The Wages of Moderation

A war of sorts, over issues of a sort, was being fought last week by two countries who were sort of friends the day before hostilities. Tunisia and France, joined in the dubious nostalgia of ex-colony and motherland, were firing at each other on Tunisian soil and exchanging bitter charges in the august echo chamber of the United Nations Security Council.

There was every sign that nobody was more astonished than Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba at what he had touched off. True enough, he had some provocation. After giving Tunisia independence in 1956, and promising to negotiate the future of the great Bizerte naval airbase, France has since refused to budge. Then Bourguiba learned that the French, instead of preparing to leave, were planning to lengthen the airstrip.

That was outrage enough for Bourguiba to organize a stylized, Arab-type demonstration. Orators wailed that Tunisians would fight to remove the last remnant of evil colonialism. Crowds ecstatically shouted for action. Roads to the base were blockaded, and Bourguiba warned the French to keep their planes out of Tunisian airspace. Barricades were erected at a safe distance from French outposts.

When the French defiantly sent a helicopter aloft. Tunisians fired a few "warning shots" in its direction. Then, to reinforce the base in the face of these alarums and excursions, the French flew in 800 paratroopers. As the parachutes blossomed down onto the airfield, Tunisians sprayed them with machine guns.

We Will Die. This twist of the tiger's tail was one too many. With a savagery that stunned the Tunisians, the French struck back. Jet airplanes thundered down on roadblocks, blasting them with rockets. Tunisian troops, armed with rifles and light machine guns, were flattened under barrages from 105-mm. howitzers. Evidently disregarding orders from Paris--a tradition with the French army--tanks and armored cars roared 15 miles outside the Bizerte base. Tanks sprayed bullets into the town of Menzel-Bourguiba, nine miles from Bizerte, where the French maintain an arsenal and shipyard. Soon there were 27 Tunisian corpses laid out beneath the stadium bleachers near a sign reading "HalfTime resting place." Ten were civilians. In Tunis thousands had demonstrated, chanting "Na Moutou [We will die]." Few thought they would be taken seriously.

Not content with destroying the barricades and breaking the Tunisian blockade, the French next day launched a full-scale attack on the town of Bizerte itself, which commands the narrow entrance to the Bay of Bizerte (see map). Rocket-carrying planes swiftly blasted out the Tunisians' few artillery posts. Tanks and tough paratroopers pushed into the city from the south; marines swarmed ashore on the harbor side in landing craft, as three French cruisers lurked offshore. The Tunisians fought raggedly through the streets, but they were no match for French striking power. Bizerte was quickly in French hands.

Long Suffering. Despite nearly ten years in French prisons, Bourguiba has been a devoted friend of France, and the West has long considered him the Arab world's most reasonable statesman. He allowed F.L.N. troops to quarter and train in Tunisia, but to their leaders he repeatedly counseled moderation and faith in General de Gaulle. It was Bourguiba who most notably, though unsuccessfully, urged the F.L.N. to accept the French ceasefire. But the Bizerte base was an irritant, particularly as the French no longer considered it essential, and have been gradually reducing its garrison.

Still, Bourguiba displayed enormous forbearance. In January 1960, when De Gaulle was fighting to survive the Algerian Revolt of the Barricades, Bourguiba graciously called off a scheduled "Bizerte Protest Week." As a reward, Bourguiba was invited to Paris last February, welcomed with pomp, and permitted to confer with De Gaulle. He came away glowing, convinced that the general was finally ready to negotiate withdrawal from Bizerte. Hearing nothing further, he suspected the worst; and the airstrip work confirmed his suspicions. Three weeks ago, Bourguiba sent his chief aide to Paris bearing a personal letter for De Gaulle.

"I have struggled for 30 years for free cooperation between Tunisia and France," he reminded De Gaulle, but pointed to "serious evidence that French authorities mean to maintain the status quo and even aggravate it. I am compelled to inform you of our firm and irrevocable decision to put an end to this situation."

