Madmen at the Helm by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach

Author:Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Garnet Publishing (UK) Ltd
Published: 2014-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

The last cables published by WikiLeaks are from 2009, and they contain oblique references to torture in Tunisian prisons, as well as direct reports of political corruption and lack of basic freedoms.

Leila’s lifestyle was indeed scandalous in the eyes of the Tunisian people. The Sidi Dhrif palace, which she had built in Sidi Bou Said, was more a temple than a residence. The army was mobilized for its construction, which took five years, with workers labouring day and night. Several ministries were brought in to oversee specific tasks, the Agriculture Ministry, for example, which was responsible for planting trees. The massive structure housed a private clinic with top-notch medical equipment including facilities to provide for Ben Ali’s chemotherapy treatments, and it was well staffed. ‘The staff consists of two governesses, five cooks, two pastry cooks, three plumbers, six servants, two office clerks, sixteen chambermaids, three nannies, two electricians, five nurses, eight chauffeurs, 32 bodyguards, two swimming pool attendants, six gardeners and eight permanent painters.’25 At a dinner to which the US ambassador was invited, the First Lady served 12 courses, composed of delicacies specially flown in from France. Only the chickens fed to the pet lion, named El-Materis, came from domestic production.26

True to her promise, Leila installed her family members in the palace beginning in 2002 and in 2005 bought them homes. At the same time, she broke ground in a new field: archaeology. With a fanatical obsession to possess art objects of great value, described as an ‘addiction’, she used her position to redraft zoning laws and expropriate sites with archaeological treasures, to loot the nation’s artistic heritage.27

Leila also launched ostensibly charitable social activities, among them the Basma Association which she founded in 2000, to help find employment for the handicapped. In 2007, she oversaw the construction of the Carthage International School, built on land she received scot free from the government and financed by government money. As Ambassador Godec reported, Leila apparently sold the entire complex to a Belgian group, pocketing a net profit, since she had put no funds into the enterprise. She was also named head of the Arab Women’s Association. Curiously, after the collapse of the house of Ben Ali references to these associations on the Internet were temporarily unavailable.

One particularly ostentatious and lucrative enterprise in ‘women’s affairs’ was the Elyssa Club which she established as a private club only for women. Inspired by a similarly exclusive women’s club which Suzanne Mubarak had invited her to visit, Leila pinched no pennies (of government funds) to build the club with facilities including ‘a restaurant, a ball room, a movie theatre, a room for playing cards, another for playing chess, which was kept closed for lack of any players; a library which will never be visited, a casino, the kitchen and offices, one of them for Leila’.28

With these and other initiatives, Leila succeeded in passing herself off, at least outside Tunisia, as the prime mover for women’s rights, which may have been a deliberate ruse to project

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.