Social conflict in maghreb has international implications
By Ann Talbot
(source: World Socialist WebSite)
Continuing protests in Tunisia and Algeria threaten to spread to the whole of the Maghreb region and, beyond that, to engulf the Middle East, where the same conditions of poverty and insecurity exist. Rising food prices are daily exacerbating social tensions caused by growing inequality and mass unemployment, especially among the young. The global financial crisis has set light to a tinderbox in North Africa and the Middle East.
This has provoked growing unease among the international ruling elite. Speaking in Doha, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience of government officials and businessmen, “In too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand.” She warned that the populations of the region had “grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order.”
In an attempt to placate popular anger, in Tunisia, President Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali, a close US ally, went on television Thursday and promised to step down when his current term of office ends in 2014. He had previously sacked his interior minister, released some of those arrested in the recent protests and promised to create 300,000 new jobs. The Algerian government has reduced the price of oil and sugar by a total of 41 percent. This followed riots that were provoked by the removal of food subsidies. Even where no demonstrations have taken place, Libya has reduced taxes on wheat-based products, rice, vegetable oil, sugar and infant milk. Morocco has introduced subsidies on milling wheat. Jordan has cut taxes on fuel and some foods.
Both the US and the European Union have applied pressure to Tunisia in the face of reports that the police were overwhelmed by demonstrators in the capital, Tunis. French ministers have refrained from publicly criticising Ben Ali’s violent repression of demonstrators that have left scores dead in many town and cities. Only after a French citizen was killed did Paris voice concerns about the use of “disproportionate” violence.
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