held in several other towns, from Sfax, the southern capital, to Bizerte, 35 miles (60 kilometers) north of Tunis.

...

In an especially sensitive weekend protest, hundreds of people took to the streets in the central-western town of Sidi Bouzid — where the uprising got its start in December.

Hundreds of people protested Saturday after two inmates in a neighborhood police station were killed in a fire late Friday, TAP reported.

An investigation into the cause of the blaze was ordered, but Rajhi, the interior minister, speaking Saturday on the private Nessma TV station, left open the possibility that the fire was the work of "infiltrated persons" — a reference to the RCD.

...

On Sunday, a 4-kilometer-long (2.50-mile-long) caravan of cars and buses arrived in Sid Bouzid bearing aid for the population, TAP reported. Similar convoys are planned for other rural areas that felt forgotten by Ben Ali's regime.

Fresh violence erupts in Tunisia (Al Jazeera)

What the heck is going on in Tunisia while camera lenses watch Egypt?

Video: Sidi Bouzid yesterday

On twitter

Protest today in Tunis in front of Parliament against illegitimate leaders and Ben Ali accomplices

Demonstration in front of the parliament http://yfrog.com/h7r5cmij http://bit.ly/hZleiY

Protests in Nabeul against PM Ghannouchi and Newly appointed Governor

Jemdouba: Citizens took over the state HQ and asked the new governor to leave

Congressional Research Service: political transition in Tunisia (pdf)

Guardian live updates

5.49pm: What does the aftermath of revolution feel like? Egyptians can only dream at the moment but one of our commenters below the line, @HendTunis, has been painting a picture of what life is like in Tunisia at the moment in two posts:

Our main street has been renamed "Martyr Mohamed Bouazizi", instead of "7 Novembre"- the day on which ZABA (Zine Abidine Ben Ali) achieved his coup ousting the former president Habib Bourguiba in 1987. Even the new Nfidha airport changed its name, not officially yet, but the people with their banners and buckets of paint are renaming the boulevards all over Tunisia.

Still in the thick of the revolt, I can't really see the whole
picture: it was, and still is- a mixture of:

+liberal slogans for citizenship rights, democracy and freedom

+leftist spirit with trade unionists, unemployed and impoverished 
people calling for wealth redistribution and workers' rights

+68 France as my students, many of them wrapped in Che Guevara flags,
criticized the educational system and that is THEIR turn to change 
society and culture. They've started making films, documentaries,
 plays...

+at the same time, many images are a reminiscence of the Palestinian 
Intifada: Martyrs, hurling stones, burning tyres, singing Marcel
 Khalife's and Julia Boutros's songs... very 1980s that is.

We haven't finished yet. We are all speaking out and criticizing. As a Tunisian journalist said: under Ben Ali we used to complain from constipation, now it's freedom of speech diarrhea. But, that's a bit healthy I think.


A good sign against any regression -dictatorial, religious or jingoistic- is a real free press. The minister of culture on TV yesterday, the UNESCO scholar Ezzedine Bach Chaouech, urged journalists to be the watchdogs and bulwarks of this uprising. A journalist answered he'd immolate himself if anyone or any party would confiscate what we have done. I think many will be ready to do it.


Every institution should be under scrutiny, corrupt CEOs are being sacked by their own employees, Interior Ministry high-ranked officials were fired -46 of them... Many changes but we are still asking for more.

Union leader speaks out against UGTT recognition of Ghannouchi government

Tunisia calls up reserve troops amid unrest

Tunisia protest town fears for unfinished revolution

Few places better illustrate the problems of Tunisia's unfinished revolution than Kasserine, a lawless and poverty-stricken border town nestled below mountains on the Algerian frontier, nearly 200 miles south-west of Tunis. For centuries a bastion of rebellion and unrest, the rural town of 100,000 people had the highest death toll of the revolution after Ben Ali's police snipers were ordered to shoot to kill to quell street demonstrations. Far from the golden tourist coast, Kasserine has the highest unemployment, crime rate, suicide levels and divorce figures in Tunisia.

Jobs are so scarce that much of the population survives from the smuggling of petrol, cigarettes and hashish over the Algerian border. Makeshift stands sell jerrycans of contraband fuel for £1 a throw.

Kasserine was at the forefront of Tunisia's historic January uprising, the first time in the Arab world that people on the streets have ousted a brutal dictator. The country's hope of becoming the first true Arab democracy spread across the region, inspiring Egypt's revolt. But as the world spotlight turns to Cairo, Tunisia's rural interior fears its revolution could disintegrate.

The town now finds itself at the heart of the attempts by Ben Ali's former ruling RCD party to stir fresh violence to disrupt the revolution. In the past three days, at least five people have died in Tunisia in the worst violence since Ben Ali fled on January 14. The interim government has blamed the wave of violence on a plot by old figures in the RCD party to stir panic and damage the revolution.

Last week in Kasserine at least 1,000 thugs descended on the town centre, ransacking schools, smashing buildings, attacking the court-house and robbing at knifepoint, left to run riot through the town by the lack of police. "This was a war of terrorism," said local lawyer Bedma Askri. "The RCD paid criminals and thugs around 15 dinars each [£5] to do this.

"In some cases, they just plied them with alcohol in exchange for violence. That's poverty for you, when someone will smash up a town and terrify people in exchange for a drink."

Anti-RCD demonstrators took to the streets of Kasserine and the chaos spread. Further north along the Algerian border in Kef, crowds rose up this weekend after police shot dead two demonstrators protesting against security forces. Government buildings were ransacked and burned in protest at the deaths. In Kebili, in the south, a youth hit by a teargas canister was killed as anti-police demonstrations were violently put down. Protests spread to Sidi Bouzid, near Kasserine, where the revolution began in December when an unemployed graduate set himself alight.

Elsewhere across Tunisia, from Sfax on the coast to Bizerte north of Tunis, crowds protested against the appointment of new local governors they said were RCD cronies. In a desperate attempt to calm tensions, the interim government finally caved in to demands to dissolve the RCD party, symbol of the old regime, taking the first steps to suspend party activities.

[…]

For lawyers, trade unionists and opposition politicians, Kasserine will be the true test of Tunisia's revolution, which has seen more than 200 dead and more than 500 injured, as well as rapes and disappearances. "It's only here, in this forsaken region, that you'll be able to judge whether it has worked, whether the acute inequality of Tunisia is over and the old regime finally finished," Bouazi said. "The regime's head has been cut off but the beast is still breathing. For now, the demonstrations will continue."

Kasserine's trade unionists are planning more local protests against the interim government's appointment of regional governors seen as still craven towards the old regime. In the mining heartland of Gafsa, one new governor has already been forced from his offices under army escort after locals rose up in revolt…

Change comes to Tunisia, slowly (Al Jazeera)

From Alma Allende

De Paisaje a territorio: tres días en el sur de Túnez (1) -- Gafsa

machine translation

Reports on twitter of trouble in Sousse today

Today, a huge number of militias(ex-ruling party members&corrupted cops& hired criminals) attacked Sousse and tried to afraid the citizens!

