Word: tunisians
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...politician with a barometric response to popular mood, shrewd Habib Bourguiba recognized that his only hope of heading off a national swing to neutralism lay in putting himself at the head of the anti-French parade. Bourguiba ordered 400 French civilians out of the Tunisian-Algerian border area "for security reasons," demanded that France close five of her ten consulates in Tunisia, directed his U.N. delegation to request an immediate Security Council debate on the Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef bombing. In his most drastic move he also demanded immediate withdrawal of the 22,000 troops that France has been permitted...
Moving enthusiastically to enforce Bourguiba's order confining all French soldiers to barracks, Tunisian National Guardsmen threw up roadblocks, and armed civilians dug slit trenches around France's ten Tunisian bases. Three men set up a machine gun at the canal at the entrance to the great naval base of Bizerte to bar the entrance of further French vessels. At other bases, food supplies were shut off. When a French diplomat formally requested permission to revictual the garrison, Vice Premier Bahi Ladgham told him coldly: "Leave Tunisia and you can find all the food you need." Should...
...Sacred Interests. Bourguiba, whose ill-equipped army of 6,200 men could not conceivably stand up to a serious French attack, was taking a major gamble. "I have promised the Tunisian people that the French army will go," said he. "If I fail, I will be swept away." Clearly, any successor in such circumstances would be far more hostile to France and the West...
...forgot the bombing in their outrage at Bourguiba's move. Foreign Minister Christian Pineau announced that France had offered to negotiate withdrawal of her forces from Tunisia, but only if Bourguiba ceased his "pressure and provocation." Declared Pineau grandiloquently: "France intends to defend her interests, and the Tunisian government must understand their sacred character." To offset Bourguiba's U.N. appeal, Pineau lodged a countercomplaint with the Security Council, charging, accurately enough, that Tunisia had permitted Algerian rebels to operate from Tunisian soil. Said Pineau: "We are the accusers...
Second Thoughts. All week long France's allies worked feverishly to find a solution that would save face all around. In New York members of Britain's U.N. delegation scurried about trying to drum up support for a demilitarized Tunisian-Algerian border patrolled by a force similar to the UNEF in Gaza. One obvious objection to this scheme: it would severely handicap the Algerian rebels by depriving them of their privileged sanctuary and would thereby damage Bourguiba's prestige with his countrymen, the bulk of whom ardently support the rebel cause. In Paris U.S. Ambassador Amory Houghton...