Behind Tunisia Unrest, Rage Over Wealth of Ruling Family

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
NY Times
January 13, 2011

HAMMAMET, Tunisia — This ancient Mediterranean hamlet, advertised as the Tunisian St.-Tropez, has long been the favorite summer getaway of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his large extended family, many of whom have built vast beachfront mansions here with the wealth they have amassed during his years in power.

But their new and conspicuous riches, partly exposed in a detailed cable by the American ambassador and made public by WikiLeaks, have fueled an extraordinary extended uprising by Tunisians who blame corruption among the elite for the joblessness afflicting their country.

And on Thursday, idyllic Hammamet became the latest casualty of that rage, as hundreds of protesters swarmed the streets, the police fled and rioters gleefully ransacked the mansion of a presidential relative, liberating a horse from its stable and setting aflame a pair of all-terrain vehicles.

That outburst was just a chapter in the deadly violence that flared around the country and in Tunis, the capital, again on Thursday, making the government appear increasingly shaky. The mounting protests threaten not only to overturn a close United States ally in the fight against terrorism but also to pull back the veneer of tranquil stability that draws legions of Western tourists to Tunisia’s coastal resorts.

President Ben Ali gave a hastily scheduled televised address on Thursday night, his second in the past week, and this time he appeared rattled. He no longer blamed foreign terrorists or vowed to crack down on protesters. Instead, he pledged to give in to many of the protesters’ demands, including an end to the government’s notoriously tight censorship, but rejecting calls for an immediate end to his 23-year rule.

“I am telling you I understand you, yes, I understand you,” Mr. Ben Ali, 74, declared. “And I decided: total freedom for the media with all its channels and no shutting down Internet sites and rejecting any form of monitoring of it.”

And he repeated a pledge he first made when he seized power in a bloodless coup: “No presidency for life.” He vowed not to challenge the constitutional age limit of 75 for presidents, which would make him ineligible to seek re-election in 2014.

The immediate response to the speech appeared mixed. In at least one neighborhood of the capital, grateful Tunisians could be heard in the streets, ignoring an 8 p.m. curfew order, cheering the president. But others said his words meant little.

“These are the same promises he made last week, that he made a few years ago, that he made in 1987, but on the ground it is always the same,” one person said, declining to be identified for fear of reprisals.

Security forces fired again at crowds of demonstrators who gathered in downtown Tunis; dozens have died so far in the crackdown on the protests, and it was impossible to confirm how many more died Thursday.

In what appeared to be a sign of division within the government or its forces, the military was withdrawn from the city by the end of the day, replaced by the police and other security forces considered more loyal to the ruling party and Interior Ministry.

There were calls for a general strike on Friday, and some people said they expected the protests to escalate when large groups of Tunisians spilled into the streets from their mosques after Friday Prayer. The government has shut down schools, universities and trains running to and from the city, leaving crowds of young people idle and many people with no way to get home.

Throughout a month of demonstrations, protesters have relied on Facebook and other social media to advertise and coordinate their actions, which started after a college-educated street vendor in a small provincial town burned himself to death in despair. (The police had confiscated his wares for lack of a permit.)

On Thursday morning a Facebook group called “The people of Tunisia are setting themselves on fire Mr. President” announced, in Arabic: “Today Hammamet: With our blood, with our souls, we sacrifice ourselves for the martyr.”

By midday, hundreds of young men were in the streets of this coastal resort city. Several banks were in flames, including one adjacent to the police station. Some said that clashes with the police had begun here on Wednesday and that they had turned out to avenge the deaths of two protesters killed the day before.

Just as in other protests in recent days, the demonstrators called for President Ben Ali to step down. But many seemed even more angry at his second wife, Leila Trabelsi, and her family — “No, no to the Trabelsis who looted the budget,” has been a popular slogan — and some said they still considered the president a good man brought down by the greed of his wife and her clan. Many refer to the president’s extended relations simply as The Family or The Mafia.

Cables from the United States Embassy in Tunis that were obtained and released by WikiLeaks, including one titled “Corruption in Tunisia: What’s Yours is Mine,” sketch out some of the reasons. Before her marriage to the president in 1992, Ms. Trabelsi had been a hairdresser from a humble family with little formal education. But since then, many in her family, along with the president’s, have ascended to the pinnacle of wealth, owning major stakes in many of Tunisia’s most prominent companies.

“Seemingly half of the Tunisian business community can claim a Ben Ali connection through marriage, and many of these relations are reported to have made the most of their lineage,” the ambassador, Robert F. Godec, wrote in a cable two years ago. “Ben Ali’s wife, Leila Ben Ali, and her extended family — the Trabelsis — provoke the greatest ire from Tunisians,” he added, noting that he heard frequent “barbs about their lack of education, low social status and conspicuous consumption.”

He added, “Tunisians also argue that the Trabelsis strong-arm tactics and flagrant abuse of the system make them easy to hate.”

Several demonstrators in Hammamet said it was not the country’s economic problems but the corruption of the first family that they were truly protesting. Rioters storming the presidential family mansion in Hammamet gleefully filmed one another with cameras and other devices for circulation around the country, where such images have also helped goad the protesters. Most of the rioters storming the mansion described it as belonging to a member of the Trabelsi family, but a neighbor said it belonged to the president’s uncle, Sofiane Ben Ali.

After breaking down the gate to the empty house, rioters pulled out two all-terrain vehicles and set them on fire. A horse kept by the family ran free in the mansion’s yard, and young men on motorcycles did wheelies around rows of towering palm trees on the well-manicured lawn. (Two said the yard had previously been a public soccer field.) The crew of a Tunisian Coast Guard boat watched from the sea.

Two of the rioters said that fearful police officers had directed them away from their station and toward the mansion. “They said, ‘Please, you go to the Trabelsis,’ and it is logical,” said Cheadi Mahamed, a 32-year-old protester with a job at the airport.

Like others in the crowd, he said he felt emboldened to speak publicly without fear of reprisals. “Now, we can say we what we want,” he said. “It has started to change.”

As evening approached, trucks of police reinforcements arrived. But they stood by as rioters began looting a shoe store, a toy store and a hotel.

Tunisia after Ben Ali

Steven A. Cook, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies
Council on Foreign Relations
January 14, 2011

After twenty-seven years in power, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali left the country, apparently for Dubai. The month-long protests that led the Tunisian military to push the president from power underscored the political alienation, limited economic opportunity, and corruption rife in Ben Ali's Tunisia. With Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi temporarily in charge of the country, the question is: Now what? It's hard to say at this early stage, but here are a few conclusions:

* There is no indication that the Tunisian armed forces are interested in military rule. Rather, the military's decision to end Ben Ali's rule reflects their desire to save Tunisia from consuming itself in the convulsions of demonstrations, protests, and violence that were sure to continue had the president stayed on. Throughout the last few days, there were indications that the military would not shoot Tunisians for the sake of saving Ben Ali from an enormous mess entirely of his own making.

* The military's decision to side with the people will likely put pressure on Tunisia's interim leaders and those who eventually come to power to heed society's demands for reform and change. Whether the military's leaders are democrats is not the issue; rather, their concerns seem to be that that graft, corruption, and the practices of one of the worst police states in the Middle East proved to be a threat to social cohesion and stability. Now both the officers and citizens have an expectation that new leaders will make a commitment to mitigate these problems.

* The Tunisian uprising against Ben Ali was devoid of Islamist agitation. This should put to rest the notion that Islamism is the only robust social force in the region. Opposition to regimes in the region is actually broad-based.

* Tunisia is an important but largely secondary ally of the United Sates in North Africa. With few, if any, strategic interests engaged, it makes it easier for Washington to make a strong statement about "applaud[ing] the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people," as President Barack Obama said in response to Ben Ali's departure. It's an open question whether the Obama administration will continue to be as forthright when it comes to political ferment in Egypt, Algeria, and Jordan, where Washington's primary interests are engaged. With the exception of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech in Doha this weekend and Obama's statement today, the administration has preferred to speak softly on reform and change. Perhaps now they will see value in being more vocal.

* Understandably, there has been considerable talk about a democratic wave sweeping the Middle East. Egyptians, Algerians, Jordanians, and others have been watching events in Tunisia carefully and seeking inspiration in "Tunisian people power." At the same time, the defenders of Middle Eastern regimes have also been watching and drawing their own conclusions about how events in Tunisia affect them and the durability of their political systems. Precedent would suggest that instead of getting out in front of demands for change with genuine reform, these leaders will likely make some concessions to their people while shoring up their regimes through coercion.

