Operation Tunisia

[Peter Lemkin]

It will be interesting. Actually, the Prime Minister [likely on purpose] cited the wrong clause in the Constitution for his new powers as President. I forget the number. It is the very next provision in the Constitution of Tunisia that really applies - whereby he'd form a provisional government and call for elections ASAP.

Ah, interesting. Wriggle room.

The article he used in his speech is for when the President is temporarily unable to carry out the duties of office. It calls for the Prime Minister to be head of government until the President's return. The next article is for when the President is dead or gone [the case] and will not return [the case] and calls for the Prime Minister to form a coalition caretaker government and call for early elections. I know the opposition will be calling for him to change from the one article to the other today! mallprint:

[Peter Lemkin]

As hundreds of soldiers and tanks locked down a deserted central Tunis today, the debris on the city's main avenue told the story of a brutal repression which some feared had not come to an end.

Amid the teargas cartridges, smashed-up shops and scorched pavements lay a sea of strewn shoes: one left flip-flop, a pair of torn baseball boots, a woman's fluffy slipper, a shiny black brogue. They had been left by people fleeing as police charged them, or dragged and beat them, during the peaceful protests that toppled the region's most repressive despot.

Tunisia, the small Maghreb country famed for low-cost package holidays and miraculous economic progress, made history this weekend when a spontaneous people's uprising toppled Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the president who had ruled for 23 years and was today in exile in Saudi Arabia. Tunisia's population of 10 million people, known for their high levels of education and civic pride, became the first people in the Arab world to take to the streets and oust a leader.

But while the second interim president in 24 hours Fouad Mebazaa, a figure from the dictator's regime moved to form a hurried temporary coalition government, bringing in the opposition politicians who had been repressed, jailed and weakened under Ben Ali's rule, a mood of trepidation, confusion and fear for safety tempered the joy of the "Jasmine revolution".

In the capital, Tunis, and other areas of the country, residents reported knife-wielding and balaclava-clad gangs attacking apartments and homes. Organised groups were said to be attacking shops and factories. Many had piled into stolen hire cars and careered around the city and suburbs, stopping only to smash and burn.

One young lawyer who hastily left his office in the centre of Tunis for the quieter southern suburbs said: "There's complete confusion and everyone is trying to understand who is behind this, whether it's Ben Ali's militia clinging on. Yes, there has been isolated looting of shops. But the gangs seem organised; they are inciting thieves.

"They seem to be making trouble to convince public opinion that things were better under the dictatorship. Joy has turned to extreme caution and fear for people's safety."

Throughout the day, sporadic gunfire was heard in Tunis, while the main train station was torched and smoke billowed over a supermarket as it was burned and emptied. Groups of Tunisia's notoriously brutal plain-clothes police, described as a kind of "north African Stasi", barricaded the Avenue Bourguiba near the Interior Ministry and stood guard on corners swinging clubs and batons. More than 40 people died in a fire at a prison in Monastir. One Tunisian prison director let 1,000 inmates escape after protests.

As military helicopters hovered over Tunis and soldiers manned checkpoints on roads out of the city, intellectuals wondered how great a role the army was playing behind the scenes and whether there was a standoff between them and the police.

"We don't know if the army are in total control; we don't understand if there are altercations between security forces or if there could be an insurrection," said Sana Ben Achour at the offices of the democratic women's movement.

The leadership changes came at dizzying speed. Tunisia had witnessed four weeks of street protests, sparked by the plight of an unemployed rural graduate who set himself alight after his vegetable cart was confiscated by police. But the revolt against unemployment, police repression and the corruption of the autocratic, mafia-style ruling class was a revolution without a leader.

When Ben Ali, dubbed a "Ceausescu of the sands", hastily and unexpectedly fled the country in his jet on Friday night, it left behind a confused vacuum. Ben Ali's long-time ally in the regime, prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, stepped in briefly, creating a sense of confusion and leaving open the possibility that Ben Ali could return.

But yesterday the constitutional council declared the president's departure was permanent and gave Mebazaa 60 days to organise new elections.

It was unclear who might emerge as the main candidates in a post-Ben Ali Tunisia: the autocratic leader has utterly dominated politics for decades, placing his men in positions of power and sending opponents to jail or into exile.

In central Tunis, people began ripping down the ubiquitous portraits of Ben Ali that have adorned public buildings and roundabouts for years. "I called him Tarzan," said a printer watching two men pull down an awning of the Tunisian despot. As the first picture came down, another one was revealed behind it and another after that. But the older Ben Ali got, the younger he looked in each portrait, revealing the vanity of a man who liked to be filmed in soft focus and have his wrinkles airbrushed.

Rage against the ruling dynasty, particularly the family of Ben Ali's loathed wife, Leila Trabelsi, dubbed "Madame La Présidente" or the "Queen of Carthage", continued today as the family's numerous villas and properties were ransacked and burned. The former hairdresser and her extended family had a mafia-style grip on business, construction and foreign investment, living a lifestyle so lavish they would fly in food from other continents for parties. It emerged that she had fled the country in fitting style on board her "shopping plane".

