Tunisia union ends protests in violence-hit Siliana town

More than 300 wounded in five days riots

SILIANA, Tunisia, Dec 2, (Agencies): A Tunisian trade union on Sunday called an end to a general strike that triggered five days of violence fuelled by disappointment nearly two years after the country’s revolution.

“We decided to suspend the general strike,” Ahmed Chefai of the UGTT union’s executive board for the town of Siliana told a crowd of around 100 people.

He did not specify for how long the suspension would last but said they were waiting for the implementation of a deal negotiated on Saturday with the government dominated by the Islamist party Ennhada.

The agreement provides for sidelining Governor Ahmed Ezzine Mahjoubi, a speedy review by the courts of those imprisoned in April 2011, funds to care for the wounded and a development programme which must still be clarified.

“The governor is permanently gone. He belongs to the past, he will never set foot again in Siliana,” said the union leader as the crowd broke into applause.

He also that a delegation of the UGTT had asked reinforcements deployed in Siliana since Tuesday to withdraw in keeping with a key demand made by the protesters.

More than 300 people have been injured in five days of violence in Siliana after mounting clashes, strikes and attacks by hard-line Islamists known as Salafists across Tunisia that have plunged the country into a political impasse.

The violence also came ahead of the second anniversary of the revolution, triggered on December 17, 2010 when a young fruit and vegetable seller set himself alight in the town of Sidi Bouzid to protest against police harassment.

The protest saw the exit of former strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and ignited a wave of similar protests across the Arab world.

Protesters in Siliana have been demanding the governor’s resignation, financial aid and the withdrawal of police from the town, blaming it for the violence this week.

Meanwhile calm prevailed on Sunday in Siliana, southwest of Tunisia, and in neighbouring regions where clashes on Saturday night pitted police and protesters.

Tunisian security forces fired tear gas and live rounds into the air on Saturday to try to disperse thousands of protesters in a town that has seen days of clashes over economic hardship.

National guard forces belonging to the Interior Ministry fired tear gas and rounds from inside armoured personnel carriers in the town of Siliana, southwest of Tunis. “Get out, get out!”, “With our blood and soul we sacrifice ourselves for you, Siliana” and “Siliana will be the graveyard of the Ennahda party” the protesters, who numbered about 3,000, chanted while throwing stones at security forces.

Police chased protesters down streets.

The Islamist Ennahda party that won Tunisia’s first post-Arab Spring election last year is struggling to revive the economy of the north African state due to lower trade with the crisis-hit euro zone.

Disputes also continue between secularists and hardline Salafi Islamists over the future direction of the country.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki asked the Islamist Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali in an address on state television on Friday to appoint a new cabinet in response to the protests. Zohra Krifi, a Siliana resident, shows a tear-gas canister a day after clashes between protesters and riot police in Siliana, Tunisia, Dec 1. The army moved into a southwestern Tunisian town, an official and witnesses said Friday, the fourth day of protests that have injured more

than 300 people. (AP)