Violent protests in the countryside echo the economic protest that touched off the Arab Spring here as the new government struggles to improve on the jobs situation.
Tunisian protesters clash with riot police, in Siliana, Tunisia, Saturday. The army moved into a southwestern Tunisian town, an official and witnesses said Friday, the fourth day of protests that have injured more than 300 people.
Amine Landoulsi/AP
EnlargeOn Friday morning the people of Siliana carried their governor out of town in effigy ??represented by a coffin marked ?governor? ??which they pitched down an embankment to jeers and celebration.
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
They were marching in their thousands under a bright blue sky, moving symbolically toward Tunis, the capital. It was a welcome change from days of stones and tear-gas as protestors had fought with police over economic malaise they blame on state neglect.
The implications of last week?s violence in Siliana, a small country town, reach the heart of Tunisia?s democratic transition. Handling a stricken economy ??and the anger it breeds ??has become the foremost test to date for the country?s first freely elected government, a coalition of long-time opposition parties unexpectedly lifted to power last year by the Arab Spring.
?Remember, we made revolution for work, dignity, and freedom,? said Abderrahman El Heni, a retired school administrator who joined the march. ?Now we can talk freely ??but as for dignity, there are still no jobs.?
Post-revolution economic trouble has become something of an Arab Spring theme since last year, with new leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya scrambling variously to woo jittery foreign investors, secure international loans, and keep a lid on high youth unemployment.
Tunisia's economic woes
In Tunisia, creating jobs is no easy task. Tunisia?s economy has suffered a double-whammy since former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was toppled last year, with tourism and foreign investment dented both by the turmoil of revolution and crisis in eurozone countries that are Tunisia?s main trading partners.
With the downturn, the country's once steadily-growing real GDP turned negative, declining 1.8 percent last year.?While growth this year is expected to pick up, government plans to spend big on job creation still depend on foreign help. Loans of $500 million each from the World Bank and African Development Bank announced last week are the latest examples.
For now, economic trouble has kept unemployment high at 17 percent, only a slight improvement from last year's 19 percent and a figure that gets higher among young people and in depressed towns such as Siliana.?
The town lies in farming country around 70 miles southwest of Tunis, where the land tilts upward toward mountains running from Morocco to Tunisia.
The relative wealth of Tunisia?s bustling coastal cities contrasts with lethargy in the interior. It was in a similar inland town, Sidi Bouzid, that protests in December 2010 over unemployment and state corruption swelled into the uprising that unseated Mr. Ben Ali a month later.
How the unrest began?
The recent trouble in Siliana erupted last Tuesday when local union leaders called a general strike while residents demonstrated to demand jobs and the removal of governor Ahmed Mahoubi, a member of the ruling Ennahda party, whom many slam as aloof and neglectful.
Rallies spiraled into street brawls between protestors and police, who fired tear gas and birdshot ??canisters of lead or rubber pellets ??as young men threw stones and blocked streets with burning debris.
Violence peaked on Wednesday, as Siliana?s main hospital admitted nearly two hundred injured people, most struck by birdshot, said regional hospital director Abdelhak Atyaoui. Twenty people hit by birdshot in the eyes ? potentially causing blindness ? were transferred to Tunis hospitals.
After that, police apparently stopped using birdshot. The tactic has angered many and prompted the UN?s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, to condemn what she called excessive use of force. Authorities say dozens of security force members have also been injured in the clashes.
Gabby Olympic Gymnast Robyn Lawley Gore Vidal mlb trade rumors Misty May And Kerri Walsh Jake Dalton London 2012 field hockey
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.