AN-NAHDHA LEADER JEBALI: MODERATE ISLAMISM IS THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L TUNIS 002298

SIPDIS

NOFORN
SIPDIS

NEA/MAG FOR HARRIS
LONDON, PARIS FOR NEA WATCHERS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/30/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER TS
SUBJECT: AN-NAHDHA LEADER JEBALI: MODERATE ISLAMISM IS THE
FUTURE

REF: A. TUNIS 670


B. TUNIS 2065

C. TUNIS 2155

D. 05 TUNIS 1423

E. 91 TUNIS 4553

Classified By: CDA David Ballard for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C/NF) Summary: In an August 30 meeting, Hamadi Jebali, a
former leader of the unauthorized Tunisian Islamist political
party An-Nahdha, described the party's political views,
continued GOT oppression, his recent release from prison, and
defended "moderate Islamism" as the political future of
Tunisia and the Arab World. Jebali defended An-Nahdha's
"non-violent philosophy", contrasting it with the more
radical philosophies of young Tunisian Islamists. He said
that An-Nahdha sought to be "a part of the dialogue" in
Tunisia, a message that was communicated in a letter to
President Ben Ali by nine former An-Nahdha leaders, but that
currently the country suffered from a "suffocating lack of
freedoms." End Summary.

Background on Jebali
--------------


2. (C/NF) Poloff met with former An-Nahdha leader Hamadi
Jebali on August 31 at his home in the coastal city of
Sousse. Jebali has been in internal exile in Sousse
following his release from prison in February 2006, and is
reportedly not allowed to travel outside of the Sousse
governorate. Jebali was sentenced in 1992 to sixteen years
in prison for his alleged participation in what the GOT
described as an "attempted overthrow" of the Government. He
had previously been imprisoned several times, beginning in
1990, on charges related to his role as publisher and editor
of Al-Fajr, the official newspaper of An-Nahdha. According
to Jebali, he spent eleven years of his prison sentence in
restricted conditions, either in solitary confinement or with
other political prisoners separated from the general prison
population. Jebali is a engineer by training, specializing
in solar energy. He received his master's degree in
engineering from the University of Paris, France, where he
lived for nine years before returning to Tunisia in 1981.
According to Jebali, it was at this time that he became
politically active with the Mouvement de la Tendance
Islamique (MTI, the precursor to An-Nahdha),having become
increasingly involved in Islamist and Islamic studies circles
in France.


3. (C/NF) Poloff spoke with Jebali for over two hours.
Jebali was warmly welcoming, articulate, lively, and largely
focused on Tunisian issues. Uncharacteristically of civil
society and opposition contacts, he did not take the rare
occasion of a meeting with a U.S. official to complain about
U.S. actions or policy in Lebanon, Israel, or Iraq, except to
say, when asked, that the USG "had not understood the
complexity of Iraqi society."


An-Nahdha Structure
--------------


4. (C/NF) Jebali described An-Nahdha as separated in three
sections: former party leaders and adherents living in
Tunisia, those in Europe, and those still serving sentences
in Tunisian prisons. He described An-Nahdha in Tunisia and
An-Nahdha in Europe as "one in the same." He categorically
stated that he and his fellow An-Nahdha leaders in Tunisia
recognized that Rachid Ghannouchi, currently living in exile
in London, is the leader of An-Nahdha. He claimed that
"Ghannouchi belongs in Tunisia, and his exile is a great loss
to the country."


An-Nahdha's Political Views
--------------


5. (C/NF) In response to a question about the political and
social policies of An-Nahdha's form of Islamism, Jebali
related an anecdote from the 1989 legislative elections, when
An-Nahdha ran and, according to Jebali, won a majority of the
national vote, despite the official GOT announcement that the
Islamist party had garnered only 12 percent of votes cast.
Jebali said that a few days after the election, a journalist
from the French newspaper Le Monde said that he had learned
(Jebali believed from French Embassy sources) that An-Nahdha
had actually won the election, with over 60 percent of the
vote. The journalist asked Jebali what he and the party

would do next. According to Jebali, An-Nahdha was completely
unprepared for a victory. He said that the party had no
desire to run the country, that it was inexperienced and
incapable of governing on its own. Jebali said that days
after the election, the GOT declared that An-Nahdha had won
only 25 percent of the vote, and "on that day decided that
they would wipe out An-Nahdha". (NOTE: Although Jebali cited
25 percent as the official vote tally for An-Nahdha,
international media cited 12 percent as the official figure,
and most accounts place the total between 15 and 30 percent.
END NOTE).


