Recalling that 78 people became victims of riots in Tunisia. Such data were given to Monday by the Minister of Interior Ahmed Fria at a special press conference that was broadcast on national television. Another 94 people were wounded. The general damage as a result of popular unrest is estimated at 1.6 billion Euros. The minister said that most of the victims were provoked by unreasonably harsh police action, who several times opened live ammunition fire on manifestants. At the same time, according to the Ministry of Interior in Tunis, there are also victims among police officers.
It is no mere chance that the question of party affiliation of the new government members is especially acute. Tunisia has long been a country with almost one-party system. The ruling party - the Democratic Constitutional Rally (before 1988 – the Dustour Socialist Party, even earlier Neo Dustour) - was the only legal party in the course of 25 years of existence of Tunisia as an independent state.
And so it is clear that today to remain in the ranks of the CDR, Ben Ali’s former party means political death. Members of the CDR itself understood this, and therefore they hastily assumed the measures: The Democratic Constitutional Rally on Tuesday ruled out from its ranks the ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, and six of his party colleagues.
However, opposition politicians and trade unions of the country continue to uncompromisingly assert that they will not sit down to talk until all members of the Constitutional Democratic Rally leave the government. These are ministers at key government positions - Foreign Ministers, Defense Ministers, Interior Ministers and Ministers of Finance. And in this issue, opposition leaders feel popular support. The day before in the country hit by mass protests of the population, manifestations of thousands of people continued to demand the dissolution of already the new government, the key positions in which are still held by supporters of the runaway President.
The president of Tunisia Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali himself, as is known, fled the country with his family to Saudi Arabia, having been refused by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy to move to France (most of Ben Ali’s money is in French banks). Ben Ali, his second wife, Leila, six children from two marriages and sisters, all multimillionaires, in fact fled from the wrath of the people.
Ben Ali has ruled the country virtually unchallenged for the last 23 years. At this post he replaced Habib Bourguiba in 1987, de facto in a bloodless coup. In his turn, the latter had ruled Tunisia since the country gained independence from France in 1956.
With millions of Tunisians in the country being actually unemployed, Ben Ali's relatives rolled in luxury, having lost count of millions. By the way, the luxurious life of the president and his numerous family became known to Tunisians by the website Wikileaks revelations. According to some reports, the fortune of the former head of state is estimated at US$5.5 billion.
And yet, despite the apparent surge of popular discontent that took the form of direct confrontation with the authorities and almost the revolution from below, experts and observers are for the most part convinced that there were the organizers ‘above’.
Thus, Vitaly Naumkin, the famous Russian orientalist, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS, believes that what is happening today in Tunis is a revolution. “It can be described in various ways ... coloured, jujube, jasmine, or some other way, but it is certainly a massive act of violence aimed at overthrowing the regime, which is happened in Tunisia,” said Vitaly Naumkin, emphasizing that a motive force of the riots, in his view, is not only popular discontent.
“I think that in the case of Tunisia there is a mixture of two factors: this is certainly the action from below, something spontaneous, which was provoked by an act of self-immolation. But I think that, certainly, there was also some sort of organization here. We do not yet know who could mobilize people there, were they some leftist or trade organizations, some personalities or maybe ... Islamists,” the Russian expert believes.
However, Naumkin considers unlikely the version of the Islamist movements involvement because the Islamists “rather, on the contrary, have been behind of what was the basis of this riot.” Somehow or other, expert regards the socio-economic factor as the main thing in the Tunisian events.
It is interesting that Russian tourists, according to travel agencies, continue, in spite of everything, take an interest in the opportunity to spend their holiday in this country of rare beauty on the Mediterranean coast, rich in its nearly three thousand years history. Moreover, according to Deputy Minister of Sport, Tourism and Youth Policy of the Russian Federation Nadezhda Nazina, many Russians staying in Tunisia are not going to evacuate, behave and behaved recklessly, e.g. despite the prohibitions of tour operators and hotel staff, they went out into the street, trying to photograph demonstrations and even a skirmishes.
Some Russians walked around the streets during the curfew period, others refused to leave Tunisia, having mentioned that ‘the coast was clear’. Thus, part of the Russians, who were taken to the airport to be evacuated, saw disturbances out of the windows of the bus and went back to hotels.
The same can be said of Ukrainian tourists. So, according to the Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Dikusarov, Ukrainian citizens do not contact the Embassy of Ukraine in Tunisia for the emergency evacuation in connection with the mass riots in the country. Currently such a request was submitted to the embassy from about 20 of 408 Ukrainian citizens registered at the consular office in this country.
