Former Tunisian ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali dies at 83

Former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali,
an autocrat who led his small North African country for 23 years before being
toppled by bloody protests that unleashed revolt across the Arab world, died
Thursday. He was 83.
Ben Ali, who had lived in Saudi Arabia since fleeing
Tunisia in 2011, died in Jeddah, lawyer Mounir Ben Salha told the Associated
Press. The former president was receiving treatment for prostate cancer and
hospitalized last week.
His body is to be transferred to Mecca, awaiting the
family’s decision on burial arrangements, Ben Salha said.
Ben Ali’s ouster on Jan. 14, 2011 amid Tunisia’s
Jasmine Revolution inspired what became known as the Arab Spring, a movement
that saw many autocratic leaders swept from power.
Ben Ali was widely detested and convicted repeatedly
of corruption in Tunisia after he went into self-imposed exile. But some loyal
supporters called for his return as economic and security troubles plagued the
country’s new democracy.
As president, Ben Ali’s picture was plastered for
decades on billboards and buildings across the country, his face remaining
strangely ageless despite the passage of time, his hair still jet-black. It
seemed that only death would end his grip on power.
But as revolt swept Tunisia in late 2010 and early
2011, fueled by anger over corruption, repression and unemployment,
demonstrators set fire to the president’s photograph, a once-unthinkable act.
His image eventually peeled off buildings and billboards nationwide like old
wallpaper.
Ben Ali promoted his country of 11 million as a
beach haven for European tourists and a beacon of stability in volatile North
Africa. It seemed as though he had offered his people a tradeoff: There was a
lack of civil rights and little or no freedom of speech, but a better quality
of life than in nearby countries such as Algeria and Morocco.
Tunisia’s revolution changed all that, spawning a
plethora of political movements and the only democracy to emerge from the Arab
Spring movement across the region.
The United States and other Western powers had an
ambivalent relationship with Ben Ali. WikiLeaks cables from the U.S. Embassy in
Tunis described widespread allegations of corruption among the president’s
family, described Tunisia as a “police state” and said Ben Ali had lost touch
with his people.
But Ben Ali tried to curry favor with the West
through an ongoing crackdown on extremists that human rights groups said was
far too brutal and too broad, targeting as potential terrorists anyone with a
strict interpretation of Islam.
Born Sept. 3, 1936, near Sousse, a city of white-
and sand-colored houses on the Mediterranean, Ben Ali embarked on a career as a
professional army officer. He was responsible for Tunisia’s internal security throughout
a 1985 confrontation with neighboring Libya and a crackdown on Islamic
fundamentalists.
He was briefly prime minister in 1987 before setting
his sights on the presidency.
In a bloodless coup, Ben Ali seized power from
then-president-for-life Habib Bourguiba, the founder of modern-day Tunisia who
set the Muslim country on a pro-Western course after independence from France
in 1956. Ben Ali removed Bourguiba from office for “incompetence,” saying he
had become too old, senile and sick to rule.
Ben Ali promised then that his leadership would
“open the horizons to a truly democratic and evolved political life.” But after
a brief period of reforms early on, Tunisia’s political evolution stopped.
Most opposition parties were illegal. Opponents were
jailed or fled into exile. Amnesty International said authorities infiltrated
human rights groups and harassed dissenters. Reporters Without Borders branded
Ben Ali a “press predator” who controlled the media.
Ben Ali consistently won elections by large margins.
In 2009 he was re-elected to a fifth five-year term with 89% of the vote. He
had warned political opponents they would face legal retaliation if they
questioned the vote’s legitimacy.
Under Ben Ali’s watch, Tunisia was relatively
untouched by the kind of Islamic extremist violence that wracked neighboring
Algeria, except for a 2002 attack on a synagogue on the Tunisian resort island
of Djerba that killed 21 people, mostly German tourists. Investigators linked
the attack to al-Qaida.
After the 2011 revolution, Islamic fundamentalism
surged in some quarters and security services struggled against extremists
linked to the Islamic State group.
Ben Ali is survived by his second wife. Leila
Trabelsi and their three children, as well as three children from his first
marriage.