Declaration of the International Workers League (Fourth International)

For The Complete Victory of the Tunisian Intifada
The Liga Internacional de los Trabajadores – Cuarta Internacional supports the popular rebellion – the Intifada – that brought 23 years of dictatorship in Tunisia to an end. The poor agricultural sectors, the working class barrios, and the unemployed youth leading it have demonstrated that through sustained, determined struggle it is possible to defeat even the most repressive regimes.
A country in Northern Africa, Tunisia is located in the highly contentious Maghreb region. In a struggle to regain their lands that has been going on for more than 30 years, the Saharawi people were facing repression at the hands of the Mohammed VI government in Morocco only a few months ago.
At the moment when the Tunisian population rose up against the Ben Ali government, the unemployed youth of Algeria were also mobilizing in resistance to their government over the rising prices of staple products.
The Ben Ali regime took power 23 years ago through a coup d’etat against the government that had emerged from the Independence of 1951. Since seizing power, it has enacted a policy defined by the International Monetary Fund, a policy of privatizations and austerity measures. At the same time, it was developing a privileged relationship with the European Union and in particular with Tunisia’s former colonial overlord, France. Today, France has 1,350 businesses on Tunisian territory, in addition to the Italian (400 businesses), British, Belgian, and Spanish ones.
In the past few years, Tunisia has been held up as an example of an “economic miracle”, thanks to the policies of austerity and liberalization promoted by the IMF and other imperialist organizations. At the same time, the European Union and its Association Agreements are supporting the puppet dictatorship, colonizing the country, and condemning the population to misery and emigration.
But the revolt that was set off by the death of a young street vendor in Sidi Bouzid exposed the reality of life in a country controlled by one family, the family of Ben Ali. While his family has been enriching themselves through their business deals with imperialism, the levels of unemployment in the country have spiked and are now around 40% among young graduates.
The widespread corruption, the emigration of the educated sectors, the dependency on imperialism, the level of illiteracy among broad sections of the population in the South, especially in the regions where the first mobilizations emerged, combined with the police repression, created a situation that was going to explode sooner or later.
The uprising, which spread across the country over the course of one month, forced the dictator to flee to Saudi Arabia. He tried unsuccessfully to get his French ally, Sarkozy, to host him, when the presence of hundreds of thousands of Tunisian immigrants and millions of Magrebis living France forced Sarkozy to reconsider.
This is how the Ben Ali administration lost control of the power centers, opening a power vacuum, with the police forces, the administration’s key defense (150,000 police, plus other repressive forces, that occupy the first rank in Magred – there was a ratio of one police officer for each 27 Tunisians).
In the power vacuum that this produces, the police forces try to provoke the greatest chaos possible in order to defeat the population. But the police and military forces (clash with / come into conflict with) the popular masses, organized into Commisions for Popular Defense in almost every city and working class barrio of the capital.
In the face of the mobilization and even before he fled into exile, the dictator recognized his own defeat – first with the resignation of the Minister of the Interior, after with his entire administration, and finally, through a speech in which he promised democratic reforms, the lowering of prices, and the creation of 300 thousand more jobs, with his announcement that he would not present himself for reelection in 2014.
But the mobilization had already reached the critical point, despite the repression and the more than one hundred deaths. Now, no one believed his promises. The union UGT-T, despite the pro-government orientation of its leadership, was left with no other choice but to call for a General Strike.
Meanwhile, in countries like Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, etc., there are demonstrations happening in the streets; and for its part, the Moroccan government has outlawed protests. The spark of social unrest centered in Tunisia is threatening the entire Arab and Magreb world.
The dictator fled in exile but the apparatus of the dictatorship persists still, but in open crisis. After his exile, the Prime Minister, El Gannuchi, temporarily took power and proposed a national unity government.
At the last minute, under pressure from the opposition, El Gannuchi handed over the Presidency to the President of the Parliament to head up the national unity government.
The opposition forces come into play to stabilize the situation, with proposals to form a “coalition government”, made up of Islamists, or to provide “guarantees” that the promises from Ben Ali’s last speech would be fulfilled, in line with the demands of the UGT-T.
The imperialist powers, the European Union, and the United States, the same one who supported the dictatorship, are now working to “stabilize” the situation on the basis of preserving the Party of the government, Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD), a Party that formed part of the dictator’s departure from the Socialist International, and a Party who’s members are still the majority in power.
The following day, they formed a coalition government with the opposition forces and the UGT-T inside, but the key ministries still remain in the hands of Ben Ali’s Party. It is the newest protests against the fraud that are demonstrating the presence of some remnants of the dictatorship in the government, which are forcing the opposition and the UGT-T to resign, opening up another power vacuum.
