* U.S. secretary of state warns against return to autocracy
* Encourages Islamist, secularist forces to work together
* Tunisia was cradle of the "Arab Spring" revolutions
* On Algeria stop, Clinton to talk about upcoming vote
(Updates with Clinton comments in Algeria)
SIDI BOU SAID, Tunisia, Feb 25 (Reuters) - U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Tunisians on Saturday
to protect their newly won freedoms and called on Islamist and
secular parties to work together in the country that inspired
the Arab Spring.
Addressing about 200 students, Clinton urged young people to
use social media and other technologies that enabled popular
revolts last year to hold their new rulers to account.
"After a revolution, history shows it can go one of two
ways. It can move in the direction you are now headed, building
a strong, democratic country, or it can derail ... into
autocracy, into new absolutism," Clinton said in a meeting an
Andalusian-style seaside villa.
"The victors of revolutions can become their victims," she
added. "You must be the guardians of your democracy."
Clinton spoke during a swing through North Africa that has
been dominated by the violence in Syria, where forces loyal to
President Bashar al-Assad have kept up attacks on civilians and
opposition forces seeking to end his family's four-decade rule.
On Friday, she attended a gathering of nations known as the
"Friends of Syria" that sought to increase political, economic
and moral pressure on Assad to step down.
Russia and China have vetoed two U.N. Security Council
resolutions designed to end the violence and other nations
disagree sharply on whether to arm the Syrian opposition to help
them fight Assad's forces.
In Tunisia, a popular revolt forced autocratic leader Zine
al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country on Jan. 14, 2011 and the
country has become a model for democratic change in the Middle
East, inspiring revolutions that toppled autocratic rulers in
Egypt and Libya.
The North African country has since calmly elected its own
government, defying predictions it would descend into chaos,
while Ben Ali's secret police have been disbanded and the news
media enjoy unprecedented freedoms.
ISLAMIST RESURGENCE
For all its progress, however, Tunisia's political scene has
quickly grown polarised, with secularist parties and trade
unions bitterly opposed to the moderate Islamist Ennahda party
which dominates the new government.
"There are those here in Tunisia and elsewhere who question
whether Islamist (politics) can really be compatible with
democracy," Clinton said.
"Tunisia has the chance to answer that question in the
affirmative and to demonstrate there is no contradiction ... and
that means not just talking about tolerance and pluralism, but
living it."
From Tunisia, Clinton flew on to neighbouring Algeria. That
country was largely untouched by the Arab Spring uprisings, but
its leaders now face pressure to allow more democracy.
Algeria votes on May 10 in a parliamentary election in which
Islamists, boosted by the resurgence of Islamists elsewhere in
the region, are mounting a strong challenge. Parts of the
secular establishment, especially the powerful security
services, are opposed to giving the Islamists any power.
At a meeting with about a dozen civil society activists in
the Algerian capital, Clinton said people in countries in the
region "need and deserve the opportunity to make decisions on
behalf of themselves".
She said little about Algeria's election. A senior U.S.
official said she would talk to officials "about the steps they
can take now to encourage wider participation in those
elections, to encourage those elections to be reflective of the
Algerian popular sentiments".
Robert Danin, a former State Department official now at the
Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Washington, said he
saw little chance of the elections leading to meaningful change.
"I remain sceptical of the military handing over real power
to the Islamist opposition should it win elections in Algeria,"
Danin said.
"(While) there will likely be efforts to project a free and
fair electoral process, the chances seem limited that this would
lead to a real and fundamental relinquishment of power."
(Editing by Christian Lowe and Maria Golovnina)
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