Historic demonstrations in Gabès are worrying Saied’s anti-people and pro imperialist regime
For about twenty days now, the city of Gabès (130,000 inhabitants),
an industrial coastal city in southern Tunisia, has been mobilizing
following the latest cases of asphyxiation in some peripheral
neighborhoods near the Tunisian Chemical Group (GCT).
The
demonstrations erupted in particular following repeated cases of
asphyxiation over several days, affecting some children at the Qananiya
elementary school in the Chott Essalem neighborhood, the working-class
neighborhood not far from the industrial plant.
Although protests in
the city against pollution from the GCT are not new (the Stop Pollution
collective has been organizing such protests since 2012, following the
2010-2011 popular uprising), this is the first time they have reached
mass proportions, involving tens of thousands of people.
A step back
The
GCT plant was founded during the Bourguiba regime in 1972, sixteen
years after the country’s formal independence. The small town of Gabes
(with a unique ecosystem: the only oasis on the Mediterranean Sea) was
chosen to host the plant for processing phosphates mined in the
country’s interior (in the Gafsa mining basin). The plant also has its
own commercial port for export. Years later,
The following year, the cement plant was inaugurated: Gabès transformed from a small town of fishermen and oasis farmers into an industrial city and the sixth largest city in the country by population.
Since 2003, the city has been home to a university campus and a rectorate that oversees 16 faculties and higher education institutions (12 of which focus on industrial training).
While the cement plant is located about ten kilometers from the town center in a semi-desert area, the GCT is located in the village of Ghannouch, just 5 km from the city. It also uses water resources from the Gabès oasis (Chennini), which has seen its surface area reduced by 70% in recent years and discharges harmful substances directly into the sea.
The environmental damage to the oasis, the sea, and the activities related to these environments (fishing and agriculture) is therefore enormous.
Cancer cases have increased exponentially over the years, particularly among workers who are exposed daily to toxic fumes and their families, especially those living in Chott Essalem.
After an initial round of protests (2012-2017), the Council of Ministers decided to dismantle the highly polluting plants and move them to the semi-desert hinterland, a decision that was never implemented.
The end of the pandemic interlude coincided with President Saied’s assumption of full powers and the resulting institutional and constitutional changes that confirmed the primacy of the presidency in the country’s decisions. Saied committed to quintupling GCT production in 2030 to make it a driver of foreign exchange revenue, aided by the increase in phosphate prices on the international market. All this, thus shelving the 2017 decision…
Who benefits from GCT production?
Tunisia has been formally independent from France since 1956. In reality, like most former colonies around the world, it is a semi-colonial country, formally independent, governed by a bureaucratic and comprador bourgeoisie, a parasitic bourgeoisie that maintains power thanks to its ties to imperialism (starting with the former “mother country,” but today Italy, Germany, and the United States also play a growing role in the country’s political and economic control). It sells off its national resources (which in Tunisia’s case are very few, especially phosphates) and its national workforce, which is trained in local schools and universities but then effectively forced to emigrate to become low-cost laborers in France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Canada, and other imperialist countries.
The GCT primarily produces fertilizers for export to Bangladesh, while some European Union countries such as Italy, Spain, and Ireland primarily import raw phosphate.
Since 2023, production has doubled, while in the first quarter of this year it increased by a further 18% ( 825,000 tons), once again bucking the trend of the 2017 administrative decision.
In a semi-colonial country like Tunisia, industrial production revenue is not only directed abroad, but compared to an advanced capitalist country, it is conducted with even greater disregard for environmental regulations (virtually absent) and the health and well-being of workers and the local population.
As can be read in a statement from the Democratic Patriotic Socialist Party on October 16 in support of the mass protests in Gabes: “Years of industrialization have been controlled by a clique of bourgeois state bureaucrats seeking only to increase hard currency revenues at the expense of human life, the future of generations, and their right to a clean environment and sustainable development“.
