[WSIS CS-Plenary] Fwd: The Wrong Man to Promote Democracy

[djilali benamrane]

Bonjour Meryem,
Merci pour cet interessant article de Kamel Labidi.
En as-tu une traduction en français ?
Amitiés
Djilali
--- Meryem Marzouki <marzouki at ras.eu.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I thought those of you who are preparing their trip
> to the very nice 
> Gammarth for the "informal WSIS meeting" might be
> interested in some 
> further reading, besides the Lonely Planet Guide
> recommended by the 
> WSIS Executive Secretariat. Meryem
> 
> ==========
> The New York Times
> Editorials/Op-Ed
> OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
> The Wrong Man to Promote Democracy
> By KAMEL LABIDI
> Published: February 21, 2004
> 
---------------------------------
> 
> CAIRO — This week, President Bush played host to
> President Zine 
> el-Abidine ben Ali of Tunisia, giving this ruthless
> autocrat a 
> long-coveted audience at the White House. To his
> credit, Mr. Bush 
> rebuked Mr. ben Ali for his violations of press
> freedom, but the United 
> States is sorely mistaken if it believes that
> democracy and the rule of 
> law can ever take hold under leaders like Mr. ben
> Ali. The Bush 
> administration's welcome of Mr. ben Ali makes
> America's aggressive 
> promotion of democratic reform in the Arab world
> ring hollow.
> 
> It's not obvious from Mr. Bush's public statements,
> but Tunisia today 
> is one of the world's most efficient police states.
> Since his ouster of 
> President Habib Bourguiba in a coup in 1987, Mr. ben
> Ali has quashed 
> virtually all dissent and silenced a civil society
> that once was an 
> example of vibrancy for North Africa and the
> neighboring Middle East. 
> In the early 1990's, the regime cracked down on the
> country's Islamist 
> movement, arbitrarily arresting thousands of
> suspected activists and 
> subjecting them to torture and unfair trials. Mr.
> ben Ali then extended 
> his crackdown to human rights defenders, opposition
> leaders and 
> independent journalists. (I, for example, was
> stripped of my 
> accreditation after 19 years as a journalist
> following the publication 
> of an interview with a human rights advocate.)
> 
> Tunisian society is now a shell of its former self;
> political debate is 
> relegated to a whisper under the gaze of the
> omnipresent secret police. 
> Newspapers are filled with Soviet-style hagiography:
> Mr. ben Ali is 
> called the Architect of Change, a title that's hard
> to accept given 
> that last year he won a referendum (with more than
> 99 percent of the 
> vote) that will allow him to run for a fourth
> presidential term in 2004 
> and grant him immunity from prosecution for life.
> Meanwhile, human 
> rights advocates have to put up with constant
> surveillance, the cutting 
> of their phone lines, anonymous threats, and even
> attack by thugs for 
> the regime.
> 
> For more than a decade, American policy toward
> Tunisia has quietly 
> ignored these excesses, focusing instead on the
> country's role as 
> moderate ally in a turbulent region, a supporter of
> the 
> Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and a model of
> relative prosperity 
> for the Arab world. The Congressional delegations
> that periodically 
> visit the country have heaped praise on Mr. ben Ali,
> with one 
> congressman a few years back lauding him as a
> statesman who has "done a 
> tremendous job in Tunisia and who is well respected
> back home as well 
> as here in the Arab world." During his visit to
> Tunis in December, 
> Secretary of State Colin Powell gently prodded the
> government to adopt 
> "more political pluralism and openness" while
> expressing admiration for 
> Mr. ben Ali's leadership skills.
> 
> Unfortunately, this muted diplomacy has shown little
> sign of compelling 
> illegitimate officials like those in Tunisia to
> reform themselves. 
> Without sustained local and international pressure
> to overhaul the 
> autocratic political leaderships that dominate the
> Arab world and to 
> hold democratic elections, only cosmetic change can
> be expected.
> 
> The United States needs to make it clear to its
> allies that cracking 
> down on terrorism can never be an excuse for
> violating basic human 
> rights. In Tunisia, however, Mr. ben Ali's
> Parliament passed an 
> antiterrorism law in December that would apparently
> give the regime 
> more ammunition to attack peaceful critics and
> prevent the emergence of 
> a credible political opposition. International human
> rights groups have 
> already documented hundreds of cases of political
> prisoners who, even 
> though they never advocated violence, have been
> labeled terrorists by 
> the regime.
> 
> In the end, injustice and political repression pave
> the way for 
> terrorism and revenge. The terrorist attack on a
> synagogue in Djerba in 
> April 2002, which the state-run press initially
> presented as an 
> accident, is a reminder of this. The absence of free
> speech has also 
> made extremist clerics on satellite TV stations look
> like reasonable 
> alternatives to the government, leading more young
> Tunisians to the 
> mosques and more young women to wear the veil.
> 
> Despite Mr. ben Ali's oppressive regime, Tunisians
> still hope that 
> democracy will take root in their country and that
> terrorism can be 
> defeated. It remains to be seen if the world — and
> in particular the 
> United States — is ready to help make this hope
> become reality.
> 
> Kamel Labidi is a former director of Amnesty
> International-Tunisia and 
> former Tunisian correspondent for La Croix, a French
> daily.
> ==========


=====
Djilali Benamrane : dbenamrane at yahoo.com
Tél/Fax : (331) 01 45 39 77 02 Paris - France
Page web sur l'Afrique et la globalisation : http://www.multimania.com/djilalibenamrane/
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