As Fathin Chamkhi – a professor of geography and member of the Tunisia League for Human Rights – said of the Tunisian Revolution: “This is a social and democratic revolution. It is democratic because there are demands relating to political rights and it is social because there are demands addressing the economic and labor conditions. There has been an amassing of facts over the last 23 years that have added to the worldwide crisis of 2008.”
For this reason, all of the forces of the bourgeoisie, no matter which colors they disguise themselves with, are working with the support of the imperialist powers to divert the course of the revolutionary process, to “stabilize” the country, and like this avoid that the fall of the dictatorship will transform itself into a revolutionary social struggle, that, together with the claim for democratic rights, will start to question the colonial dependence and the very social system itself. The popular and working class sectors have just opened, with their slogan “Bread, water and Ben Ali out” a revolutionary process for the Second Independence and for a socialist answer to the crisis of the capitalist system that is killing them of starvation. This new opening is a true danger for imperialism and well as for its puppet government from the rest of the Maghreb and the Arab world.
The Tunisian people have broken one of the sacred principles of capitalist society, that which says that revolution is impossible. Despite the Leftist defenders of the capitalist system, including Bernard-Henri Levy, who maintain that the revolution is being led by the middle classes via the internet, and that “the motor of the revolution has not been the proletariat,” the process of insurrection emerged from the poor peasants in the center and south of the country and spread like wildfire in the working class neighborhoods of the capital. The call of many for a “revolt of the unemployed” has in no way been separated at this point from their democratic demands to those who are forcing them to take to the streets – work and bread. Bread, work, and liberty are the slogans of the struggle of the Tunisian people.
The demonstrations are continuing in the streets and some sectors, including the teachers, have declared an indefinite strike.
Clearly, no sector of the bourgeoisie is interested in carrying the revolution underway in Tunisia to its ultimate consequences. Sooner or later, they and all their institutions, like the RCD Party of Ben Ali and the military, will confront directly the working class. This will without a doubt mean a struggle between the counterrevolution, or “pseudo-democracy”, supported by the imperialists and the Arab governments who are frightened by these events, and the popular masses who are in determined struggle for the dismantling of the dictatorship, for national sovereignty, and for bread and work for all.
The aim of the counterrevolution is to put in place a barricade against the more or less conscious socialist perspective that the revolutionary process is opening up.
What is necessary then is to give unconditional support to the popular and workers’ mobilization in order to achieve the full democratic liberties, amnesty for the prisoners, the dismantling from the base on up of the structure of the dictatorship, the repressive apparatus, purging and prosecuting those responsible for the killings.
It’s necessary to recover all of the wealth that was stolen by the Ben Ali family, to expropriate all of their businesses, and to nationalize them under workers’ control.
It’s necessary to break all of agreements with imperialism, which are in fact the agreements of exploitation and dependency of the European Union, real responsible of the poverty of the Tunisia people.
The remains of the dictatorship, the paramilitary groups that have, through the police, begun to act with the support of governments in the region (Libya especially), must be faced with a sufficient response from the people’s and working class organizations, like they have begun to do with the formation of the People’s Defense Commissions. The extension of these committees is key to stopping counterrevolutionary efforts. In this sense, the soldiers and minor officials should join these Commissions and not wait for any military command to coherently react to the counterrevolution.
The working class and the Tunisian people are providing an example for the whole world. They should continue, without giving any confidence to “national unity governments” or “coalition governments”, etc. where bourgeois forces are allowed to participate because they will inevitably support signing pacts and negotiating with imperialism in order to stabilize the situation at the expense of the popular demands, the massive unemployment, the illiteracy, the misery and colonial dependence.
The only guarantee that these demands will be met is what the Tunisian people have been doing up to this point – the independent, significant mobilization against manipulations – organizing themselves and supporting their own organizations, with the goal of pushing forward the construction of a government of the workers and the people.
The Tunisian revolution will face enormous dangers, especially of the intervention of the governments of the Arab League, especially those of Magreb, and imperialism. The isolation must be broken through international solidarity.
The Tunisian youth and workers can only count on the support of their class brothers and sisters in Magreb and in the Arab world. It is the responsibility of their working class and popular organizations to not allow the isolation of the Tunisian revolution, calling for solidarity actions against pro-imperialist governments.
The International Workers League- Fourth International commits to engage all its forces to support and extend the revolutionary struggle of the Tunisia people for a better future.
For the victory of the Tunisian revolution.
For a Federation of Socialist Republics in the Marghreb.
January 23rd 2011