Tunisia: for democracy, freedom and workers’ rights!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/16/muammar-gaddafi-condemns-tunisia-uprising

We print the following statement by the Communist Workers’ Party of Tunisia (although, as we understand it at this distance, this group is, despite the name, Stalinist-Hoxhaite).

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Tunisia has lived since December 17, 2010, the day when the current popular revolt against unemployment, exclusion, poverty, cost of living, the shameless exploitation, corruption, injustice and tyranny began. These popular protests started in the city of Sidi Bouzid and have since extended to all parts of the country. Poverty and tyranny, endured in the city, are a general phenomenon that affects all the Tunisian people. The rage and indignation is the same throughout the country.

The police and dictatorial regime of President Ben Ali attempted to crush the people’s uprising using misinformation, deception, lies and the brutal repression of the police who fired on the people, killing unarmed demonstrators. This was done with the intention of suppressing the protests quickly and preventing their spread to the rest of the country. These methods failed. Instead they have fueled protests that have extended their range, and drove the demonstrators to turn what began as simple social demands to political demands on the issue of freedom and power.

Even when Ben Ali delivered his speech on the twelfth day of the revolt to promise that he would put himself up for re-election, nobody believed him and the masses responded that the protests would continue.The placards and slogans put forward by the masses in revolt, from south to north, are clear evidence of the long process of political awareness which has taken place in the minds of Tunisians over the last twenty years of the reign of Ben Ali.

Slogans such as: “Work is a right, band of thieves,” “Hands off the country corrupt band,” Work, freedom, dignity, ” Liberty, freedom and non-life presidency “,” Down with the party of thieves, down with the torturers of the people “,” Ben Ali loose, the people do not let it go “…

Finally, the masses have realized that they are being ruled but not represented and that the system represents “a band of thieves”, a handful of families who have plundered the resources of the country, sold its resources and its people to foreign capital, which deprives people of their liberty and their rights, using the brute force of the state apparatus, which has been transformed into a “state of families,” to humiliate, subdue and intimidate the people and discourage them from fighting.

Tunisia has been turned into a national prison in which torture and repression was used to terrorise the people. The people demand change in the belief that the aspirations to freedom, democracy and social justice can not be achieved under Ben Ali. The masses involved in the struggle, in the intifada, no longer want dictatorship, and have embarked on a new process in Tunisia.Tunisia needs a new democratic government which represents the national and popular will of the people and represents its own interests. And a system of this type cannot emerge from the current system and its institutions or its constitution and its laws, but only on its ruins by a constituent assembly elected by the people in conditions of freedom and transparency, after ending the tyranny.

The task of a People’s Council is to draft a new constitution that lays the foundations of democratic republic, with its institutions and its laws. The popular protests are still ongoing. No one can predict either their duration or their development. Tunisia has entered a new phase in its history characterized by the rise of its people and their desire to recover their freedom, rights and dignity.

This raises the responsibilities of the opposition, especially its most radical wing, to find new policy solutions that place as an immediate priority the requirements of the Tunisian people for a program providing a plan for overall change in Tunisia.The opposition, consisting of all the forces involved in the intifada, has been invited to close ranks for Democratic Change and to form an alternative to tyranny and dictatorship.

The Workers’ Communist Party renews its invitation to convene a national assembly of the Tunisian opposition in order to confront the issue as quickly as possible.Also renewed has been an invitation to come together to coordinate at national and local level support for the popular movements, and to work towards a set of concrete demands so that the movement does not run out of steam.

Among these demands the most immediate are:
1. An immediate end to the dictatorship’s campaign of repression against the people.
2. The release of all prisoners.
3. The arrest and prosecution of all those responsible for repression, the plunder of property, and murder.
4. The repeal of all restrictions on civil liberties, free expression, organization and assembly.The adoption of immediate economic measures to alleviate unemployment and poverty. We demand income security, health care and the immediate recognition of trade unions.

The Workers’ Communist Party will remain, as it has always been, on the side of the workers, the poor and all those at the forefront of a new order in Tunisia.

For freedom, democracy and social justice.