Some of the attackers were killed by the army or arrested and others escaped!

Tunisia finds its voice - Issandr el Amrani

New signs of unrest

There were new signs of unrest in provincial Tunisian towns Tuesday with many protesters demanding that regional governors step down because they had ties to ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali’s administration, while gunshots were fired in the center of the Tunisian capital.

[…]

In the town of Gafsa, near the border with Algeria, a high school attended by around 1,500 pupils caught fire in an apparent arson attack, official media reported.

Two trade union sources in Gassrine, about 250 kilometers southwest of Tunis, told Reuters several hundred people were blocking the highway into the town to protest at what they said was neglect by the central government.

The sources said the governor of the Gassrine region, who was only appointed a few days ago in a purge of regional officials, stepped down Monday under pressure from protesters who besieged his office.

Demonstrators also forced out the newly appointed governor of Gafsa region Tuesday, the official TAP news agency reported.

In a deal meant to defuse the tension, Tunisia’s biggest trade union said it had agreed with the government that all governors with ties to the former ruling party would be removed.

In Tunis, workers at the Foreign Ministry were on strike for a second day to demand that the minister, Ahmad Ounaiss, resign. He angered many Tunisians with comments they felt showed he did not fully support Tunisia’s change of ruler.

The gunshots Tuesday were the first time shooting had been heard in the capital for at least two weeks.

Three witnesses told Reuters they heard shooting coming from streets near Avenue Bourguiba, the main thoroughfare in Tunis, but none could see who was responsible.


"I heard sporadic gunfire,” one of the witnesses, who was near the Tunis city government building, told Reuters. Soon after, the area was back to normal with no signs of any disturbances.

In the past few days violence has flared up again, with at least five people killed since Friday in clashes between police and protesters in provincial towns. Army reservists have been called up to help restore order...

http://www.babtounes.com/

Just saw police beating a man on Avenue Habib Bourguiba (from hotel window). Strange people wandering around on street.

Political Police in #Tunisia busy arresting opponents, bringing chaos to every anti-gov peaceful protest and watching activists

From Alma Allende

Tres días en el sur de Túnez (2) -- Redeyef y Moulares, vecinos y extremos

machine translation

From Alma Allende

Tres días en el sur de Túnez (3) -- Qasserine, humillados y ofendidos

machine translation

France refuses to allow Tunisian activists in (Edu factory)

For the free circulation of struggling people!

February 11th – 13th hundreds of students and precarious workers from Europe’s Universities are meeting to exchange, debate and organize common struggles at the European Meeting of University Struggles. This meeting is also welcoming activists from non-European countries because the struggle against the dismantling of the university, austerity politics and precariousness is common to us all. Tunisian students who participated in the movement against Ben Ali’s dictatorship and members of the Pan-Africa Student Movement in Gambia were refused the visas that would have allowed their entrance in French Territory, so they will not be able to participate in the Meeting.


This limitation of the freedom of circulation that European politics is imposing is unacceptable. This is, evidently, a political stance against social movements that, from Maghreb to the rest of the world, are struggling for freedom.


This is why Friday, February 11th, we will be in front of the Tunisian Embassy in France, in rue Barbet de Jouy, to call for a Europe without borders and for the free circulation of struggling people.

The European Meeting against Austerity, Paris – Saint-Denis

From CGT North Africa

En Túnez sigue la presión en la calle. Avances y retrocesos en el proceso democrático

machine translation

.

Llamamiento de mujeres tunecinas / Appel de femmes tunisiennes

machine translation

Reuters

Tunisian security forces fired in the air on Sunday in a vain attempt to disperse tens of thousands of demonstrators in the capital calling for a new interim government, a Reuters witness said.

It was the second straight day of mass protests in the North African country's main city, in defiance of a government ban on rallies, after a lull following the popular uprising last month which overthrew President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

After weeks of relative calm, as many as 40,000 marchers gathered in front of the prime minister's building shouting slogans such as "Leave!" and "We don't want the friends of Ben Ali!" Others were demanding pay rises.

Security forces fired several times in the air, while two military helicopters circled low over the rally, the Reuters witness said. The protesters remained in place and there was no sign that anyone had been injured.

...

The Interior Ministry said on Saturday that mass demonstrations were forbidden under state of emergency laws and protesters could be arrested.

More than 15,000 protesters clogged central Tunis on Saturday, most of them chanting anti-Islamist slogans after the murder of a priest the government blamed on "a group of terrorist fascists with extremist tendencies," and a series of Islamist protests against brothels.

The two days of protests end a stretch of relative calm in the capital since early February...

Alma Allende

Laicismo y democracia ----- machine translation

Otra vez la Qasba ----- machine translation

-----

English translations of other articles on Tunisia by Alma Allende

If you haven't read them in the Spanish or struggled through the machine translations these are worth looking at.

Tunis today...

[youtube]y2MZFynbe28[/youtube]

Gafsa

[youtube]UUguRQTL09c[/youtube]

Police fire tear gas to disperse new Tunisia protest

The protest followed clashes between police and protesters at the same location on Friday that the ministry said left 21 police officers injured and three police stations damaged, an AFP reporter said.

Large numbers of police moved quickly to disperse Saturday's protest and men in civilian clothes and masks, armed with clubs, were seen moving through the streets searching for protesters.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Friday demanding the resignation of the country's interim prime minister, an ally of ousted leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Alma Allende

Venezuela en la Qasba

machine translation

Live firing by police in Tunis yesterday, one protester killed

Guardian

4.02pm: Tunisia: In Tunisia, where the current unrest in the Arab world began, hundreds of journalists and technicians from the state-run TV broadcaster have gone on strike over what they say is continued government censorship of their dispatches, Reuters reports.

The industrial action has halted state TV news bulletins. One striker said: "We are on strike demanding an end to all the pressure and to stop the censorship, and to allow us to work freely ... We will not accept restrictions any more."

AFP report on yesterday's protests

Four dead in Tunisia after renewed violence

Four people have died in new unrest in the Tunisian capital between stone-throwing protesters and police on the sidelines of demonstrations against the interim government, officials said Saturday.

The Interior Ministry, in a statement, blamed "provocateurs" for fomenting violence in otherwise peaceful rallies and for allegedly using young people as human shields in renewed demonstrations.

The ministry said three people died Saturday, without elaborating. State TV showed a funeral of a 19-year-old man who was killed Friday after being shot through the neck during protests on a central avenue.

Demonstrators fear the interim government has hijacked the revolution that drove Tunisia's longtime autocrat from power on Jan. 14, sending shock waves through the Arab world.

Officials said nearly 200 people were arrested in the last two days.