Tunisia's revolution should be a wake-up call to Mideast autocrats

Editorial
Washington Post
Saturday, January 15, 2011; 6:22 PM

THE POPULAR uprising that drove Tunisia's aging, autocratic president from power Friday was an earthquake not just for that North African nation of 10 million people but for the Arab world as a whole. Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, 74, ruled his country in much the same way as the strongmen who govern neighboring Algeria and Libya, as well as key U.S. allies such as Egypt and Jordan - by jailing or exiling opponents, censoring the media and stifling civil society. Corruption flourished in his 23-year-old administration even as a burgeoning under-30 population despaired over the lack of economic opportunity and political freedom.

The street protests that overturned the regime also demolished one of the Arab world's certitudes: that its kings, emirs and presidents-for-life are invulnerable to the people power that has ended dictatorships in Asia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere for three decades. The "Jasmine Revolution," as Tunisians are calling it, should serve as a stark warning to Arab leaders - beginning with Egypt's 82-year-old Hosni Mubarak - that their refusal to allow more economic and political opportunity is dangerous and untenable.

Tunisia also offers urgent lessons for the Obama administration, which has downplayed reform in the Arab world and muted U.S. support for democracy and human rights. As late as last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told an Arab satellite television audience that the United States was "not taking sides" in the Tunisian crisis. Later, however, there were encouraging signs of change. Ms. Clinton delivered a strong speech denouncing "corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order" in the Middle East and calling for reform, though she did not use the word "democracy." Both Ms. Clinton and President Obama issued statements Friday praising the Tunisian uprising and calling for free and fair elections.

A historic opportunity beckons in Tunisia, both for its political class and for the United States. Though the revolution has no clear leaders and organized opposition parties are weak, the country is in other respects ready for a democratic transition. Its population is relatively well educated and its middle class substantial, and its women are emancipated by regional standards; Islamic fundamentalist forces are not as strong as they are in Algeria or Egypt. The constitution calls for fresh presidential elections in 60 days, and the country's interim president indicated that calendar would be respected. The United States can join with France and the European Union in supporting and even helping to organize truly fair elections and in pushing back against those in Tunisia, and elsewhere in the Arab world, who will seek a quick restoration of autocracy.

This is also a chance for the Obama administration to begin talking in earnest to its principal ally in the region, Egypt, about the necessity for change. Mr. Mubarak, in power since 1981, has been preparing to extend his term through another rigged election this year; his son waits in the wings as a potential successor. It is not too late for Egypt to open its political system and offer more freedom to its own frustrated youth. If it does not do so, the Middle East could experience an upheaval far more shattering than that of Tunisia.

Clinton tells Mideast leaders to open up political, economic systems

In a visit to Qatar, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warns that the region's problems will worsen unless its leaders tackle corruption and allow greater political and economic freedoms.

January 14, 2011|By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Doha, Qatar — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday bluntly challenged Middle Eastern leaders to open up their political systems and economies, warning that "the region's foundations are sinking into the sand."

Clinton, addressing an international meeting in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, said the region's governments need to share more power with civic and volunteer groups to overcome the problems of exploding populations, stagnant economies and declining natural resources.

Citing unemployment rates of 20% or more among the young, she said that "people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order" and are demanding reforms. Clinton said too few Middle Eastern governments have long-term plans to tackle the threats.

She bore down on corruption, warning that citizens in many nations are aware, as they were not decades ago, that most of the wealth in many countries is funneled to a tiny elite. "Corruption is a cancer and eats away," Clinton said.

She said running a profitable business in the region is difficult because entrepreneurs "need to pay people off" to start their endeavors and keep them going.

"You can make a lot of money in a non-corrupt system if you are working hard, and that's what should be encouraged," she said.

She said countries in the region could boost their economies by giving ethnic minorities and women more economic and political freedom. She noted that some Middle Eastern and North African countries still lack universal education.

She said too many countries are resisting the growth of civil and voluntary groups, viewing civil society "as a threat or an enemy of the state instead of a partner."

Clinton's comments came amid widespread protests in Tunisia and recent demonstrations in Algeria. In both cases high unemployment and rampant corruption are believed to have triggered the discord.

Her address reflected the long-standing views of U.S. administrations, but they were unusually blunt in tone and striking coming from an administration that has been accused of not doing enough to promote democracy and human rights. She wanted the speech to be hard-hitting, aides said, fearing that she hadn't been able get through to regional leaders with her previous comments on the issue.

Clinton and regional leaders were meeting at the so-called Forum for the Future, which was launched in 2004 by the Group of 8 leading industrial nations as a way to promote growth of nongovernmental civil groups.

Several Middle Eastern leaders said at the forum that they were making strides to promote such groups but that change can be disruptive in traditional and religious societies.

Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed al Khalifa said that in the last 11 years his country had "seen a lot of change" in its political system. He said the only downside was "how society is taking change.... There have been hiccups."

Some private groups believe the change has been nominal and contend that the forum has generated little but talk.

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies issued a statement saying that since the forum was launched, political and economic freedoms in the region have deteriorated and the organization "has become more of a debate club."

paul.richter@latimes.com

President flees amid unrest in Tunisia

Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from power Friday after 23 years of iron-fisted rule, as anger over soaring unemployment and corruption spilled into the streets.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

The Forum for the Future was supposed to be an instrument of George W. Bush's Middle East freedom agenda. Seven years later, it embodies everything that was wrong with it -- and the Arab street is taking matters into its own hands.

BY JAMES TRAUB | JANUARY 14, 2011

ForeignPolicy

Senior Western and Arab diplomats as well as leaders of civil society gathered this week at the seventh annual Forum for the Future in Doha. In the background was the chaos and violence provoked by the incompetence and paralysis of Arab regimes: riots in Tunisia and Algeria, the killing of Christians in Egypt, the collapse of the government in Lebanon. You will thus be relieved to learn that the draft recommendations for action by the forum call for the support for "science, technology and innovation" and "corporate social responsibility," as well as the establishment of "youth exchange programs" and a "Gender Institute." That ought to calm the waters.

The Forum for the Future is one of the remnants of U.S. President George W. Bush's campaign to promote democracy in the Middle East that the Barack Obama administration, despite initial skepticism, has embraced. Scott Carpenter, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs during Bush's first term, says that as they contemplated how to press for change in the region, he and his colleagues looked back to the model of the Helsinki process in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union reluctantly accepted a series of human rights principles in exchange for commitments from the West on technology transfers and the like. The premise was that you could work with regimes, rather than simply confront them. "We wanted to have buy-in from the states to the degree that we could," Carpenter says. The Forum for the Future was launched in 2004 to bring together the governments of the G-8 countries, Arab regimes, and Arab civil society groups under a charter laying out principles on both modernization and democratic development. The NGOs would hold the states to their pledges as human rights activists had done with the Soviet Union.

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It didn't work out that way. At the second meeting of the forum, in Bahrain in 2005, Bush administration officials tried to pass a declaration of principles, but Egypt and Tunisia, among others, objected to a passage welcoming all NGOs. They insisted that only officially registered groups -- i.e., tame ones -- could be included. The Bahrain declaration collapsed. Forum members did authorize the creation of the Foundation for the Future (someone apparently had a penchant for gee-whiz names) which is based in Amman and distributes grants to local NGOs, many of them genuinely worthy organizations doing difficult work on human rights and the rule of law. But the initial hope that these groups would hold Arab states accountable died in Bahrain as well. "The strategic purpose," Carpenter concedes, "hasn't been fulfilled."

Actually, it's worse than that. "The Arab foreign ministers," as one prominent figure in the democracy-promotion world said to me, "have learned from these meetings exactly how to thwart democracy, not how to help it." The sessions have taught local leaders the dangers of Western-supported and genuinely autonomous NGOs, and regimes across the Arab world have cracked down on them. Many human rights groups have been hounded out of existence; only the most reliably docile ones are permitted inside the forum's doors. At last year's event, in Marrakesh, the invited NGOs were actually locked out of the room until Western diplomats got them admitted. In advance of the current meeting in Doha, Bahey el-Din Hassan, head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, criticized the forum as a "debating club" with no interest in democratization. When I called him in Cairo, Hassan said that he had been invited to Doha, but declined to go. Although the forum provides a useful setting for people like him to meet one another and sit down with, and even criticize, government officials, Hassan said that he would rather see it die than permit Arab leaders to continue using it to proclaim their commitment to democratic change. It is, he said, "a waste not only of time but of resources."

