Clinton in Tunisia to press post-revolt reforms

[March 17, 2011]  TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, visiting Tunisia on Thursday for the first time since protesters toppled their longtime autocratic ruler, urged the country's interim leadership to enact the economic and political reforms demanded by the public.

"We need a plan for economic development, for jobs," she said. "The Tunisian people deserve that."

During a visit to a Tunisian Red Crescent training center, Clinton said, "The revolution created so many hopes, and now we have to translate those hopes into results."

Tunisian Red Crescent, which has received donations from the United States, has taken the lead in helping refugees from its war-torn neighbor Libya.

"We know you are stretched and you have really stepped up and performed in a humanitarian way with such professionalism," Clinton told Red Crescent workers. "Yet we also know that Tunisia has its own needs right now and we want to be sure that we help you meet both the humanitarian needs on the border and the humanitarian needs inside Tunisia."

She donated the first of two U.S. ambulances to the training center.

Clinton is also meeting Thursday with Tunisian civic leaders, students and rights activists to encourage them to keep up pressure for change as she wraps up a Mideast tour that took her to Egypt with a similar message earlier this week. Her trip underscores U.S. concern that gains made since the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt may be lost to impatience or to the rise of new extremist or authoritarian leaders.

The Tunisian revolution, which ousted longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January, emboldened anti-government protesters throughout the Arab world.

The Obama administration is still grappling with unrest throughout the region, including violent clashes in Libya and Bahrain.

[Associated Press]

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