More Desperate Dictator Housewives - Episode 5 - Is Leila's Brother on the run in Canada?

Belhassen Trabelsi: 'What's this all aboot, eh?'

The saga continues. The last time I left you, the Ben Ali family had fled Tunisia Lane with Leila having pocketed 1.5 tonnes of gold in the process. In today's episode, Leila Ben Ali's brother, stud muffin Belhassen is reported to be with his family hauled up in a ritzy hotel in Quebec, Canada. Well, at least they can speak French. As the BBC reports, Canada has revoked Mr Trabelsi's residency permit and has moved to seize the billionaire's Canadian assets. So when did he get Canadian residency then?

Mr Trabelsi and his family reportedly arrived in Montreal on a private jet last week after Mr Ben Ali was ousted. Officials at the Tunisian embassy in Ottawa have asked Canada to arrest and extradite Mr Trabelsi. The Canadian government have made it quite clear and very public through the media that they will comply with this request from Tunisia Lane.

It is believed Mr Trabelsi and his family fled the Chateau Vaudreuil Suites Hotel (the dump pictured above) in Montreal on Thursday, and their whereabouts remain unknown. He and his family could very well be doing a 'Thelma and Louise' type rampage through the backwoods of Quebec for all we know, so here's a picture of the guy just in case you've seen him.
By the way, he, the former president and other close relatives of his are now wanted by Interpol. So Saudi Arabia... will you follow through?

All this has answered some and posed new questions. First of all, despite the rumours Yasser Arafat's widow Suha is definitely not married to Belhassen. Second, how come and for how long has Belhassen had Canadian residency? The bigger question though is how come only NOW that the Ben Alis are now being called to question by international justice for their crimes? They have been plundering Tunisia for 23 years but until recently, namely when WikiLeaks released secret US State Department cables just over a month ago detailing the corrupt practices of the ruling Ben Ali and Trabelsi families did many people beyond the Arab World became aware of their excesses. Now that they have been toppled, the World is feeling mighty proud of itself that it is chasing these people for their crimes. But where was the West before? These crimes have been going on for decades but only now, after they've been kicked in the teeth by the Tunisian population is the West doing anything about it. I mean, Canada had even gave Belhassen residency! The likes of the Ben Alis and the Trabelsis have been able to get away with robbing Tunisia and its people of its wealth, prosperity and opportunity thanks mainly to the West's support and ignorance. This is a fact not lost on the Arab World and in other parts of the world where many of the desperate dictators and their housewives rule. No wonder the USA is worried about what is happening in Egypt... thanks to the work of their embassy staff, as evidenced from WikiLeaks, the USA and the West is aware of the consequences their bad and hypocritical support of dictatorships will have. And to take the disgusting level even lower, thanks yet again to WikiLeaks, we know that the West has been fully aware of the level of crimes being committed by dictatorial cliques such as the one formerly ruling Tunisia. Still, the West supported (and still supports) them just like they have Egypt, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan... the list goes on. Retribution will be meeked not just on the corrupt rulers but also on the signs of power that kept whole populations living in repression and poverty. That means the West, especially the US government will have to face the music too, and believe me, it won't be pretty.

As always, stay tuned for more developments...

More Desperate Dictator Housewives - Episode 4 - Did Leila take the gold?

Suha Arafat must be loving this! As Tunisia descends into chaos, so too do the wild rumours and gossip about the Ben Alis. Zine Ben Ali, former Tunisian dictator took off with wife Leila and 'family' to exile in Saudi Arabia (hey, well Uganda's Idi Amin eventually sought refuge there.... after Libya kicked him out). But just in case you haven't heard, the Paris daily Le Monde had a story the other day claiming that Leila Ben Ali had personally turned up to Tunisia's central bank to pick up 1.5 tonnes of gold just prior to them leaving the country. According to French security sources, Leila's trip to the bank happened in December, when unrest against her husband's rule started in Tunisia. The bank's governor apparently refused her demand and asked for a written request for the gold, said to be worth 45 million euros. The president initially refused to make such an order before giving in to his wife. Leila then left Tunisia before returning to the country, and that the gold bars were reportedly taken to Switzerland.