6. (C/NF) Jebali said that this anecdote revealed the group's
motivations in that An-Nahdha would have sought, and still
wanted, a progressive entry into Tunisian politics, where the
group would share power as part of a consultative process.
He stated that An-Nahdha had not had as its goal an Islamic
Republic, nor did it want a coup d'etat: "How could we
maintain our economic ties with Europe after a coup," Jebali
asked. When asked if An-Nahdha advocated Shari'a law, he
said no, and that he had recently replied in the same manner
during an interview for London-based Pan-Arab newspaper
Al-Hayat, a response which he said "the Saudis were not happy
with" (NFI). He said ideologies shouldn't be implied by
force, that regimes that imposed their will by force were
weak, and would be toppled at the earliest opportunity by
those they governed. Jebali said that "there is a problem"
in other Islamic parties where "everyone believes they have
the divine truth, and no one accepts criticism." Jebali said
there is a truth, but it's not he or his fellow politician's
role to give it: "In the social and political world, we are
just one party like the others."


7. (C/NF) When confronted that what he was describing sounded
like a secular government, he said that decisions he made
would be influenced by personal convictions of Islam. He
said he separated his practice of religion, including
prayers, from that of his role in the public arena, "outside
of personal life", where he is "one of many" and subject to
criticism. He said that most moderate Islamists think like
that, and that this was more the case now than in previous
decades, when groups "didn't talk to Communists, didn't
accept pluralism". Now, he said, "you can see Muslim
Brotherhood collaborating with other groups." He said that
beyond Shari'a, the overall idea of Islam is "justice,
freedom, and peace." He said the example of pluralism in
Turkey, including Islamist parties, should be held up by the
USG. He finished by reasserting that "the Tunisian
Government knows very well that we are moderate, that we are
not radical -- not terrorists."


8. (C/NF) Jebali said that An-Nahdha was against using
violence. When asked about terrorist attacks on Tunisian
hotels in 1987 attributed by the GOT to An-Nahdha, Jebali
confirmed that the perpetrators were indeed "sympathizers of
An-Nahdha," but were not tied to the movement's leadership.
Jebali asserted that the GOT had tried to link the attackers
with An-Nahdha leadership and attempted to coerce confessions
of a link from the detained attackers, offering legal
incentives such as reduced sentences, to no avail. Jebali
said that if An-Nahdha was truly a terrorist organization,
its leaders would not have remained in prison 15 years
without a single terrorist attack organized in an attempt to
free them. When asked about the GOT charge that An-Nahdha
leaders had plotted a coup d'etat in the early 90s, Jebali
again gave an excited denial of such a goal: "How could we
carry out a coup? Within days the French Army, the Algerian
Army, and the (U.S.) 6th Fleet would be in Tunisia. A coup
would not last 24 hours!" Jebali also denied that An-Nahdha
members either in Tunisia or abroad had links to active
terrorist organizations. He said the GOT would like nothing
more than to find such a link to prove that An-Nahdha was in
fact a terrorist organization. "They have spent all their
resources trying to find this link and have not found one
piece of evidence," he commented.

GOT Measures Against An-Nahdha
--------------


9. (C/NF) Jebali described a stifling political environment
in Tunisia. He said "all Tunisians, especially those who act
out politically against the government, are in a prison,"
where they are not allowed to express themselves or associate
freely. Jebali commented that after his release, he had
moved "from a small prison, to a large one." He reported
that the GOT prevented him from working, or traveling, and
that the same restrictions applied to his family. He
explained that the GOT did not withdraw outright his work

permit, but said that if he were to open an office, the GOT
would post police outside to question anyone seeking to do
business with him, thus effectively preventing him from being
employed. He added that his daughter had recently lost her
job after the governor of Sousse called the CEO of her
company, demanding that she be fired for her relation to
Jebali. Jebali claimed that his house was filmed and watched
by police. He said neither he nor his family can receive
passports, and he is not permitted to travel outside the
govenorate of Sousse. (NOTE: Despite Jebali's claim of
employment restrictions, his house in Sousse was large and
well-furnished, and well-decorated. He spared no expense on
hosting poloff either, with several rounds of food and drink.
END NOTE)


10. (C/NF) Jebali said that fellow An-Nahdha leader Ali
Laaridh has been convoked by Tunisia police six times since
his release from prison in November 2004. Each time,
according to Jebali, he is told to not "speak in the name of
An-Nahdha" and not to be politically involved. Laaridh has
reportedly been accused of speaking with An-Nahdha associates
in Europe, and "each time he is called in" he has been
threatened with being sent back to prison. Jebali said he
himself has not been convoked, because he is not permitted to
travel from Sousse, where he has little opportunity for
political involvement. Jebali however said he faces an
upcoming trial on a "false charge" from 2002 of bribing a
prison guard to circumvent prison censors in delivering a
letter to his wife. Jebali described this charge as a
mechanism for the GOT to send him back to prison should he
become "too active."


