Not only were these demonstrations not reported in the US media, from the communications I have been receiving, they were not reported in Tunisia either. Something of a news black out on the events exists, a result of strong government pressure to tame and cow the domestic media which has been in effect for some time. The fact that the events took place more or less south of Sfax where the population concentrations are a bit lower, perhaps muffles their impact in Tunis. Yet Tunisia is a small country where the news of events travels faster than email. The people are in the know.

While the Tunisian press was mum on these events, the French press remains rather active - and remains the key source of mainstream media information on the subject. A simple web search revealed articles in Liberation, L'Humanite and Le Monde that covered the February 1-10 crisis. These news sources along with a few others (Le Monde Diplomatique, Le Canard Enchaine) appear to be giving decent coverage. Their reward for this is to have reporters expelled and banned from Tunisia, materials confiscated, as happened on January 23, 2000 to Daniel Mermet, reporter for France-Inter. Leaving Tunis after interviewing opposition and human rights activists, his film, tapes and notes were confiscated by the Tunisian authorities. Mermet worried about the fate of those in Tunisia whom he had interviewed. The Ben Ali government, rather sensitive to any outside criticism, is complaining to its French partners about unfair press coverage.

Looking at the events themselves, a number of informative statements from Tunisian human rights sources, that I assume have direct connections to Tunisia parallel the major reports in the above sited French press. I summarized these in a recent human rights mailing.⁽¹⁾ A more recent and very thoughtful statement however was issued by Dr. Moncef Marzouki, medical professor at the University of Sousse Medical School and spokesperson for the Campaign for Human Rights in Tunisia. Marzouki has weathered a decade of storms, harassment and attempts at humiliation in his defense of democracy and human rights in his country. His statement, parts of which I quote below, gives a nice snapshot of the recent events.

"Serious events have engulfed important parts of the more neglected regions of the country. In the suburbs of the larger cities and in most of the surrounding towns (Zarzis, Gabes, El Hamma, Chenini, Medenine, Jerba, Ben Gardane, Kebili, Douz, Medhila, Moulares, Gafsa, Jebeniana, Sfax, Kasserine, Beja..)⁽²⁾ the street became the scene of demonstrations which often were transformed into riots."

"For the most part, the demonstrators were young high school students and unemployed youth, supported in their actions by the broader population. Their anger was directed at all the symbols of power - street signs, street lights, public buildings). They built barricades, burned tires, wrecked cars. They confronted the police, causing numerous injuries and at times forcing the police to respond in kind. The demonstrators' slogans called into question the price hikes of food stuffs and other necessities⁽³⁾, the deterioration of purchasing power, the growth of unemployment⁽⁴⁾, but also their resentment towards the public authorities and against the development of official corruption."

Marzouki continues:

"The wave of demonstrations came on the heels of the announcement of a strike by Tunisia's professional drivers (taxi, louage, truck drivers⁽⁵⁾) on February 1. The strike was to protest a new driving regulations and a new point system. Drivers were concerned that the new regulations would re-enforce the scope of arbitrary searches and arrests."

"This wave of demonstrations could only be brought under control by the government's deployment of special police units. Hundreds of arrests of Tunisian youth were made.⁽⁶⁾ Several dozens of these arrests were made at night and were done rather brutally. Some of the arrested youths complained of rough treatment by local police officers. In Gabes, Sfax, and Medenine, some 40 youths, some of whom remain in detention, face charges of destroying public property, and spreading rumors (diffusion de fausses nouvelles)."

"The CNLT⁽⁷⁾ considers that these events result from the absence of peaceful channels of expression, the squashing of public debate, negotiations and respect for public opinion (role of civic society, ie. trade union, political parties, other associations) which have resulted in the absence of a genuine civic and popular culture."

"These demonstrations - the most powerful expression of popular sentiment since the bread riots of 1984 - explode the myth of the Tunisian economic miracle and expose the degree of poverty and unemployment (most notably of high school and college graduates), the significant growth of social instability. The principal victims of these trends are Tunisia's youth and the people living in the forgotten southern, cental and northwestern areas of the country. The total news black out of the national media indicates the hostility of the authorities towards freedom of information for all citizens."

Concluding, Marzouki puts forth a number of proposals to address the crisis:

"The CNLT calls for the immediate release of those youth still under arrest and the dropping of charges against them. It calls on the government to renounce its repressive policies (la politique securitaire) and to begin to address the country's economic and social problems in a more serious manner. It further calls on the government to guarantee freedom of expression, organization and peaceful protest in the public arena. It calls for consultations between the government and the actual representatives of Tunisia's civic society as well as a lifting of the embargo on information.

The statement was made on February 22, 2000 and released the next day to the public.

1. see http://clem.mscd.edu/~princer/Human Rights/Tunisia/ and click on Translation 3

2. this list is much larger than what I have previously seen.

3. I have yet to see the exact list of what items price supports were lifted for. Bread and gasoline were specifically mentioned. Nor was it indicated what precipitated this government action, ie. were they responding to IMF pressure to remove price supports as in 1984, or was something else the determining factor.

4. as mentioned in Translation 3, much higher in the south than in the Tunis region. eg. the French Newspaper Liberation cited 2000 people employed in El Hamma of a population of 80,000 and of a 70% unemployment rate among people younger than 25 years in Hammet Gabes. Most of these unemployed are high school and university graduates.

5. `Louages' - a wonderful kind of group long distance taxi cab that takes people from one part of the country to another for what used to be very reasonable prices.

6. . Numbers vary. The figure cited by Liberation (February 17, 2000) was 400.

7. Conseil National pour les Libertes en Tunisie