People power forces change in Tunisia

[AlicetheKurious]

No, no, no, lupercal, you are wrong about this. The uprising in Tunisia is so real it hurts and and the shame felt by all of us, Egyptians and Saudi Arabians and Libyans and Algerians and Sudanese and so many others who are also awed and exulting vicariously in the triumph of the Tunisian people, is no less real. This is no spooky, color-coordinated, bullshit Saatchi & Saatchi faux-populist psyop and it has nothing at all to do with Wikileaks. It is an honest-to-god grassroots popular uprising that finally broke the barrier of fear that Tunisians had been living behind, a leaderless intifada by all Tunisians against a deeply corrupt, greedy and oppressive US and Israeli client regime. This is a real blow to the Western powers: the new French Foreign Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie was reported to have said that France might intervene militarily in Tunisia, which provoked an angry response before France began making more conciliatory noises.

Nevertheless, we are all watching very closely to see what happens next. Only the first demand of the people has been met: the dictator and his wife and their corrupt relatives have been kicked out. The other demands are no less important, for a complete and transparent investigation and prosecution of all individuals associated with the regime for crimes against the people of Tunisia, for all political prisoners to be released immediately, for guarantees of a free press, and for free and democratic elections to be held within sixty days. Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi will only be tolerated as a very short-term caretaker (for 45-60 days) while a transition government is formed with the existing political parties and these demands are fulfilled, not one minute more.

The scenes of Tunisian soldiers weeping and hugging and kissing the demonstrators instead of killing and beating them as they were ordered to do, are among the most beautiful and moving I have ever seen.

It's not over yet, though. Right now armed militias, including actual security forces associated with the former regime are marauding through neighborhoods smashing and burning and looting citizens' private property and a large hospital in the center of the capital (the army arrested members of internal security attacking the hospital), and someone has released violent criminals from the prisons; at the same time, one large prison in Manastir known to house political prisoners has been set on fire by unknown perps, burning many of the prisoners alive. On Al-Jazeera Tunisian opposition figures are suggesting that they are doing this either in revenge or as a ploy to make people wish the regime had stayed in power.

One good thing is that the army seems to be doing the best it can to defend the public, but the police is another story; some are doing their jobs, but others are using actual police vehicles and weapons to engage in shooting people, looting and vandalism. The head of the police is closely associated with the former regime and is a wanted man. Citizens are organizing themselves into civil defense units to protect their homes, and people are very frightened. They are terrified that either the former regime or outside saboteurs are trying to spread chaos and terror in order to justify foreign intervention to steal the victory away from the free Tunisian people.

On Edit: the burned corpses of 58 prisoners have been removed so far from the charred ruins of the prison in Manastir; the hospital that was attacked is where many of the wounded protesters are being treated.

On Edit: the Tunisian army has announced that it was the army that ordered Ben Ali to leave Tunisia, refusing his order to turn its guns against the Tunisian people and fearing even greater loss of life if Ben Ali remained, that it was the army that arrested fleeing members of Ben Ali's wife's family, and that the army is standing ready to defend the people's will against regime attempts to regain control. The army has categorically stated that it has no interest in ruling Tunisia, but that its role is to facilitate a non-violent and rapid transition from the dictatorial regime to a democratically elected government.

On Edit: Ghannoushi is no longer acting president of Tunisia. He's been replaced by the Speaker of parliament. We should remember that before he was president, Bin Ali was Tunisia's prime minister, like Ghannoushi, and that that he also came to power promising democratic reforms and an end to corruption. The Tunisian people do NOT trust Ghannoushi, in fact there are widespread demands that he be prosecuted along with Ben Ali and other members of the dictatorship.