OK, so did this really happen? Well, doubts crossed my mind when I heard variations of this story, whereby Leila turned up to the bank one day, told to get lost, she went running to hubby crying, she must have threatened that she won't dye his hair jet black anymore because he then gave the order for the gold to be handed over, and furnished with writ, she turned up at the bank again and personally took the gold.... right. Le Monde also reported that the gold did not go to Switzerland but was on the private jet with the Ben Alis on their way to Saudi Arabia via Dubai. The plane though was rumoured to be going to France first, but Sarkozy had a change of mind and forced the plane to land in Sardinia (directly north of Tunisia) where it 'refuelled'. This gave time for the French to work out how to handle the Ben Alis, resulting in them being banned entry in France. Of course, Nesrine, Zine and Leila Ben Ali's daughter - the one who is married to that 28 year old guy who owns everything, and huge entourage were also at some plush hotel at Disneyland Paris just now. One report I saw has them already out of France and in Saudi Arabia... but other reports are saying that Nesrine and entourage are still there at the expensive Castle Rooms. Go figure!?

My issue with the gold story is that not even Leila and her superhuman belief in herself would be able to just carry 1.5 tonnes of gold away in her Prada handbag - that would take a lot of strength to achieve, and something that would not go unnoticed. So I am tending to believe the Tunisian Central Bank's denials of this gold incident ever happening. Besides, why would Leila want 45 million euros worth of gold now anyway. She and her family definitely have much more stolen wealth than that whittled away anyway for them to live quite comfortably and trashily happy ever after.

Nevertheless, what I, as well as millions of Tunisians, would like to see is corruption charges being laid on the Ben Alis. If Julian Assange can be placed on the Interpol most wanted list without even being charged with any crime and face judicial proceedings in such efficiency, then surely an arrest warrant and likewise swift procedures can also be applied in this case with the Ben Alis? I mean, what's the bigger crime here? Let's see what this world is really made of, especially in its priorities when it comes to crime.

More Desperate Dictator's Housewives - Episode 3 of Tunisia's Leila Ben Ali

THEY'RE GONE!!!!

I can't believe it... Zine Ben Ali is no longer president of Tunisia. He has been toppled from power. Well done Tunisia! Let's hope this is a start of a new and transparent Tunisia.

So what's going to happen to Leila Ben Ali and the Trabelsi clan now???? Stay tuned!

More Desperate Dictator Housewives - Episode 2 of Tunisia's Leila Ben Ali - Could 2014 be her year?

Tunisian President Zine Ben Ali (right) with presidential baton. Who will he pass it on to? His wife Leila (left) says 'pass it to me, douchebag'!

Last time I left you in Tunisia Lane, the ambitious Leila Ben Ali, missus to Tunisia's president for almost a quarter of a century, Zine Ben Ali, had been subject to much gossip and scandal by the US embassy, involving Leila, her family and Mrs Palestine Suha Arafat. Well, since then Tunisia has erupted. The people have demonstrated against the endemic corruption, mass unemployment and the bleak future ahead of them if the Ben Alis continue with their reign. Of course, in the benevolent way that they are, the Ben Alis responded first with bullets (60 people have died... but 6 people shot dead in Arizona have had more coverage) and now with a series of rather cosmetic appeasers. First, Ben Ali announced an inquiry into weeding out corruption, which has to be a joke. If he really needs overpaid public officials to tell him where the corruption is, then he really is senile. He could try looking at all of the people around him for starters. How's about that 28 year old son-in-law that has the cruise line and hotels and everything else? Or the darling wife?

But Zine Ben Ali has now said another joke - he won't be recontesting the top spot come presidential elections in 2014. Stand-up must be his thing. Oh well, it was to be expected as then he will be 79 years (and still with jet black hair) by that time, so he would have been on the way out anyway by then. Big question now is who is he going to groom as his successor? I mean, he's not gonna let go to chance. If anything, these demos, lightly described as 'violent clashes' (more like 'massacres', but hey, the West still supports Ben Ali... had 60 been killed in Venezuela though...) show that the 90% support Ben Ali supposedly received at the last 'election' was a joke. So his cronies have known that they need to keep the system going or else they will be quickly shown out. Naturally, that ever-so-successful son-in-law looks like a possible. Keeping it in the family is all the rage these days in these types of systems. North Korea did it (and they're going for round 3 now too!), so did Syria (and they even lowered the minimum age in becoming prez there from 40 to 34... wow, what a coincidence that it matched the exact same age as the late president's son's age), Egypt is heading that way, Azerbaijan did it, and not to be outdone, remember the Bush family in the US?

