Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali

Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali (2002 or 2008)

Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali ( Arabic زين العابدين بن علي Zain al-Abidin ibn Ali , DMG Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn b. ʿAlī ; born on September 3, 1936 in Sousse , Tunisia ; died on September 19, 2019 in Jeddah , Saudi Arabia ) was a Tunisian politician ( RCD ) and the autocratic ruling president from 1987 to 2011of the North African country. On January 14, 2011, after violent public protests, he left the country and fled to Saudi Arabia. His presidency is widely viewed as a dictatorship, among other things because of apparently falsified election results and repressive actions against the opposition.

Life

Political career

Ben Ali joined the army in 1956 . He was educated at the French Military School Saint-Cyr and the Military Intelligence School in Fort Holabird, Maryland, and the School for Field and Anti-Aircraft at Fort Bliss, Texas in the United States. As head of the military security service from 1958 to 1974, he often traveled to the USA and established good contacts with the CIA. He was then a military attaché in Morocco and Spain and ambassador in Warsaw. In 1978 he was appointed head of security by Habib Bourguiba and promoted to general in 1979. In 1980 Bourguiba appointed him head of the national (civil) security service and in 1984 minister of the interior . In this role he pushed the fight against fundamentalist Islamists in Tunisia.

Takeover and term of office

Shortly after his appointment as Prime Minister on October 2, 1987, as a leading member of the Socialist Destur Party, he led a bloodless coup against the party founder and Tunisian President Bourguiba, who was declared senile by a doctor .

After Bourguiba's dismissal, Ben Ali took over the office of President on November 7, 1987. The coup inauguration was called the Jasmine Revolution by the new regime . In July 1988, the Tunisian parliament limited the presidential term of office to 15 years, until then there was an appointment for life. In the early years of his tenure, Ben Ali actually pushed the modernization of Tunisia for which Bourguiba had laid the foundations. He created a social security system and fought poverty, campaigned for the emancipation of women and expanded the education system. However, Ben Ali ruled with an iron hand. Government policy continued to be oriented towards the West. At the same time, Ben Ali campaigned for a unified economic area in the Maghreb . He was subsequently confirmed in his post in several elections which, in the opinion of numerous observers, did not meet the requirements of democratic elections. The electoral law was partially democratized, but parts of the opposition, including the Islamic fundamentalists, continued to be excluded from the elections.

In 2002, Ben Ali had the constitution amended to extend his government beyond 2004. According to official figures, in the October 2004 election he received 94.49 percent of the vote. On October 25, 2009, he was re-elected for a fifth term with 89.28 percent of the vote.

Cult around the number 7

The 7 November as a day of takeover was especially honored under Ben Ali. It was a day off and streets and squares were named after this date in Tunisian cities. The large stadium in Radès and Tabarka airport were also given an appropriate name.

However, the Ben Ali regime went further and let the number 7 alone, often associated with the color mauve , be established as a symbol with which the regime displayed its power in a subtle way in public spaces. For example, the state television broadcaster was renamed TV7 , various postage stamps with images of the number 7 were issued and the airline known today as Tunisair Express was called Sevenair from 2007 . In the case of Tunisian telephone numbers, the 0 at the beginning of the area code was also replaced by a 7 (71 instead of 01 for Tunis) and seven images of the Tunisian flag were to be seen on the Tunisian passports.

Many references to the number 7 were erased through renaming in the course of the revolution, but some - as with the telephone prefixes - have remained until today.

Loss of power

On January 13, 2011, as a result of the mass protests that had spread across the country since the Sidi Bouzid revolt , Ben Ali announced that he would no longer run in the next presidential election (2014). On January 14, 2011, Ben Ali fled the country due to the increasing mass unrest. On the same day, a government spokesman announced that the government had been disbanded due to the ongoing protests. New elections were also announced within a period of six months. These events are also referred to as the Jasmine Revolution - in an ironic reference to the name given to the coup when Ben Alis took office . For a short time, Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi also took over the office of President until January 15, 2011, when the Tunisian Constitutional Council appointed Parliament President Fouad Mebazaâ as Executive President.

Since then, Ben Ali has resided with his wife, his daughter Halima and his son Mohamed under the protection of the Saudi royal family in a luxury settlement in the Saudi port city of Jeddah . His three adult sons from his first marriage still live in Tunisia, and he was in contact with them and business people in Tunisia. In October 2011, he attended the funeral service for the late Saudi Crown Prince Sultan ibn Abd al-Aziz .