Ben Ali himself had landed in Jeddah, and was sheltering with the Saudi royal family, much like another African dictator on the run before him, Idi Amin.

One resident of La Marsa, the bourgeois northern suburb of Tunis, said people had raided the family's villas and mansions, taking out what remained of their extensive car collection and going joy-riding. "That family drove Porsches while we couldn't afford to eat," said an elderly man.

On the same day as President Nicolas Sarkozy made clear the former colonial power's "resolute support" for the popular uprising, Paris also said it would block suspicious movements of the family's assets in France. A government spokesman told French radio that members of Ben Ali's family were not welcome to stay in the country.

For ordinary Tunisians, there was hope amid the uncertainty and apprehension. "We're a sentimental people," one teacher had said at the protests, explaining how dearly the educated lower middle classes prized the constitution and Tunisia's modernity. "More than 70 people have died, killed by the security forces. It's time for this to stop."

In a country blanketed with secret police and their informants, people had long been afraid to talk politics or even make a joke about its corrupt despotic regime. But now the authorities in the country's neighbours Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan are, with their own levels of authoritarianism, unemployment and repressive police, watching out for a contagion effect on their streets. As the fleeing Ben Ali's plane circled before Tunisians knew where he would land and take shelter, a new joke did the rounds: "The jet is about to make a stop at Sharm el-Sheikh not to land but to pick up passengers."

Neji Brouri, 45, a key trade unionist in the journalists' union, is a writer who had been tracked, arrested and harassed by the regime for not toeing the line in the state-muzzled and totally censored press. His wife and family had endured decades of violence and pressure from the secret police. He said: "There is a mood of relief. But now we need a climate of freedom, human rights, civic freedoms to emerge. Gangs of militia are still trying to panic the country. The press of course is still in the hands of power. This isn't finished yet. We all have mixed feelings, there's joy but first and foremost people need to feel safe. People have been killed, tortured, followed, harassed, had their lives destroyed. Now there's a feeling the sacrifice was worth it. I woke up this morning thinking, was this all a dream? Now we have to prove it wasn't."
A BRIEF HISTORY

1956 Tunisia gains independence from France with Habib Bourguiba as prime minister. A year later the monarchy is abolished, Tunisia becomes a republic and Bourguiba its president.

1987 Prime Minister Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has Bourguiba declared mentally unfit to rule and takes control, winning further presidential elections in 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2004.

2009 Ben Ali wins a fifth term. A prominent journalist critical of the president, Taoufik Ben Brik, is jailed.

17 December 2010 Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old graduate, sets fire to himself after officials prevent him from selling vegetables, prompting nationwide rioting over unemployment and political restrictions.

14 January 2011 Ben Ali concedes power, fleeing to Saudi Arabia.

15 January Fouad Mebazaa is sworn in as Tunisia's new president; he orders creation of unity government.

[Magda Hassan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUuPeQ7mH...r_embedded
From You Tube via the Washington Post:
Some people in Nabeul/Tunisia said that police forces entered the town and ordered evacuation, stopping any trafic and closing any store. Then they started shooting in the air to make sure every one is gone, while people witnessed (from their home windows) that 4 cars transporting masked men came ans started breaking and vandalizing. Then a police mini-bus approached and gave the masked men Gas to start a huge fire in front of "Carrefour" (a supermarket). They did the same thing in front of an RCD building.
And when they were sure they broke the door and windows of Carrefour, they backed down to let people steal stuff, and then say, that's why we're shooting real bullets, people are not peaceful they're vandalaizing...

[Peter Lemkin]

The Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has condemned the uprising in neighbouring Tunisia amid reports today of unrest on the streets of Libya.

In a speech last night Gaddafi, an ally of the ousted president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, said he was "pained" by the fall of the Tunisian government. He claimed protesters had been led astray by WikiLeaks disclosures detailing the corruption in Ben Ali's family and his repressive regime.

The leaked cables were written by "ambassadors in order to create chaos", Deutsche Press-Agentur reported Gaddafi as saying.

His remarks came as Tunisian politicians hold talks to form a unity government to help maintain a fragile calm two days after violent protests forced Ben Ali from office.

Tanks were stationed around the capital, Tunis, and soldiers were guarding public buildings, but after a day of drive-by shootings and jailbreaks in which dozens of inmates were killed, residents said they were starting to feel more secure.

"Last night we surrounded our neighbourhood with roadblocks and had teams checking cars. Now we are in the process of lifting the roadblocks and getting life back to normal," said Imed, a resident of the city's Intilaka suburb.

Gaddafi's comments reflect a nervousness among other long-serving Arab leaders that the uprising in Tunisia will embolden anti-government protests elsewhere in the region.