Move over Alexis Colby, here is Leila Ben Ali, complete shoulder pads, come to take control of Denver Carrington.. erm... Tunisia. 'I shall fire you all on the spot and replace with you with a board who will approve the merger'

But there is someone far more experienced and more cunning who sees that it would be foolish not for to be as le supreme... well, la supreme - Leila Ben Ali herself. I mean, she's been running the country for her benefit most of these years. And she sees no unemployment problem - all her relatives are employed so she's satisfied. So far, she's been keeping quiet, but she has to be up to something. I wonder what Suha in Malta is thinking now? Perhaps how karma is a mean bitch.

Stay tuned... we definitely have not seen the last of this soap opera, otherwise known as the misery that the long suffering Tunisians have had to endure for decades.

More Desperate Dictator Housewives - Tunisia's Leila Ben Ali

Tunisia's president Zine Ben Ali and his wife Leila. Guess who wears the pants?

If one thing can be said about the cables appearing via WikiLeaks and selected media, the officials at US Embassies are a bunch of gossipy queens who love reporting on the intriguing developments of the Dynasty-esque lifestyles of dictators and their families. And I don't blame them! Why follow the comparatively dull proceedings on Wisteria Lane when you have the likes of Azerbaijan's Mehriban Aliyeva and Uzbekistan's Gulnara Karimova providing more than enough (shocking) entertainment.

Central Asia, though, does not have a monopoly on such shenanigans. WikiLeaks have published cables from the embassy in Tunisia giving details on the corruption orchestrated by the 74 year old Zine Ben Ali and his family. Tunisia follows the set pattern when it comes to corrupt dictatorships - dictator runs country like a mafia fiefdom, is massively rich despite the general population being extremely poor, has family members and spoilt kids in control of the economy and in positions of power (and act above the law with immunity), lots of kickbacks and pay-offs, and then there's the obligatory glamorous but despised wife. This character would like to see herself as an Evita Peron though her public more see her as Lady MacBeth. In Tunisia's case, it's Leila Ben Ali (née Trabelsi). As the cable details, the 53 year old and her family are involved in many shady deals and practices, much to the ire of the Tunisian public. Along with the numerous allegations of Trabelsi corruption are "often barbs about their lack of education, low social status, and conspicuous consumption". The cable is fascinating gossip - have a read of what no longer can be read in Tunisia here, now that the government there blocked the sale (along with access to its website) of the Lebanese newspaper publishing these cables.

Some background on madame Leila. Apparently, as internet gossip goes (who needs priest wives anymore), she was previously a simply salon owner but she was also Zine Ben Ali's mistress (then prime minister). The ambitious minx made sure she became pregnant to her married lover, lied to him and told him she was having a boy (very cunning!). Unhappy with his first wife (who bore him a daughter) and eager for a son, Bel Ali divorced and brought Leila into his new career as president, installing himself after dethroning former president and founder of Tunisia, the dictator Bourguiba, in a 1987 medical coup in which the senior president was declared senile - which was true and constitutional permissible. Leila gave birth to a girl, but Ben Ali was president now and divorcing while head of state was not acceptable (though Bourguiba did, but he dropped a French woman in order to marry a Tunisian woman like any proud Arab nationalist). Leila made the most of her new status and soon enough her whole family was benefitting handsomely from privatization schemes in the 1990s. Securing “loans” from banks, the Trabelsis established their own hotel chain, airline and travel agency (The Karthago Group). It is also rumoured that when Ben Ali’s brother passed away, the Trabelsi’s inherited his drug trade.

Madame Leila looking very Sarah Palin

The details of the Ben Alis' and Tarbelsis' lavish lifestyle are given in this cable. As reported in the Guardian the picture painted of the Tunisian president's son-in-law, Mohamed Sakher El Materi, provides "a striking illustration of the great wealth and excess fuelling resentment of the presidential family." Much like Uzbekistan's Gulnara Karimova, he has achieved so much in his life. How many 28 year olds do you know own a shipping cruise line, concessions for Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche and Renault, a pharmaceutical manufacturing firm, and real estate companies? Jeez, he's done well. Details are also given of an elaborate dinner to woo McDonalds to the north African Mediterranean state with "ice cream and frozen yoghurt brought in by private plane from St Tropez", and of the family's pet tiger named Pasha, who lives in a cage and consumes four chickens a day. This "reminded the US envoy of Uday Hussein's lion cage in Baghdad". Hmmm... interesting that.

