Fragile Calm Prevails in Tunisia

TUNIS – Following a day of looting and complete chaos in the North African country, a fragile calm prevailed in Tunisia on Sunday, January 16, two days after the ouster of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

“Last night we surrounded our neighbourhood with roadblocks and had teams checking cars,” Imed, a resident in the capital Tunis, told Reuters.
“Now we are in the process of lifting the roadblocks and getting life back to normal.”
Streets in the capital Tunis were quite on Sunday, which is not a working day in Tunisia.
Some Tunisians were moving out, shopping for food after a day of complete chaos in the country after Ben Ali fled the country following weeks of deadly protests in the country.
A handful of commercial vehicles – vans and pick-up trucks — could be seen making deliveries, for the first time in days.
The calm follows a day of drive-by shootings and jailbreaks, with massive looting in the city.
Gunmen fired at random from cars in Tunis on Saturday. It was not clear who the assailants were but a military source said people still loyal to Ben Ali were behind the shootings.
To stop the chaos, the Army imposed a night-time curfew, with tanks stationed around the capital Tunis and soldiers guarding public buildings.
As soldiers patrolled the streets, residents have also been manning their own barricades to protect their property from looters and other attackers.
“We came out on the streets and dressed in white vests so we can identify one another,” one man told Reuters Television.
“We told the police in the neighbourhood that we are here and we’re dressed in white – it was during curfew hours. We came prepared … some brought sticks and we collected rocks.”
In the chic Belvedere Park neighbourhood, residents had used rubbish bins, tree branches and lumps of concrete to block off entrances to their streets.

Coalition Talks

Political parties began consultations to form a coalition government to pull the country back into stability.
“The main thing for us right now is to stop all this disorder,” said Ahmed Ibrahim, head of the opposition Ettajdid party.
He said he and other party leaders would meet Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi on Sunday.
“We are in agreement on several principles concerning the new government. We will continue to discuss.
“My message is to say no to Gaddafi: we do not want to go backwards,” he said, in reference to a speech by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who said Tunisians were too hasty to get rid of Ben Ali.
Opposition parties want assurances that presidential elections will be free, that they will have enough time to campaign, that the country will move towards greater democracy and that the power of the ruling RCD party will be loosened.
Two opposition parties have also already said the two-month deadline for holding elections is too soon.
Opposition leader Najib Chebbi said after talks with Ghannouchi on Saturday that elections could be held under international supervision within six or seven months.
Analysts believe that it could it could take a while for Tunisia’s opposition of secularists, leftists and Islamists to coalesce into a coalition government.
“The process will probably take weeks at least and then you have to sort out the logistics of the interim government, the unity cabinet,” said Beirut-based commentator Rami Khouri.
“You have never had an Arab country where the people can suddenly start from scratch,” he told Reuters.

Source: OnIslam & News Agencies