There were reports today, backed up by video evidence, of protests in the Libyan city of al-Bayda, according to the Guardian's Middle East specialist Brian Whitaker, writing on his blog al-bab.com. Protesters clashed with police and attacked government offices, in a demonstration about housing conditions, according to an opposition website.

Whitaker writes: "We can expect to see many more incidents like this over the coming months in various Arab countries. Inspired by the Tunisian uprising, people are going to be more assertive about their grievances and start probing, to see how far they can push the authorities. In the light of Tunisia we can also expect a tendency, each time disturbances happen, to suggest (or hope) that they are the start of some new Arab revolution. The reality, though, is that almost all of them will quickly fizzle out or get crushed."

In Egypt, a human rights activist, Hossam Bahgat, said the protests in Tunisia had encouraged those opposed to the regime of the long-time Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. "I feel like we are a giant step closer to our own liberation," he said. "What's significant about Tunisia is that literally days ago the regime seemed unshakable, and then eventually democracy prevailed without a single western state lifting a finger."

Writing on Twitter, the Egyptian opposition leader and former chief UN weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei said: "Violence in Tunisia now is a product of decades of repression. Regime in Egypt must understand that peaceful change is only way out."

In his statement, broadcast last night on Libyan TV, Gaddafi said: "Tunisia now lives in fear. Families could be raided and slaughtered in their bedrooms and the citizens in the street killed as if it was the Bolshevik or the American revolution."

In attempt to placate protesters Ben Ali had pledged to stand down in 2014 before he decided to flee to Saudi Arabia.

"What is this for? To change Zine al-Abidine? Hasn't he told you he would step down after three years? Be patient for three years and your son stays alive," Gaddafi said.

Gaddafi, who has been Libyan leader since 1969, urged Tunisia to adopt Libyan model of government. He said this model "marks the final destination for the peoples' quest for democracy. If this is what the events [in Tunisia] are for, then it has to be made clear".

[Magda Hassan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffQe4oMlA6o

A senior police officer said on state television earlier that several people including four German nationals had been arrested after being found carrying weapons inside three taxis in the capital.

"We arrested four German nationals and others of different nationalities. I don't know the number or the nationalities of the other foreigners," the officer said, without giving further details.

The incident took place near the headquarters of the main opposition party, the PDP, where a gunfight broke out around the time of the arrests.

These guys are spooks caught running operations as the country is falling apart in violence. Certain Europeans are purposefully destabilizing African nations so they can readjust power and control. The Dutch are fully committed to imperialism through staged terror in Africa. Every nation the Dutch presence is strong in is the source of terror and violence. The past month Nigeria and Tunisia (both Dutch controlled) have exploded in staged violence. Royal Dutch Shell OWNS Nigeria (Flight 253). Coincidentally, Sweden is in the timed false flag - Wikileaks terror spotlight and France just had two of its citizens kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in Africa.

Tunisian police arrested the head of the presidential guard Sunday and dozens of others suspected in drive-by shootings, trying to restore calm to the North African nation after the historic ouster of its longtime strongman.

Tunisians and observers worldwide were looking for signs about which way the country would turn as a new leadership sought to tamp down the looting, arson attacks and random violence since autocratic President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was driven from power on Friday.

Police arrested the head of Ben Ali's presidential guard, Ali Seriati, and several colleagues over accusations they had plotted against state security. Other details were not immediately available, but security agents had often fired on unarmed protesters in the last month.

"Criminals are using ambulances to fire on people," a police official in charge of security said.

Dozens of people have died in a month of clashes between police and protesters angry about the repression and corruption during Ben Ali's rule - unrest that ultimately marked the end of his 23-year regime.

APRIL 8, 2010

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) has been awarded two offshore oil and gas exploration licenses in Tunisia, a spokesman said Thursday.

The Raf Raf and Azmour licenses are in the northeast area of Tunisian waters and are valid for two years, with the option to extend for another year, the spokesman said.

Shell doesn't have significant oil and gas exploration or production presence in Tunisia currently, but operates a retail business in the country.

[Peter Lemkin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffQe4oMlA6o

A senior police officer said on state television earlier that several people including four German nationals had been arrested after being found carrying weapons inside three taxis in the capital.

"We arrested four German nationals and others of different nationalities. I don't know the number or the nationalities of the other foreigners," the officer said, without giving further details.

The incident took place near the headquarters of the main opposition party, the PDP, where a gunfight broke out around the time of the arrests.

These guys are spooks caught running operations as the country is falling apart in violence. Certain Europeans are purposefully destabilizing African nations so they can readjust power and control. The Dutch are fully committed to imperialism through staged terror in Africa. Every nation the Dutch presence is strong in is the source of terror and violence. The past month Nigeria and Tunisia (both Dutch controlled) have exploded in staged violence. Royal Dutch Shell OWNS Nigeria (Flight 253). Coincidentally, Sweden is in the timed false flag - Wikileaks terror spotlight and France just had two of its citizens kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in Africa.

