Gazing at Sidi Aish Mountain in mid-western Tunisia, Sharif says he is proud of the duty he performed for his homeland; accompanied by his colleagues whose names are etched in monuments for the roles they played beginning with the French Mandate in 1881 until the Bizerte Crisis in 1961, when Tunisia tried to force out the French by imposing a blockade on the French naval base in Bizerte in northern Tunisia.  The standoff left 630 Tunisians and 24 French soldiers dead.

Gazing at Sidi Aish Mountain in mid-western Tunisia, Sharif says he is proud of the duty he performed for his homeland; accompanied by his colleagues whose names are etched in monuments for the roles they played beginning with the French Mandate in 1881 until the Bizerte Crisis in 1961, when Tunisia tried to force out the French by imposing a blockade on the French naval base in Bizerte in northern Tunisia.  The standoff left 630 Tunisians and 24 French soldiers dead.

Sharif is aware that the war ended when Tunisia gained independence from France in 1956, but he is still haunted by the memory of being dragged along the ground by a tank, with his feet shackled, after he was detained during the night of November 20, 1954, when the French army arrested him in the cave he restored, to avoid the hail of cannonballs and aerial bombing targeting the revolutionists’ battalion to which Sharif had belonged.

At the time, armed resistance was widespread in the central mountains and in southern Tunisia. Time could not erase the incident from Sharif’s appearance; traces are still apparent on his thin body, showing the torture to which he was exposed, including starvation, beatings and electrocutions, which caused him to lose consciousness and eventually suffer partial amnesia.

With trembling hands hardly able to hold his crutch, Sharif sits down carefully; torture practices have left only a little of his steadfastness, long patience and ability to stand.

He had a long journey of pain and torment among dark prisons, during which time Sharif did not utter a single word until his health condition deteriorated and he was finally taken to Sfax Hospital.

“The people thought that I died and started to receive consolation for my death; however, I was taken from the hospital to the military prison in Tataouine (in the southern Tunisia) by a decision of the military court in Tunis, where I was prosecuted. I was released when the Home Ruling Agreement (negotiate by the French Prime Minister and Tunisian Premier, giving Tunisia partial sovereignty) was signed in 1955,” he said.

Hamza, a relative, interfered reminding him of some details: “People were disinterring mass graves, trying to discover his body through his two adherent toes.” People used to identify dead revolutionists through such marks due to face disfiguring.

While recalling prison torments, Sharif’s tears were spilled onto his curly face and could not continue talking, which caused his daughters to cry as they do every time they painfully listen to the experience their father went through.

Drawing many lines on the ground with the crutch, Sharif uttered names of prominent figures killed in national liberation battles, such as Mosbah Jarbou, Farhat Hached, Bashir Ben Sdirah and many others.

“We demand that France apologizes, compensates for its crimes, gives Tunisia relating archive back and reveals the burying locations of revolutionists in deserts and mountains,” he added.

Apology and compensation

Sharif says he is a member of the Youssefian Resisters Society (named after Tunisian Leader Salah Ben Youssef), aiming, in coordination with many other societies in the Arab Maghreb, at calling on the French government to apologize for the crimes committed against humanity and compensate peoples for their stolen riches.  

Law consultant and head of the society, Muhammad Aswad says: “The least that France could do is to pay compensation and apologize. It should be noted that our relations with it will be maintained as strong as it is; however, this does not erase the history,” he added.

Aswad believes that the issue is related to more than 70 years of execution of revolutionists by the French army in public squares for the purpose of intimidating and terrorizing people. The French weapon was raised against struggler Masoud Sheryat who was forced to dig his grave with his own hands. Furthermore, strugglers were detained and tortured, their relatives were punished, and mine and agricultural riches were stolen.

“Ennahda Movement (the Islamic ruling party) ignores real revolutionists, and instead of doing justice to those who took up arms to resist the occupation, it is demanding that the Tunisian people compensate its strugglers,” Aswad said criticizing the current government.

Under the pressure of intensive movement, the Prime Ministry expressed its readiness to raise and adopt these ideas to be submitted to the French government.