Critics both in the Arab world and at home blame the Obama administration for its failure to pick up Bush's banner of democracy promotion in the Arab world. But the forum failed under the Bush administration -- and not for lack of trying. The problem was not cynicism so much as naivete: Arab states were never going to buy into a process that they recognized would lead to their own demise. The logic of the "liberal autocracy" is to make emblematic gestures toward democracy and citizen engagement -- sham elections, fulsome charters, conferences with tame NGOs -- without ever permitting the real substance. The Forum for the Future, as Hassan says, offers the textbook opportunity for the hollow gesture.

Bush's democracy-promotion agenda depended on a dubious analogy between Eastern Europe and the Middle East (though one that was very dear to Condoleezza Rice, who had witnessed the fall of the Soviet empire while serving on the National Security Council under the first President Bush). Arab citizens, unlike European ones, had no prior experience of democracy or liberal rule -- or of citizenship, for that matter. And Arab regimes, unlike the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, could afford to resist American pressure. That's why the Helsinki paradigm didn't apply. "The Soviet Union was frozen out of the West and looking for some kind of acceptance," observes Thomas Carothers, a democracy-promotion expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The Arab regimes can already go to Davos."

Arab regimes are certainly not more secure than the Soviet Union was: The mass protests cropping up first in one such country, then another, prove that they are growing shakier by the day. But these sclerotic rulers know that because the United States depends on them for regional stability, they can always defy calls for democratic opening. In 2005, Bush demanded that Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, hold a free and fair parliamentary election. Mubarak called his bluff by brutally cracking down on the opposition in the course of the voting, and the Bush administration barely made a peep. So why worry?

What, then, is the Obama administration to do in the face of profound public frustration in the Middle East and North Africa? First, it should strengthen its commitment to the slow and unglamorous work of nurturing autonomous institutions in the region; the only real solutions to the woes of the Arab world are long-term ones. The Foundation for the Future, which is now seeking additional funding from Washington, is the perfect vehicle for such support, though of course civil society groups remain at risk from hostile regimes. At the same time, the forum should be put out of its misery. More broadly, the administration should strip away the pretense of buy-in, and whatever legitimacy comes with it, by speaking more candidly about regimes' failure to adopt meaningful reforms.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's address to the forum in Doha on Jan. 13 was a good start. Clinton, who had been notably muted about the political violence in the area, bluntly told her audience that "the region's foundations are sinking into the sand;" the status quo was no longer holding; and regimes had to "see civil society not as a threat but as a partner." The speech was well-received by otherwise frustrated activists; Clinton also held a private meeting with eight of them. But the speech was itself an implicit indictment of the forum. Qatar, the host country, has no independent NGOs, not to mention free elections or free press. Qatar's National Human Rights Committee, which played a featured role in the event, is a state body, not an independent organization.

Even democracy-promotion firebrands in the Bush administration accepted the logic of soft-pedaling criticism of Middle East allies. But that logic grows more questionable with every passing day, as the regimes lose their ability to contain the public outrage they have themselves provoked through their evident contempt for their own citizens; fury at official corruption and nepotism has just overthrown President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia. Yes, the United States still needs many of these states for oil, for regional diplomacy, for investment, and as a counterweight to Iran. Calls for reform will always be constrained by a broader diplomatic calculus. But the time has come -- as a matter not just of commitment to principle but of national security -- to align the United States more clearly and convincingly on the side of those who clamor for change.

Tunisian President Ben Ali flees country amid unrest; prime minister takes reins

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 14, 2011; 4:58 PM

PARIS - After four weeks of steadily escalating riots across Tunisia, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali lost his grip on power Friday. Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannoushi announced he was taking over the North African country to organize early elections and usher in a new government.




News reports said Ben Ali, 74, had fled the country, but his whereabouts were not publicly known. Wherever he was hiding, the day's events suggested his 23 years as Tunisia's ruler were over, submerged by a wave of popular unrest set off by economic deprivation, official corruption and political frustration among the country's 10.5 million mostly Sunni Muslim inhabitants.

The spectacle of an iron-fisted former interior minister apparently being swept from office by an uprising of the unemployed and politically shut out was certain to be closely watched elsewhere in the Arab world. The region's many authoritarian governments, often in power without the underpinning of democratic elections, have come under increasing pressure from similarly frustrated youths.

Ghannoushi, 69, in a solemn appearance on national television, vowed to abide by the constitution in laying groundwork for a vote to choose a new government as soon as possible, in consultation with all political factions and social groups. He was not flanked by military officers and gave no explanation of Ben Ali's removal.

"Since the president is temporarily without the capacity to carry out his duties, it has been decided that the prime minister would exercise his functions," Ghannoushi said from the presidential palace in Carthage, near the capital of Tunis. "I call on Tunisians of all political and regional tendencies to show patriotism and unity."

Despite the pledge of a new political opening, Ben Ali's apparent fall from power opened a new and possibly dangerous horizon for Tunisia, a sunny nation known mainly as a cheerful tourist destination for European vacationers and a haven of tolerance in a region often unsettled by Islamic extremism.

With no obvious successor in the wings, it was unclear whether Ghannoushi, as a heretofore faithful Ben Ali follower, could muster authority to control the mobs who have been setting the agenda in Tunis over the past several weeks. Streets were reported quiet Friday evening under heavy security.

Ben Ali, who received a military education in France, had been a pillar of the government and the main security enforcer under Tunisia's independence leader and longtime president, Habib Bourguiba. In November 1987, with Bourguiba showing increasing signs of senility after 30 years as president, Ben Ali pushed aside his mentor in a bloodless coup and began his own rein of more than two decades.

As a result, Tunisia has had only two real leaders since its independence from France in 1957. Its political tradition has seen none of the give-and-take between ruling and opposition parties that is normally associated with democracy and that prepares the way for alternate leaderships. This was particularly true in the recent years of Ben Ali's rule, when government critics were silenced by imprisonment and newspapers and broadcast stations were subject to strict censorship.

Responding to criticism over his authoritarian ways, Ben Ali's apologists pointed to the need to preserve Tunisia from the Islamic extremism that troubled other nations in the Arab world. Just to the west, for instance, Algeria was forced to fight a bloody civil conflict in the 1990s against Islamic rebels and still suffers regular attacks from underground insurgents in al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Against that background, Western governments, including those of France and the United States, were reluctant to issue public criticism of Ben Ali's authoritarian methods.

Only Thursday, after a month of confrontation in which non-governmental organizations estimated that more than 50 demonstrators were killed, did France accuse Ben Ali of using disproportionate violence against the protests.

In addition, Ben Ali's government produced economic growth that has averaged 5 percent a year for the past decade, much of it due to the tourist groups that fly in to enjoy the Mediterranean beaches and Tunisians' instinctive hospitality. Education was a high priority in those prosperous years, absorbing 7 percent or 8 percent of the budget and sending 80,000 university graduates on to the job market every year.

With the global economic crisis cutting into tourist revenues, however, many of the young graduates found they could not get a job, particularly in inland towns far from the beaches. Moreover, resentment built steadily in recent years over swelling corruption, from the top levels of Ben Ali's government to local town halls. U.S. diplomatic cables revealed by WikiLeaks reported on the dissatisfaction that spread across the country as the corruption became more visible.

Leila Trabelsi, Ben Ali's wife, and her family were reputed to have used the influence associated with the presidency to build private fortunes in real estate and other business deals. As violence spread across the country beginning last month, rioters frequently directed their wrath at property associated with the Trabelsi family.

The simmering discontent erupted into the open Dec. 17 in the inland city of Sidi Bouzid after an unlicensed fruit vendor identified as Mohammed Bouazzi set himself afire. Bouazzi acted after a policeman confiscated the wares off his cart and, according to news reports, after he was slapped by a female city hall employee to whom he had turned to complain.

From there violence quickly spread to other cities. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to put down the protests, with a steadily rising casualty count increasing the anger among unemployed youths and long-suppressed political opponents.

By Tuesday, the rioting had spread to Tunis, the capital, and protesters were demanding that Ben Ali step down. In what would have been unheard of only a few weeks ago, the president's photo was ripped from walls and police stations were ransacked.

In what was seen as a last gesture to save his rule, Ben Ali earlier Friday had declared a state of emergency, fired his entire government and promised to hold early legislative elections within six months. That promise followed by only hours an earlier pledge to leave office by 2014 and to order police to stop firing on protesters, release those arrested in the riots and lift the country's suffocating censorship.

Mideast threats that can't be ignored

By Jackson Diehl
Washington Post
Friday, January 14, 2011;

Barack Obama has been fortunate in the Middle East so far. Yes, his attempt to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been a high-profile failure. But Israel, the Palestinians and the region as a whole have enjoyed a remarkable stretch of relative tranquility and stability during the past two years.

