Tunisian revolution

Tunisia: The Founding Statement of the 14th of January Front

Affirming our engagement in the revolution of our people which fought for its right to freedom and national dignity and made great sacrifices, including dozens of martyrs and thousands of wounded and prisoners, and in order to complete the victory against interior and external enemies and to oppose any attempts to crush the fruits of these sacrifices, we constituted "the 14th of January Front" as a political framework which will apply itself to the advancement of the revolution of our people towards the achievement of its objectives and to oppose the forces of counter-revolution. The Front consists of national democratic and progressive parties, forces, and organizations.

The urgent tasks of this Front are:

1. To bring down the current Ghannouchi government or any government containing symbols of the old regime which applies an anti-national and anti-popular policy and serves the interests of the deposed president.

2. To dissolve the RCD and to confiscate its headquarters, its property, its financial assets and funds, since they belong to the people.

3. To form an interim government which enjoys the confidence of the people, of the militant progressive political, social, and trade-union forces, and of the youth.

4. To dissolve the House of Representatives and the Senate, all the existing artificial bodies, and the High Council of the Judiciary; to dismantle the political structure of the old regime; and to prepare the election of a constituent assembly within a maximum of one year in order to formulate a new democratic constitution and to found a new legal system to frame the public life which guarantees the political, economic, and cultural rights of the people.

5. To dissolve the political police and to adopt a new policy of security based on respect for human rights and the rule of the law.

6. To bring to justice all those who are guilty of stealing the people's money, all those who committed crimes against the people like repression, imprisonment, torture, and humiliation, whether in the decision-making or in the execution, and finally all those who are convinced of corruption and diversion of public goods.

7. To expropriate the former ruling family, their close relations and associates, and all the civil servants who used their positions to grow rich at the expense of the people.

8. To create jobs for the unemployed; to take urgent measures to grant unemployment benefits and provide greater social security and health care coverage; and to improve the purchasing power for the employed.

9. To build a national economy in the service of the people where the vital and strategic sectors are under the supervision of the State; to renationalize those institutions which have been privatized; and to formulate an economic and social policy which breaks with the liberal capitalist approach.

10. To guarantee public and individual freedoms, especially freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of the press, information, and thought; and to release prisoners and to promulgate a law of amnesty.

11. The Front hails the support of the popular masses and the progressive forces in the Arab world and the whole world for the revolution in Tunisia and invites them to continue their support by all possible means.

12. Resistance to normalization with the Zionist entity, its penalization, and the support for the national liberation movements in the Arab world and the whole world.

13. The Front calls on all the popular masses and nationalist forces and progressives to continue the mobilization and the struggle in all forms of legitimate protest, particularly in the streets, until the proposed objectives are achieved.

14. The Front hails all the committees, associations, and forms of popular self-organization and invites them to widen their sphere of intervention to all that concerns the conduct of public affairs and various aspects of everyday life.

Glory to the martyrs of the Intifada, and Victory to the revolutionary masses of our people!

Tunisia, 20 January 2011

League of the Labor Left
Movement of Nasserist Unionists
Movement of Democratic Nationalists
Democratic Nationalists (Al-Watad)
Baasist Current
Independent Left
Tunisian Communist Workers Party
Patriotic and Democratic Labour Party

The original joint statement in Arabic was published on the Web site of the Tunisian Communist Workers Party: .

En français. URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/tunisia250111.html