TUNISIA: Good Offices from Friends

At his residence near the ancient ruins of Carthage early last week Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba held a business luncheon. Though the matters Bourguiba wanted to discuss were of vital interest to France, his guests were not Frenchmen. They were U.S. Ambassador Lewis Jones and British Ambassador Angus Malcolm. "This," commented a French diplomat in Tunisia, "is exactly what we have always tried to prevent; yet today we are grateful that it is occurring."

For years French governments fought jealously to keep Britain and the U.S. from "meddling" in France's North African sphere of interest. But the thesis that whatever happens in North Africa is purely a French concern was blown sky-high in the bombing of Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef (TIME, Feb. 17), and with the outraged Tunisians openly talking of war, even the French themselves could no longer maintain it. It was not over France's protest but at French invitation that the U.S. and Britain last week agreed to use their "good offices" toward settling the French quarrel with Tunisia.

The Price of Mediation. French acceptance of U.S. and British good offices had one great immediate advantage for the Western alliance—it headed off, at least temporarily, what would have been a highly embarrassing U.N. Security Council debate on France's conduct in North Africa. Delighted at the prospect of U.S. involvement in North African affairs, Habib Bourguiba quickly agreed to defer Tunisia's demand for immediate discussion of the Sakiet bombing. France, for its part, accepted postponement of debate on her counter-complaint charging the Tunisians with giving aid to the Algerian rebels.

In Tunisia itself neither disputant seemed so reasonable. When France defied Bourguiba's demand for the closing of five French consulates, Tunisian police forcibly shut them down and evicted their staffs. Bourguiba appeared to be adamant in his insistence that France must evacuate not only the dozen or so minor French garrisons scattered throughout Tunisia but also four airstrips and the vast naval complex of Bizerte, which is the French navy's most important Mediterranean base after Toulon.

At Remada in southern Tunisia the French army gave yet another demonstration of its irresponsibility. Angered at the destruction of a French jeep and the wounding of two Frenchmen by a land mine planted on Remada Airstrip, the local French commander promptly seized the senior Tunisian official in the area, held him incommunicado for twelve hours. This high-handed treatment of a government official in his own country provoked a new wave of Tunisian anger.

Men for Trouble. The politicians in Paris were not much more restrained. The sole gesture of French regret for the treacherous Sakiet bombing was vitiated when Foreign Minister Christian Pineau felt obliged to emphasize that "if France plans to indemnify certain civilian victims [at Sakiet], it is without recognition of any responsibility." The French, in fact, seemed to be under the illusion that Tunisia was still one of their colonies. "Bizerte," said Pineau flatly, "will remain a French base." The only "concessions" the French were prepared to make were ones that served their self-interest, i.e., a proposal to set up a Franco-Tunisian commission to prevent future border violations by the Algerian rebels.