This week has brought signs that that luck may be about to change. If it does, it will not be because Israelis and Palestinians have not agreed on a two-state solution. Rather, it will be because the regional troubles that the Obama administration has ignored in its preocupation with the peace process can no longer be contained.

The most obvious symptom of that is in Lebanon, where the Hezbollah movement caused the collapse of the unwieldy "unity" government Wednesday even as its pro-Western prime minister, Saad Hariri, was meeting with Obama at the White House. Lebanon is a prime front in the regional cold war between Iran, Syria and their militarized proxies, including Hezbollah and Hamas, and the "moderate" and mostly Sunni U.S. allies.

An eruption of actual civil war in Lebanon does not seem to be imminent, in spite of the likelihood that an international tribunal will soon indict members of Hezbollah for the murder of Hariri's father. But what the militia's move vividly demonstrated is that the Iranian side retains the initiative. Because Hamas and Hezbollah are the two strongest military forces in the Levant other than Israel, they have the capacity to provoke, to disrupt and to start an armed conflict at any time of their - or Tehran's - choosing.

Obama's approach has been to mostly ignore that threat while focusing on peace diplomacy, in the hope that a breakthrough would undermine the political appeal of Hamas and Hezbollah. But now both Iranian allies are flexing their muscles. Since the beginning of January, according to Israeli officials, more than 20 rockets and mortars have been fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel, renewing the bombardment that led to Israel's 2008 invasion of the territory.

On Thursday, following a tough warning from Egypt that it was risking another war, Hamas deployed security forces to enforce a cease-fire. But Israeli accounts say Hamas and Hezbollah have spent the past several years stockpiling tens of thousands of missiles, including scores that could reach Tel Aviv; the chances that the region will survive another year without their use are looking slimmer.

The most imminent threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East, however, is not war; it is revolution. Last month in the obscure Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid, a desperate man set himself on fire after police confiscated his unlicensed vegetable cart. This spark touched off what has now become a conflagration of daily protest demonstrations that threatens to consume the 23-year-old dictatorship of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali - and spread to the other rotting Arab autocracies that line the south shore of the Mediterranean.

The violence has already migrated to Algeria, and Arab media are full of speculation of where the "Tunisia scenario" will appear next: Egypt? Jordan? Libya? All those countries are threatened by rapidly rising global prices for food and fuel; the United Nations warned last week of a "food price shock." All have large numbers of restless, unemployed youth. And all are governed by repressive regimes that not only have refused to embrace political reforms in the past decade but have cracked down harder on domestic opponents since Obama took office. It's hard not to attribute that trend at least in part to the administration's relaxed attitude toward reform and its reluctance to defend human rights and democracy.

In that sense, the only good news this week has been the signs that the administration is finally changing course. In a tour of several Arab nations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - who has been particularly conspicuous for her silence about the region's repression - has suddenly begun speaking up about the need for change.

In a speech Thursday at the Forum for the Future conference in Doha, Qatar, Clinton talked about the frustrations of the under-30 generation in finding work and bluntly added that "people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order." She then called for "political reforms that will create the space young people are demanding, to participate in public affairs and have a meaningful role in the decisions that shape their lives."

It may be too late for the United States to head off a rolling social upheaval in the Middle East this year - or a war involving Hezbollah and Hamas. But if it follows up on what Clinton has been saying, it can at least place itself on the right side of those events.

The First Twitter Revolution?

Not so fast. The Internet can take some credit for toppling Tunisia's government, but not all of it.

FOREIGN POLICY
BY ETHAN ZUCKERMAN | JANUARY 14, 2011

Friday evening, Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali boarded a jet for Malta, leaving his prime minister to face streets filled with protesters demanding a change of government in the North African country. The protests began weeks earlier in the central city of Sidi Bouzid, sparked by the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed university graduate whose informal vegetable stall was shuttered by the police. His despair exemplified the frustration that many Tunisians felt with their contracting economy, high levels of unemployment and inequality, censored media and Internet, and widespread corruption. Protests spread from city to city, with trade unions, lawyers, and countless unemployed Tunisian youth demanding a change to an economic system that appeared to benefit a small number of families close to power and leave ordinary citizens behind.
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As the protests intensified, Ben Ali offered concessions to his people: 23 years into his reign, he agreed to step down in 2014. He ordered the security police to stop using live ammunition on protesters after nearly 70 had been killed, cut the price of basic foodstuffs, and promised to allow a freer media and end Internet censorship. This morning, as pressures increased, he offered new elections within six months. But all that failed to placate the crowds, who finally got what they wanted later in the day: a Tunisia sans Ben Ali.

While the future of Tunisia's governance is extremely uncertain at present, it seems we've witnessed the rarest of phenomena, a popular revolt toppling an Arab dictator. Audiences in the Arab world have been glued to Al Jazeera, which has covered the protests closely. Many states in the region suffer from the same problems -- unemployment, slow growth, corrupt government, aging dictators -- that brought Tunisians into the streets. Protesters have taken to the streets in Algeria and Jordan, demanding jobs and affordable food. Whether these protests erupt into the revolution Tunisia is experiencing is impossible to know. What's clear is that the actions taken by Tunisians are reverberating around the region.

Outside the Middle East and the Francophone media sphere, the events in Tunisia have gotten little attention, certainly not the breathless, 24-hour coverage devoted to 2009's Iranian election protests. When the protests began in Sidi Bouzid, much of the English-speaking world was focused on the Christmas and New Year's holidays. As protests in Tunis heated up, U.S. eyeballs were focused on the tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Had the Tunisian protests hit during a slow news month, it's still unlikely they would have been followed as closely as events in Iran, which is larger, of greater international security concern, and has a large, media-savvy diaspora who helped promote the 2009 protests to an international audience.

Iran's diaspora was especially effective at promoting the Green Movement to an online audience that followed tweets, Facebook posts, and web videos avidly, hungry for news from the front lines of the struggle. Tens of thousands of Twitter users turned their profile pictures green in solidarity with the activists, and hundreds set up proxy servers to help Iranians evade Internet filters. For users of social media, the protests in Iran were an inescapable, global story. Tunisia, by contrast, hasn't seen nearly the attention or support from the online community.

The irony is that social media likely played a significant role in the events that have unfolded in the past month in Tunisia, and that the revolution appears far more likely to lead to lasting political change. Ben Ali's government tightly controlled all forms of media, on and offline. Reporters were prevented from traveling to cover protests in Sidi Bouzid, and the reports from official media characterized events as either vandalism or terrorism. Tunisians got an alternative picture from Facebook, which remained uncensored through the protests, and they communicated events to the rest of the world by posting videos to YouTube and Dailymotion. As unrest spread from Sidi Bouzid to Sfax, from Hammamet and ultimately to Tunis, Tunisians documented events on Facebook. As others followed their updates, it's likely that news of demonstrations in other parts of the country disseminated online helped others conclude that it was time to take to the streets. And the videos and accounts published to social media sites offered an ongoing picture of the protests to those around the world savvy enough to be paying attention.

One way to understand the significance of social media in Tunisia is to examine the government's attempts to control and silence it. Tunisia has aggressively censored the Internet since 2005, blocking not just explicitly political sites, but social media sites like video-sharing service Dailymotion. Video-sharing sites were a special target of government censors because Tunisian activists are extremely tech-savvy and had released provocative videos online, including one that documented the first lady's frequent shopping trips to Europe using the presidential jet.

Not content just to filter content, last summer Tunisian authorities began "phishing" attacks on activists' Gmail and Facebook accounts. By injecting malicious computer code into the login page of those services through the government-controlled Internet service provider, Ben Ali's monitors were able to obtain passwords to these accounts, locking out the activists and harvesting email lists of presumed activists. When the riots intensified last week, the government began arresting prominent Internet activists, including my Global Voices colleague Slim Amamou, who had broken the story of the government's password phishing. (Amamou was released, apparently unharmed, Thursday night.)

But if the web was such a threat to the government's authority, why did the regime not block Facebook or shut down the Internet entirely? It's critical to understand that Ben Ali was, first and foremost, a pragmatist. As late as Friday morning, he was looking for a solution that would allow him to remain in power, offering concessions in the hope of placating protesters. Internet censorship was already one of the grievances protesters had aired -- when Ben Ali offered concessions to protesters Thursday, loosening the reins was one of the promises that were warmly, if skeptically received.