On Saturday, police and troops backed by tanks used tear gas to disperse hundreds of youths protesting against the caretaker government. Officers were seen chasing some youths through town after the rally ended.

Authorities then ordered a temporarily ban on vehicle and pedestrian traffic on the capital's central Bourguiba Avenue until midnight Sunday - the first of its kind since Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia...

This video appears to be from today's clashes

EA liveblog

1950 GMT: Tunisia’s interim president, Fouad Mebazaa, has named a former government minister, Beji Caid-Essebsi, as Prime Minister.

Caid-Essebsi replaces Mohamed Ghannouchi, who resigned earlier today (see 1510 GMT) amidst protests calling for the replacement of the transitional Government.

Human Rights Watch has condemned violence by police against protesters on Friday and Saturday, which killed at least four people, and more use of force today.

HRW claims that security forces, some dressed in the dark uniforms of anti-riot brigades, worked with plainclothesmen who carried sticks and clubs, to chase rock-throwers into narrow streets and beat them. HRW asserts that police also fired numerous rounds of teargas toward the protesters, who lit bonfires in the street and erected crude barricades across the street.

A policeman who observed journalists and HRW filming from hotel balconies pointed a gun at them, and the police then entered the hotel to ensure that the filming stopped.

Armoured personnel moved along the main avenue, with guns pointed out, and helicopters circled at low altitude.

Alma Allende

Ghanoushi cae, la Qasba sigue en pie

machine translation

A footnote to a long article about Algeria on the Moor Next Door blog

In Tunisia competing segments within the middle and upper classes seem to be divided between those preferring the preservation of the Ben Ali status quo (or significant parts of it) and those pressing for continued revolutionary change and reform. The important segments of the revolutionary movement there, drawn from the middle and lower middle class but also the southern poor, have allied with the UGTT and the former elite segment in pushing on the transitional government to pursue constitutional and political change more aggressively and throwing out ex-RCD members. The former group from within the middle and upper classes are pushing for the retention of ex-regime players in hopes of safeguarding their old positions. One sees this in the protests and violence against the UGTT, street fighting by ex-RCD partisans and the actions of some of those supporting Ghanouchi; the RCD would appear to be reorganizing for a comeback in hopes of staving off or rolling back losses as a result of the fall of the old regime. This is something that deserves more attention and more varied analysis; the same is true for what is taking place in Egypt...

'Tunisia frees last political prisoners'

At least that's what the headline says

Interior ministry announces that it is disbanding the State Security Department

EA liveblog

0855 GMT: The Constitutional Democratic Rally, the party that controlled Tunisia from independence in 1956 until the fall of President Ben Ali in January, has been formally dissolved by a court.

Reports from a CGT delegation to Tunisia

Crónicas desde Túnez (1) ----- machine translation

Crónicas desde Túnez (2) ----- machine translation

Crónicas desde Túnez (3) ----- machine translation

I'm not sure these reports dig very deep but it's interesting that some of the towns where the uprising started still seem to be under the control of committees to safeguard the revolution.

Part 4 of the CGT reports. This one is an analysis of the Tunisian unions and is worth reading. The machine translation is more or less readable.

Crónicas desde Túnez (4). La UGTT: entre la traición y la lucha.

machine translation

Part 5 of the CGT reports

Crónicas desde Túnez (5) La mujer tunecina y su revolución

machine translation

Part 6 - the movement of unemployed graduates

Crónicas desde Túnez (6) El movimiento de l@s parad@s: un proceso incontenible

machine translation

Part 7 - the committees to safeguard the revolution

Crónicas desde Túnez (7) Los comités de salvaguardia de la revolución. El ejemplo de Bizerta

Edit: The FdCA has now started translating these reports over on Anarkismo

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The Committees to Safeguard the Revolution: the example of Bizerte

Since 14th January numerous committees to safeguard the revolution have been set up in many places throughout the country, with a variety of forms, constitutions and functions.

Municipal bodies almost everywhere in Tunisia have been swept away, and temporary bodies for managing municipalities have taken their place. The form and make-up of these institutions depends on the balance of forces in each locality. In some cases, they have been created on the basis of proposals by the committees to safeguard the revolution, in others they maintain links with the old local political bosses.

The Bizerte committee to safeguard the revolution

Bizerte is a city of 200,000 inhabitants (the province, or governorate, has around 700,000) and lies on the Mediterranean coast at a distance of 66 km from the capital, Tunis.

Around 25 people, mostly women, are waiting for us at the House of Culture (now run by the committee to safeguard the revolution) to exchange experiences and ideas with us.

The Bizerte committee is of an open, assembly-based nature. Between 500 and 1,000 people attend the meetings, where decisions are made. The committee is then responsible for implementing these decisions. People attend as individuals, not as representatives of parties and trade unions. The main force is the Union of Unemployed Graduates who have organized more than 10 branches in the province, in addition to the one in Bizerte. Lawyers, teachers, trade unionists and young people all participate in the provisional running of the city. The assembly has elected 25 people to the City Council, which was submitted to the governor of the province.

It seeks to foster participation and direct democracy. Each person has the right to vote at the assembly and everything is done to make sure the interests of all rather than party interests are catered for. It also seeks to encourage people to be active in everyday tasks. It is clearly run as an example of an attempt at counterpower and social self-management.

A difficult task ahead

We discuss the lack of experience in taking on so many responsibilities and the need for training and cooperation. On the one hand, it seeks to continue the process of dissolving all of the dictatorship's apparatus of repression. We talk about the example of El Kef, a town where the committee to safeguard the revolution has produced a dossier containing the photos of all the corrupt individuals and those who were involved in repression. But also about the biased judiciary and government who have freed the police officers and corrupt individuals who were brought to justice by the people.

On the other hand, we also discuss the process of building a new society that will carry on a consistent struggle against unemployment, defend human rights, establish new economic and political criteria that can enhance strong cooperation between the workers and the people as a whole.

Factory closures

More than 4,500 metal workers from Menzel Bourguiba, in the governorate of Bizerte, are on strike against the threat of a lockout. The bosses have responded to the creation of a union in the factories and the state of mobilization and worker participation with layoffs and relocations. Shipyards have been the traditional industry in the area. Employers are now seeing their profits threatened and are trying to move to other countries or else waiting for better times, for the revolutionary tide to subside.

Mutual aid - a necessity

The Bizerte comrades tell us: "There has been an insurrection in Tunisia, now we need a revolution". And for that, they need help: publicity, information, training, support of all kinds.

Our discussions brought up the idea of twinning the committee to safeguard the revolution with European bodies (federations, trade unions, associations, etc.) with a commitment to maintain an ongoing relationship where information on the activities and needs of the committee can be exchanged, together with practical mutual aid.

