On Jan. 14, Tunisia’s president for life, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, resigned in the face of nationwide protests and fled the country for exile in Saudi Arabia. Media reports indicate his wife brought along a ton and a half of gold bullion. This is a familiar script for besieged tyrants in South America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia. In 1979, the Shah of Iran quit his country in vaguely similar circumstances. In 1986, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier left Haiti with family and filched millions. Duvalier recently returned to that sad land and could face criminal charges.
Tunisia, however, is a predominantly Arab Muslim country, which make Ben Ali’s skedaddle a bit unusual. Middle Eastern wiseguys used to claim that an Arab dictator departed in only one of two ways: by natural death or assassination in the wake of a coup d’etat when another faction of the ruling class decided to place its own strongman in power.
