Regime tries to ride pro-Iraqi wave
TUNISIA of significant social struggles and without its historic leadership, is the scene of conflicts between different bureaucratic currents, on which are grafted the opportunist calculations of the union left and even of the fundamentalists.
Even so, the very fact that the UGTT once more exists gives room for social movements. The regime knows that in the
THE TEAM which came to power on November 7, 1987, after ousting the president for life Bourguiba, hoped to tackle the crisis of the Destourian regime!, which has ruled the country since independence. The regime had been challenged by a series of popular revolts: by the general strike of January 26,
1978; by the hunger riots of January 3, 1984; and in 1987, just before Bourguiba got his marching orders.
After three years however, it is clear that the new team has been unable to resolve the crisis, which has got worse. Faced with the democratic tidal wave sweeping the dominated countries and the former Soviet bloc; shaken by democratization and the electoral victories of the Islamic
Salvation Front (FIS) in neighbouring Algeria; under pressure from the revival of Arab nationalist sentiment after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; and finally in the grip of a terrible economic crisis, president Ben Ali is playing for time.
LUIZA MARIA
R
APID democratization and turmoil in Algeria have profoundly affected
Tunisia, putting heart into the Tunisian democratic movement. At the same time, Tunisian fundamentalists have capitalized on the victories of their Algerian cothinkers in the FIS. Meanwhile, the decline of
Algeria's ruling National Liberation Front
(FLN) is a warning for the Constitutional
Democratic Assembly (RCD — new name of the Destourian Socialist Party, which has ruled Tunisia since independence).
The eviction of Bourguiba took place in the context of the regime's inability to check the fundamentalist advance.
The new regime under Ben Ali has not undertaken serious reform. After the coup, however, it threw overboard some ballast, in order to rapidly gain credibility. It freed political prisoners, and legalized several journals and parties?, but without meeting the demand for a general amnesty.
In the background of the November 7 coup there was also the acute financial and economic crisis resulting from the combination of liberal policies applied at the behest of the imperialist financial centres, short-term measures and the dead-weight of the Destourian bureaucracy.
The new regime submitted to the demands of the International Monetary
Fund and pushed forward liberalization.
This led to opening up the country's economy to the outside world, to a rise in the foreign debt, to an increase in the weight of the employers' union, the Tunisian Union of Industry, Commerce and Crafts (UTICA) and to the dismantling of the public sector. The social consequences were predictable: a drop in purchasing power, and the growth of unemployment and the informal economy.
It is hard to measure the impact of the Gulf war on Tunisia, since the country both exports and imports oil. The imports, evidently, cost more, while, owing to the fall in the dollar, exports cannot be relied upon to cover the loss. The recent devaluation of the dinar has reinforced the negative impact of the opening up of the economy. Furthermore, Tunisia is no longer able to export to Iraq owing to the UN blockade. Numerous Tunisians working in the Gulf have or are in the process of returning home, increasing the numbers of unemployed and depriving their country of a source of income. Also, tourism has slumped.
### Union confederation refounded
The workers struggles, which culminated in the general strike of 1978, resulted in the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) breaking free from the regime. The end of the period of democratic opening, which lasted from 1981 to 1985, saw the dismantling of the UGTT. The crisis of the union confederation has been partly overcome under the November 7 regime; today the reformed UGTT, in the absence end neither empty promises nor repression can stop conflicts. These latter are, in the final analysis, the result of the regime's own policies of liberalization and super-exploitation. The union bureaucracy is, for its part, unable to control and channel worker militancy at will. Shaken by deep internal differences, the union leadership has recently taken new administrative measures aimed at preventing independent rank-and-file initiatives, but it will find it hard to call any more for "social peace" given the exorbitant demands of the employers.
Bourgeoisie searches for
Arab solution
Furthermore, the Gulf crisis has had a profound political impact. The renewal of anti-imperialist sentiments and national Arab feeling have pushed Ben Ali into taking his distance from imperialism. The Tunisian bourgeoisie, like its other Arab counterparts, is terrified of the potential for instability released by the recourse to force. It has thus been in favour of an "Arab solution". Ben Ali has called for the withdrawal both of Iragi troops from Kuwait and of the Western troops from the region. In August 1990 his denunciations of the foreign intervention made him appear in the eyes of the imperialists as a part of the "pro-Iraqi clan". But Western pressure has led Ben Ali to back off, without however coming over wholesale to a pro-imperialist position, despite supporting the application of sanctions against Iraq. The Tunisian regime's position is also a response to internal needs. The regime has wanted to bring about a new "national unity" with the bourgeois and reformist opposition and strike a blow against the fundamentalists of Nadha, who are financially supported by Saudi Arabia. The fundamentalists, discredited by their contradictions, are in a serious crisis.
