Ben ali's departure a welcome development - ntuane

LEKOPANYE MOOKETSI
Correspondent | Monday January 17, 2011 00:00

Ben Ali was forced from power by street protests. The interim deputy chairperson of the BMD, Botsalo Ntuane, says that was a welcome development worth celebrating.

'Every dictator who runs a military police state must be celebrated when he falls,' Ntuane says. 'We are looking forward to similar changes in Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe.' Ntuane, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and MP for Gaborone West South, says the people of Tunisia will have an opportunity to usher in a liberal dispensation and that people will always triumph over dictatorship.

He says the regime has collapsed because as a former military man, Ben Ali adopted a doctrine of discipline and turned the country into a military police state.

Recalling his visit to Tunisia a few years ago, he characterises it as a strange experience, saying on the surface, the North African state looked stable with impressive economic and development indices.  It was even getting positive reviews from the international community, he adds. However, there was also a thinly veiled undercurrent of repression and absence of fundamental freedoms in which the people were not free, says Ntuane.

Meanwhile, according to the BBC, security has been stepped up in Tunisia since Ben Ali fled on Friday. Hundreds of troops are patrolling the capital Tunis and a state of emergency is in force.

Interim leader Mohammed Ghannouchi has said his priority is restoring order and hold talks with opposition groups to try to form a unity government. In the past four weeks, protests have swept the country over unemployment, soaring food prices and corruption. Security forces used live ammunition on demonstrators and dozens of people died.

Ben Ali, who had been in power for 23 years, fled on Friday after the unrest culminated in a giant rally against him in Tunis. He flew out of the capital with his family amid widespread speculation about his destination. 

France rejected a request for his plane to land. It was allowed to refuel in Sardinia before land in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Ben Ali was only Tunisia's second president since independence from France in 1956. He was re-elected in 2009 with 89 per cent of the vote.