Pundits will likely start celebrating a "Twitter revolution" in Tunisia, even if they missed watching it unfold; the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan already revived the dreaded phrase Thursday. Others are seeking connections between unfolding events and a WikiLeaks cable that showed U.S. diplomats' frustration with Ben Ali, and with denial-of-service attacks by online activist group Anonymous, which has been targeting entities that have tried to stop the dissemination of WikiLeaks cables, like the Tunisian government. But any attempt to credit a massive political shift to a single factor -- technological, economic, or otherwise -- is simply untrue. Tunisians took to the streets due to decades of frustration, not in reaction to a WikiLeaks cable, a denial-of-service attack, or a Facebook update.

But as we learn more about the events of the past few weeks, we'll discover that online media did play a role in helping Tunisians learn about the actions their fellow citizens were taking and in making the decision to mobilize. How powerful and significant this influence was will be something that academics will study and argue over for years to come. Scholars aren't the only ones who want to know whether social media played a role in the end of Ben Ali's reign -- it's likely to be a hot topic of conversation in Amman, Algiers, and Cairo, as other autocratic leaders wonder whether the bubbling cauldron of unemployment, street protests, and digital media could burn them next.

Ethan Zuckerman is a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and co-founder of Global Voices, which has been following the events in Tunisia since protests broke out in late December.

Obama takes opportunity Palin missed

Jonathan Martin
POLITICO
Thu Jan 13, 4:27 am ET

In the span of a single news cycle, Republicans got a jarring reminder of two forces that could prevent them from retaking the presidency in next year.

At sunrise in the East on Wednesday, Sarah Palin demonstrated that she has little interest — or capacity — in moving beyond her brand of grievance-based politics. And at sundown in the West, Barack Obama reminded even his critics of his ability to rally disparate Americans around a message of reconciliation.

Palin was defiant, making the case in a taped speech she posted online why the nation’s heated political debate should continue unabated even after Saturday’s tragedy in Tucson. And, seeming to follow her own advice, she swung back at her opponents, deeming the inflammatory notion that she was in any way responsible for the shootings a “blood libel.” (See: Shooting presents 2012 test)

Obama, speaking at a memorial service at the University of Arizona, summoned the country to honor the victims, and especially9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, by treating one another with more respect. “I want America to be as good as Christina imagined it,” he said.

It’s difficult to imagine a starker contrast.

Many Republicans believe that it’s mostly the media that is obsessed with Palin, and that there’s little chance she could win the party’s nomination. (See: Republicans disappointed at Palin)

But if she does manage to, Wednesday illustrated why so many in the GOP fear that it would be disastrous.

The former Alaska governor has a knack for supplying rhetoric that will delight her supporters, send her critics howling and invariably create a frenzy of coverage. But her response suggests she is capable of hitting just that one note.

The production value — from the heavily scripted speech to the American flag just behind her left shoulder — of Palin’s address appeared presidential. With Obama set to speak later in the day, it almost had the feel of a State of the Union response from the opposition. And, in condemning violence, she displayed some flourishes that touched the country’s spirit. (See: Tragedy marks turning point for Palin)

“Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully at the ballot box — as we did just two months ago, and as our Republic enables us to do again in the next election, and the next,” she said in her first on-camera remarks since the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

But for much of the eight-minute talk she was defensive and showed little interest in doing anything other than channeling the understandable resentment of her ideological kinsmen over the blame-casting. And that won’t appeal much to a political center that — even while they may not think Palin is in any way responsible for Tucson — preferred more conciliation even before the jarring attempted assassination of a member of Congress. (See: Palin grabs spotlight with video)

Even on the right, her talk was seen as a missed opportunity.

“The strongest way to rise above would have been to talk about suffering, tragedy, hope, strength and recovery,” said former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. “Instead, she followed the more conventional political route and made it about herself rather than the victims.”

At a moment when even the famously combative Fox News chief Roger Ailes was saying take it down a notch, his most famous contract employee did just the opposite.

Her timing was especially maddening to some Republicans.

The furious response on the right to the notion that conservatives were somehow responsible for the tragedy had been articulated by respected voices such as George Will and Charles Krauthammer, each of whom wrote compelling columns. A CBS poll released Tuesday night validated their claims, showing that 57 percent of Americans didn’t think that the country’s harsh political tone had played a role in the shooting. Most important though, there was mounting evidence that the gunman was a deeply disturbed young man who was not motivated by any traditional political cause. The left, it was becoming increasingly clear, had overreached before she reignited the issue.

Further, Palin’s pushback served to reinforce the message behind Obama’s speech, providing the president with an opportunity to transcend both the immediate finger-pointing on the left at Palin and other conservatives and her angry denunciation and counterattack. (See: Obama: 'I believe we can be better')

What attracted so many centrist voters to then-candidate Obama in 2008 wasn’t any of his policy prescriptions but rather his pledge to change the conversation in Washington. He hasn’t done it yet and has, at times, not lived up to his own stated desire to bring down the temperature. But his fundamental political worldview is that most Americans prefer conciliation over confrontation.

And, speaking to a capacity basketball arena filled with leaders of both parties and those touched by the tragedy, he appealed to that spirit. (See: Mourning turns to cheers)

“Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together,” implored the president.

The speech was a vivid example of the promise of Obama and a reminder of why, even after so many missteps, he remains a formidable figure. (See: Obama challenges America)

“It was supposed to be simply a chance to make a good speech, but it may be more than that,” said GOP pollster Steve Lombardo after the address. “It may be a time when we look back and say that he re-made himself tonight into the President we thought he could be.”

Krauthammer, one of the president’s sharpest critics, suggested the speech saw Obama find his role as head of state.

“I wouldn’t underestimate how this is going to affect the perception of president,” Krauthammer said on Fox News after the memorial service, comparing what Obama did in Tucson to President Bill Clinton’s speech following the Oklahoma City bombing and President Reagan’s address in the wake of the Challenger explosion.

What few Republicans wanted to say for attribution — but what was manifestly clear — was that Palin had made Obama look even bigger than he was.

Her argument for conflict-oriented politics lent itself as the near-ideal foil for his plea for civility. It was a clear contrast and, for Republicans, a dispiriting one.

LAUREN BOOTH: WIKILEAKS “OUTS” BRIT MOVE AGAINST PRESS TV

LAUREN BOOTH
veteranstoday.com
January 11, 2011

Editors note: Lauren Booth, jouranlist and activist, is also the sister-in-law of Tony Blair.

The previously secretive campaign to halt Press TV Ltd, the British production company, from making programs critical of Western Imperialism, is finally out in the open.Thanks to Wikileaks.

Last month, Julian Assange’s incredible agency, released the news Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) is now fully implicated in efforts to shut Press TV Ltd down. Backing, quite clearly, US led efforts, to cripple this tiny, yet heavyweight, British production company.

Let me explain. Ever since it first began making programs some four years ago, Press TV Ltd (the British company, who sells documentaries and series to the Iranian channel of the same name), has been under pressure from what Princess Diana would have known as ‘dark Forces.’

Pressure had taken the form, until recently, of the usual nonsense from Zionist organizations. Letter writers, linked to the Israeli Embassy in London and its web of supporters, have been trying to use Ofcom as some kind of offshoot Hasbara body. Endless letters of complaint were sent to the broadcasting monitor, whenever Press TV, broadcast a news items shedding light on the thuggery, blackmail and racism inherent in Israeli government policy. Thus, faux ‘shock, horror’ objections to shows like the one I present, ‘Remember Palestine’ pushed Ofcom to uphold minor criticisms. And have led to negative headlines in the ridiculous Jewish Chronicle against an otherwise excellent UK bureau. Happily, the most recent attempt to besmirch the veracity of Remember Palestine, was so feeble, that Ofcom dug its heels in. Here’s part of the complaint;

Here is a summary paragraph from Ofcom’s response:

“In this instance, while the subject of the Patria was raised, it was contributor Trevor Mostyn who said the ship had been deliberately sunk by a hard-line Jewish terrorist group. Lauren Booth clarified Mr Mostyn’s position with him and what the motivations for such action would have been, before asking him “Weren’t the British accused of blowing-up that boat?”

Programmes such as Remember Palestine are able to examine subjects from a particular perspective. The comments about the sinking of the Patria may contrast with the individual who has claimed responsibility for planting the bomb and said it was a miscalculation rather than a deliberate attempt to sink the vessel, Mr Mostyn’s comments were aired from a contributor who had his own personal perspective on events. Viewers would frame his opinions in the context of his personal background as a partial contributor on a channel known for taking a stance on subjects relating to the Middle East. We are also mindful, while you disagree with the view offered, Mr Mostyn did not make any derogatory or offensive comments about his subject or Jewish people”.