[lupercal]

Could be Alice, and I'll happily defer to your take on this, as I haven't seen much unfiltered news and the corporate media are reporting it like any other CIA-sponsored coup d'etat, most recently the one in Honduras. I don't think wikispooks has anything to do with it either except in a propaganda sense as it's already being reported as one of their accomplishments, for example here:

"This Is The Wikileak That Sparked The Tunisian Crisis," Jan. 14, 2011, 2:19 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-wikileaks-2011-1

Yes what happens next will be telling and the military takeover yesterday gave me pause. Anyway what do you make of this blog which has maintained that it's a CIA destabilization effort since the end of last year, latest entry here:

"TUNISIA, MASKED SPECIAL FORCES & THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD," Saturday, January 15, 2011:

People in Tunis have reported groups "prowling through neighbourhoods setting fire to buildings and attacking people and property." Witnesses have spoken to Al Jazeera about "masked special forces" and "foreign militias."

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/01/t ... uslim.html

"CIA WRECKS ANOTHER COUNTRY?," Friday, January 14, 2011: http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/01/c ... untry.html

"CIA PSY-OP IN TUNISIA?" Thursday, January 13, 2011:

Tunisia's ambassador to London, Hatem Atallah, told Sky News that demonstrations are accepted by the government but that the violence was being orchestrated by gangs.

Why, he asked, "would students want to destroy, offices, banks, department stores?

"These are not students, they are organised gangs, using students as camouflage".

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/01/c ... nisia.html

[lupercal]

Are the Tunisian demonstrators wearing uniforms? And, if so, who is paying for them? Notice any short haircuts? How many of the demonstrators might be soldiers in disguise?

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/01/c ... nisia.html

You must admit that several demonstrators do seem to be wearing some kind of uniform, and several are also sporting military-stye haircuts. They don't look terribly underfed either.

[stefano]

I don't think that Aangirfan is worth much. If a protester isn't half-starved he's a CIA asset? Tunisia isn't a poor country; the students weren't rioting because they were starving, they were rioting because they were fed up and furious. The Tunisians dips were painting the whole thing as 'terrorism' (even a tin of paraffin set on fire at their Paris embassy) and 'destabilisation by foreign elements' from the word go, because that's what that kind of guy says.

If it had been a CIA op it would have started in Tunis where foreign journalists are, there would have been an opposition leader ready to assume the mantle of people's saviour, and hacks at the NYT and elsewhere would have spent at least the past two weeks demonising Ben Ali. There was none of that because up until yesterday lunchtime he was the CIA's man. They're probably running around now trying to cut deals with whoever has a chance of becoming the new president.

edit- I sometimes suspect that 'everything that happens everywhere is the CIA's doing' as promoted by bloggers like that Aangirfan is not unwelcome from the CIA's own perspective and that they might actively promote it. As in the movie Enemy of the State, for instance, where even though the NSA are the bad guys the overriding message is that they control everything. Oderim dum meruant and all that. Just a thought.

[AlicetheKurious]

"This Is The Wikileak That Sparked The Tunisian Crisis," Jan. 14, 2011, 2:19 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-wikileaks-2011-1

That headline is hilarious. Or pathetic. Anybody who's been following events in Tunisia knows that Wikileaks had absolutely nothing to do with the Tunisian revolution, which has been brewing for decades, intensified with the regime's media crackdown last April and the arrest and torture of bloggers and internet activists and journalists, and was immediately set off by the martyrdom of Mohamed Bouazizi. As one analyst put it, "Bouazizi died and the Tunisian people came to life." Bouazizi did not set himself on fire because he read the Wikileaks, and the Tunisian people did not sacrifice 80 of their lives and face down the regime's clubs and guns and other terrorist weapons because Bin Ali's wife closed down a private girls' school.

Anyway what do you make of this blog which has maintained that it's a CIA destabilization effort since the end of last year, latest entry here:

"CIA WRECKS ANOTHER COUNTRY?," Friday, January 14, 2011
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/01/c ... untry.html

No, I don't think so. No doubt the CIA would have loved to destabilize Tunisia and turn it into a neoliberal paradise or an Islamist enclave suitable for invading, but what's probably not being reported much in Western media is how many of the protesters carried posters of Che Guevara and were led by Leftist professional and trade unionists, rather than Islamist or pro-American types. The people of Tunisia are not as poor as people, say, in Egypt. But there had been sort of a trade-off between the regime and the people, where political rights would be sacrificed but at least the people would be materially well-off. Recently, especially since the economic downturn, the people woke up to find themselves deprived both politically and economically, without dignity or freedom or security or anything at all.