After the talks, we visited the former premises of the political police that were burned down by the people. This was a tangible expression of the people's strength against the dictatorship. But now there remains the hardest task of all: that of making sure that change does not remain a purely formal affair, a new coat of paint on the old house. Change must mean a real, profound transformation of this society.

Our commitment and our support is needed. How? By following with interest the current situation of what is happening in Tunisia, by taking part in the campaign to cancel Tunisia's foreign debt, by twinning with the committees to safeguard the revolution, through solidarity and support for the struggles of the workers, the unemployed and the Tunisian people. But also, through our struggles at home, fighting our own governments and multinationals, the accomplices of Ben Ali who still keep to their neo-colonial view of the countries of North Africa, the back yard of the European Union.

Solidarity and mutual aid with the people of Tunisia.

Mouatamid


North Africa Working Group of the CGT International Secretariat

First published (in Spanish) on 19 April 2011.

Translation of part 1

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The voice from the streets is clear: the revolution in Tunisia has just begun

Avenue Habib Bourguiba is a hive of activity. The hum of debate rebounds on all sides. From the steps outside the Municipal Theatre, the megaphone is passed from hand to hand. People talking, shouting, freely stating that the revolution must go on. Ben Ali has not gone away: his political police, though hidden, is still at work, his web of corruption is still in place, his people from the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) are still there, though today mixed in with various political parties and are preparing for the right moment to return to power, which they never really left.

Calls for a "Third Kasbah" are repeated, spread and discussed in the streets. It is the response to the words of the new prime minister Essebsi, who speaks with the arrogance of power and a legitimacy that the people have not given him. And the people have responded. They say that they are still there, alive and well, and have no intention of yielding easily to a "normality" that does not involve real change in Tunisian society.

From all those places where social isolation and exclusion is the norm, from Sidi Bouzid, Redeyef, Thala, Kasserine... spreading throughout the whole country, the Tunisian people on the streets carried on this revolution of dignity. No office, no hidden power, no party, no-one drew up their programme. It is the people of Tunisia themselves who have been writing their own history, not with jasmine, but with the dignity and the blood of their young, their martyrs.

During the First Kasbah, the caravan of the revolution, thousands of people from the poorest areas of Tunisia all over the country occupied the Prime Ministry in the Kasbah from Sunday 23rd January until the 28th, when they were brutally evicted. They had no intention of accepting a government where the majority of members were in Ben Ali's party, starting with his prime minister, Ghannouchi.

With the Second Kasbah, Ghannouchi was toppled. They had already brought down two governments after the fall of the dictator. The Tunisian people took yet another step forward, ignoring the support being offered Ghannouchi's government by the European Union and the United States. The main police chiefs from the Ben Ali era were removed from their positions, political prisoners were freed and the RCD was dissolved but the people wanted still more. The counter-revolution had not been stopped.

April 1st. Calls for a Third Kasbah have brought together several thousand people. It has become impossible to reach the Kasbah square. Police and military personnel control access points. The army is also visible on the streets. Tanks and trucks everywhere. Along the road leading to the square, several police cordons block the way of those who are gathering. There are impromptu speeches by the people. Meher, a young man who has been vocal in the debates, talked to me about the revolution, about how the murderers are going unpunished and the corrupt go free. They want real change. They want to destroy the whole party-state apparatus. They want another Tunisia. They have no trust in parties or trade unions. They know that their strength keeps them on the streets.

Suddenly, the crowd starts moving. Some are receding, most are pushing towards the police. It seems that the police have started to charge - then the pushing starts, blows, stones fly, paving stones are ripped up and the air fills with tear gas, causing the crowd to disperse into the streets of the Medina.

But the gas follows us through the streets. An asthmatic comrade from the CGT falls to the ground in a faint. But the people are here. From the houses come women, men, children, to care for the wounded. Milk, lemon, blankets... everything. A young girl gives my comrade some ventolin. And kisses her on the forehead out of respect. The love and solidarity of the people. Another comrade from Solidaires has got lost and is overcome by the gas. The same response. He is quickly welcomed into a house to for treatment and to avoid arrest. There have been about twenty arrests, they tell us.

People are already arriving on the Avenue Habib Bourguiba and gathering in front of the Municipal Theatre. There are discussions and debates. A young student talks to us, aware that he is an important part of what is happening. He rejects the continued interference by the West in his country's affairs, our sense of superiority. He speaks of a tolerant Tunisia, where people can live together and build a different democracy, more real than ours. He breathes conviction and self-confidence from every pore. He is the image of a people which is organizing itself, which has hope and the ability to build and move forward.

The unemployed university graduates have mobilized and are organizing themselves. In just two months 45,000 unemployed people have come together in real grassroots organizations. Committees for safeguarding the revolution are everywhere, some whose operations are more closed (coordination of organizations), some more open (assembly-based). In practice, many municipalities are being run by them. Big protests are being prepared against the government if it fails to dismantle the old apparatus of power and does not send those responsible for murders committed during the revolution to prison.

And all this time, the debates of the councils working on constitutional changes and preparing new elections, initially scheduled for 25th July, the struggles and alliances between political parties, continue. The situation is difficult. And there is no shortage of people with an interest in slowing down the process or using to their own advantage.
But the voice from the streets is clear. The revolution in Tunisia has just begun.

First published (in Spanish) on Saturday 6 April 2011.

English translation by FdCA-International Relations Office

Translation of part 2 of the CGT reports

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In the heart of Tunisia. Thala: the occupied police station

Thala, Kasserine governorate (province), 300 kms from the capital. A poor city, on the fringe, whose only resourse is agriculture which depends on rainfall: wheat, prickly pears... without industry.

Upon our arrival, we were surprised to find an outdoor museum filled with graffiti. Graffiti demanding freedom and dignity, against Ben Ali and his henchmen, tributes to the 6 who died in the revolution, a sign of the inhabitants' desire to be true to their memory. The free expression of the people on the walls of this small, abandoned city of the Tunisian interior.

Young people throng around us to see us taking pictures of the graffiti. They tell us the story of their struggle. As early as 24th December they held their first solidarity march with Sidi Bouzid, where the first call in all of Tunisia was made demanding the fall of Ben Ali. On 3 January, students from the town's two schools - one at each end of the city - decided to protest. The principals of the schools called parents in an attempt to stop the students taking to the streets. But they only achieved the opposite: the parents joined their children and all the people took to the streets in a peaceful demonstration.

The hated Colonel Youssef Abdelaziz ordered to fire on the demonstrators. Marouan Jemli, 19, was the first martyr in Thala. The struggle not to lose his body, fearing that the police would try to hide their crime, caused a second death - another 19-year-old. Finally, the young people were able to carry Marouan's body to his grandmother's house after a 10-hour walk over mountain trails.

Marouan's funeral was used by the criminal colonel Youssef as an opportunity to shoot at the people carrying the coffin. A 32-year-old comrade who was preparing for his wedding in March and a disabled man were both hit by police bullets and died beside the coffin, the latter with five bullets in his body! The mothers had originally tried to carry the coffin themselves (in Muslim culture, it is the men who accompany the dead to the cemetery), but the young men instead had decided to carry it.