Nesrine and Mohamed Sakhner El Materi

But wait, the plot thickens. There's a new person in Tunisia Lane - Yasser Arafat's widow, Suha Arafat. Oh, she's a piece! Coming from a rich Palestinian Christian family (her father was an Oxford-educated banker), she married PLO leader Yasser Arafat, 44 years her senior, in 1990. However, they rarely spent much time together as Suha much prefered living in Paris. She did give birth to a daughter with the Palestinian leader - Zahwa in 1995. Despite most Palestinians living in abject poverty, Suha was notorious for her extravagant lifestyle and expensive shopping excursions, funded from the alleged US$100,000 a month stipend she was receiving from the Palestinian Authority coffers, which in turn was financed from generous aid packages provided by Western countries.

Yasser, Zahwa and Suha Arafat

With the French prosecutors starting to investigate the large sums of money being transferred to her account and the death of her husband in 2004, Suha and daughter quickly made their way to Tunis, where they were greeted with open arms by the Ben Alis and later given Tunisian citizenship in 2006. This is where the soap opera really takes off. As the US cable explains, Suha had a long association with Tunisia and even held a Tunisian diplomatic passport, but still embassy officials were puzzled as to why she would go for citizenship. The only reason they could see for this was "that Tunisian law forbids foreigners to own agricultural land", which the US ambassador Robert Godec cattily (but correctly) added that La Arafat "is not known to be an aspiring farmer". The most likely reason why is that La Arafat was setting up a company to build an international school in the country and Tunisian laws (when applied) only allow for citizens to have majority shares in such undertakings.

Lurking behind all this was the rumour that not only had Suha been in a relationship with her best friend Leila Ben Ali's brother, Belhassen, they had secretly married. Oooh! Check out the stud muffin....

However, as in all soap operas, things aren't what they seem to be. The Tunisian government quietly revoked Suha Arafat's Tunisian citizenship less than a year after awarding it. As this cable testifies, the possible reasons for this are numerous. There had been a major falling out between best friends Suha and Leila, partly to do with the repercussions of the new international school they founded (and Suha had invested 2.5 million euros in). In true greedy, power-mad style, La Ben Ali closed a rival, prestigious private school so as to force Tunisia's elite to send their little darlings to the new school started by her first ladies club. This resulted in a major backlash by the students' parents. Suha Arafat apparently told her best friend that she had crossed the line by doing this, to which a furious La Ben Ali retaliated by ordering her (now former) best friend's citizenship be taken away from her. Arafat at the time was on a visit to her brother in Malta who happens to be the Palestinian ambassador there.

In another twist to the story, the word has it that it wasn't Leila Ben Ali who ordered the rival school to close but Suha Arafat herself! And Leila was so, so, so mad about this that she took it out on that bitch Suha, who responded with a 'talk to the hand'. Then other 'theories' (i.e. gossip circulating around Tunis - you know, what the hairdresser had heard but promised to not tell anyone) that Suha Arafat had called Qaddafi and said 'gimme money', to which Qaddafi then called Ben Ali and told him off for not looking after Suha. Then there's the rumour that Suha ran off with loads of the Ben Ali's assets (which they had stolen anyway, but that's beside the point). Finally, this whole citizenship revoking saga could all be revenge for Suha having broken the heart of Leila's brother Belhassen. Wow, Krystle and Alexis on Dynasty have nothing on this!!!

With Suha stuck in Malta with her ambassador brother after being betrayed by her best friend Leila, what's a gal supposed to do? Of course, blab all the insider info of the Ben Alis to the US embassy. Don't tell anyone but Suha said that: the Tunisian president remained weakened by his battle with cancer; he simply does what his wife asks him to do; Leila Ben Ali and her family are stealing everything of value in the country; madame Ben Ali believes that she will succeed her husband as President of Tunisia and she dropped the American curriculum that had been planned for the international school because she fundamentally wants nothing to do with Americans, among other tidbits. The claws were out!

That's where the story is so far. Suha and her daughter remain in Malta, in a house apparently funded by Qaddafi, and has been very quiet. Perhaps she may make a surprise reappearance in a later episode of Desperate Dictator Housewives?

I don't know why the US State Department have been embarrassed by these cables when you have ambassadors like Godec making points in their cables like in this case that " Suha Arafat has an ax to grind with the Ben Ali clan, so her allegations must be taken with a big grain of salt." The US State Department is reporting it as it is. What is embarrassing is that the US government continues to support these countries, in contradiction to the principles it allegedly stands for and promotes. As these cables allude, much to the frustration of the ambassadors involved, the US government though sees the only alternative type of government ever cultivating in these types of client states are mini-Irans. So it's the lesser of two evils, so to speak. Fair enough. Please, could you just be honest that that is the case then. Otherwise don't go taking the moral high road of 'promoting democracy and freedom of expression' if these principles are not actively promoted in those client states that need them.