Tunisian police arrested the head of the presidential guard Sunday and dozens of others suspected in drive-by shootings, trying to restore calm to the North African nation after the historic ouster of its longtime strongman.

Tunisians and observers worldwide were looking for signs about which way the country would turn as a new leadership sought to tamp down the looting, arson attacks and random violence since autocratic President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was driven from power on Friday.

Police arrested the head of Ben Ali's presidential guard, Ali Seriati, and several colleagues over accusations they had plotted against state security. Other details were not immediately available, but security agents had often fired on unarmed protesters in the last month.

"Criminals are using ambulances to fire on people," a police official in charge of security said.

Dozens of people have died in a month of clashes between police and protesters angry about the repression and corruption during Ben Ali's rule - unrest that ultimately marked the end of his 23-year regime.

APRIL 8, 2010

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) has been awarded two offshore oil and gas exploration licenses in Tunisia, a spokesman said Thursday.

The Raf Raf and Azmour licenses are in the northeast area of Tunisian waters and are valid for two years, with the option to extend for another year, the spokesman said.

Shell doesn't have significant oil and gas exploration or production presence in Tunisia currently, but operates a retail business in the country.

VERY interesting - but NOT surprising, SADLY!

[Jan Klimkowski]

Magda - I agree with Peter L, great find.

I wonder who these dogs of war are working for?

PMCs for an intelligence agency?

Hired by a multinational with resource ambitions in the region?

"We arrested four German nationals and others of different nationalities. I don't know the number or the nationalities of the other foreigners," the officer said, without giving further details.

The incident took place near the headquarters of the main opposition party, the PDP, where a gunfight broke out around the time of the arrests.

This, combined with the reports earlier in the thread of looters and agent provocateurs being ferried in by state police/army to key locations during curfew time, suggests that a very dirty war is being conducted.

[Magda Hassan]

Tunisian Revolt: Another Soros/NED Jack-Up?

by Dr. K R Bolton

January 18, 2011

Share


"Spontaneous" demonstrations of thousands of youths pouring out into the streets with such force as to compel the flight of a long-time president… To which country are we alluding: Georgia, Serbia, Myanmar,[1] Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Iran, Hungary…? This time it is Tunisia. All of these "revolts" followed the same pattern. Already the Tunisian revolt is being called a "color revolution" by media and political pundits, and it has also been provided with a name; the "Jasmine Revolution,"[2] like the abortive "Green" and "Saffron" Revolutions, and the successful Velvet, Rose, Orange, and Tulip Revolutions, etc.
Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country after demonstrators took to the streets demanding his resignation.