This is a very broad-based grassroots revolution, yes, and it is very inclusive, yes, but it has a definite socialist, secular, Arab nationalist slant, something that the Americans and the West in general no doubt view with great trepidation. Happily, this is resonating very loudly across the region, including in Egypt.

On Edit: Tunisia under Ben Ali was an IMF and US darling. As Angry Arab points out, the head of the IMF only last May described Tunisia economically as "a model for emerging countries". By the way, I'm in a bit of a rush, but later I'll find you the link: during the protests a couple of weeks ago, protesters were shot with tear-gas canisters used by Bin Ali's thugs, some of which were identified as American, and others with Hebrew markings that identified them as Israeli.

[lupercal]

Anybody who's been following events in Tunisia knows that Wikileaks had absolutely nothing to do with the Tunisian revolution,

No doubt.

This is no spooky, color-coordinated, bullshit Saatchi & Saatchi faux-populist psyop

Weird that you mention color-coding because that's exactly what those yellow, pink and blue bibs the "protesters" are wearing appear to be.

Right now armed militias, including actual security forces associated with the former regime are marauding through neighborhoods smashing and burning and looting citizens' private property and a large hospital in the center of the capital (the army arrested members of internal security attacking the hospital), and someone has released violent criminals from the prisons; at the same time, one large prison in Manastir known to house political prisoners has been set on fire by unknown perps, burning many of the prisoners alive. . . . but the police is another story; some are doing their jobs, but others are using actual police vehicles and weapons to engage in shooting people, looting and vandalism.

Yes. Infiltrating the police, intelligence and military is part of the CIA-coup technique and unfortunately explains a lot of what appears to be happening.

[AlicetheKurious]

From the Angry Arab:

"The Tunisian regime has killed over 20 people thus far in attacks against civilian demonstrations, Tunisians have picked up tear gas cans with Hebrew writing identifying them from Israel. It is widely believed that secret relations exist. Now we know where the regime gets its tear gas. Other tear gas cans are in English and advise use for animals. This is how they treat Arabs! Not that Arab regimes need lessons from anyone as to how to kill their own people, but the regime mimics Israeli brutality against Palestinians where Palestinians have died after being hit by tear gas cans." Link

Bin Ali and Israel: from the Clinton years
"Earlier today in a separate meeting with Foreign Minister Ben Yahia, I expressed our appreciation for the tireless efforts of President Ben Ali of Tunisia in advancing the peace process. Now by establishing these new ties with Israel, Tunisia has once again demonstrated its commitment to the peace process. The foreign minister and I also discussed threats against Tunisia. I told him that the United States would take such threats very seriously, and that we are committed to a stable and secure Tunisia." Link

(The context, from January 22, 1996, can be found here).

And this, from a hearing in the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July 7, 2009:

SEN. KAUFMAN Mr. Gray, can you tell me a little about your objectives with AFRICOM and the Tunisian military, how you see that working?

MR. GRAY: We've had a long-standing military relationship with the government and the -- with the military, I should say, of Tunisia. It's very positive -- on a very positive note, the military does not play a political role in Tunisia. Tunisian military equipment is of U.S. origin, so we have a long-standing assistance program there.

As AFRICOM stands up, it is reaching out to the -- to the militaries throughout the African continent, including Tunisia. And Tunisia has been receptive to continuing cooperation with the United States military and with AFRICOM as the designated combatant command. Link

As for the "bibs", I'd need to get a closer look, but they're certainly not typical. I've been watching videos and photos of the protests for a few weeks now, and I promise you there is no uniform or color associated with this intifada.

This video was posted yesterday, as the protesters tore down posters of Ben Ali:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrunyj3Uv-8

The song is an Egyptian revolutionary anthem written especially to celebrate the 13th anniversary in 1965 of Egypt's Arab Socialist Revolution under the leadership of President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Although communism was not part of the Arab Socialist movement, Tunisian communists are currently playing a prominent role in the Tunisian Intifada.