Between 3rd and 6th January, Thala - a town of 15,000 inhabitants - was completely surrounded by 1,800 police. It was impossible to leave or to enter. Supplies of water, bread and sugar were cut off. Cries were heard in every corner of Thala, "YES to bread and water, NO to Ben Ali". 150 people were imprisoned and a great many young men, women and children were tortured and abused. But through Facebook and other social networks, the young were able to publish videos of the repression and publicize the police murder of 5 young people and their siege of the town.

On 8th January, Col. Youssef was overthrown and replaced by another police chief. But the movement had spread throughout Tunisia and the rebellion had reached the capital. On 12th January, yet another person was killed by the police outside his home. New police chief, new murder.

The orders to the police in the early days were clear: crush the rebellion in the Sidi Bouzid and Kasserine (home to Thala) governorates in order to prevent it from spreading to the rest of Tunisia. The 1,800 police officers who surrounded the town for days had clear orders to kill, to crush resistance, like elsewhere.

Thala, a town without police, without a municipality, managed by the people

But Thala, a town with a revolutionary tradition, resisted and won. Today, there are no police in town. Young people take it in turns to deal with security. Only the military presence reminds us that there is a state.

The committee to safeguard the revolution runs the town and has "justice for our dead" as its prime demand. They have submitted a list of people involved in the killings, complete with names, and for 17 days in March they organized demonstrations to demand the imprisonment and trial of the murderers. The Justice Department of the interim government has asked for 15 days in which to respond. If in the first week of April there is no answer, the struggle will be taken up again.

They do not recognize President Fouad Mebazaa, nor prime minister Beji Caid Essebsi. They are calling for the dissolution of the three councils that have been created: the political and constitutional reform council, the council investigating the repression since 17th December and the anti-corruption council. They do not trust them, as they were created by Ghannouchi and are filled with people from Ben Ali's RCD party. How can they investigate themselves?

The police station transformed into a social centre

After the death of Marouan, his friends were consumed with anger. One of them, filling his motorbike with petrol, set it on fire and crashed it into the police station, causing a fire that forced the police to leave the town.

On 17th February, Nemri Bassem, a mechanical engineer unemployed since 2004, occupied the police station and stayed there, demanding his right to work. This action is only one of hundreds of actions that have been carried out in Tunisia by the Union of Unemployed Graduates.

Nemri is not alone. Many young people joined him for his hours at the police station, which has today been converted into a place where you can listen to music, play cards and talk about revolution.

We said goodbye to Thala. Marouan's father points out to us the place where they killed his son: "I will never forget this place". And so says the graffiti that he did there.

Neither will the Tunisian people forget.


M.H.

Translation by FdCA-International Relations Office

Part 4

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The UGTT: caught between struggle and betrayal

The Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT - Tunisian General Labour Union), the sole union in Tunisia up to now, has for many years played an ambiguous role as part of the dictatorial state apparatus with multiple links to the ruling party while being at the same time the centre of combative, independent trade unionism.

Both poles have coexisted because they needed each other. The UGTT's bureaucratic leadership apparatus has needed, and now needs more than ever, this veneer of militancy and struggle that the militant sector gives the union in order to maintain its share of power within the state apparatus and to survive the dictatorship in circumstances such as those at present. For its part, the militant sector has found in the UGTT the infrastructure that is essential if it is to reach the workers and enjoy legal coverage, even though that coverage has often not prevented repression in such a context where there is a total lack of freedoms.

A little history

As in most North African countries, the first Tunisian trade union was created following the example of French syndicalism. In 1924, Mohamed Ali El Hammi and Mohamed Tahar Haddad created the first workers' organization in Tunisia, the Confédération générale des travailleurs tunisiens (CGTT - General Confederation of Tunisian Workers), which was quickly repressed by the colonial authorities.

In 1946, after a process of union-building lasting two years from south to north, the UGTT, the first union in North Africa, with Farhat Hached (later killed by extremist French colonists) and Ahmed Tlili leading it. From its birth the UGTT was closely linked to the nationalist movement and marked by the subordination of the class struggle to the struggle for national independence, a condition which determined its dependence on the new national state apparatus.

During the Bourguiba dictatorship there were ongoing tensions between its submission to the single party and a certain autonomy that allowed it to put pressure on the power in the '60s and '70s. The general strikes of '78 and the bread revolt of 1984 amounted to the highest levels of confrontation and repression against the UGTT by the State, and many union activists suffered long years in prison.

The UGTT and Bel Ali

In 1989, Ben Ali's regime imposed direct submission on the UGTT leadership, led by Ismail Sahbani, who collaborated in the implementation of neoliberal economic policies and fought the trade union left fiercely. Tried and convicted for embezzlement, he was replaced at the congress of Djerba in 2002 by the current secretary general, Abdessalem Jerad.

The double game played by the UGTT leadership

The history of the leadership of the UGTT is a story of betrayal and manoeuvring. From its support for Ben Ali's candidacy in the elections of 2004 and 2009 to social welfare reform, from the implementation of neoliberal economic measures to their abandoning of the Gafsa UGTT activists, jailed during the 2008 uprising, when they limited themselves to a simple request for the release of the prisoners.

Surprised by the uprisings in Sidi Bouzid and Kasserine, the leadership only permitted strikes at the local or regional level and demands for democratic reforms once the rebel movement had spread throughout the country and many local unions had become directly involved. A general strike in Tunis was not called until 14th January. And on 13th, Abdessalem Jerad, secretary general of the UGTT, was in talks with Ben Ali, looking for solutions to the situation. A week earlier, he had allowed students and unemployed workers who had locked themselves into the premises of the UGTT in Tunis to be violently evicted by the police, and many of them were tortured and imprisoned.

After Ben Ali had fled, the leadership agreed to participate in Mohamed Ghannouchi's provisional government of national unity with 3 ministers, before withdrawing their representatives under pressure from the people on the streets and the UGTT's more radical wing. While people were fighting Ghannouchi's government on the streets, the leadership of the UGTT called for a "government of national salvation", without clarifying what it was to be or how it was to be made up, in an attempt to please everyone.

UGTT involvement in the Tunisian revolution

As I said in the first paragraph, the UGTT has always been an area of convergence for militant trade unionism and the struggle against power. With most opposition political parties banned, with any other trade-union option prohibited and with any organized structure not controlled by the government suffocated (such as the Tunisian League for Human Rights - LTDH, restricted to its central premises in Tunis, always guarded by the political police and prevented from organizing any public event), the UGTT remained the only place from which it was possible to struggle against the system and where the various militant sectors were obliged to work together in order to deal with the union bureaucracy. This historical reality has allowed the formation within the UGTT of a current that for years has struggle for common goals - the radicalization of the UGTT, an end to the dictatorship and internal union democracy, at a price of enormous sacrifice (prison, exclusions, etc.) - and has reinforced its presence in the intermediate levels (general unions, regional unions, etc.) and, consequently, the National Administrative Committee.

