Regime launches anti-fundamentalist
May Day
AS USUAL, the leadership of the UG TT (General Union of Tunisian Workers) did its best to avoid May Day becoming the occasion for the workers to mobilize and express their demands.
And this all the more in a year when, under the pretext of national solidarity in the face of the imperialisi aggression against
THE TUNISIAN regime appears to have decided to deal a finishing blow to the fundamentalist movement Nahda
(Renaissance) •
A press campaign is in full flow denouncing the violent crimes committed or about to be committed by the fundamentalists, sweeping arrests are being made (around
2,000 prisoners are spoken of), particularly in the faculties and the university campuses where the B.O.P. (Brigades of Public
Order) and the "anti-gang brigades" round up students en bloc, beat them up and then select some of them for further attention. The streets of the capital are tightly controlled, bulky bags are systematically searched to see if they contain molotov cocktails, and the UGTE, the fundamentalist student union, has been banned.
ALI
HE democratic
T and reformist opposition, like the UGTT (the
General of Tunisian
Union
Workers - the main trade union confederation), has once again demonstrated its allegiance to [President Zine
El Abidine] Ben Ali, denouncing in chorus the "fundamentalist plot" to destabitimidly lize the before country, demanding a little more liberty. Moada, president of the principal bourgeois opposition party, the MDS, has been designated by Ben Ali as head of a commitree comprising all the parties, a sort of committee of national unity to protect the university.
What remains of Nahda, after the split led by its former second in command,
Abdelfatah Mourou, has accepted the logic of the confrontation and is trying to escalate the tension with methods (violent attacks, bombings) which contribute to its isolation inside a population which is passively and nervously witnessing a struggle in which none of the belligerents is telling the truth.
In fact the current anti-fundamentalist crusade is only the culmination of a long series of increasingly tough confrontations between the regime and the fundamentalists since the legislative elections of April 1989. The fundamentalists then obtained nearly 30% of the votes and
4 whereas the democrats saw themselves appeared as the main party of opposition,
International Viewpoint #208 • June 10, 1991 marginalized. The Destour [the ruling political party] used this bipolarization to present themselves as the protectors of the "state of laws" and of "civil society" against the fundamentalist Satan, but they remained nonetheless very worried, faced with the rapid and apparently irresistible growth of the fundamentalist current.
The concessions to "Islamism" and "Arabism" made by Ben Ali immediately after his coup d'etat [in 1987, when he overthrew former dictator Habib Bourguiba], with the aim of cutting the ground from under the feet of the fundamentalists, appeared completely ineffective. The municipal elections scheduled for June 1990 accentuated these fears, which transformed themselves into a veritable panic after the electoral triumph of the Algerian fundamentalists. The regime found itself then faced with two alternatives. It could legalize Nahda and allow its fate to be democratically settled at the municipal elections; a difficult choice to make, for it would mean allowing all the opposition, of whatever tendency, to win numerous municipal councils to the detriment of the Destourian bureaucracy. Or it could organize tightly controlled elections aimed at preserving the monopoly of the regime, with all that would imply for restrictions of liberty and repression, in particular of the fundamentalists. The regime chose the second road, and
Iraq and its repercussions in
Tunisia, the executive bureau of the trade union federation had blocked every struggle and accepted without complaint the new austerity measures and, in particular, the obligatory imposition on the workers of five days extra work to compensate for the economic damage suffered by
Tunisia due to the Gulf war.
The traditional meeting at the
UGT centre was, therefore, carefully organized to prevent any disorder, with entry by Invitation only. Despite these precautions, workers came in considerable numbers whilst left trades unionists overcame the stewards, or rather the bureaucratic militia, to gain entry to the hall. The speech of Ismail Sahbanl, the general secretary of the UGTT, was continuously interrupted by the slogans of the left trades unionists, taken up by a large number of the workers present:
"No militia against the workers, the trade unions for the strugglel"
"Sahbani bluffer, traitor to the workers!" "The five days will not get through, the struggle continues!"
"No to decisions from the top, the rank and file is everything!"
