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| Africa North |
| Tunisia protests rage on amid funds pledge |
| 2011-01-26 |
| [The Nation (Nairobi)] Protesters pressured Tunisia's new interim government to quit today in the wake of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's overthrow, as the cabinet prepared a major shake-up and a top US envoy visited. Hundreds of protesters from impoverished regions in central Tunisia chanted anti-government slogans in front of Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi's offices for a third day, saying they would not leave until the cabinet resigns. The new government has announced unprecedented democratic freedoms for Tunisia after the end of Ben Ali's 23-year rule, but many people are angry that figures from the previous regime, like Ghannouchi, remain in the cabinet. Protesters also want Ben Ali's powerful RCD party to be disbanded. Army chief Rachid Ammar on Monday waded into the crowd of protesters and asked them to leave, warning a "power vacuum" could lead to dictatorship and promising the army would be a "guarantor" for the revolution. But hundreds ignored his plea and spent a second night camped out in the government quarter in defiance of a curfew that was decreed under Ben Ali and has stayed in force as the government struggles to restore order. "The battle will play out in Tunis. That's why we've come here. To bring down the government. We have to clean up everything," Lotsi Abbes, a chemist from southern Tunisia, told AFP after a night on the square. Mehrezia Mehrez, from the industrial city of Kasserine in central Tunisia that saw some of the deadliest festivities of the uprising that forced out Ben Ali, said: "They have to go, we will stay here until they go." The government meanwhile said it was releasing 260 million euros (Ksh28 billion) for public works projects in central Tunisia and to compensate the families of the dozens of people killed during Ben Ali's crackdown on the month-long uprising. Mr Taieb Baccouch, a front man for the government and the education minister, also told AFP that a cabinet reshuffle involving at least six new ministers was under discussion and could be announced soon. Five ministers have already resigned. |
| Posted by:Fred |