Tunisia

Reuters:

Shooting on the streets as Tunisia tries to form coalition

(Reuters) - Gunmen fired at random from cars in Tunis on Saturday and inmates staged a mass jailbreak while leaders tried to prevent Tunisia from descending into chaos after the president was swept from power.

It was not clear who the assailants were but a senior military source told Reuters that people affiliated to former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali were behind the shootings.

Soldiers and tanks were stationed in the city center to restore order in the aftermath of a night of looting that broke out when Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia following a month of violent anti-government protests that claimed dozens of lives.

The ousting of Tunisia's president after widespread protests could embolden Arab opposition movements and ordinary people to challenge entrenched governments across the Middle East.

Speaker of parliament Fouad Mebazza, sworn in as interim president, asked Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi to form a coalition government and the constitutional authorities said a presidential election should be held within 60 days.

The French government called on Tunisia to hold free elections as soon as possible and said it had taken steps to block suspicious movements of Tunisian assets in France.

Dozens of inmates were killed in the mass escapes from two prisons, gangs of men fired weapons randomly from speeding cars in the capital and clouds of black smoke hung over the city from torched buildings.

As night fell, a Reuters reporter said suburban neighborhoods were being guarded from looters by impromptu militias, made up of residents armed with clubs and knives. They blocked neighborhoods and only allowed local people to pass.

In a sign that Ben Ali's rule was over, workers were taking down a portrait of the former president outside the headquarters of his RCD party on Mohamed V Avenue in the center of Tunis.

"We are very happy to be free after 23 years of prison," said Fahmi Bouraoui, drinking coffee in the Mozart cafe, one of a few businesses that reopened on Saturday morning.

But his optimism could be short-lived as parts of the country descended into chaos.

Tunisian analyst Taoufik Ayachi said of the drive-by shootings, about 10 km (six miles) from the city center on Saturday and in another suburb on Friday night:

"It is certain the presidential police are behind all this. They still hope to regain power.

JAILBREAK

Dozens of inmates were killed when they broke out of Mahdia prison and the prison at Monastir, also south of the capital, was on fire after a separate escape attempt, witnesses said.

"They tried to escape and the police fired on them. Now there are tens of people dead and everybody has escaped," said a local man, Imed, who lives 200 m (yards) from Mahdia jail.

Forty-two people died in the Monastir riot, the official news agency said.

In suburban Tunis, the big Geant shopping center was on fire, witnesses said.

the rest here

Foreign Policy:

The First WikiLeaks Revolution?
Posted By Elizabeth Dickinson

Tunisians didn't need any more reasons to protest when they took to the streets these past weeks -- food prices were rising, corruption was rampant, and unemployment was staggering. But we might also count Tunisia as the first time that WikiLeaks pushed people over the brink. These protests are also about the country's utter lack of freedom of expression -- including when it comes to WikiLeaks.

Tunisia's government doesn't exactly get a flattering portrayal in the leaked State Department cables. The country's ruling family is described as "The Family" -- a mafia-esque elite who have their hands in every cookie jar in the entire economy. "President Ben Ali is aging, his regime is sclerotic and there is no clear successor," a June 2009 cable reads. And to this kleptocracy there is no recourse; one June 2008 cable claims: "persistent rumors of corruption, coupled with rising inflation and continued unemployment, have helped to fuel frustration with the GOT [government of Tunisia] and have contributed to recent protests in southwestern Tunisia. With those at the top believed to be the worst offenders, and likely to remain in power, there are no checks in the system."

Of course, Tunisians didn't need anyone to tell them this. But the details noted in the cables -- for example, the fact that the first lady may have made massive profits off a private school -- stirred things up. Matters got worse, not better (as surely the government hoped), when WikiLeaks was blocked by the authorities and started seeking out dissidents and activists on social networking sites.

As PayPal and Amazon learned last year, WikiLeaks' supporters don't take kindly to being denied access to the Internet. And the hacking network Anonymous launched an operation, OpTunisia, against government sites "as long as the Tunisian government keep acting the way they do," an Anonymous member told the Financial Times.

As in the recent so-called "Twitter Revolutions" in Moldova and Iran, there was clearly lots wrong with Tunisia before Julian Assange ever got hold of the diplomatic cables. Rather, WikiLeaks acted as a catalyst: both a trigger and a tool for political outcry. Which is probably the best compliment one could give the whistle-blower site.

Jerusalem Post:

Analysis: A warning to Arab dictators
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
01/15/2011 17:36
Some in Arab world hope intifada that erupted in Tunisia spreads to the rest of the Arab countries, signaling start of a new, more promising era.

Arab dictators have good reason to be afraid in light of the ouster of Tunisian President Zein al-Abideen Bin Ali, political analysts and newspaper columnists in the Arab world said over the weekend.

Some even went as far as voicing hope that the intifada that erupted in Tunisia would spread to the rest of the Arab countries, signaling the beginning of a new and more promising era for the Arab world.

“The revolution of the Tunisian people has left many Arab leaders panicking,” said political analyst Sami al-Buhairi. “What happened to Bin Ali was an unprecedented humiliation for an Arab leader.”

Ahmed Abu Matar, another political analyst, noted that similar protests in Algeria could also result in regime change.

“The leaders of Algeria and the rest of the Arab world must draw the conclusions from the Tunisia experience,” he said. “The question that needs to be asked these days: Why are Arabs the only ones who fall in love with their seats and insist on staying in power forever?”

Analyst Ahmed Lashin said he did not rule out the possibility that the entire Arab world would be engulfed in chaos in wake of the Tunisian “revolution.” He noted that anti-government demonstrations have already taken place in Algeria and Jordan.

“The Arabs have been repressed for too long,” he said. “They are eager for change and are on the verge of explosion.”

Under the title, Thank You To the Tunisian People, Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, wrote: “The next few days could be critical for most of the Arab dictatorships. The living conditions in Tunisia are still better than most of the Arab countries. Moreover, the Tunisian dictatorship was less repressive than its sister dictatorships in the Arab world.”

Atwan suggested that the US Administration prepare an island in the Pacific Ocean to receive its Arab friends and dictators “the same way it opened Guantanamo Prison for Al-Qaida men.”

He said that the Tunisian people deserved to be thanked twice – “for proving that the Arab street is not dead as many had expected and is capable of waging an intifada and making sacrifices for change, and for exposing the Arab regimes that claimed to care about human rights and the values of justice and democracy.”

Writing in the same paper, commentator Hussein Majdoubi said that in light of the collapse of the Tunisian regime, the future of the Arab dictatorships was now in question. He added that the rulers of Morocco, Libya, Algeria and Egypt could be next in line. He also expressed disappointment that the West was continuing to support Arab dictators, while ignoring the plight of the Arab masses.

Majdoubi said that the popular uprising in Tunisia showed the Western fear of radical Islam was unjustified and baseless.

In the Palestinian territories, many Palestinians also welcomed the removal of Bin Ali’s regime from power.

The Palestinian Authority, which had strong ties with the Tunisian regime, did not comment on the dramatic developments. Tunisia played host to the PLO after the organization was expelled from Lebanon in the early 1980’s. Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas had their offices and homes in Tunis for nearly a decade before they moved to the Palestinian territories after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Hamas, for its part, warned that the PA leadership in the West Bank was likely to meet the same fate of Bin Ali.

“Mahmoud Abbas and his sons are among the wealthiest Palestinians,” Hamas said on Saturday. “Fatah leaders in the West Bank are very corrupt. “All indications are that the residents of the West Bank, who live under a tyrannical regime, are close to toppling the regime there. The people of the West Bank can no longer accept humiliation.”