By relaunching his "national unity" project, Ben Ali hopes to persuade the bouropposition to accept his old proposal: the replacement of 30 Destourian deputies with opposition members. The Liberals of the Movement of Democratic Socialists (MDS) along with the Progressive Socialist Assembly (RSP) have agreed to participate in the president's diplomatic mission to present a 1. The name of the party created by Habib Bourguiba, the New Destour. Destour means "constitution" in Arabic. 2 COT and pere, she forti do on of is prumabenian 11 PCOT and permission for it to publish its journal.
International Viewpoint #200 • February 18, 1991
TUNISIA / USSR solution to the Gulf crisis, in the process breaking off their alliances with the Party of Popular Unity and Nahda.
By associating themselves with the official position on the Gulf crisis, the opposition has helped Ben Ali gain new credibility. Thus fortified, the Destourians see no further reason to make concessions to the opposition, now that the fundamentalist danger seems to be declining. Thus the regime has been able to make a pro-Western turn and step up repression, which has reached levels unprecedented since 1987. Measures include: the banning of public opposition initiatives; reinforcement of control of the press; administrative harassment and financial pressure on journals; the verdicts in the trials of Hamma El Hammani (spokesperson of the Tunisian Communist Party) and Bechir Essid (Arab nationalist leader). Despite everything, however, the real target of this repression is the fundamentalists.
### Regime attacks fundamentalists
The Nadha, made to look ridiculous by the contradictory positions adopted by its main leaders, has tried to divert the attention of public opinion in the hope of overcoming its internal divergences and winning a new audience. The regime, on its side, has taken the opportunity to strike at Nahda. This would allow the regime to put at centre stage the struggle between itself and the fundamentalists, set the terms for collaboration with the bourgeois and reformist opposition, and justify the repression. The regime has been trying to convince the opposition and public opinion that the hardening of Nahda's rhetoric is part of a "strategy for taking power" proved by the "discovery" of stocks of arms and terrorist networks. against the fundamentalists at the end of December 1990 almost daily against the repression, until the outbreak of the war, Nahda won the sympathy, if not the active support of the
The outbreak of the war has given the situation a new twist. While there is vast popular support for the Iraqis, this has not resulted in big demonstrations. This is due to a number of factors. Firstly, the systematic police and military patrols in the capital discourage any spontaneous initiative. The Americans' triumphalism at the start ot the war dumbfounded the population, while the overtly pro-Iraqi tone of the official press after the Scud attack on Israel has objectively dissuaded people from demonstrating. Furthermore all schools and universities, traditional centres of agitation, have been closed. Finally, there has been no tradition of street demonstrations 12 , since the independence struggle.
Nonetheless, the legal mobilizations organized by humanitarian and professional associations on January 19, with 20,000 people, and by the UGTT on January 20, with 8,000 people, or those initiated by the Revolutionary Communist Organization (OCR — sympathizers of the Fourth International); the Watad (Marxist-Leninist/nationalist) Arab nationalists have met with a definite among the population, took heart after the dispatch of the Scuds, and hope to see Israel and Iran drawn into the conflict in order to make the "traitors" and "mercenaries" of Egypt and Syria
Now that it is clear that the allies will not win an immediate victory, belief in an Iraqi victory is spreading among the population, the most pessimistic saying that in any case the Arabs have won a moral
The population has placed itself in the Iraqi camp, and wants to take part in the conflict through giving blood and medicines and joining up to fight. There are almost daily pro-Iraqi demonstrations in the provincial towns, which are less firmly controlled than Tunis. In the south of the country, the traditionally popular Libyan leader Colonel Qadhafi has been by demonstrators ambiguous stand on the Gulf crisis.
On the eve of the reopening of the and universities, Union of Tunisian Students (UGTE) Exchange, not on the university campus. This first for the fundamentalists gave the government a pretext to ban a demonstration planned for January 26 by the Collec-
Associations, as part of the international day of action against the
Throughout these mobilizations, Trotskyists of the OCR have done their utmost to expand the movement, while setting out their own positions. The danger is that the population will see the conflict in exclusively military terms, with no bearing on its immediate situation. Thus the OCR is attempting to underline the social and political issues in the war, and anti-imperialist 3. A fundamentalist union created in the 1980s and joined by a Maoist current, as a competitor of the historic left student union, the General Union of Tunisian 4. This collective is partly the result of the meetings organized by the Association of Women Democrats 5. The main demands of the OCR are: withdrawal of imperialist troops; against the retum of the Emir and for the annexation of Kuwait; national democratic front, independent of the Ba'ath 6. The OCR is proposing a front of leftwing nationalist forces around support demands against the Tunisian regime (nationalization of imperialist property, dissolution of the mixed commission; appeals for volunteers and for the Tunisian army to participate in the fighting on the Iraqi side; and the denunciation of Saudi Arabia and the funda-
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