The Second Battle of Kasserine

From Saturday through Monday, violence has wracked the southern Tunisian towns of Thala and Kasserine. Government reports acknowledge somewhere between eight and 14 dead in the towns; opposition estimates range from 20 to 40 dead. By most accounts government security forces opened fire on crowds using live ammunition (to protect government buildings, the government says), which suggests this second Battle of Kasserine was even more one-sided, if smaller in scale, than the drumming Field Marshal Rommel gave the American Army there in 1943.

As usual, accounts differ. But many photos of dead and wounded are around the Internet, and a bloody video from a Kasserine hospital here.

Meanwhile, Tunisia has canceled all school and university classes indefinitely, and President Ben Ali has spoken to the country again. (Brian Whitaker offers an English translation here of the French text (here, with video of the Arabic original being delivered). He accuses the demonstrators of terrorist acts, of being a small minority exploiting labor problems and provoked by Tunisian prosperity (!). He promises all sorts of good things this year and next.

For the first time I really am wondering if Brian Whitaker is on to something about just how serious this is becoming. This sounds like a regime in the corner, lashing out, uncertain of what to do next. Next door in Algeria they're comparing the riots there to the events of 1988, which led first to a crackdown and then to an opening, In Tunisia they're not comparing the events to anything, because there's nothing — at least since the 1970s — to compare them to.

So far, Tunisia has stayed below the radar in the English-speaking world, where reports of demonstrations have only occasionally mentioned the levels of violence. Whitaker's work for The Guardian and occasional articles elsewhere are the exceptions.

But I've come around from earlier skepticism. This does feel like something we haven't seen before, and thus something we cannot hope to predict the outcome of.