“I have turned from a struggler against the French to a struggler for my basic rights,” says 73-year-old Juma Jhinawi. “I demand a decent house, a wage to maintain my dignity and a good and safe life.”

“I have turned from a struggler against the French to a struggler for my basic rights,” says 73-year-old Juma Jhinawi. “I demand a decent house, a wage to maintain my dignity and a good and safe life.”

Tunisian rebels like Jhinawi, who fought against the French to liberate Tunisia in 1961, are attempting to make their voices heard. They say their role in liberating Tunisia has not been as respected as the martyrs and wounded from the 2011 revolution.  Political parties, they say, have neither heard their demands nor have the successive governments honored them. The National Constituent Assembly (NCA) still has not proposed a law to compensate French resistance fighters, as is the case with the revolution wounded and the families of its martyrs.

The liberation battle of 1961 led to 670 Tunisian casualties and 1,155 injured. Some of those who participated in that battle to ensure dignity say they currently live a life with no dignity. They claim their rights have been marginalized and their health, social and psychological conditions have deteriorated. Some do not even have health care and others are homeless.

Jhinawi sleeps in the bus station on part of a paperboard box and rests his head on a small bag full of clothes. He has no shoes and his rag-covered body shakes with disease. He is nearly blind.

Jhinawi believes he responded to his country’s appeal and contributed to the expulsion of the French, but now as he grows old, no one responds to his appeal. “The combatants against France have the right to be financially compensated, especially with their old age and physical disabilities.”

Proof of patriotism

Jhinawi’s fellow veteran rebels show certificates proving their participation in the Bizerte crisis—evacuation of the last French soldier from the Tunisian territories— and they still move among central and regional departments demanding grants, pensions or aging compensations, but to no avail.

Having watched the Minister of Human Rights and Transitional Justice, Samir Dilou, talking to the media about transitional justice and about compensating those affected by the two former regimes prior to the revolution from 1959, Abdullatif Jabnoni, a participant in the Bizerte crisis, went to the Ministry of Human Rights headquarters, holding documents and signs of the French bullets, hoping that he would meet Dilou and ask for his help in acquiring a plot of land as a form of compensation.

With confidence of a rebel proud of heroic glory mixed with bitterness of humiliation and negligence, Jabnoni complained of a physical disability he had been suffered from the Bizerte crisis, preventing him from work. He added that he did not get any financial aid from the state because the officials of the two former regimes distributed aid, grants, commercial licenses and jobs to the rebels belonging to the ruling party only.

Hussein Ben Hidda too, from the town of Haffouz in Kairouan Governorate (Central Tunisia), talked about harsh social conditions. He said he enjoyed no grant or social coverage and had no source of income to sustain himself and his family although he had a “combatant” certificate, which lost its value considering his deplorable condition.

Struggler Belqassem Haji suffers from diabetes, making him bedridden while being unable to cover the cost of treatment.

An employee at the Kairouan Social Care Center said there was no service, office or social program concerned with veteran strugglers and that they were dealt with as ordinary elderly citizens and consequently had to contact local offices and submit applications and documents to get social assistance just like any other person, without privilege or exception.

Abdullatif Jabnoni explained that those who followed Bourguiba enjoyed many privileges, while his opponents, especially supporters of his archrival Salah Ben Youssef, became hated and the authority ignored their contribution to the evacuation war.

This was confirmed by Mahmoud Weslati, president of the Kairouan branch of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights, who said, “No one cares about these strugglers or listens to their calls for help.”

A place in history

Jawhar Senussi, grandson of the fallen Sadiq Senussi, who was assassinated in 1954, said his family demanded that the authorities honor his grandfather, suggesting that students should be taught the fighters’ biographies and that history, which he considered “distorted for political purposes” should be re-written. He believes that resistance fighters should be a source of pride for successive generations and to be paid tribute, honored and financially and morally rehabilitated by the state.

Mahmoud Qweah, an NCA member for the ruling Ennahda Movement, underlined the state’s duty to redress the strugglers according to the transitional justice policy. He suggested the need to re-write the history of the national movement and spoke about forging and “labeling” some intimates of the regime while marginalizing and repressing opponents, such as the “Fellagha” and supporters of Ben Youssef.

Regarding the transitional justice bill, he explained that it covered the militants from 1956 up to the date of approval. “They should be given their right, rehabilitated and honored,” he said.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki honored some freedom fighters on Independence Day (March 20, 2013) and tried to treat them fairly, but this recognition has not so far become a policy pursued by the state in accordance with regulated laws.