Official response varies as protests continue to disrupt life in Middle East

TUNISIAN PRIME minister Mohamed Ghanouchi announced his resignation yesterday following the deaths of three protesters during mass demonstrations on Saturday. He said he did not want to continue taking decisions that ended up “causing casualties”. His decision to step down came six weeks after then president Zine al-Abidin Ben Ali fled the country following a month-long popular uprising against his rule.

As fresh protests erupted in southern Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave cabinet colleagues 100 days to improve public services or face dismissal.

Twenty-seven protesters were injured outside the provincial council building in Amarah, 320km southeast of Baghdad, where they took up the chant, “You are a government of liars who give only false promises!”

Mr Maliki’s ultimatum followed Friday’s countrywide demonstrations against the failure of the post-war authorities to deliver electricity, water and jobs.

At least 18 and, perhaps as many as 29 Iraqis, died in confrontations with security forces and hundreds of dissident intellectuals and professionals were rounded up and detained.

The government is likely to face fresh criticism for failing to prevent Saturday’s attack on the main oil refinery at Beiji north of Baghdad.

Five employees were killed and one of the units set on fire, disrupting supplies of oil for generators, petrol and diesel.

In Oman, two protesters were killed in the industrial town of Sohar, 200km northwest of the capital, Muscat, when police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators demanding political reforms. On Saturday, the ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, replaced six cabinet ministers in a bid to mollify an increasingly strident reform movement which staged a rally in Muscat last week.

Yemen’s seven opposition parties announced that they were joining the movement calling for the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since 1978. On Saturday two influential chiefs from his own tribe announced they no longer supported him as hundreds of thousands rallied in the capital, Sanaa, Taiz, and the port of Aden. Clashes in the town of Malla left 18 injured.

In a television broadcast, Mr Saleh said the armed forces would “defend the security of the nation as well as [its] unity, freedom and democracy . . . We will fight to the last drop of our blood.”

In southern Egypt, villagers blocked the main Assiut-Cairo highway and set fire to three government buildings and a building housing the former ruling party to protest against corruption as 2,000 provincial civil servants went on strike.

On Saturday, Egypt’s ruling armed forces council apologised for an attack mounted early that morning by military police on activists camping in Tahrir (Liberation) Square. Twenty-five were arrested and many others injured when they were assaulted with clubs and tasers in the first confrontation between the democracy movement and the military since former president Hosni Mubarak was ousted on February 11th.

Critics argued that constitutional amendments put forward by a panel appointed by the military did not go far enough.

If endorsed in a referendum in April, the amendments would limit future presidents to two four-year terms and open presidential elections to competition, preventing anyone from ruling virtually unopposed as Mr Mubarak did for 30 years.

In Bahrain, separate mass marches paralysed districts of Manama, the capital, where protesters called for King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa to be ousted and condemned the security forces for attacks that have killed seven people since the beginning of demonstrations inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

Among all the Arab world’s pro- tests, only those in Bahrain have been sectarian, mounted by the 70 per cent majority Shia against the Sunni ruling family.

In Beirut, 500 people rallied to calls for an end to the confessional system of governance imposed on Lebanon by France after the first World War.

Under this arrangement, Maronite Christians, who now constitute 18 per cent of the populace, hold the presidency; Sunnis, at 20 per cent, hold the premiership; and Shias, who make up nearly a third, hold the parliamentary speakership. The demonstrators called for a secular government.

In a petition posted on the internet, 123 Saudi academics, activists and businessmen called for thoroughgoing reforms and the establishment of a “constitutional monarchy”. This demand prompted the detention of activists in 2004 and 2005.