Word: amar
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Last week Pierre Mendes-France's government decided on one more attempt to settle Tunisia's growing unrest by peaceful means. Tunisian Premier Tahar ben Amar was summoned to a delicate conference in Paris. Ben Amar could not give much ground, or he would be scorned and disowned by hotheaded compatriots. Mendes' Minister for Moroccan and Tunisian Affairs, a Gaullist named Christian Fouchet, was under heavy pressure by his fellow Gaullists to show an iron hand in North Africa. Thus, with neither man left much room for maneuvering, Fouchet and Ben Amar dickered for days, trying...
Finally they reached agreement, with Tahar ben Amar making most of the concessions, and calling for a bottle of aspirin. The formula grants amnesty for the fellaghas, provided they lay down their arms. The Tunisian protectorate was divided into 21 "operational areas." To each of these, Tunisian government delegates, accompanied by French officers, are being dispatched this week. By posters, leaflets dropped from airplanes, public announcements in mosques, the offer will be proclaimed. Those fellaghas who turn in their arms within six days will be allowed to go their way without punishment or harassment of any kind. If the amnesty...
...angry at Mendès' promise of autonomy within the French Union. They denounced Mendès-France as a "Judas Iscariot"; planeload after planeload of them went tearing off to Paris to protest his "sellout" to their powerful representatives in the National Assembly. Paris told Premier Ben Amar that Tunisian independence was at best a "stated principle," which could not possibly be implemented until "arrangements" have been made to secure the colons' special interests-investments, privileges, jobs...
...Amar, a practical man, accepted the French restrictions without a murmur...
...when Premier Ben Amar submitted his cabinet list to the new French Resident General, Pierre Boyer de la Tour du Moulin, it was the Frenchman who would not accept. Only after Ben Amar dropped two out of six Neo-Destourians was his ten-man team approved. Every man on it is a moderate (what the French call "calm"). This week at a formal investiture, they kissed the right palm and left shoulder of the Bey of Tunis, received his "blessing of Allah...