These "color revolutions" all have a common pattern because they are all planned by the same strategists; namely the Open Society network of money speculator George Soros, who serves as a kind of modern-day Jacob Schiff in funding revolutions;[3] and the National Endowment for Democracy, the latter a post-Trotskyite founded, Congressionally-funded kind of "Comintern" promoting the "world democratic revolution" in the service of plutocracy and under the façade of liberty.
Here is a typical scenario of "color revolutions." Check it off against the features of the "Jasmine Revolution," and of the funding by the National Endowment for Democracy to "Tunisian activists," as described further on:
[Soros' Open Society Institute]… sent a 31-year-old Tbilisi activist named Giga Bokeria to Serbia to meet with members of the Otpor (Resistance) movement and learn how they used street demonstrations to topple dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Then, in the summer, Mr. Soros's foundation paid for a return trip to Georgia by Otpor activists, who ran three-day courses teaching more than 1,000 students how to stage a peaceful revolution.[4]
Commenting on the "Velvet Revolution" that had just passed over Georgia, MacKinnon described the operations that went into play, following the same patterns as they had in other Soros targeted states[5]:
The Liberty Institute that Mr. Bokeria helped found was instrumental in organizing the street protests that eventually forced Mr. Shevardnadze to sign his resignation papers. Mr. Bokeria says it was in Belgrade that he learned the value of seizing and holding the moral high ground, and how to make use of public pressure tactics that proved so persuasive on the streets of Tbilisi after this month's tainted parliamentary election.
In Tbilisi, the Otpor link is seen as just one of several instances in which Mr. Soros gave the anti-Shevardnadze movement a considerable nudge: He also funded a popular opposition television station that was crucial in mobilizing support for this week's "velvet revolution," and he reportedly gave financial support to a youth group that led the street protests.[6]
NED and Soros work in tandem, targeting the same regimes and using the same methods. NED President Carl Gershman, in writing of the hundreds of Non-Governmental Organizations working for "regime change" throughout the world, pays particular tribute to the Ford Foundation and "the foundations established by the philanthropist George Soros."[7]
Following the Money Trail
As the common adage goes, if you want to know who's running things, follow the money trail. Looking at the recipients for NED grants we find the following, for 2009 (the latest available):
Al-Jahedh Forum for Free Thought (AJFFT) $131,000
To strengthen the capacity and build a democratic culture among Tunisian youth activists. AJFFT will hold discussion forums on contemporary issues related to Islam and democracy, debates between Arab scholars on societal problem, academic lectures on Islam, economic policy and international relations, and book review sessions. AJFFT will conduct leadership training workshops, support local youth cultural projects…'[8]
The purpose of this is clear enough; to create a cadre of youth activists, including leadership training workshops." Again, it is exactly the same course as the strategy used by NED and Soros in other states afflicted with "color revolutions". Exactly the same.
Association for the Promotion of Education (APES)$27,000
To strengthen the capacity of Tunisian high school teachers to promote democratic and civic values in their classrooms. APES will conduct a training-of-trainers workshop for 10 university professors and school inspectors, and hold three two-day capacity building seminars for 120 high school teachers on pedagogical approaches rooted in democratic and civic values. Through this project, APES seeks to incorporate the values of tolerance, relativism and pluralism in Tunisia's secondary educational system.[9]
The program seems to be for the purposes of spreading a doctrinal base for revolution; the "democratic and civic values" must be presumed to be of the post-New Left variety fostered by NED and Soros, based on values that generally run counter to the traditions of the societies where Sorsos and NED operate.
Mohamed Ali Center for Research, Studies and Training (CEMAREF) $33,500
To train a core group of Tunisian youth activists on leadership and organizational skills to encourage their involvement in public life. CEMAREF will conduct a four-day intensive training of trainers program for a core group of 10 young Tunisian civic activists on leadership and organizational skills; train 50 male and female activists aged 20 to 40 on leadership and empowered decision-making; and work with the trained activists through 50 on-site visits to their respective organizations.[10]
The terminology here is not even hidden with euphemisms:"To train a core group of Tunisian youth activists…" Might one not be justified in suspecting that the intention is to create a revolutionary youth cadre for the purposes of "regime change", following exactly the same blueprint that has orchestrated "color revolutions" in the former Soviet bloc and elsewhere?
Given the keen interest NED has shown in Tunisia, it would seem naïve to think that the "Jasmine Revolution" is simply a "spontaneous manifestation of popular anger" and that it has not been planned well in advance, awaiting the right moment for a catalyst.
The above organizations and others have been recipients of ongoing NED grants, as the following from previous years indicates:
2006: Al-Jahedh Forum for Free Thought (AJFFT), $51,000; American Center for International Labor Solidarity, $99,026, the purposes of which were to cultivate relations with Tunisian journalists; Arab Institute for Human Rights (AIHR) $37,500, for the purposes of training a cadre of teachers in "civic values;" Committee for the Respect of Freedom and Human Rights in Tunisia (CRLDH) $70,000, to advocate amnesty for political prisoners; and
Mohamed Ali Center for Research, Studies and Training (CEMAREF) $39,500
To train 50 young Tunisian male and female civic activists, aged 20 to 40, on leadership skills. The organization will conduct five four-day workshops, each for ten activists, on leadership skills including decision making, time management, conflict resolution, problem solving, and communication. CEMAREF will follow up the training with site visits to the trainees' respective groups in order to evaluate the trainees.[11]
2007: AJFFT received $45,000. The Arab Institute for Human Rights received $43,900 to train teachers in their so-called "civic values" ideology, focusing on primary schools and training school inspectors. The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) received $175, 818 to inculcate free enterprise doctrines among Tunisian businessmen, which reflects what NED is really aiming for in its promotion of "democracy and civil values": globalization. The aforementioned Mohamed Ali Center for Research, Studies, and Training received $38,500 in 2007. Also that year:
Moroccan Organization for Human Rights (OMDH)$60,000