After ongoing unrest, the Tunisian Justice Minister Lazhar Karoui Chebbi announced on January 26, 2011 that there was an international arrest warrant for the escaped President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, his wife Leila Trabelsi and other family members, with Interpol asking for help. The Tunisian Foreign Ministry formally requested the government of Saudi Arabia to extradite Ben Ali on February 20. Saudi Arabia refused to extradite Ben Ali.

Kleptocracy

During his 23-year dictatorship, Ben Ali and the family of his second wife Leila Trabelsi developed a kleptocratic system that encompasses the entire country . The most important economic and industrial sectors and a number of companies, including B. the private bank Banque de Tunisie, Monoprix, the radio station Mosaique FM, Hotels or Karthago-Air were run by this family. According to Transparency International, the Ben Ali Trabelsi family has siphoned off up to a third of the Tunisian economy, whose GDP reached 31 billion euros, through corruption and fraud . The greed occasionally reached open criminal traits: in 2006 Moez and Imed Trabelsi, Leila's nephew, had three luxury yachts, the Sando , the Blue Dolphin IV and the Beru Ma , stolen in France. The robbery of the millions of ships made headlines, especially since the Beru Ma belonged to Bruno Roger, a chairman of the board of the Investment Bank Lazard in Paris and a close friend of the then French President Jacques Chirac . The luxury yachts showed up repainted and with new registration papers in the port of Sidi Bou Saïd . Thanks to the good relations between France and Tunisia, the Trabelsi brothers, as masterminds of organized crime, were not brought to justice in France, but in Tunisia, where they were acquitted. Only the Beru Ma was returned.

On January 19, 2011, the Swiss Federal Council decided to freeze Ben Ali's and his entourage's assets in Switzerland with immediate effect in order to avoid misappropriating Tunisian state property. Around 40 people were affected. On January 20, 2011, 33 of his family members were arrested in Tunisia on suspicion of crimes against the country due to the risk of fleeing for attempting to leave the country.

On January 31, 2011, the European Council expressed its “full solidarity and support for Tunisia and the people of Tunisia in the endeavors to achieve a stable democracy” and adopted restrictive measures against persons “who are responsible for the unlawful use of Tunisian state funds” . By ordinance of the Council of February 4, 2011, the assets of a total of 48 such persons, including the Ben Ali family, located in the member states of the EU were frozen. Funds in more than 25 countries have been frozen.

In early May 2011, Ben Ali and his wife were charged in Tunisia. The then Justice Minister Lazhar Karoui Chebbi spoke of 18 charges, including "conspiracy against internal security", "inciting chaos, murder and looting", "drug use", "drug trafficking", "sexual perversion" and "murder". A first trial of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Leila Trabelsi took place on June 20, 2011 in Tunis in the absence of the defendants, the allegation of embezzlement of state assets. Ben Ali and his wife were each sentenced to 35 years in prison after just one day of trial, and the court fined millions of euros. Further proceedings were pending, on serious allegations of murder, torture and money laundering, Ben Ali was threatened with the death penalty.

Collection of stolen national wealth

According to an independent study by Basel professor Mark Pieth , the Ben Ali Trabelsi gang brought more than 20 billion dollars abroad before fleeing Tunisia.

On April 11, 2013, President Moncef Marzouki was able to receive a check for 22 million euros from the Attorney General Ali bin Feitais al-Marri of Qatar and a UN delegation in a solemn ceremony in the Palais de la République in Carthage - it was the first return of stolen national wealth after the revolution. The money had been secured in a Lebanese account by Leila Trabelsi.

In addition, finding the wealth is difficult. Members of the Constituent Assembly often criticize diplomacy's inaction in identifying and recovering stolen national assets abroad, while authorities say that some European and Gulf countries "do not cooperate satisfactorily with Tunisia".

Private life

Ben Ali was first married to Naïma Kefi from 1964 to 1988, with whom he had three daughters. In the mid-1980s he met Leïla Trabelsi , whom he married in 1992 and with whom he had two daughters and a son. Leïla Ben Ali is held responsible for the expansion of corruption in Tunisia, the main beneficiaries of which were members of her own family, which the American embassy in Tunis believes was organized as a quasi- mafia clan.

literature

• Steffen Erdle: Ben Ali's "New Tunisia" (1987-2009). A Case Study of Authoritarian Modernization in the Arab World. (= Islamic Studies. Volume 301). Klaus Schwarz Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-87997-366-8 .
• Bechir Turki: Ben Ali: le ripou. Sotepa Graphique, 2011, ISBN 978-9973-02-249-3 .
• Nicolas Beau, Caherine Graciet: La régente de Carthage. Main basse sur la Tunisie. Editions La Découverte, 2009, ISBN 2-7071-5262-5 .