All this has resulted in the UGTT playing an important political role in the popular revolt in Tunisia. Involved from the start of the uprising in Sidi Bouziz, its premises have been open, in most cases, for the purpose of organizing demonstrations - often being the starting point of marches. It has organized rallies, marches and regional general strikes in various governorates and is currently committees involved in the committees to safeguard the revolution.

Whither the UGTT?

The coexistence of such conflicting trends within the same organization has been possible due to the situation of dictatorship and lack of freedom. It is still too early to know what the outcome of the Tunisian democratic transition will be and, indeed, the outcome of the next UGTT congress, but it is clear that both issues will influence the maintenance of UGTT as a single union.

The processes of popular self-organizing that are in progress, such as the Union of Unemployed Graduates or the committees to safeguard the revolution, to the extent that they are maintained and consolidated, will influence the future of the UGTT. Even taking into account the weight of a tradition of trade-union unity in the UGTT, in terms of democratic freedoms, sooner or later the impossibility bureaucratic unionism controlled by the state and autonomous, militant trade unionism will manifest itself.

Other options: the CGTT

In 2006, a group of former leaders of the UGTT decided to create the Confédération Générale Tunisienne du Travail (CGTT - Tunisian General Confederation of Labour) as an alternative to the UGTT's dependence on the state.

However, the failure to legalize the union meant a cessation of its activities, and it focused almost exclusively on the celebration each year of a summer school for union training through the Association Club Mohamed Ali de la Culture Ouvriere (Mohamed Ali Club Association for Working-Class Culture, the name Mohamed Ali being a reference to the founder of the original CGTT).

On 1st February 2011, the CGTT was finally legalized and began organizing. However, it is still developing a clear union line and, more worryingly, its seems to be somewhat aloof and uninvolved in the current revolutionary process. From 3rd to 5th December, it is due to hold its first congress, where the line will be established together with its trade-union practice.

The former secretary general of the UGTT, Ismail Sahbani, has also created a third union, the Union of Tunisian Workers (UTT) as a bureaucratic apparatus more for the sake of competition within a possible framework of purely formal democracy.

If the Tunisian revolutionary process continues to progress, Tunisian workers will know the best way to organize themselves. If it retreats or comes to a halt, the various union bureaucracies will continue to play their role in order to avoid any autonomous self-organization by Tunisian workers.


Mouatamid

North Africa Working Group of the CGT International Secretariat

14 April 2011

Translation by FdCA International Relations Office

Part 6

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The unemployed movement in Tunisia: an unstoppable process

In the '80s and '90s, especially in the western countries of North Africa, there was widespread access to university for young people from the working classes. The first rural women got to attend university. There were large-scale demonstrations at universities and from them emerged organizations such as the Union nationale des étudiants du Maroc (UNEM - National Union of Moroccan Students) which served as a nursery of activism and united struggle of all the tendencies struggling for social change.

But after university came unemployment. To continue studying in Europe or for a doctorate, masters', etc., one needs to have enough money. To enter the civil service, where cronyism and corruption dominate, graduates from the working classes and rural areas have little chance. Continuing the experience and contacts formed in the UNEM, the Association nationale des diplômés chômeurs au Maroc (ANDCM - National Association of Unemployed Graduates) was created in Morocco in 1992, the first organization of the unemployed to be created in the region and which, after 19 years of struggle without being legalized, blazed a trail in the fight against unemployment.

The enemployed graduates in Tunisia organize themselves

Influence from and knowledge of the experience of the ANDCM spread. Contacts were established between Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

In 2006, the Ligue Tunisienne des Diplômés Chômeurs (Tunisian League of Unemplyed Graduates) was founded. Tunisian representatives attended several international conferences by the ANDCM, also attended by the CGT. Post-graduation unemployment was massive and the need to organize was clear.

But in Tunisia, Ben Ali's dictatorship repressed branches of the unemployed graduates' league. There was persecution and division was fomented. The organization returned underground. But it continued to sow its seeds, there were still contacts being made and the uprising in Gafsa was like a flame that the repression put out, but it did point the way.

The revolution arrives. The Tunisian Union des Diplômés-Chômeurs (UDC) is formed

Young people have been at the forefront of the revolution. Mohamed Bouazizi, whose death sparked off the revolt, was one of those educated young people who were rotting in villages with no prospect for the future. But these young people today are organizing themselves. More than 100 local branches of the Union have been created since February, when it was legalized, and so far it has gathered 45,000 members, male and female. In Tunisia, a country with 10 million inhabitants, there are 140,000 young unemployed graduates with another 60,000 students who finish school early. This is one of the motors of change.

We spoke with Salem Ayari, president of the UDC in Tunis. In the last three months, the process has been unstoppable. Local branches are created almost daily. There is a national committee, but without any decision-making powers. They have rented premises in Tunis so that the committee can continue to organize the process. A bond system has allowed the movement to finance itself. Computers from the local premises of the RCD and from friends give the UDC a minimal infrastructure.

Following the experience of the ANDCM, they have developed a standard scale for jobs obtained by the various branches of the association. Actions at local level are essential. We have seen permanent protest camps in various places (Sidi Bouzid, Thala, Tozeur...).

Apart from the common struggle to end all structures linked to the dictatorship, in the field of unemployment the UDC focuses on three key demands:

1. In the civil service, control over and participation in jobs that are created based on real social needs.

2. A social wage for all unemployed people.

3. Support for and participation in job-creation projects. The study of projects by the association, with public support.

The whole process of local struggle will merge on 1 May in Tunis. The idea is to mobilize 50,000 unemployed graduates, showing the strength and capacity of movement in order to promote a policy of job creation which takes account of the people directly involved. They are facing the challenge of the organizational and logistical efforts required to mount such a mobilization with optimism.

But they know they have to combine the struggle and the mobilization with analysis of the current situation and find concrete alternatives for employment that are viable. To do so, they are organizing a conference debate on 9th and 10th May, with the participation of various intellectuals, on the theme of "Unemployment and models for development", as well as the issue of migration.

The ability to organize ourselves

We do not talk about the past or about dreams. Before our eyes, here and now, in less than three months tens of thousands of young Tunisians have managed to make a tool that they themselves have forged, autonomously at each location, with solidarity between all, with common objectives, with bottom-up participation, without depending on anyone. It is not perfect or without contradictions and weaknesses - it is after all a human process. But it is real, present, and something from which we should all learn.