To strengthen a group of young Tunisian attorneys as they mobilize citizens on reform issues. OMDH will train a group of 20 Tunisian lawyers on civil mobilization, and supervise and mentor them as they implement their own mobilization projects.[12]
2008: Al-Jahedh Forum for Free Thought received $57,000; Center for International Private Enterprise, $163,205; Centre Mohamed Ali de Reserches d'Etudes et de Formation, $37,800; Tunisian Arab Civitas Institute, $43,000, aimed at training teachers on the NED ideologies of "civic values." [13]
Does the language need to be any plainer? NED has promoted in Tunisia as elsewhere around the world a revolutionary cadre based on youth and professionals for the overthrow of a regime that is seen as an anomaly in the "new world order." While the regimes that are targeted might be thoroughly reprehensible, the rhetoric about "democracy", "civic values" and "open societies" expounded by NED, Soros and their myriad of agents and institutions around the world is just so much propagandistic humbug designed, as is generally the case in such circumstances, to deflect attention away from the real causes and aims of the "spontaneous uprisings." Commentators are already noting the impetus for the "spontaneous revolt" provided by "civil society organizations", which is a euphemism for precisely the organizations sponsored by NED and Soros: "…In this way, a broad coalition of civil society organizations has connected bread-and-butter employment grievances with fundamental human rights and rule-of-law concerns…."[14]
The "color revolutions" owe much to the patronage given to anti-regime communications networks, providing support for radio and television stations, as in the example mentions above in regard to Georgia. The part in Tunisia seems to have been enacted by Radio Kalima. "International Media Support" states of this, which after police raids in January 2009, began operating outside Tunisia, quoting the radio's Editor-in-Chief, Sihem Bensedrine:
Funding support from International Media Support and Open Society Institute has also allowed us to pay our journalists and maintain a stable team. This in turn makes our radio more powerful, more efficient.[15]
Manipulating Dissent
Using the masses to promote moneyed interests is nothing new. Obvious examples of "bourgeois revolutions" perpetrated in the name of the humble folk include the English Cromwellian and the French revolutions. Oswald Spengler traces the phenomenon as far back as ancient Rome:
The concepts of Liberalism and Socialism are set in effective motion only by money. It was the Equites, the big-money party, which made Tiberius Gracchu's popular movement possible at all; and as soon as that part of the reforms that was advantageous to themselves had been successfully legalized, they withdrew and the movement collapsed.[16]
The "New Left" served the same purposes during the 1960s and 1970s, and followed a similar pattern to that of today's "color revolutions" and other programs sponsored by Soros, NED, et al. Such "rebels" against "The Establishment," including feminist luminary Gloria Steinem,[17] and psychedelic guru, Timothy Leary,[18] were lickspittles of the CIA and backed by wealthy patrons from the start. The rampaging radical students of the 1960s were manipulated by interests similar to those that today sponsor the "spontaneous demonstrators" of the "color revolutions;" beginning with the CIA-funded US National Student Association[19] and including the SDS-affiliated, Ford Foundation funded Students for a Restructured University.[20] If "The Establishment" funded its supposedly sworn enemies as part of an exercise in dialectical manipulation decades ago, and the sources are easily checked, there's nothing surprising about the present-day global manipulation of similar ideas and similar people by similar interests.
National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy was founded in 1983 at the prompting of post-Trotskyite activist Tom Kahn, and exists under the patronage of the US Congress and Big Business, to promote the "world revolution" that was the common ideal of Trotsky and his contemporary President Woodrow Wilson. NED describes its program of "democratic initiatives" (sic)as operating in Poland (through the trade union Solidarity), Chile, Nicaragua, Eastern Europe (to aid in the democratic transition following the demise of the Soviet bloc), South Africa, Burma, China, Tibet, North Korea and the Balkans. "Serbia's electoral breakthrough in the fall of 2000″ was achieved by supporting "a number of civic groups." "More recently, following 9/11 and the NED Board's adoption of its third strategic document, special funding has been provided for countries with substantial Muslim populations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia."[21]
At least ten of the twenty-two directors of NED are also members of the plutocratic think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations,[22] including CFR program directors. For example, Carl Gershman, founder and president of NED, is listed as a member of the Washington Programs Committee of the CFR Board.[23] Among CFR members on the NED staff are: Nadia Diuk, Vice President, Programs Africa, Central Europe and Eurasia, Latin America and the Caribbean; and Louisa Greve, Vice President, Programs Asia, Middle East & North Africa, and Multiregional, CFR Term Member Roundtable on U.S. National Security New Threats in a Changing World.[24]
US Response
While some enthusiasts for the "open society" have lamented the USA's apparent lack of action in critiquing the former president of Tunisia, Ben Ali, what is played out or not played out on the world stage, is generally a very pale reflection of events taking place behind-the-scenes. The US Establishment certainly showed no sympathy for Ben Ali at the crucial moment.
The Project on Middle East Democracy, another think tank dedicated to showing how nations should govern themselves "the American way," states of the reaction of US officialdom that Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, in response to a question of a reporter from Egypt's AlMasry AlYoum newspaper,
…discussed the violence in Egypt and Tunisia and how the U.S. could effectively deal with governments who claim outside criticism as "interference."… The U.S., he said, operates a multi-track policy with countries like Egypt and Tunisia in order to both deal effectively with their governments and support elements of civil society in those countries. [Elliott] Abrams responded that the U.S. should instead have a one-track policy with countries like Egypt and Tunisia where there are definitive consequences for leaders who ignore calls for reform and to respect human rights. By pursuing current policies, these governments know that they are "getting away with it" and will continue to stall reform efforts and repress dissent.[25]