Loyalty Spurned. Frostily, De Gaulle replied that France would not negotiate under threats. Instead of backing down in humiliation, Bourguiba gave France 24 hours to talk terms. From the Tunisian Parliament he won unanimous approval for a blockade of the Bizerte naval base. For good measure, he put in his claim for a piece of the Sahara. Tunisia is a small country, with only 3.7 million people, compared with Algeria's ten million and Morocco's 11.6 million. But Bourguiba was anxious for his share, fearing that France might be getting ready to give the whole thing to the F.L.N. Said Bourguiba: "It is not possible for Tunisia to give up its rights over the Sahara, even if there were no oil at Edjele . . . We hope that our rights, our good will and our sincere desire for cooperation will prevent an armed conflict with France and. more understandably, with our Algerian brothers." With that, he dispatched a column of volunteers to plant the Tunisian flag at Sahara Marker 233. 28 miles south of the present border enforced by the French.

Momentary Shock. In the wake of the savage French retaliation, Bourguiba was momentarily shocked into silence. Then he rallied, charged that the French refusal to hand over Bizerte was "dictated by a persistence of colonial mentality and by De Gaulle's own obsession with grandeur." He ordered the French oil pipeline terminus at La Skhira seized, and announced that Tunisia would fight on, "even if the whole world turns against us." Volunteers from "friendly countries" were welcome, said Bourguiba, including those offered by Egypt's Nasser, his old archenemy. His deputy, Bahi Ladgham, grimly summoned U.S. Ambassador Walter Walmsley and declared: "Now is your chance to prove how anticolonialist you are."

The sympathies of the U.S.. torn between big ally France and small friend Bourguiba (U.S. aid comprises 60% of the Tunisian government's budget), was as divided as its arms--which both sides are using against each other. Disregarding U.S. pleas that the dispute should be settled between themselves, Bourguiba demanded an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, where Tunisia accused France of "premeditated aggression." France's U.N. Ambassador Armand Berard retorted that the Tunisian events were "tragic and regrettable," but that "a minor pretext was used by the government of Tunisia--some minor work, involving two or three meters of terrain to facilitate the landing of planes."

At week's end the Security Council debated the relative merits of a U.S.-British resolution urging both sides to negotiate and a U.A.R.-Liberian resolution additionally urging the speedy withdrawal of all French troops from Tunisia, finally settled on an interim resolution calling for a ceasefire. Both French and Tunisians quickly ordered their forces to comply. The battle had cost the French 13 dead, 35 wounded. The Tunisians lost more than 300, with at least 500 wounded.

Question of Ambition. Why had Bourguiba chosen this moment for his gambit? One guess was that he was trying to impress Algeria's rebel F.L.N.. which last week resumed talks with the French at the Chateau de Lugrin, near Evian. In the five weeks since France broke off the talks, the F.L.N. has increased its prestige enormously and won new popularity among Algerian Moslems. Bourguiba, ambitious to lead a united Mahgreb of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, presumably felt the need to demonstrate to the F.L.N. and to the Arab world generally that he is no "imperialist lackey," but can be as anticolonialist and as pan-Arab as anyone. Furthermore, Bourguiba's earnest and devoted friendship seemed to have gotten him nowhere with France, while the F.L.N.'s intransigeance promised to succeed brilliantly.

All in all, the Bizerte incident had badly scarred all concerned. De Gaulle had enraged his best friend in the Arab world and damaged France's standing throughout Africa. Bourguiba's standing with the West was founded on his hard-held contention that cooperation got more than bristling hostility. With his truculence last week, Bourguiba scuttled Bourguibaism. If, as a result, he managed to lever the French out of Bizerte, every rising nationalist would be encouraged to believe that defiance achieved more than the moderation Bourguiba once stood for. Either way. the West would never look at him with the same confidence again.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.