In the face of this affront, the bureaucratic leaders reacted quickly and gave the green light to the arrest by the police of 11 union activists as they left the meeting, most of them from the "Fighting trade union left" current in which Tunisian supporters of the Fourth International are Involved, as well as some Maoist militants. They were freed after six days. Moreover, the executive bureau immediately set up a commission of enquiry and drew up a list of trades unionists suspended from their union responsibillties, a totally unconstitutional procedure. Finally, the EB drew back, and it has now dropped any disciplinary measures. *
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TUNISIA offensive
(i) We put the entire responsibility for the recent events on the regime which, once again, has shown that it can rule only
(!) The regime having accustomed us to false and mendacious press campaigns against its enemies of the moment
(recall the accusations made against the UGTT trade union federation before each offensive against it), it is necessary to approach with the greatest circumspection all information concerning the "Islamic plot", which seeks to create a climate of insecurity and fear to rally the population around Ben Ali and to justify the intensification of the repression. While we can only denounce acts of violence committed against simple citizens we denounce also the acts of violence of a regime which does not hesitate, for its part, to use any means to eliminate the opposition
(iii) The reactionary and anti-national character of the fundamentalist current, thrown into relief during the Gulf war, gives no legitimacy to the repressive offensive against it by the regime which bears primary responsible for the extension of fundamentalist influence, in encouraging it directly during the 1970s then in breaking all democratic and progressive opposition, in particular the UGTT. The repression practiced by the Destour cannot eliminate the Islamic danger; in closing their eyes or supporting this repression, the democrats become accomplices of the reinforcement of the police apparatus of the regime to the detriment of political liberties
It is, on the contrary, on the terrain of struggle for democratic liberties without restriction and on the social terrain, that it will be possible to counteract the influence of the fundamentalists, that is, on the terrain of struggle against the regime of
November 7 and its economic and political policies
Rather than once again supporting Ben Ali, as certain would-be democratic parties do, in the hope of gaining a little more democratic space in return, it is urgent to launch a united mobilization of all democratic forces to impose political democra
-freedom of the press and of organization without restriction or condition;
To these demands, it is necessary to add the demand that all possible light is shed on the killing of the students, that those responsible are judged and that the victims' families are compensated. *
June 10, 1991 • #208 International Viewpoint the confrontation began. The fundamentalists were repressed, and reacted with a more and more radical discourse, demonstrations and so on.
The result for the regime was contradictory; it kept control of the municipalities but it set everybody against it. Not just the fundamentalists but all the opposition, including its most moderate wing, boycotted the elections (apart from a proAlbanian group; the masses had lost any illusions and could not be bothered to go to the polling station to vote.
Regime loses international credibility
The regime became increasingly discredited abroad; in France it was questioned whether Ben Ali was capable of leading the post-Bourguibist transition, whilst in the USA more and more interest was being shown in Ghannouchi (the principal leader of Nahda, who chose to go into exile two years ago).
Following the municipal elections, that is on the eve of the outbreak of the Gulf crisis, the regime sought to escape from its impasse, making some advances to the democratic opposition open the possibility of a future government of national unity. But it made no immediate substantial concessions and the opposition, sensing the regime to be weakened, refused to commit itself on the basis of mere promises. It was then that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and imperialism deployed its military contingents in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia.
Fearing the loss of all credibility with the masses, Ben Ali condemned the foreign military presence in the Gulf and
TUNISIA called for an "Arab solution", whilst denouncing the invasion and annexation and rigorously applying the embargo. This position, hard to imagine in the time of Bourguiba, gave him a certain credit in the eyes of the masses. A climate of national unity developed. The democratic opposition was hardly less virulent in its denunciations of the United States, fearing being irrevocably marginalized, and threw itself into the arms of the generalpresident.
But, more significantly, the Gulf war provoked a grave crisis inside the fundamentalist movement. Whereas Ghannouchi made incendiary pro-Iraqi declarations, the rest of the leadership 1. On May 22, after this article was written, the Tunisian govemment announced that it had foiled a coup plot organized by Nahda and had arrested 300 people, including 100 military personnel.
Protest at student deaths
THE following statement was issued by the Organization of Revolutionary Communists (Tunisian section of the Fourth
International), in response to the killing in early May of two students during the regime's crackdown on opposition activity
In Algeria, in the countries of Black Africa, in the countries of Eastern Europe, the peoples have won press freedom and multipartyism, free elections becoming the rule.
In Tunisia, we have been proved right about the democratic masquerade of November 7. The Destourian party remains, de facto, the single party, monopolizes the regime, muzzles the press, and represses the opposition, including the legal opposition. For almost a year now, Ben Ali's men have tried, with the utmost brutality, to destroy or bring to heel the fundamentalist opposition; some hundreds of political prisoners, systematic torture, police deployment throughout the country, which recalls, indeed goes beyond, all that we saw in the worst days of Bourguibism. Immediately after the Gulf War, hoping to profit from the favourable circumstances, the regime decided to reaffirm its authority in the universities, to forcibly stifle the only area of relative political liberty, the reserve from which the opposition, of whatever tendency, draws a great deal of its militant support. In the name of the liberty of study and the struggle against fundamentalism, Charfi, the Ministry of the Interior's representative at the university, forbade any political activity in the faculties and authorized their occupation by the B.O.P. and the anti-gang brigades. The cycle of violence began; hunting down of students, arrests en bloc, systematic beatings. All students are the victims of it; fundamentalist, left or apolitical.