Elliott Abrams, quoted above, will be recalled as one of the neo-con globalists in the George W Bush Administration as national security adviser for Middle East affairs, who was gung-ho about "regime change" with the use of American bombs and troops, when the manipulation of street mobs didn't work. Now Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow of Middle East Studies, as one would expect, Abrams is an enthusiast for the idealistic happenings in Tunisia,[26] with the prospect of another US-client state emerging from the idealistic actions of "useful idiots." Meanwhile, as the hapless Ben Ali was about to fall, Hillary Clinton was saying to the Middle East that Washington would "not take sides," but then promptly lectured Arab states as to what America expected of them, The Christian Science Monitor observing that Ben Ali was gone the next day. "Not taking sides" was immediately followed by Clinton, another of the CFR planners, stating that President Obama hailed the "courage and dignity of the Tunisian people," and said the United States joined the rest of the world in "bearing witness to this brave and determined struggle…" The report makes it clear that Clinton was "warning" (sic) Middle Eastern leaders to heed the revolt in Tunisia, otherwise they could expect the same. "Clinton's words on Thursday echoed the often even-tougher views of US officials behind the scenes…"
"Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries' problems for a little while, but not forever," Clinton said. Those words turned out to be prophetic for Tunisia's Ben Ali, but they were interpreted by a number of regional specialists as particularly applicable to Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak a staunch friend of the US but an octogenarian who has ruled for almost 30 years.[27]
It seems a paradox that those who disparage the US invasions of states such as Serbia and Iraq to impose "regime change" by force of arms, are nonetheless enthused by "regime change" in the interests of American global hegemony when it is undertaken by youths and professionals manipulated to achieve the same result via "spontaneous protest" (sic). The "color revolutions" are about as bogus as their predecessors of the "New Left." Of course, whether such regime change is desirable depends on one's perspective. In the long-term, dialectically it could be that in the name of "democracy", like the French revolutionary slogan of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," and the Bolshevik slogan of "All Power to the Soviets," and the other one about "All Animals Are Equal…", this is another step in the path towards a greater tyranny than those that are being overthrown.
Notes
[1] Open Society Institute, The Burma Network, SE Asia Initiative. http://soros.org/initiatives/bpsai/about
[2] For example: "A Successful Jasmine Revolution, but what next for Tunisia?", New Statesman, January 15, 2011.
[3] Robert Cowley, "A Year in Hell," America and Russia: A Century and a Half of Dramatic Encounters, ed. Oliver Jensen (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), pp. 92- 121.Schiff, senior partner of Kuhn Loeb and Co., funded George Kennan to revolutionize 50,000 Russian POWs in Japan during the Russo-Japanese War, and provided further support for the 1917 Revolution.
[4] M McKinnon, "Georgia revolt carried mark of Soros", Globe & Mail, November 26, 2003, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/s...ory/Front/
[5] Soros' Internet Access & Training Program (IATP) was established as a front for "creating future leaders" in Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. In Serbia, Otpor was funded. The prize was Trepca in Kosovo, a vast reserve of gold, silver, lead, zinc and cadmium.
In a New Statesman article Neil Clark stated that Soros had a "crucial role" in the collapse of the Soviet bloc. As far back as 1979 Soros gave millions to Solidarity in Poland, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, and in 1984 set up his OSI in Hungary where he "pumped millions of dollars into opposition movements." "Ostensibly aimed at building a civil society', these initiatives were designed to weaken the existing political structures and pave the way for Eastern Europe's eventual colonisation by global capital." Neil Clark, "Soros toppled governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary," New Statesman, 2 June 2003.
[6] M MacKinnon, op.cit.
[7] Carl Gershman, "Building a Worldwide Movement for Democracy: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations", U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda, Vol. 8, No. 1, August 2003. NED: http://www.ned.org/about/board/meet-our-...ons/080103
[8] National Endowment for Democracy, 2009 Grants: http://www.ned.org/where-we-work/middle-...ca/tunisia
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] National Endowment for Democracy, 2006 Grants: http://www.ned.org/publications/annual-r...of-2006-13
[12] National Endowment for Democracy, 2007 Grants: http://www.ned.org/publications/annual-r...of-2007-13
[13]National Endowment for Democracy, 2008: http://www.ned.org/publications/annual-r...ts/tunisia
[14] Christopher Alexander, "Tunisia's Protest Wave: Where it comes form and what it means," January 3, 2011, Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Policy, http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2...or_ben_ali
[15] Tunisia's only independent radio station fights back," International Media Support, http://www.i-m-s.dk/article/tunisia%E2%8...ights-back
[16] Oswald Spengler, The Decline of The West, 1918, 1926. (London : George Allen & Unwin , 1971), Vol. 2, p. 402.
[17] "Gloria Steinem and the CIA: C.I.A. Subsidized Festival Trips: Hundreds of Students Were Sent to World Gatherings," The New York Times, 21 February 1967. http://www.namebase.org/steinem.html
[18] Mark Riebling, "Tinker, Tailor, Stoner, Spy, Was Timothy Leary a CIA Agent? Was JFK the Manchurian Candidate'? Was the Sixties Revolution Really a Government Plot?," Osprey, 1994, http://home.dti.net/lawserv/leary.html
[19] Sol Stern: "A Short Account of International Student Politics and the Cold War with Particular Reference to the NSA, CIA, etc," Ramparts, March 1967, pp. 29-38.
Also: Philip Agee Jr., "CIA Infiltration of Student Groups: The National Student Association Scandal", Campus Watch, Fall 1991, pp. 12-13, http://www.cia-on-campus.org/nsa/nsa2.html
[20] Mike Marqusee, "1968 The mysterious chemistry of social change", Red Pepper, 6 April 2008, http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:Qu0...Chemistry-
[21] David Lowe, Idea to Reality: NED at 25: Reauthorization', National Endowment for Democracy: http://www.ned.org/about/history
[22] For an official, but informative history of the CFR see: Peter Grose, Continuing The Inquiry: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996 (CFR, 1996), http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/
[23] "Committees of the Board 1998-1999", CFR, http://www.cfr.org/content/about/annual_...ittees.pdf (Accessed 8 March 2010).
[24] "Staff,"NED, http://www.ned.org/about/staff (Accessed 7 March 2010). Only a few of the staff profiles are provided by NED.
[25] "POMED Notes: Freedom in the World 2011: The Authoritarian Challenge to Democracy," http://pomed.org/blog/2011/01/pomed-note...racy.html/
[26] Elliot Abrams, "Is Tunisia Next?", CFR, http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2011/01/07/is-tunisia-next/ January 7, 2011.
[27] "Events in Tunisia bear out Hillary Clinton's warning to Arab world," Christian Science Monitor, January 14, 2011, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Pol...Arab-world