11. (C/NF) Jebali said that on July 23, nine former An-Nahdha
leaders wrote a letter to President Ben Ali saying that the
group was "ready to turn the page", and seeking dialogue to
organize "political life" for former An-Nahdha members.
Jebali said that the group had received no response but that
one of the signatories was convoked to a police station and
interrogated as to how the group organized itself to draft
and send the letter. Jebali added that "all problems in
Tunisia are treated from a security point of view."


12. (C/NF) Jebali continued that there was a clear red line
for An-Nahdha leaders: they could not present themselves as a
political party, nor act in a political fashion. He said he
was unclear where the USG stood on the issue of whether
An-Nahdha should be allowed to be a political party. He said
it is an error to think that An-Nahdha should not be
authorized as a party, and that he felt that France, and
perhaps the U.S., was comfortable treating An-Nahdha as a
human rights concern, but not as a political concern.

"U.S. Faces a Dilemma"
--------------


13. (C/NF) Jebali said that the U.S. faced a dilemma in the
Arab World: If Arab leaders allow democracy in their
countries, they will fall, most likely being replaced by an
Islamist power of some nature. This was a theme Jebali
returned to often in the discussion. He said that the U.S.
should reach out to moderate Islamist groups, which were the
future of the Arab World. He cautioned that the USG and the
West had supported Arab regimes for too long, and that with
no moderate Islamist alternatives, young Islamists in Tunisia
and elsewhere were expressing themselves through the only
political option available: extremism. He said that this was
evident from the number of young Tunisians traveling abroad
to "wage jihad" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Young Generation Not Able to Hear
An-Nahdha's Message of Moderation
--------------


14. (C/NF) As an example of the generational division among
Tunisian Islamists, he recounted that while in prison he and
fellow An-Nahdha prisoners had developed a friendly rapport
with prison guards, talking, joking, and telling stories.
Jebali said that when "young Islamists arrested for security
reasons" began in recent years arriving at the prison in
which he was detained, the guards complained that "they could
not even talk to" the young Islamists. Jebali said these
young Islamists "are of a completely different mindset",
close-minded, prone to violence, and a product of GOT
oppression and pan-Arab media. (NOTE: The dichotomy between
"old Islamists" and "young Islamists" in Tunisia prisons has
also been described by our ICRC interlocutors. See Ref D. END
NOTE)


15. (C/NF) Jebali predicted that "the future of Tunisia is
somber." He said that Tunisia had limited water, energy, and
other natural resources, a young population, and huge demand
for employment. He said that while the GOT "sells the idea
that there is security and stability in Tunisia, this
security is based on repression." He said Tunisia's path was
to "wait for an explosion," and that to prevent such an
explosion Tunisians had to be permitted more freedom of
expression and association. Noting that free elections had
brought Hamas to power in the Palestinian Territories, Jebali
said that, to many young Arabs living under oppression,
violence was the only option. Jebali again pointed to the
divisions between the non-violent older generation of
Islamists, and young Tunisian Islamists. He said that
younger Tunisians, "even those close to me, for example my
son-in-law," claim that An-Nahdha is "too moderate." Jebali
conceded that the number of young Tunisians drawn to more
radical forms of Islamism would be of concern if a free and
fair election were to be held in Tunisia. Jebali said this
had resulted from An-Nahdha's inability to promote its
moderate message.

Comment
--------------


16. (C/NF) Apart from the dire and frequent warnings from the
GOT that An-Nahdha is a terrorist and extremist organization,
many of our secular opposition and civil society contacts,
themselves stridently anti-regime, also warn us "not to be
fooled" by An-Nahdha's talk of moderation. Jebali, the most
senior An-Nahdha official with whom we've met in recent
years, indeed presented what he undoubtedly assumed to be a
"West-friendly" description of An-Nahdha's politics -- no
Shari'a law, democracy with full participation, etc.
Jebali's insistance that more freedom of expression and
freedom of association is necessary for Tunisia's long-term
political development closely echoes our own Freedom Agenda
goals in Tunisia. However, the question of whether An-Nahdha
would continue to promote these moderate policies if they
were an authorized participant in the Tunisian political
process will not likely be answered anytime soon, as the GOT
continues to block any attempt of the group to organize or
participate politically. The GOT, cognizant of the political
successes of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood and faced with
signs of increased religious practice among Tunisians, most
visibly evident in a sharp increase in the number of Tunisian
women wearing hijab, is undoubtedly concerned that an
Islamist party competing in elections could gain a
significantly greater share of the vote than the 15-30
percent An-Nahdha reportedly won in legislative elections in
1989, during a time of greater secularism in Tunisian
society. End Comment.
BALLARD