Web links

Commons : Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In Saudi exile: Tunisia's ex-ruler Ben Ali has died . In: The world . September 19, 2019 ( welt.de [accessed October 8, 2020]).
2. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger : The Unmasked Dictator. In: tagesanzeiger.ch from January 11, 2011.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Rudolph Chimelli: Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali Tunisia's ex-president on the run from the people. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. 15./16. January 2011.
4. ↑ The Focus of January 14, 2011: Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, From Reformer to Chased away
5. ↑ Le Monde: Ben Ali promet de ne pas se représenter en 2014
6. ↑ spiegel.de
7. ^ State of emergency in Tunisia - Transitional President appointed at faz.net, January 15, 2011 (accessed January 15, 2011)
8. ^ Spiegel Online : Traveled after dictatorship , January 14, 2011
9. ↑ Christoph Sydow: Tunisia's ex-dictator Ben Ali: Retirement with 1.5 tons of gold
10. ^ Spiegel Online : Tunisia is looking for an ex-dictator with an international arrest warrant , January 26, 2011.
11. ^ Tunisia seeks Ben Ali extradition from Saudi Arabia. In: British Broadcasting Corporation . February 20, 2011, accessed June 12, 2012 . 
12. ↑ Christoph Sydow: Tunisia's ex-dictator Ben Ali: Retirement with 1.5 tons of gold
13. ↑ La fortune mal acquise du clan ben ali trabelsi qui a vampirisé l'économie tunisienne. Tunisie numerique July 14, 2011
14. ^ ^{A b} Pierre Tristan: Wikileaks Cable: Tunisian Corruption and President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved May 12, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
15. ↑ Elizabeth Johnson: What do we know about stolen assets in the Middle East? Transparency.org September 23, 2011.
16. ↑ No trace of criminals in Tunisia is being pursued: France's judiciary spares the presidential nephews. In: Berliner Zeitung, August 25, 2009.
17. ↑ Tunisie Ben Ali protège ses voleurs de neveux. In: Le Canard enchaîné , n ° 4634, August 19, 2009, digitally published by the Tunisian blogger community Nawaat.org
18. ↑ The Federal Council has any funds from Tunisia's ex-President Ben Ali blocked in Switzerland. ( Memento from March 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Press release in: admin.ch from January 19, 2011.
19. ↑ Switzerland blocks Ben Ali accounts. In: 20 minutes from January 19, 2011.
20. ↑ Link (PDF) Regulation on measures against certain persons from Tunisia. ( Memento from March 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: admin.ch from January 19, 2011.
21. ^ BBC January 20, 2011. Retrieved January 7, 2015.
22. ↑ Decision 2011/72 / CFSP of the Council of January 31, 2011 from the Official Journal of the European Union , accessed on June 24, 2011
23. ↑ Regulation (EU) No. 101/2011 of the Council of February 4, 2011 from the Official Journal of the European Union , accessed on June 24, 2011
24. ↑ Charges brought against Ben Ali. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . May 5, 2011, accessed June 12, 2012 . 
25. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung : 35 years imprisonment - but Ben Ali is in exile , June 20, 2011.
26. ^ Die Presse : Tunisia: Settlement with Ben Ali. June 20, 2011.
27. ↑ Black money investigator Mark Pieth Hunter of the stolen treasure . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 7, 2011.
28. ↑ Bouazza Ben Bouazza: Economist says $ 20B taken from Tunisia by dictator's family remains unrecovered ( Memento from June 30, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: The Associated Press, April 12, 2013.
29. ↑ Le chèque qui a mis échec et mat Marzouki. in Tunisie-secret.com, April 14, 2013.
30. ^ Restitution de la premiere tranche des avoirs tunisiens spolies. in www.leaders.com.tn, April 11, 2013.
31. ↑ Tunisia: Millions Recovered From Ex-Leader's Assets. in The New York Times, April 11, 2013.
32. ^ Billions taken by Tunisia ex-dictator missing. in The Guardian, April 11, 2013.
33. ↑ La Tunisie récupère 28 millions de dollars détournés par Ben Ali. in Le Monde, April 11, 2013.
34. ↑ Samir Gharbi, Sonia Mabrouk: Vingt ans, vingt dates. In: Jeune Afrique. October 22, 2007.
35. ^ Khaled A. Nasri: Ben Ali, de Naima Kefi à Leïla Trabelsi. on Afrik.com , July 30, 2008.