[URL="http://www.addtoany.com/add_to/a2a?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foreignpolicyjournal.com%2F2011%2F01%2F18%2Ftunisian-revolt-another-sorosned-jack-up%2F&type=page&linkname=Tunisian%20Revolt%3A%20Another%20Soros%2FNED%20Jack-Up%3F&linknote="]
[/URL]
K R Bolton is a Fellow of the Academy of Social and Political Research, and an assistant editor of the peer reviewed journal Ab Aeterno. Recent publications include 'Trotskyism and the Anti-Family Agenda,' CKR website, Sociology Dept., Moscow State University (October 2009); 'Rivalry over water resources as a potential cause of conflict in Asia,' Journal of Social Political and Economic Studies, and Russia and China: an approaching conflict?, Vol. 35, No. 1, Spring 2010; Vol. 34, no. 2, Summer 2009.



Tags: CFR, Democracy, Dr. K R Bolton, Elliott Abrams, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, NED, Tunisia, U.S. Foreign Policy

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011...-up/all/1/

[Magda Hassan]

Looking good. Some of the police have joined the protesters all over the city and here in this video a bunch of workers chase their boss, who was associated with the former dictator, from the work place.

On Tuesday, January 18, UGTT workers at STAR, one of the country's main insurance companies, went on strike and expelled the company's CEO, Abdelkarim Merdassi, in protest at his links with the Trabelsi clan. This video captured the extraordinary moment in which the workers physically expelled him from his office while singing the national anthem. (from Marxist.com News)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T7wHHHaI..._embedded#!

[Magda Hassan]

Tunisia Central Bank Admits It Is Missing 1.5 Tons Of Gold


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/20/2011 15:41 -0500

• Corruption
  
• International Monetary Fund
  
• Reality
  
• Saudi Arabia
  
• The Onion
  
• Unemployment
  
• World Gold Council
  

When we first reported on the rumored "confiscation" of 1.5 tons (or is that tonnes?) of gold by deposed Tunisian surging food inflation beneficiary Ben Ali we joked that the next WGC update of Tunisian gold assets would be strangely lower by 23%. Once again, the Onion reality sets in as we uncover we were right. Dow Jones reports that "Tunisia's central bank this week said it held about 5.3 tons, but dismissed reports that the family of ex-leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had withdrawn the gold, saying the bank vaults were "under draconian security measures." Um, yeah, that's just off by the amount that Ben Ali is now desperately trying to eat...
From Dow Jones:

Tunisia had 6.8 tons of gold in December, a level unchanged for at least a decade, according to a December online report issued by the World Gold Council, which is also in line with estimates issued by the International Monetary Fund in October.

The WGC regularly publishes global statistics on gold and is considered an authority on the sector.
...
According to French intelligence cited by French daily Le Monde, Ben Ali's wife Leila Trabelsi had gone to the bank to withdraw the gold. The governor initially resisted, but backed down under pressure from Ben Ali himself

French TV TF1 also reported that the gold was withdrawn in late December.

Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia last week amid an unprecedented wave of street protests against rising unemployment as well as his 23 years of iron-fisted rule and allegations of corruption against his family.

That's funny: also just as funny is that according to the WGC the US has 8,133.5 tonnes of gold. We wonder if we should apply the same 22% pro forma haircut on that number when adjusting for physical gold holdings long since moved to various armored safes in Wall Street's offshore villas located in non-extradition countries. But we jest. We would be satisfied with just learning how much Tungsten is currently located in Fort Knox.
h/t London Dude Trader
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tunisia...-tons-gold