Johanesburg, February 03: Senior member of Tunisia’s An Nahda party Seyyed Ferjani says ousted Tunisian President Ben Ali will have to pay for the $5 billion that he has stolen from the North African country.
“I can assure you that he will [be held to account]. All of this belongs to the people. It is not out of revenge; it is not out of a grudge,” Ferjani said in his interview with Media.
“This guy, according to Forbes (business information magazine), has got $5 billion in his account. Where did he get it? $5 billion for him only; let alone, his family,” he added.
Ferjani pointed out that in the first few days of the revolt, the looting of supermarkets was actually carried out by Ben Ali’s security forces “to make the people of Tunisia (realize), you want democracy — you will not enjoy any security after my departure.”
He noted that although what happened in Tunisia shocked all the strategists, it was “an inevitability.”
It started with “a protest that transformed into an uprising then into a revolution,” he further explained.
Referring to the fact that the key figures of the former regime such as Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi are still in power, Ferjani warned, “The revolution now in Tunisia is not over yet.”
“It is something that is at its crucial times. Now we have the likes of [the Ousted Iranian Shah’s Prime Minsiter] Shahpour Bakhtiar, who is in charge,” he added.
“This uprising belongs to the people. It is with every single component and the rainbow of the make-up of the Tunisian people,” Ferjani stressed.
Unlike other regime changes throughout the world, which are mostly sponsored by the West, “it is a genuine revolution and it does not belong to any political party, it belongs to all,” he reiterated.
Ferjani emphasized, “This regime should collapse and we should establish a genuine democracy, not a reformed dictatorship. Because no way, after all these sacrifices from every single party, from the Islamists, from the faithless, left, right and whoever you name it, all of them are the real fabric and the real make-up of Tunisia.”
We want a government, which is genuinely democratic, which will put an end to any production of oppression and despotism in the future,” he noted.
——–Agencies