And it goes on:

“With regard to your wider comments about Press TV, Ofcom is an evidence-based regulator and we need to view specific content to determine whether material has breached our regulations.”

Remember Palestine and ‘Comment’, hosted by the legendary George Galloway (another target) have publicly exposed Israeli war crimes. Our shows, meet UK standards, they just go farther into the truth than other broadcasters (namely the BBC) dare.

As the malign letter writing campaign against Press TV has had only limited success to date. Next came the hacking of emails, facebook accounts and mobile phones that have tried and failed (laughably so) to cause tensions between colleagues. Clearly whoever, runs such things was now looking for a more covert way to try and upset a legally run, British company. Those, darker forces: Zionist funds, fuelling US policy pressurising British Government to stifle debate. All working again behind the scenes of British life.
What is fascinating is that now we have Wikileaks, such campaigns of business ‘terrorism’ are increasinglymade visible to the untrained eye.

With this in mind, last month, Press TV executives in London were interested to note the wikileaks release of cables between the US embassy in London and the US State Department. And between an official named ‘Poloff’ from the London embassy and Jaime Turner at the FCO.

The cables were dated the 2nd of Feb 2010. Here is the relevant part.

‘ HMG is exploring ways to limit the operations of the IRIB’s Press TV service, which operates a large bureau (over 80 staff) in London. However, UK law sets a very high standard for denying licenses to broadcasters. Licenses can only be denied in cases where national security is threatened, or if granting a license would be contrary to Britain’s obligations under international law. Currently, neither of these standards can be met with respect to Press TV, but if further sanctions are imposed on Iran in the coming months, a case may be able to be made on the second criterion’.

‘Denying licenses to broadcasters’ would the motivation for doing that, having anything to do with the fact that Press TV has more Gazan correspondents on-the-ground than any other rolling news channel?

That ‘second criterion’ of sanctions against the Iranian government, by the way, should not apply to a TV Channel in Iran. Much less a production company in the UK that merely sends it product. Press TV Ltd is subject to UK Law, is registered in England & Wales at Companies House, is run by a British Chief Executive. It generates tax revenue for Britain and provides work opportunities for people at a time when unemployment is high.

Having failed then to find a legitimate problem with the quality or content of programs being produced. The wiki leaked memo makes it clear that other methods, are being sought by the British government, (as a lap dog to US masters), to shut this company down. But what would the FCO wonks come up with? Who are the big buddies of this coalition government? Those in a potentially useful position to cripple legitimate, yet outspoken, companies lethally and (they presumed) silently?

Step forward the good old British Bank. Yes folks, our very own subsidized, tax revenue bailed out fat cats, spring into action!

Last month, suddenly and without any warning, the National Westminster Bank, Commercial Banking office, froze Press TV Ltd’s business account.
By ‘froze’, I mean it sealed off the main trading account for the production company, in which lies more the 100,000 pounds sterling. This money is now unable to be accessed by the British companies executives for trading purposes.
Bizarre, no?
Was any warning given of this action? No. Executives received a letter saying the account was frozen. Done and dusted. No debate, no argument, no professional meetings, no bad business history, not even a feeble attempt at an excuse for this commercial terrorism. Nada. Indeed, so confident were Nat West executives of a silence from the authorities, that a month on, they have yet to bother offering confounded executives at the channel a reason for such punitive, draconian, theft.
For if you or I couldn’t get to a hundred k of our own money, isn’t that what we’d rightfully call it?

And there’s more, the bank has stated it will close the accounts permanently in February 2011. Potentially leaving British staff unpaid and ending the companies ability to trade completely.

The freezing of Press TV Ltd business account by Nat West Bank, is a politically motivated act. Intended to cripple a thriving British company, whose programs and news bulletins shed light on areas of policy which certain agencies would sooner keep in the dark.

Perhaps Nick Clegg would like to take a look at protecting British jobs here at Press TV Ltd.

We knew that free speech was never a favourite with the Blair machine, the anti terror laws are still used to lock up those who take to the streets to question government policy. But this action against a legally operating UK production company should send a shiver down the back of all who those who speak out; about government policy, American imperialism and yes, the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
The bank accounts of those companies who bring uncomfortable truths into the public domain, can now be closed as part of a political agenda, eliciting from the USA. Supported by the Nat West and Her Majesty’s Government.
Two years ago, the Palestinian charity Interpal suffered almost precisely just such a business attack. Interpal still has major banking problems because their account with Islamic Bank of Britain has no external clearing facilities. Basically, banks can pick and choose who they hold accounts for, and can close accounts without any reasons being given and with no right of appeal.

Although the government has a charter, to make sure that every individual has access to banking facilities, this doesn’t apply to companies and corporate bodies like Muslim charities.
Or Press TV.

So with these cards on the table. The question I’d like to pose to all those in the charitable or the activism world.
What are we going to do about it?

A first step may be to ask Vince Cable what he intends to do to protect the British jobs at risk due to Nat West’s actions; http://www.bis.gov.uk/contact/ministers-business.

The next is to contact the Nat West Bank directly and demand an explanation.

Thanks again to Wikileaks for making public the dark ops increasingly being used by governments to silence critics.

The irony that the British government now appears to be part of a larger attempt to stifle free speech in a company that sells prograns to Iran. Has not passed anyone here at Press TV by.

Lauren Booth, Journalist and Broadcaster

Where are the democracy promoters on Tunisia?

Marc Lynch

FOREIGN POLICY

Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 10:40 AM

Barely a month goes by without a Washington Post editorial bemoaning Egypt's authoritarian retrenchment and criticizing the Obama administration's alleged failure to promote Arab democracy. But now Tunisia has erupted as the story of the year for Arab reformers. The spiraling protests and the regime's heavy-handed, but thus far ineffective, repression have captured the imagination of Arab publics, governments, and political analysts. Despite Tunis's efforts to censor media coverage, images and video have made it out onto social media and up to Al Jazeera and other satellite TV. The "Tunisia scenario" is now the term of art for activist hopes and government fears of political instability and mass protests from Jordan to Egypt to the Gulf.

But the Post's op-ed page has been strikingly silent about the Tunisian protests. Thus far, a month into the massive demonstrations rocking Tunisia, the Washington Post editorial page has published exactly zero editorials about Tunisia. For that matter, the Weekly Standard, another magazine which frequently claims the mantle of Arab democracy and attacks Obama for failing on it, has thus far published exactly zero articles about Tunisia (though, to his credit, frequent Standard contributor and ex-Bush administration official Elliott Abrams has weighed in on it at his new CFR blog). Why are the most prominent media voices on Arab democracy so entirely absent on the Arab reform story of the year?

Perhaps they've had nothing to say simply because there has been little coverage of Tunisia in the Western media, and the United States has few interests or leverage in Tunis, making it a marginal issue for U.S. political debate. Tunisia is not generally on the front burner in American thinking about the Middle East. It's far away from Israel, Iraq, and the Gulf, and plays little role in the headline strategic issues facing the U.S. in the region. Despite being one of the most repressive and authoritarian regimes in the region, Tunisia has generally been seen as a model of economic development and secularism. Its promotion of women's rights and crushing of Islamist opposition has taken priority in the West over its near-complete censorship of the media and blanket domination of political society. Indeed, the United States has cared so little about Tunisia's absolute rejection of democracy and world-class censorship that it chose it for the regional office of MEPI, the Bush administration's signature democracy promotion initiative.

This is understandable, but hardly satisfying. I can understand the hesitation of U.S. officials to take a strong position on the side of either the protesters or the regime at this point, given the strategic complexities and the implications of taking any rhetorical stance. To my ears, at least, the U.S. message has been muddled, with some officials seeming to take the side of the protesters and warning against too-harsh repression and others seeming to avoid taking a stance. For what it's worth, I told a State Department official in a public forum yesterday that the absence of major U.S. interests in Tunisia and the real prospect of change there make it a good place for the Obama administration to take a principled stand in favor of public freedoms and against repression.

But the worries of official Washington shouldn't apply to advocates and analysts, particularly those who have long demanded a stronger role for the United States on Egyptian democracy regardless of the strategic implications. So what do such voices for Egyptian democracy and Arab reform think about Tunisia? They can't shy away from Tunisia simply because it isn't Egypt. Tunisia is topic number one with Arab publics today, even if it isn't yet in Washington, and Arab audiences keenly notice their silence. If U.S. advocates of Arab democracy don't step up to draw attention to Tunisia's protests, it will only reinforce the skeptical view that their advocacy of Arab democracy is mainly about putting pressure on Hosni Mubarak or scoring points against the Obama administration. And that will weaken any future advocacy.