The murdered students had no political label!
Above all, and it is not by chance, the police deployment and the appeal to consensus around the president for a common front against fundamentalism, come when the regime is accentuating its policy of austerity and imposing on the workon the campuses.
ers an obligatory five days work.
This is why:
by repression and violence.
cy and in the first place:
- the freeing of all political prisoners;
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5
TUNISIA / PERU was much more measured and indeed could hardly hide its pro-Saudi sympathies. Mourou went so far as to disown Ghannouchi and denied him the right to speak in the name of the movement. The crisis is grave because the relationship with Saudi Arabia is not simply a matter of big money but also a decisive support which Nahda could lose in this crisis. The Saudi model increasingly represents a fundamental ideological component of Tunisian fundamentalism.
Unclear positions of fundamentalists on war
The fluctuating positions of Nahda, its absence of initiative and its passivity in the mobilization of support largely discredited it in the eyes of Tunisian public opinion. Nahda organized some small and muscular demonstrations to denounce the repression against it but without arousing any sympathy; they were accused, not without reason, of wishing to distract attention from the events in the Gulf. The role of Iran in the events in the south of Iraq has also considerably discredited the Tunisian fundamentalists.
The regime has seized the occasion to step up repression of the fundamentalists, dismantle their structures and arrest most of their leaders. The Bab Souika affair, in which Nahda were accused of having set fire to an office of the Destourian party, leading to the death of two guards, served to justify this escalation? • Provocation? Excess? "Strategy of tension"? It is difficult to say. There was even a Sau-
The Bab Souika affair served as a pretext for a part of the fundamentalist leadership, led by Mourou, to make its peace with Ben Ali and announce the creation of a new party: "We consider that political action must base itself on the separation and the difference between political and the religious. We will not take our place on the political scene with religious slogans but with a programme concerning the different domains of life. In the same way, we consider that the mosques must remain a place of worship and must not be the terrain of political confrontation. Nor do we believe ourselves to be the only Muslims in the country or the spokespersons of Islam" (A. Mourou, Essabah, May 16, 1991).
The split has certainly dealt a hard blow to Nahda, all the more in that it comes at a time when the regime seems more determined than ever to eliminate it from the scene, and when its audience is decreasing.
The war is over and the regime has recovered some important ground, but its situation remains fragile. Internally, it must knit together a government palpably shaken by the war as is witnessed by 6 the middle of the confict. it must also an important ministerial resignation in International Viewpoint #208 • June 10, 1991 implement new austerity measures which necessary to counteract the repercussions of the war on the economy. Abroad, it must regain the confidence of the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and the United States, who were not pleased by its "neutralist" position during the Gulf conflict. And all this has to be done without reviving a mass movement which has certainly been disorientated by the defeat of Iraq, but whose anti-imperialist mobilduring the war breadth unequalled since independence.
A difficult undertaking, which must be realized rapidly to avoid provoking the mass movement and assure a broader "consensus".
Attack on most radical sectors
It is in this context that the regime decided to break the most radical dynamic sector of the popular masses, the college and school which all the opposition, and in particu lar the fundamentalists, draw a great part of their militant forces. The "anti-gang" brigades and the B.O.P. employ truncheons, tear gas, and if necessary submachine guns, to crack down on all political activity at the university, until now almost the only place of virtually total liberty for the opposition. Incapable of impelling a true popular mobilization, the fundamentalists have replied to the of the regime with their own violence, whilst the democrats have rallied once again to Ben Ali.
It would to say the least be premature in the current situation to announce the death of Nadha. The power of the fundamentalist current on the regional scale, in particular in neighbouring Algeria, provides encouragement for Ghannouchi's
While a more moderate tendency has emerged from within Nadha, a more reactionary entrenched itself for some time now — the Party of Islamic Liberation, which makes Nadha look like a secular demo-
The masses are completely absent from this confrontation between the regime and the fundamentalists, and support neither side.
Economic difficulties are growing and gradually adding to the frustrations, anger, and the successive humiliations of the imperialist aggression against Iraq. It is this which will determine the evolution of events in the months to come, particuafter the pause of the 2. On May 21, a Tunisian court sentenced seven members of Nanda to life imprisonment for their alleged part in this attack.