Yesterday's demonstration in response to FORMER President Ben Ali's speech, with his famous last words, "I understand you."

[AlicetheKurious]

Yesterday (protest in front of Tunisia's Ministry of the Interior):


The yellow poster says: "A people's trial for the Trabulsi gang." (The FORMER president's in-laws).





A compilation of some of the cell-phone videos that have been sent out from Tunisian citizens over the past few weeks (the Ben Ali government strictly forbade any news coverage of the protests): WARNING Very Graphic

[lupercal]

As I say it's possible Alice, but in a CIA-engineered coup a real or illusory popular uprising is created through covert means such as the penetration of security forces who then turn their weapons on the populace to inflame them, which would explain the US tear gas canisters etc etc. What I find especially strange is the leadership. There doesn't appear to be a Nasser or Chavez or anyone else coordinating the protests which are said to be led by recent university graduates looking for work. The Guardian reports Tunisian unemployment at 15%, unemployment among recent uni grads at 25%:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=uk

Having known many unemployed recent grads and having briefly been one myself I find this story hard to believe, which brings us to the question, exactly who is coordinating this? Time will tell but personally I have little doubt, having seen this movie many times before.

[Nordic]

Thanks for the accounts of this, Alice, it's very illuminating. Those of us behind the American Iron Curtain of media are pretty much completely left out of such things.

[AlicetheKurious]

Israel dreading a democratic Arab world
The Israeli deputy PM expresses his concern over the democratisation of the Arab world, following the dissolution of the Tunisian leadership

Saleh Naami in Gaza, Saturday 15 Jan 2011



The fall of Tunisia’s regime headed by Zine El Abidine Ben Alican have serious repercussions, said Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom.

In an interview on Israeli radio Friday night, Shalom said that he comes from a family of Tunisian immigrants.

“I fear that we now stand before a new and very critical phase in the Arab world. If the current Tunisian regime collapses, it will not affect Israel’s present national security in a significant way,” he said. “But we can, however, assume that these developments would set a precedent that could be repeated in other countries, possibly affecting directly the stability of our system.”

Shalom added that if regimes neighbouring the Israeli state were replaced by democratic systems, Israeli national security might significantly be threatened. The new systems would defend or adopt agendas that are inherently opposed to Israeli national security, he said.

The deputy indicated that Israel and most of the Arab regimes have a common interest in fighting what he referred to as “Islamic fundamentalism” and its “radical” organisations which threaten Israel.

This threat, he added, is the reason behind much of the direct and indirect intelligence and security coordination between Israel and the Arab regimes.

Shalom emphasised that a democratic Arab world would end this present allegiance, because a democratic system would be governed by a public generally opposed to Israel. Link

[Nordic]

Shalom emphasised that a democratic Arab world would end this present allegiance, because a democratic system would be governed by a public generally opposed to Israel. Link

Well that speaks volumes, now, doesn't it?

Considering Israel's influence in the entire region, backed by the U.S. and the C.I.A.

Fuck this guy Shalom. And the rest of the dictator-loving weasels.

[AlicetheKurious]

What I find especially strange is the leadership. There doesn't appear to be a Nasser or Chavez or anyone else coordinating the protests which are said to be led by recent university graduates looking for work.

That's not strange at all. You have to remember that the Tunisian people fought heroically to get rid of the French colonialists, and the country's first president after liberation in 1956 was the revolutionary nationalist Habib Bourguiba, who promised a new era of freedom and independence for the Tunisian people. Instead, he turned into an oppressive dictator who ruled with an iron fist for 30 years (and was a great friend of the US during all that time). When the people couldn't take it any more and threatened to rise up against his dictatorship in 1987, he was sent packing by his Prime Minister Zein el Abidine Bin Ali, who in turn promised a new era of freedom and independence for the Tunisian people. Maybe at first he even meant it, but it didn't take long for him to turn into an equally oppressive and corrupt dictator who got rid of political opponents and silenced dissent and literally struck terror into the hearts of his own people for 23 years.