And along those lines, here's a genuine question: If the Obama administration decides to tacitly or overtly side with the protesters and Ben Ali's regime falls, will these Washington voices for Arab democracy applaud the change or will they attack Obama for selling out a secular ally? How deep does U.S. support for Arab democratic change really go?

UPDATE, January 14, 6:30am: This morning, the Post's Deputy Editorial Page Editor Jackson Diehl responds with a strong column, acknowledging that "the most imminent threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East is not war; it is revolution." Diehl surveys the events rocking the region -- with some gracious links to FP -- placing the Tunisian protests in a series of "threats" including Lebanon and Iran. It's genuinely good to see the issue finally addressed, and I'm glad to see Diehl step up to the issue. But is "threat" to U.S. interests and Obama's reform record really the right frame for this? Diehl concludes that "It may be too late for the United States to head off a rolling social upheaval in the Middle East this year ... but if it follows up on what Clinton has been saying, it can at least place itself on the right side of those events." But after years of agitating for democratic reform, placing the Tunisian uprisings as a threat seems inadequate. Are the demonstrations against Ben Ali only a "threat" to U.S. interests and not an opportunity for the democratic change about which we hear so much? Let's see this conversation continue.

Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 12, 2011; 12:38 PM

RALEIGH, N.C. - The sprawling Wake County School District has long been a rarity. Some of its best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood.

But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to "say no to the social engineers!" it has abolished the policy behind one of the nation's most celebrated integration efforts.

And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits - logic that critics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation.

The situation unfolding here in some ways represents a first foray of tea party conservatives into the business of shaping a public school system, and it has made Wake County the center of a fierce debate over the principle first enshrined in the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education: that diversity and quality education go hand in hand.

The new school board has won applause from parents who blame the old policy - which sought to avoid high-poverty, racially isolated schools - for an array of problems in the district and who say that promoting diversity is no longer a proper or necessary goal for public schools.

"This is Raleigh in 2010, not Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s - my life is integrated," said John Tedesco, a new board member. "We need new paradigms."

But critics accuse the new board of pursuing an ideological agenda aimed at nothing less than sounding the official death knell of government-sponsored integration in one of the last places to promote it. Without a diversity policy in place, they say, the county will inevitably slip into the pattern that defines most districts across the country, where schools in well-off neighborhoods are decent and those in poor, usually minority neighborhoods struggle.

The NAACP has filed a civil rights complaint arguing that 700 initial student transfers the new board approved have already increased racial segregation, violating laws that prohibit the use of federal funding for discriminatory purposes. In recent weeks, federal education officials visited the county, the first step toward a possible investigation.

"So far, all the chatter we heard from tea partyers has not manifested in actually putting in place retrograde policies. But this is one place where they have literally attempted to turn back the clock," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP.

School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta referred questions on the matter to the district's attorney, who declined to comment. Tedesco, who has emerged as the most vocal among the new majority on the nine-member board, said he and his colleagues are only seeking a simpler system in which children attend the schools closest to them. If the result is a handful of high-poverty schools, he said, perhaps that will better serve the most challenged students.

"If we had a school that was, like, 80 percent high-poverty, the public would see the challenges, the need to make it successful," he said. "Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it."

So far, the board shows few signs of shifting course. Last month, it announced that Anthony J. Tata, former chief operating officer of the D.C. schools, will replace a superintendent who resigned to protest the new board's intentions. Tata, a retired general, names conservative commentator Glenn Beck and the Tea Party Patriots among his "likes" on his Facebook page.

Tata did not return calls seeking comment, but he said in a recent news conference in Raleigh that he supports the direction the new board is taking, and cited the District as an example of a place where neighborhood schools are "working."
Beyond 'your little world'

The story unfolding here is striking because of the school district's unusual history. It sprawls 800 square miles and includes public housing in Raleigh, wealthy enclaves near town, and the booming suburbs beyond, home to newcomers that include many new school board members. The county is about 72 percent white, 20 percent black and 9 percent Latino. About 10 percent live in poverty.

Usually, such large territory is divided into smaller districts with students assigned to the nearest schools. And because neighborhoods are still mostly defined by race and socioeconomic status, poor and minority kids wind up in high-poverty schools that struggle with problems such as retaining the best teachers.

Officials in Raleigh tried to head off that scenario. As white flight hit in the 1970s, civic leaders merged the city and county into a single district. And in 2000, they shifted from racial to economic integration, adopting a goal that no school should have more than 40 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, the proxy for poverty.

The district tried to strike this balance through student assignments and choice, establishing magnet programs in poor areas to draw middle-class kids. Although most students here ride buses to school, officials said fewer than 10 percent are bused to a school to maintain diversity, and most bus rides are less than five miles.

"We knew that over time, high-poverty schools tend to lose high-quality teachers, leadership, key students - you see an erosion," said Bill McNeal, a former superintendent who instituted the goal as part of a broad academic plan. "But we never expected economic diversity to solve all our problems."

Over the years, both Republican and Democratic school boards supported the system. A study of 2007 graduation rates by EdWeek magazine ranked Wake County 17th among the nation's 50 largest districts, with a rate of 64 percent, just below Virginia's Prince William County. While most students posted gains in state reading and math tests last year - more than three-quarters passed - the stubborn achievement gap that separates minority students from their white peers has persisted, though it has narrowed by some measures. And many parents see benefits beyond test scores.

"I want these kids to be culturally diverse," said Clarence McClain, who is African American and the guardian of a niece and nephew who are doing well in county schools. "If they're with kids who are all the same way, to break out of that is impossible. You've got to step outside your little world."
'Constant shuffling'

But as the county has boomed in recent years - adding as many as 6,000 students a year - poverty levels at some schools have exceeded 70 percent. And many suburban parents have complained that their children are being reassigned from one school to the next. Officials blame this on the unprecedented growth, but parents blame the diversity goal.

"Basically, all the problems have roots in the diversity policy," said Kathleen Brennan, who formed a parent group to challenge the system. "There was just this constant shuffling every year." She added: "These people are patting themselves on the back and only 54 percent of [poor] kids are graduating. And I'm being painted a racist. But isn't it racist to have low expectations?"

As she and others have delved deeper, they've found that qualified minority students are underenrolled in advanced math classes, for instance, a problem that school officials said they've known about for years, but that strikes many parents as revelatory. Some have even come to see the diversity policy as a kind of profiling that assumes poor kids are more likely to struggle.

"I don't want us to go back to racially isolated schools," said Shila Nordone, who is biracial and has two children in county schools. "But right now, it's as if the best we can do is dilute these kids out so they don't cause problems. It sickens me."

In their quest to end the diversity policy, the frustrated parents have found some influential partners, among them retail magnate and Republican operative Art Pope.

Following his guidance, the GOP fielded the victorious bloc of school board candidates who railed against "forced busing." The nation's largest tea party organizers, Americans for Prosperity - on whose national board Pope sits - cast the old school board members as arrogant "leftists." Two libertarian think tanks, which Pope funds almost exclusively, have deployed experts on TV and radio.

"We are losing sight of the educational mission of schools to make them into some socially acceptable melting pot," said Terry Stoops, a researcher at the libertarian John Locke Foundation. "Those who support these policies are imposing their vision on everyone else."
'Disastrous' results

Things have not gone smoothly as the new school board has attempted to define its vision for raising student achievement. A preliminary map of new school assignments did not please some of the new majority's own constituents. And critics expressed alarm that the plan would create a handful of high-poverty, racially isolated schools, a scenario that the new majority has begun embracing.

Pope, who is a former state legislator, said he would back extra funding for such schools.

"If we end up with a concentration of students underperforming academically, it may be easier to reach out to them," he said. "Hypothetically, we should consider that as well."

The NAACP and others have criticized that as separate-but-equal logic.

"It's not as if this is a new idea, 'Let's experiment and see what happens when poor kids are put together in one school,' " said Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a think tank that advocates for economic integration. "We know. The results are almost always disastrous."

Many local leaders see another irony in the possible balkanization of the county's schools at a time when society is becoming more interconnected than ever.

"People want schools that mirror their neighborhood, but the bigger picture is my kid in the suburbs is connected to kids in Raleigh," said the Rev. Earl Johnson, pastor of Martin Street Baptist Church in downtown Raleigh. "We're trying to connect to the world but we're separating locally? There is something wrong."

