From a Jersey tax haven to Tunisia's island of discontent

KERKENNAH, Tunisia - On the Tunisian island of Kerkennah, 90 minutes by ferry from the city of Sfax, all appears calm for the moment - save, perhaps, for the disproportionate presence of gun-toting soldiers cruising around in military vehicles.

Ask island residents about the events of recent weeks, however, and you’ll be offered horror stories of tear gas wantonly launched at protesters by Tunisian security forces who were reportedly shipped over in large quantities from the mainland to deal with the unrest.

The immediate cause of the protests, which commenced in early April, was widespread disillusionment with Petrofac, a self-defined “oilfield service company, supporting clients across the oil and gas asset lifecycle”. Registered in the English Channel island of Jersey (renowned for its tax haven status), Petrofac inserted itself into the Tunisian scene in 2007 and conducts operations at the Chergui gas field concession on Kerkennah in cooperation with Tunisia’s national oil company.

According to islanders I spoke with, Petrofac’s contributions to human and other lifecycles in the area have been less than stellar. A number of the protesters were unemployed university graduates displeased with what they view as the company’s insufficient provision of jobs and resources for the local community. Other common complaints - denied, obviously, by Petrofac - include an increase in pollution and attendant negative side effects on marine life, upon which Kerkennah has traditionally depended for sustenance.

Of course, anti-Petrofac agitation is merely symptomatic of much deeper problems, and protests quickly escalated. Tied up in public discontent are Tunisia-wide allegations of a lack of transparency regarding state revenues from corporate operations, which many suspect are being unjustly funneled away from host communities that are already suffering from economic malaise.

The other day I walked to the Petrofac facility on Kerkennah, a lengthy excursion that confirmed my uselessness at estimating distances and compelled me to then hitchhike back to my place of accommodation. From a point across the road from the entrance to the eyesore - which protrudes from otherwise picturesque scenery involving palm trees and sea - I got a ride with an elderly man, a native of Kerkennah who had spent most of his life in Germany.

Railing against Tunisian police for their teargas-heavy performance, the man lamented that, at the end of the day, the current government in Tunis was no better than the regime deposed in 2011 during the start of the so-called Arab Spring. Both, he said, were comprised of individuals concerned only with maintaining their positions of power and filling their own pockets - not with helping the average Tunisian to survive.

Indeed, when I met recently in the Tunisian capital with representatives of the Observatoire Tunisien de l’Economie (Tunisian Economic Observatory), they put the country’s graduate unemployment rate at between 30 and 35 percent. Given the bleak panorama, it’s perhaps not surprising that some citizens would consider putting an end to their own survival: in January, an unemployed graduate in the town of Kasserine electrocuted himself, setting off protests across the country in a sequence of events more than slightly reminiscent of the fateful suicide in 2010 of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi.

As with Kerkennah, the Kasserine protests were forcibly extinguished.

And while individual financial woes have - to an indeterminate extent - undoubtedly helped solidify Tunisia’s position as a prominent producer of Islamic State (IS) jihadists, the “state of emergency” to which the country appears perennially condemned constitutes a potentially handy tool for suppressing dissent under the guise of counterterrorism.

When such a state was declared last July following the deadly attack on the Tunisian resort city of Sousse, the BBC noted: “The state of emergency gives security forces more powers and limits the right of public assembly.”

Ditto for the latest state of emergency, which in March was extended for the third time following an IS-linked bombing in Tunis in November. On the occasion of the extension, the Associated Press explained that “the move gives the government emergency powers to forbid gatherings.”

In restricting the spaces in which basic freedoms can be exercised, the Tunisian government is of course in good company. That global bastion of democracy otherwise known as the United States of America has spent much of the post-9/11 era engaging in “attempts to squelch dissent,” as the American Civil Liberties Union put it.

As it turns out, there are lucrative opportunities for none other than the US military in the present Tunisian security milieu. On 16 April, The Washington Post reported on the “pivotal role” of US Special Operations forces in counterterror operations in the country. To be sure, there can never be too many excuses for the world’s pre-eminent Homeland to interfere in the affairs of lesser ones.

Back on the battlefield of Kerkennah, meanwhile, security threats have, as of late, emanated primarily from state security outfits - not to mention economic hardship. Some residents are reluctant to speak out of fear for their safety.

You might even declare it a state of emergency.

- Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin magazine. 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Photo: A Tunisian youth shows tear gas canisters that he collected on the ground as he stands on a road that residents blocked to prevent the police and trucks from using it following clashes between Tunisian security forces and residents in Kerkennah island over social protests related to Tunisia's natural gas facility of UK based oil company Petrofac on 15 April, 2016 (AFP).