An unexpected conciliatory speech by Tunisia's president has brought attention to lethal and ongoing street protests in the repressive North African state. German commentators argue for caution, but say the protesters need to be heard.
Thousands of people marched through the Tunisian capital of Tunis on Friday, one day after the nation's autocratic president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, made unexpected concessions in a televised speech to quell violent unrest that has left at least 23 people dead. Some protesters chanted "Ben Ali, out!" the British news agency Press Association reported Friday, and at least one poster read, "We won't forget" -- a reference to protesters killed since mid-December, many by state police. Opposition groups say the death toll since protests began last month could be as high as 70, more than twice the official count. The nation's only legal labor union mounted a rare two-hour strike on Friday morning, but demonstrators were also reacting to President Ben Ali's surprising speech. On Thursday evening he promised "no presidencies for life" and said he would not seek re-election in 2014 -- marking a potential end to more than two decades of totalitarian rule. The Press Association reported "buoyant crowds" on the streets after his remarks. Tunisians have protested since December over a sharp rise in food prices, restrictions on the media and a lack of jobs. Ben Ali also promised in his speech to slash prices of sugar, milk and bread. "I have understood the demands about unemployment, the demands about necessities, and the political demands for more freedoms," he said. On Wednesday he fired his interior minister in response to the violence. Violence Despite Official Concessions But police killed three people on Thursday night in the working-class Tunis suburb of Kram, according to the Press Association, and Switzerland's Foreign Ministry has confirmed that a Swiss woman died from gunshot wounds during a demonstration Wednesday in the town of Dar Chaabane. The 67-year-old victim had Tunisian citizenship, too, according to news website swissinfo.ch, which reported she died instantly when a stray bullet hit her in the neck. She was reportedly watching the protest from a nearby terrace with several other people. British tour operator Thomas Cook, meanwhile, said it was evacuating 1,800 tourists from Tunisia. International reaction to the unrest has been slow. "We are not taking sides," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, in an interview with al-Arabiya television. "We are saying we hope that there can be a peaceful resolution. And I hope that the Tunisian government can bring that about." German papers Friday emphasize that the protesters are not radical Muslims, though Ben Ali's government has tried to cast them as terrorists. One German commentator calls for a gradual, Spanish-style transición from autocracy to democracy. The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung writes: "Normally newspapers in Tunisia are about as informative as papers in the former East Germany. But yesterday the daily Le Temps led with a photo of burning houses in the city of Sfax, with the headline: 'General strike in Sfax: Violent clashes and fires, one dead, several wounded by gunfire.' On page five there was a detailed list of events in the style of a weather report: 'Looting on stores and private houses; all stores closed and the entire city has once again been shut down.'" "Other Tunisian papers also give the weeks of violence a generous amount of space. But don't be fooled. The media is still strictly controlled by the government, and the primary message still amounts to: President Ben Ali has everything under control." "For real liveliness, Tunisians need to turn to papers in neighboring Algeria, where social unrest has also become a daily fact of life … (One Algerian paper) compares Tunisia's Ben Ali clan with the Somoza and Pinochet families. Like those South American regimes, the Ben Ali government has roused its own middle class to rebellion. Such an analysis, of course, is a way of making statements about Algerian leaders that would otherwise not be condoned." The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: "Tunisia, under President Ben Ali, has become North Africa's Belarus. Human-rights organizations report regularly about the country's many political prisoners and government repression, though these reports get dissolved in the worry over transnational terrorism. The press in Tunisia suffers more state control than in any other part of the Maghreb." "Ben Ali wants to denounce the demonstrators as terrorists and Muslim fanatics. He relies on the hope that the rest of the world will take this amiably. But long beards and flowing robes are rarely seen among the demonstrators, who largely consist of young people, students and workers trying to express their frustration over poverty, a lack of jobs, a lack of housing, corruption, nepotism and dictatorial rule … (Ben Ali) can't be counted on to bring democratic reform." The conservative daily Die Welt writes: "To observe the matter closely: The demonstrators don't represent the growing influence of political Islam. Popular rage has been sparked rather by concrete social problems: sharp increases in food prices and a lack of jobs. With all their street violence, young Tunisians show little affinity for a regime in the style of Hamas or Hezbollah. This goes for all the Maghreb nations, from Tunisia to Morocco." "As grave as Tunisia's problems are, though, there would be a lot to lose in a big (Western) confrontation with the government. There are loud calls for the resignation of President Ben Ali. Europe should refrain from taking sides." "It's worth remembering the case of Franco's dictatorship in Spain. (Europe) left Franco behind bit by bit, and Spanish society -- with a civil war in its recent past -- proceeded with caution. Even under pressure of severe poverty and repression, the people never staged a flamboyant revolt. Today the success of the Spanish 'transición' is uncontroversial. These methods need to be rediscovered now that time has run out on authoritarian regimes along the southern and eastern edge of the Mediterranean. Tunisia could be a model of an Arab transición." -- Michael Scott Moore
