A huge protest
movement has erupted in the mining area of Gafsa in Tunisia, and it is spreading. An
enormous gulf has opened up between an exasperated people and the authorities.
The response of the Ben Ali regime has been brutal repression with some workers
being killed.
Mass protests of university and school students shook the Tunisian regime in April. Some
sections of the workers, protesting against privatisation, also joined in. We have
received the following article about the situation in Tunisia toghether with an interview
with a Tunisian student activist.
Last month the dictator of Tunisia, Ben Ali, sent Sharon an invitation
to visit the country. This has provoked massive opposition from the
youth. Throughout the whole of last week, one school after another, one
campus after another, came out in protest. Many have been arrested and
badly beaten by the police. Thus Tunisia joins the long list of
unstable countries throughout the region, but because the protests are
against a regime that is a friend of US imperialism these have not made
the headlines like the events in Lebanon.
Tunisian student youth remain very defiant despite the repression
against them. The immediate reason for the spontaneous student protest
two weeks ago was dictator-president Ben Ali’s invitation to Ariel
Sharon, the butcher of the Palestinian Intifada, to visit Tunisia in
November. This invitation is becoming a focal point through which all
the social frustrations of the youth in particular are erupting.