Mouatamid

Noa Rodman

What Komar quoted shows the islamic 'moderates'(?) party as the big winner:

In a March 2011 opinion poll, the Renaissance Party was ranked first with 29%, followed by the Progressive Democratic Party at 12.3% and the Movement Ettajdid at 7.1%.[21] It was also found that 61.4% of Tunisians "ignore political parties in the country."[21]

This interview with Al-Nahda/Ennahda (aka Renaissance Party) leader Rashid Al-Ghannouchi makes him sound quite moderate (social democracy plus moral conservatism?). At least if it can be taken at face value.

Mahan Abedin -You used to have a left-wing outlook and rhetoric in your earlier days, especially the 1970s and early 1980s. Is that still the case?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi - In my youth I was a Nasserist. Islam is against injustice and the monopoly of wealth and resources. The notion of Brotherhood in Islam has profound socio-economic implications in so far as it points to the equitable distribution of economic resources. In the economic sphere Islam is closer to the left-wing outlook, without violating the right to private property. The Scandinavian socio-economic model is closest to the Islamic vision.

[…]

Mahan Abedin - Islamic Democracy sounds appealing in theory but the trouble is we don't know what it looks like in practice. Let's focus on one important aspect of political theory, namely the perennial quest for social justice. Traditionally Islamists have understood social justice in a narrow sense as a form of charity and not in a deep and contextual sense that takes into account all the prevailing dimensions and dynamics. Do you envisage Al-Nahda and other Islamists making a historic breakthrough in this field?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi - Al-Nahda hasn't had the opportunity to develop and explain its views. Since 1981 the movement has struggled to survive in the face of fierce repression. Nevertheless, if you review our literature from the past three decades you'll notice that the topic of social justice comes up again and again. We have worked closely with the trade unions in Tunisia even though these bodies were under strong secular left-wing influence, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. By working with the trade unions we realised how close our views on social justice were to theirs. It was amid this process of interaction that we came to the conclusion that Islam - at least in the public sphere - is synonymous with justice and the quest for justice. Consequently we encouraged our people to join the trade unions.

Edit: see also this in-depth article on Al Nahda

The reawakening of Nahda in Tunisia

Noa Rodman

These committees are ... mostly animated by the Union of Unemployed graduates themselves

Actually I think this may vary in different places. Part 3 (there doesn't seem to be a translation as yet) talks about meeting the committees in Sidi Bouzid and Redeyef in their respective UGTT locals, and it sounds like there is more union involvement in these towns in the interior (as opposed, maybe, to the larger and better off cities on the coast).

Redeyef in particular was at the centre of the 2008 uprising against the restructuring of the Gafsa phosphate mines (the precursor of this year's uprising) and the report talks about meeting with miners/ex-miners there, along with the unemployed graduates.

'Manifesto of Tunisian women for equality and citizenship'

French ----- Spanish ----- machine translation

Prison breakout in Kasserine and Gafsa

More than 800 inmates escaped on Friday from two Tunisian prisons after fires were set in cells, the official news agency said.

Soldiers and security forces quickly fanned out in a search of the fugitives and at least 35 were caught within hours, TAP said, citing military sources.

TAP reported that 522 inmates from the prison in Kasserine escaped after a fire in two cells, and another 300 inmates escaped from the Gafsa prison.

The two towns are both in Tunisia's center-west region, some 150 kilometers (about 95 miles) apart. Personnel at the prison in Gafsa were on strike at the time, likely making the mass exodus by inmates easier.

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International Crisis Group - Tunisia report (summary)

Full report (in French, pdf)

Protests continue in Tunisia, following the declarations former Interior Minister Farhat Rajhi published on a Facebook page called “Skandali”in which he predicts that there would be a military coup, by loyalists of the ousted President, if the Islamist Party Al-Nahdha wins the elections on July 24. He also claimed that Rachid Ammar, Chief of Staff of the Tunisian Armed Forces, went to Qatar to meet with the former President Ben Ali, and that Tunisia continues to be run by a shadow government, headed by a friend of Ben Ali, Kamel Ltaief.

Pro democracy protestors gathered twice during the last 24 hours, on Thursday afternoon and on Friday morning, in Hbib Bourguiba Avenue, to call for the overthrow of the government. On the two occasions protestors were brutally dispersed by riot police using tear gas and batons…

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/05/06/tunisia-police-brutality-is-back/

[youtube]Ul80dEedX58[/youtube]

Insurgent Notes: On Tunisia

pdf version

Elections in Tunisia

Arabist: On Nahda's victory in Tunisia

Brian Whitaker: Tunisia on the road to gridlock?

Police violently disperse anti-capitalism protesters

Inspired by the occupy movements taking place around the world, mainly Occupy Wall Street, and under the umbrella of the global event Occupy the World on 11.11.11, hundreds of protesters raising anti-capitalism slogans took to the streets to #occupytunis.

#OccupyTunis took place at the square of human rights in an avenue in downtown Tunis, where financial institutions and banks are crowded next to each other.

Djerba, in the South of Tunisia, and Sousse a coastal city, also witnessed anti-capitalism protests. But it was the protest that took place in the capital Tunis, that got more attention, because it was the largest, and ended with police violence...

photos -- which suggest a lot of involvement from PCOT members

One year on - interview with a couple of Tunisian Trotskyists

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5556

It's interesting that "already Ennahda has experienced a fall in support in the opinion polls, from 41% to 28%. And a certain part of Ennahda’s electoral support is on the streets to protest against the party they voted for in October."

In the last few days, several offices of the Tunisian trade union federation – the UGTT - have been attacked, ransacked, burned down, firebombed, or been the target of different acts of vandalism, such as the dumping of garbage in front of the unions’ offices. Not coincidently, these acts, repeated in different areas of the country, came after the start of a three-day general strike by the UGTT municipal employees, including the garbage workers, which started on Monday 20th February, to demand an improvement in general working conditions and pay.

At the union’s local office in Feriana, in the governorate of Kasserine, some of the aggressors have demanded of the local UGTT official to open the office, and threatened to burn it down otherwise. Subsequently, the office was ransacked and burned, and official union documents destroyed in the fire. The central union headquarters in Tunis, as well as several regional and local union offices in Monastir, Kairouan, Kebili, Ben Arous, Douze, Thala, La Manouba and Nabeul have been subjected to similar attacks.
[…]
The general secretary of the UGTT regional union in Kasserine says that on Tuesday morning a group of activists belonging to Ennahda came to the headquarters of the union to protest against the municipal employees’ strike and that they fire to the building in the aftermath. The communiqué released by the UGTT accused the present ruling parties of wanting to “restore a dictatorship”. Sami Tahri, a spokesperson for the UGTT, commented that “this is a political act, well organised by the Ennahda movement”.
[…]
At the end of January, Sadok Chourou, a prominent leader of Ennahda, declared in the National Assembly that strikers were “enemies of God”. He has openly declared that the best solution for putting an end to the constant strikes and sit-ins is force. Quoting a verse of the Qur’an, he suggests execution or crucifixion, or getting a hand or leg cut off.
[...]

