Press Release
Men of Djemna Expose the Government’s Lies
(Translated)

On Sunday, 9/10/2016 the people of Djemna sold their share of dates from the palm trees in an auction, the official at the Ministry of Finance in charge of state property issued a statement threatening the people of Djemna, claiming that they have seized the land owned by the state by force. And many of the media colluded with the government to portray the people Djemna as rebels and anarchists. Some of them called for the application of the law which in this case means the militarization of "Hancher" Djemna, like the militarization of "Wahat" in Al-Fawwar to prevent people of Al-Fawwar from its use and benefitting from it..

The tale of Hancher Djemna began in 1912, on that day the French settlers stole the land from our people in Djemna and punished all those who stood up against them from the land owners, they imprisoned and tortured them, and confiscated their property, and then enslaved the people of the region. When the French settlers were expelled out of Tunisia, during the days of the so-called agricultural expulsion (12/5/1964) instead of handing the land back to its owners, the government took hold of the land and made it a state property! All successive governments at the time of Bourguiba mismanaged it, and the squandering of wealth and wasting of the land continued at the time of Ben Ali, who rented out "Hancher" Djemna to some influential for an annual fee that did not exceed, at best, 40 thousand dinars. Then came the revolution, against the regime of corruption, so our people had their lands back in Djemna in January 12th, 2011 and they cultivated it skillfully, they work as qualified farmers who knew the value of land and of palm trees. In only 5 years (2011 to 2015) the crop yield reached 6.142 billion dinars. It means that our people in Djemna managed to achieve in 5 years that which the state could not achieve since its inception 60 years ago!

What happened in a small town in southern Tunisia reveals the following:

1- The State and its media mouthpieces with their continuous rhetoric have pushed that the cause of the economic crisis is the lack of production of Tunisians, that they do not have jobs nor create wealth and are waiting for the state to feed them!!! They were exposed by the people Djemna through their hard work and efforts, they produced wealth beyond what the state produced by 30-fold or more! This revealed to everyone that Tunisia is full of people who are able to invest their wealth by themselves. This means that there is no need for foreign companies to come under the pretext of investment and employment. This would spoil matters for the colonialists and their agents in the government; it will show the deception of the Investment Conference to be held on 29-30 November 2016. It is an insulting conference to the people of Tunisia because it makes them look incompetent in investing their wealth. The truth is otherwise.

2- The success of the people of Djemna, exposed the corrupt laws governing agricultural land, whether it is state-claimed ownership (which is mostly the land belonging to the people of Tunisia before it was stolen by the French colonizers) or the so-called socialist land, according to the system laid down by the late Bourguiba, for the existence of laws disruptive to farming in Tunisia and halts the use of most of the land. The province of Qibli (for example) of the largest of the Tunisian provinces in terms of area, only 2% of its land is taken advantage of, for farming, while the remaining 98% is not in use due to silly laws. Knowing that Qibli province now produces 65% of dates which is a high economic cost-effective commodity.

3- Governments in Tunisia do not rule nor care after the affairs of the people, and today it is under the full control of the International Monetary Fund and the European Union and the World Bank who deceived the successive governments, and their “experts" and decorated for them the excessive deadly debt policy, which left them drowning in debt and still drown in them, to incapacitate them from repayment. Then they will push the Tunisian government to hand over the assets of wealth in the country to manage and exploit them under the pretext of debt repayment. These assets will not be in the energy sector (oil, gas, phosphate ...) because the energy sector was already handed over by Ben Ali and his ministers to British companies (Petrofac, British Gas and OMV). Only the fertile agricultural lands are left which were obstructed by successive governments since Bourguiba and Ben Ali to this day, and the evidence for that is the leaks of the government's proposals to the House of Representatives about the ownership of foreigners in Tunisia and then the leaks about the farce law to grant citizenship to foreigners in exchange for 7000 Euros in order to legitimize their possession of the most fertile land according to the government’s law, if those lows are not passed, the colonizers will resort to control the fertile land through long-term lease mechanism mirroring their ownership, no wonder then our people will wake up one day to find that Western settlers have returned (after they thought they had achieved agricultural expulsion in 1964) and owning their land and its resources through the laws of Parliament, that MP’s are pursuing to make a legislation. The most serious of such legislation is the deep comprehensive agreement with the European Union and its main articles relating to the agricultural sector.

Which speaks volumes that the eyes of European colonialism is pointing towards agricultural lands, and that it is using the House of Representatives in Tunisia, to change the laws on land ownership to make it even easier for colonial companies to put their hands on our land and control our food security.

O Muslims in Tunisia:

Events in Hncher Djemna show, as in Kerkennah, Al-Fawwar, Tataouine, Kairouan, and Essouassi, that Tunisia:

Does not lack men, its youth are men looking to work night and day, but weak governments obstruct their way and narrow it down and cause them to be pushed either under the (mercy!) of unmerciful banks or wait for a foreign investor to employ them.

Does not lack the money (and we mean by money here: the money, agricultural land and underground resources which provide significant possibilities for heavy industry).

But the government, through the capitalist system, imposed by the world powers, is the real cause of the crisis in Tunisia; because they have followed the financial policies that caused the dinar value to deteriorate every day, and it weakened or betrayed and surrendered the underground resources to the colonial companies. Then now it is preparing to hand over the fertile land to new developers, under the pretext of applying the laws of the Ministry of State laws, which are the lows of Ben Ali. The government seems to have returned to the people waving the big stick, and surrounded Wahat Al Fawwar with barbed wire and made it under the authority of the army. It seems they want to repeat this with Hencher Djemna, knowing that it is heading to the militarization of wealth regions in the south, especially in the desert (Qibli and Tataouine).

Here we address our officers and our soldiers: The basis of your work is to protect Tunisia and its people from their enemies who are scheming against the country and its people, and it has been made very clear to you that this government has surrendered totally to the colonial departments. After forsaking the fortunes of Tunisia, it is heading, under the control of the European Union, to hand over the land to the new developers once again. Does this please you, to prevent the people of the country from the reconstruction of their land and its use? Do you support the government and members of Parliament in colluding to hand over the Tunisian land to the colonialist? Did you forget that you gave oath in the name of Allah (swt) to protect your people and your country? Is it not high time that you protect your country and your Ummah and your wealth, and stand with us to uproot colonialism and its servants from our country? It is clear to you and for all to see that Tunisia is not short of men and money, but it lacks the great system of Islam that will open the way in front of the people and helps them to give without return or harm. And they lack a righteous leadership from them and they are from it that does not befriend their enemies from the colonists who plot against the country, but will be the shield and their security and their leader to pride and dignity.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
in Wilayah Tunisia