During that time, he systematically either co-opted or destroyed every potential source of organized dissent, including of course, political parties and organizations, the media and later, religious movements. Even trade unions and professional associations were permitted to operate on a strictly enforced non-political basis. In other words, he destroyed any potential leadership that the people could have turned to in order to mount an effective defense against his police state.

Or so he thought. The yearning for freedom is funny that way: you plug one hole and another one opens up. Deprived of a free media, the people turned to the internet and blogs and even rap music. Deprived of political leadership the people relied on themselves. Finally, threatened with torture and even death, the people found that they feared neither.

The economic despair and humiliation (he was not only deprived of his livelihood, he was beaten by police) that led young Mohamed Bouazizi to set himself on fire was echoed in the first demonstrations last December, in a very poor agricultural area of Tunisia, far from the capital. One of Bouazizi's friends was shot and killed by security forces, which led to even greater demonstrations in neighboring areas with high unemployment. As the regime's forces cracked down hard in what is called "the massacre of Kasserine" on January 9, killing 26 unarmed demonstrators, arresting and torturing protesters and their families, even raping female family members, the outrage grew to a fever pitch and spread further, eventually reaching the capital. It was in Tunis where the nation's Bar Association, with thousands of lawyers defiantly declaring their solidarity with the protesters, added a purely political dimension that hadn't been part of the initial protests. Emboldened by the courage of the lawyers, other trade unions picked up the cry.

The barrier of fear was gone. Suddenly the fire was a raging inferno, fed by the long-festering anger of the poor, the middle class, laborers, the young, the old, everybody who was sick of being afraid, of watching every word, of listening to the constant lies, of feeling helpless to change a dictatorship whose arrogance and corruption and greed was increasingly intolerable. The Tunisians were recording everything via cell-phone videos and as the horrific images spread within and beyond Tunisia to neighboring countries, the protests somehow merged to become a revolutionary movement.

All this is a long way of saying that the people of Tunisia have already been fooled not once, but twice, by revolutionary leaders who promised freedom but who turned into brutal dictators once the people had sacrificed and struggled and finally attained victory over the previous oppressors. Even though "opposition" parties and aspiring leaders are now coming out of the woodwork (and back to Tunisia from exile) to ride the wave, right now there really is no one leader or group or movement that has the people's trust. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said, "When people fear their government, there is tyranny; when governments fear their people, there is liberty." All Tunisians joined together and paid the price of their freedom and won't be handing it to anybody else this time. And that's how it should be.

[AlicetheKurious]

Shalom emphasised that a democratic Arab world would end this present allegiance, because a democratic system would be governed by a public generally opposed to Israel. Link

Well that speaks volumes, now, doesn't it?

Yes, it does: it speaks volumes about the West's hypocrisy, because if an Arab or Iranian official made a statement like that it would be HUGE and cited over and over as proof that Arabs and Muslims don't share "our Judeo-Christian values" and that they "hate us for our freedom".

It also begs the question about the Israel-firsters embedded high within Western governments, like the United States and whether, faced with a mutually exclusive choice between respecting citizens' democratic rights and promoting Israel's interests, which one is the agenda they will (have been) actively work for, at the expense of the other.

[lupercal]

Mohamed Bouazizi still alive?

TUNISIA R.I.P. - THE CIA'S JASMINE REVOLUTION
Saturday, January 15, 2011

Mohamed Bouazizi. He "set himself on fire outside the governor’s office". ( Mohamed Bouazizi.) Or he "set fire to himself at the bus station." "He had apparently decided to go to Tunis and talk to the president... (he) arrived at the bus station." (Tunisian riot town stands firm in its fury )

17 December - Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old university graduate, reportedly set himself alight in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid in a protest over unemployment.

He reportedly died on January 5 from burn wounds.

In Islam, suicide is considered a sin.

There have been rumours that Mohamed Bouazizi is still alive . . .

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/01/t ... ution.html