The protests that scare the regime
The demonstrations began on October 9th and 10th, following the first
outbreaks of poisoning in the first week of October, and have continued
uninterrupted in a sort of permanent mobilization in the city.
The
populist leitmotif repeated by President Saied on every occasion to
assert his political line and conduct: “the people want…”, has backfired
in recent years, being sarcastically reprised by protest and opposition
movements, asserting what the people really want.
In the aftermath
of October 7, 2023, the Palestine support movement criticized the
Tunisian regime, chanting in the streets, “The people want a law that
punishes normalization (with the Zionist regime N.d.A.).”
On
October 15, a historic demonstration of 50,000 people chanted, “The
people want the dismantling of polluting production facilities.” The
slogan was shouted in front of the factory gates, guarded by army
armored vehicles and police, who fired tear gas to disperse the
protesters, prompting laughter: “They’re not just making us breathe the
factory’s fumes, but also those of the police.”
Young people in the city staged riots that night, erecting barricades and clashing with the police.
A
week of continuous mobilization, day and night, culminated the
following week with the announcement by Tunisia’s sole union, the UGTT,
of a regional general strike in Gabès and a demonstration on October
21st.
This
demonstration outnumbered the previous one. The general strike was
joined not only by unionized workers but also by all businesses and
other types of businesses in the city, which closed down. Not only were
all the shutters of businesses down, but also bank branches, public
buildings, and so on. Over 80,000 people participated in the
demonstration.
The city was one big demonstration, once again repeating the same slogan about what the people of Gabès really want.
Support rallies were also organized in the capital, Tunis, and by the Tunisian community in Paris at the Place de la République.
The Saied regime’s response: repression, defamation, and the blatant mention of a “foreign conspiracy”
Between
October 10th and 20th, dozens of young people had already been arrested
in the city, and an activist was deliberately run over by a police
vehicle during a nighttime demonstration and is hospitalized in serious
condition.
Immediately after the massive demonstration on October
21st, shortly before 2:00 a.m., Saied, in a statement to the media,
using his characteristically bombastic and courtly style, citing
7th-century poets, made implicit threats with rather violent language
and once again evoked a conspiracy by foreign forces operating in the
shadows to control Tunisia’s “Generation Z.”
A few days later, during
the demonstration in Tunis on October 25, activist Ghassen Boughdiri,
who participated in both the overland caravan to Gaza (blocked by
eastern Libyan authorities) and the Global Sumoud Flotilla, was
“kidnapped” by men in plainclothes and loaded into a civilian car. Two
days later, the authorities are still refusing to provide lawyers with
information regarding his whereabouts.
While Saied speaks of a “total
war of national liberation” against the corrupt who are supposedly
behind every economic and social problem in Tunisia, his regime
continues to make economic and anti-migrant agreements with Italian and
French imperialism and the European Union, militarily hosting NATO
exercises in North Africa (with the presence of the IDF) and
participating in them in other countries, and now with the Gabès crisis,
Saied has addressed the Chinese ambassador directly, urging China to
intervene to modernize the facilities with an investment proposal that
will certainly not be unwelcome by Chinese social-imperialism…
The real problem is that the Popular Uprising of 2010-2011 did not achieve its three goals of choghl, hurriya, karama watanya
(work, freedom, national dignity), having been killed by the so-called
“democratic transition,” which aborted the possibility of the Popular
Uprising transforming into a New Democratic Revolution.
There is
therefore a need for a new popular uprising, which overcomes the
illusions of the previous phase and which marches towards a New
Democracy Revolution.
a revolution with an anti-imperialist, popular and democratic character in which all the oppressed classes of the country participate with the perspective of Socialism.
This article is dedicated to the loving memory of Yasser Jerady (1970-2024) a Gabés borned musician supporting with his art all the just causes like the People’s Uprising 2010-2011 the Stop Polluttion demonstrations, workers and antimperialists struggles… He was remembered during these days demonstrations
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