Southern Sudan on cusp of independence as voters heads to polls Sunday

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 9, 2011; 8:50 AM

IN JUBA, SUDAN Millions of southern Sudanese head to the polls Sunday to decide whether to secede from the north in a historic vote that is widely expected to create the world's newest nation.

After a long and bloody civil war, and after decades of sectarian and ethnic animosities, the mood in this southern capital was electric.

Before dawn, large crowds stood in long snaking lines outside polling stations. Amid heavy security, they sang and danced, chanting such lyrics as, "We are here to thank God today."

"We have been waiting for this day all our lives," said Suzy John, 28, a businesswoman who was waiting in line at the mausoleum of John Garang, the south Sudan rebel leader who died several years ago in a helicopter crash. "It means self determination, freedom, hope for the future and hope for the future of our children."

Kur Ayuen Kou, 32, who was among 4 million people displaced by the conflict before he returned to southern Sudan from Australia, said: "This vote is about gaining our freedom. It's about gaining our dignity. It's about ending our slavery."

But the week-long referendum, the last stage in a U.S.-backed peace process that ended the war, will take place under a cloud of uncertainty.

Many issues that will determine the relationship between the north and south remain unresolved, key among them citizenship rights, contentious border areas and the sharing of Sudan's massive oil reserves, the majority of which lie in the south.

The tensions have triggered fears that conflict could erupt again in the months ahead, destabilizing a region where the United States is fighting the rise of Islamic radicalism.

A day before voting began, six people were killed in clashes between southern Sudan's army and rebel militias in an oil-producing region.

An independent southern Sudan would become one of the world's least developed countries, its population among the poorest and most vulnerable, despite receiving nearly $10 billion in oil revenue since 2005. But the region, which is roughly the size of Texas, has few schools, hospitals and paved roads. Illiteracy and malnutrition remain high.

A peaceful vote, and an outcome accepted without dispute, could lay the groundwork for one of the Obama administration's most significant policy successes in Africa. Activists and aid groups have criticized the administration for not being more engaged on the continent and lacking a cohesive policy, especially for Sudan.

On Saturday, U.S. officials arrived in Juba, the southern region's capital, to support the referendum and offer assurances that the United States is committed to southern Sudan's future.

"President Obama has personally invested in Sudan. . .He's briefed every day on what happens here," said J. Scott Gration, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan. "That same commitment will continue after the referendum."

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), standing next to Gration, added, "The stability of Sudan is important for all of us, for a world that is becoming increasingly more complicated, increasingly more volatile, increasingly more extreme in various places."

More than 2 million people died in the 22-year-long civil war, which pitted Arab Islamic rulers in the north against the south's animist and Christian rebels.

Since 2005, when a peace treaty was signed, the south has been semiautonomous, ruled by the former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. As a condition of the peace deal, brokered by the George W. Bush administration, the south was guaranteed a vote on independence.

Nearly 3.9 million people have registered to vote, and a turnout of 60 percent is needed for the results to be valid. Tens of thousands of southerners have arrived here from northern Sudan and from around the world to participate, some carrying all their possessions and hoping to resettle in the south.

The killing in southern Sudan, though, hasn't stopped. Last year, at least 900 people died in tribal fighting and 215,000 were displaced, aid groups say. Weapons are widely available, and militias are abundant. Clan rivalries and corruption are rife. And the gulf between light-complexioned Arabs and darker-skinned Africans remains wide.

Only a few months ago, it was unclear whether the referendum would take place as scheduled. Nearly 80 percent of Sudan's oil is in the south, and few believed Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir would ever allow the south to gain independence. Southern leaders and U.S. officials accused Bashir and his ruling National Congress Party of arming militias to destabilize the south in order to delay the vote. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called south Sudan "a ticking time bomb."

Four months ago, the Obama administration stepped up its engagement with Bashir, offering him incentives, including the possibility that the United States would remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism if a timely referendum took place.

Bashir, who came to power in a bloodless military coup in 1989, is facing pressure from outside and inside Sudan. The International Criminal Court has indicted him on genocide charges, accusing him of orchestrating ethnic cleansing in the western region of Darfur. Both Washington and the United Nations have imposed economic sanctions on Sudan. Clashes between Bashir's army and rebels in Darfur have intensified in recent months.

But Bashir and other senior officials appear to have accepted that the south's secession is unavoidable, breaking from party hard-liners who want to keep the south at any cost. Last week, Bashir declared he would be "the first to recognize the south" if voters chose to create their own country.

In an interview Saturday, Kerry said he believes the likelihood of conflict, while still a concern, has diminished.

An independent and mostly Christian south Sudan also would allow Bashir to fulfill a long-held vision of enshrining Islamic sharia law in the constitution, making Islam the north's official religion and Arabic its official language.

One flash point is the oil-producing border region of Abyei. The south claims it as its own, but the north wants part of it. Tribal militias aligned with both sides live in a tense coexistence, tussling over land, water and grazing areas.

"If you don't resolve Abyei and you don't have some kind of a solution for the border, you risk continuing a sort of low-intensity conflict along the border, which could spiral out of control," said Zach Vertin, Sudan analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank. A separate referendum for Abyei on whether to join the north or the south has been postponed as leaders work on reaching a compromise.

Nationality is also an issue. It is unclear whether dual citizenship will be allowed between the north and south. If not, many analysts fear that northerners living in the south and southerners living in the north could face targeted attacks or be stripped of their citizenship. That could trigger displacements that would add more stress on poor communities already facing shortages of food, water and medicine.

"We have an unfolding humanitarian crisis layered on top of an existing and forsaken one," said Susan Purdin, the southern Sudan director for the International Rescue Committee, an American relief agency. "And then there's the potential for mass displacement, an upsurge in political and ethnic violence and a larger-scale humanitarian emergency."

Despite its vast oil revenue, southern Sudan has less than 40 miles of paved road. An estimated 80 percent of adults cannot read or write. Less than half the population has access to clean water; one in 10 children die before their first birthday. The police force is poorly trained, and the judicial system is weak.

"We face many challenges ahead of us," said Zachariah Peter Champail, 40, a teacher. "Tribal rivalries is the fatal disease that could kill us in the south. I hope, by the mercy of God, we can overcome this. We have to sing together in unity."

On Sunday, the voting began under a cloudless sky. The atmosphere was emotional. Aguil Chut Deng, draped in a south Sudanese flag and clutching a large photo of Garang, openly wept as she hugged another voter.

"Today I am proud to become an African woman. No one is ever going to call me an Arab," said Deng, referring to the north's Arab rulers.

Nearby, a tall man in a blue suit screamed with excitement over his cell phone: "I have just voted for our new country."

American and European officials visited polling centers to observed the vote. Actor George Clooney, active in efforts to stop violence in Darfur, also was here.

"We are very excited," Clooney said. "We have to take this victory and accept it because there are so few victories in this area. And this is the biggest one -- a vote for independence. No one thought they would pull this off by January 9th."

But for progress to be sustained, contentious issues such as the disputed border region of Abyei need to be resolved, Clooney added.

Sarah Tong, a 24-year-old biology student at Georgia State University, flew in from Atlanta, even though she did not register to vote.

"I am here to give support," she gushed. "The north will have to accept what happens here. And they will accept it."

As she spoke, a lone woman, carrying a large south Sudan flag, glided across the red earth, blowing a whistle and dancing trance-like, like a leaf swaying in the light wind.

There were also widows of south Sudanese soldiers who arrived to vote. On this day, they said they finally felt that their husbands had not died in vain. Some danced in joy. "They feel like their husbands are here with them," said Chelina Kukwa, 42, a mother of 7 who lost her husband in the civil war.

"We want to win," she said. "We have lost our husbands, brothers, and friends. I want a separate country. We are ready to be on our own."

Others warned there would be unearthly consequences for anyone who dared to vote to remain in a unified Sudan.

"If there's anyone here even thinking of unity, God will make sure that he will die," said Santo Athua, 36, a medical worker for the south Sudanese army. He raised his right thumb, colored in purple, showing that he had voted. "Even if I die today, I know I have done my small part for our next generation. I have voted for separation, and I will sleep peacefully tonight."

He looked towards Garang's grave and softly murmured: "Our martyrs, our heroes, those who sacrificed their lives for our land, can now rest in peace."

Lam Tungwar, 26, a hip-hop musician arrived at the polling center at 2 a.m., draped in a south Sudanese flag over a gray suit and a purple tie.

"This is like independence day. This day is more important than Christmas," he said. "We don't care about the oil or wealth. We only want our lives back."