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5599

Police used tear gas and batons to disperse protesters showing support to the Tunisian General Union for Labour (known by its French acronym, UGTT), in the capital Tunis, yesterday (February 25, 2012). The union, which has accused members of the ruling party Ennahdha of defacing its offices, organized the protest.

Protesters, who numbered 3,000 people, raised anti-government slogans like “People want the fall of the government” and “Ennahdha get out.”
[…]

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/02/26/tunisia-police-use-tear-gas-and-batons-to-disperse-labor-union-protest/

More reports from Sidi Bouzid

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/08/14/tunisia-sidi-bouzid-rises-again/

http://www.tunisia-live.net/tag/sidi-bouzid/

Mouvement Désobéissance

Déclaration de principes

 Le mouvement Désobéissance est un mouvement libertaire et anti-autoritaire. Il lutte contre le capitalisme et ses appareils autoritaires. Il vise l’auto-organisation des peuples, et l’auto-gestion généralisée, directe, de la vie et des richesses produites.
Le mouvement Désobéissance lutte pour :
- Appuyer la mobilisation révolutionnaire à travers toutes les formes de résistance.
- Impulser l’auto-organisation des masses exploitées en appuyant leur autonomie vis-à-vis des organisations centralisées et autoritaires.
- Abolir l'État (la répression, la bureaucratie … etc) et le Pouvoir central, pour son remplacement par l’autogestion directe, l’auto-administration des ressources et de la vie.
- Le dépassement de la représentation indirecte issue des rares scrutins électoraux, vers une démocratie directe, seule capable répondre aux besoins de la société et de gérer ses ressources dans la justice sociale.
- Unifier les forces libertaires en Tunisie et coordonner leur action pour l'accomplissement des tâches de la révolution.
- L’abolition de toute forme d'oppression et de discrimination pour une égalité réelle entre les femmes et les hommes, et entre toute autre minorité humaine.
- Résister à toutes les formes de colonialisme et d'exploitation capitaliste; soutenir tous les mouvements de libération dans le monde, et celle du Peuple palestinien en particulier.
- Consacrer une culture libertaire, anti-autoritaire et critique, en rupture avec toute forme de pensée dogmatique et absolue.
- Consolider les tâches révolutionnaires et agir sur le terrain avec ceux qui les adoptent et se mobilisent à les réaliser.
- Rompre avec toute forme d'organisation hiérarchique et bureaucratique; affirmer le principe du dialogue libre et de la décision collective dans tous les sujets en dépassant les systèmes autoritaires du centralisme démocratique et la passivité des spectacles du vote.
- Contre toutes les formes de patriarcat au nom de la compétence, de l'expérience, de l'âge ou d’un quelconque symbolisme, pour affirmation de l’alternance des responsabilités : le mandat impératif, et le droit à la différence.
Les militant-e-s de désobéissance sont des individus libres et indépendants dans leurs initiatives, ils se veulent créateurs de nouvelles expériences collectives

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Le mouvement désobéissance est une composante du mouvement révolutionnaire. Il n'a ni pouvoir ni autorité sur les classes populaires qui mènent le mouvement. Le mouvement Désobéissance se place au sein du mouvement révolutionnaire, et il essaie de mettre à sa disposition des outils théoriques de compréhension, et d'action pratique. Il se dissout une fois que l'auto-organisation des masses exploitées prend forme.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/هيئات-العمل-الثوريحركة-عصيان/إعلان-المبادئ-العامة-حركة-عصيان-mouvement-désobéissance-déclaration-de-principes/395259483883277

http://www.facebook.com/disobey.tn

Tunisia: A call for unity

Tunisia: Statement of Disobey Movement

Tunisians have been living since the disbandment of KASBAH sit-in under the dominance of a rivaling political class with homatophagous politicians feeding on the blood of the poor and the marginalized exploiting the wealth in the regions while discarding its inhabitants causing the people to survive with the minimum conditions of life and to suffer poverty and lethargic unemployment. The situation is aggravating due to the fascist tendency the system has taken with the assassinations of political militants Shokry Belayd and Muhammad Brahmy; the list is still open to more assassinations.

Indeed, the dictatorship of capitalism, which caught its breath with Ben Achour Higher Authority for the Fulfillment of the Revolution Objectives, then with the Constituent Assembly and all the institutions and powers springing from It, is responsible for the deterioration of the situation in social and economic terms as well as on the level of security with recurring assassinations.

The overriding and massive movements all over the country during the last couple of days are of dramatic importance as they resulted in the seizure of regional administrative power locals. Yet, this revolutionary step needs to be confirmed for the masses should claim its right to self-manage its resources to end up with any potential attempt of robbing them by any component of the civil and political fight over power show.

The uprising masses should work to put the local and regional councils they founded into action and affirm their priority and right to manage public affairs by;

* founding local public affairs autogestion councils to self-manage the resources and wealth on the level of districts, villages, lands, factories, rural areas and communities.

* founding regional councils (on the level of prefectures) to run and coordinate regional affairs.

* founding a national council formed by delegates from local and regional councils to set a program for development and the general principles of Tunisians everyday life affairs and implanting supervising committees supervising the realization of decisions taken by the council

These are suggestions we give to militant forces on the basis of tearing down the regime, acquiring the sovereignty over their own destiny, cutting, once and for all, with poverty, regional disparities, violence and terrorism, and preventing any detour attempts prepared between the actual shame council, parties shops, and in the corridors of embassies as well, under the motto of either salvation or democratic transition which will become eventually a strong consensus to rob both revolution and wealth.

Scenes from a revolt sustained: http://revoltsustained.tumblr.com/about

A film by Luhuna Carvalho, Nate Lavey, Matt Peterson. Associated Producer: Kays Mejri. 2014. 60 minutes. HD. In French with English subtitles.

revoltsustained[at]gmail.com

An essay/landscape film on the insurrection in Tunisia; with various beginnings—2010, 1987, 1956, the present; in Ariana, Gafsa, Kasserine, Sidi Bouzid, and Tunis; a series of encounters with militants, rebels, fighters, unemployed, students, unionists, council communists, Stalinists, anarchists, et al.

We tried to meet with those working to continue the revolutionary process. With very little information on Tunisia ever coming through Western media, we felt a particular void of English-language translations of those who embodied the Tunisian insurrection. So it was this we sought to document.

Tunisia interested us as the spark of a wave of international uprisings, from the Arab Spring, to the indignados movement of Spain and Greece, to the Occupy movement in the United States, and beyond.

How do you organize against nationalism, neoliberalism, and religious fundamentalism; confront the limits of democracy, insurrection, and self-organization; build communism in the immediate wake of state and economic collapse?

Some clips from the film here
[youtube]4r6pDfD8OlU[/youtube]

Interview with the Disobedience Movement

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