BEN ALI'S JANUARY 14 CABINET SHUFFLE IS A NOD TO

S E C R E T TUNIS 000034 NOFORN SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/15/2020 TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR MARR TU SUBJECT: BEN ALI'S JANUARY 14 CABINET SHUFFLE IS A NOD TO THE U.S., BUT NOT A STRATEGIC REVERSAL REF: A. TUNIS 26 ¶B. TUNIS 25 ¶C. 09 TUNIS 834 ¶D. 09 TUNIS 792 Classified by Ambassador Gordon Gray for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (U) This is an action message. Please see paragraph four. -------------- Summary -------------- ¶2. (C) The main feature of President Ben Ali's January 14 shuffle of his cabinet is continuity, combined with an apparent intent to recalibrate (to what extent remains unclear) Tunisia's relationship with the U.S., which has stagnated in recent years. Our recommendations on initial steps the U.S. should take are in paragraph four. The replacement of Abdelwahab Abdellah, a dour francophone who oversaw the Foreign Ministry's expansion of restrictions on Embassy Tunis activities, with the much more open, U.S.-educated Kamel Morjane, is a clear indicator, as is the appointment of Ousama Romdhani, a former U.S. exchange student, to the sensitive post of Communications Minister. Ben Ali's economic team, including his Prime Minister, remains largely in tact, suggesting the President's appreciation for how it worked to help Tunisia weather the global financial crisis, and the GOT's continued committment to position Tunisia as a business-friendly trade and manufacturing platform. Significantly, Interior Minister Rafik Belhaj Kacem, who oversees the GOT's vast mechanisms to maintain order and repress or vanquish political opposition, remains in place, and we do not believe the shuffle will in itself yield any improvements in Tunisia's human rights record. The movement of the outgoing Justice Minister, a hardliner and enforcer, to the position of Minister of Higher Education does not appear to bode well for academic freedom in Tunisia. (A cable with biographic details of new cabinet members follows septel.) End summary. ¶3. (S/NF) Positive changes in the cabinet come in the context of other recent indications that senior policy levels of the GOT are interested in improving bilateral ties. Intelligence cooperation appears to be back on track. Four U.S. Fulbright candidates received in December long-awaited approval for their courses of study. The coming months will see a series of bilateral military engagements. The U.S. and Tunisia are now very close to signing a bilateral agreement to provide a solid legal foundation for the American Cooperative School of Tunis after a period of uncertainty. -------------- Recommendations -------------- ¶4. (C) Embassy Tunis recommends several steps in light of the cabinet shuffle: -- The Department should prepare as soon as possible a message of congratulations from the Secretary to new Foreign Minister Morjane. (Note: Depending on developments in the coming days, this letter may also be an appropriate place for the USG to express condolences on the apparent death of (Tunisian diplomat and UN official) SRSG Hedi Annabi, in the Port au Prince earthquake (ref B). End note.) -- The Embassy also believes that, with the new government in tact, Assistant Secretary Feltman should start looking at his calendar for a convenient time to visit Tunis to consult with a re-vamped GOT. -- If the Secretary is amenable and her schedule permits, Assistant Secretary Feltman should convey to the new Foreign Minister her interest in meeting with him in Washington. -- The Embassy also recommends that the Department of Defense study the possibility of making the April Joint Military Commission meeting in Washington a counterpart visit for new Defense Minister Grira. -- The Embassy also recommends that Secretary Gates send a congratulatory letter to his new Tunisian counterpart. -- Embassy Tunis also believes that, just as the Ben Ali government is making what appears to be a significant positive gesture toward the USG, (and just as we are very close to inking a hard-fought school agreement),this is not the ideal moment for senior USG officials to publicly chastise the GOT on its (admittedly dismal) record on freedom of expression. -------------- -------------- Sharp Contrast Between Outgoing, Incoming Foreign Ministers -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C) Many political observers in Tunis were taken by surprise by the announcement, released late on January 14, that President Ben Ali would replace Foreign Minister Abdallah, a dour Francophone, with Defense Minister Kamel Morjane, in the context of a broader cabinet shuffle (ref A). Abdallah's tenure at the Foreign Ministry, since 2005, was marked by a sharp tightening of restrictions on the movements and activities of U.S. (and other western) diplomats in Tunisia. Under Foreign Minister Abdallah, even Embassy visits to obscure community development NGOs required government approval through an exchange of diplomatic notes (with requests ignored more often than approved),and Embassy interactions with MFA counterparts likewise were subject to a tedious and lengthy approval process. ¶6. (C) While many of the rumors flying around Tunis in the months leading up to this long-anticipated shuffle were contradictory, most predicted that Foreign Minister Abdallah would remain in favor, and might be designated Tunisia's next Prime Minister or even named to a newly created post of Vice President. (Comment: We predict that, when the dust settles, Abdallah, known to be close to the First Lady and her Trabelsi clan, will land on his feet, perhaps with a new posting as advisor in the Presidential Palace in Carthage, or somewhere else "inside the circle." End comment.) ¶7. (C) Kamel Morjane, the new Foreign Minister, has long been seen as the most pro-American senior official in Ben Ali's government. Morjane, U.S. educated, had worked well with U.S. diplomats during more than 15 years in the UN, including postings with UNHCR in Geneva, Djibouti, and Egypt, and as SRSG in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As Defense Minister since 2005, Morjane has been the cabinet member most accessible, and apparently friendly, to the U.S. Embassy, even as the quality of bilateral defense cooperation has remained erratic and generally below potential. Given the GOT's inherent caution and conservativism, it remains to be seen how much room for maneuver Morjane will have as Foreign Minister to loosen restrictions and tangibly strengthen cooperation with the U.S. -------------- -------------- New Communications Minister - A Censor Who Likes the U.S. -------------- -------------- ¶8. (C) New Communications Minister Oussama Romdhani has held the post (in an acting capacity) since October. The Communications Ministry, which regulates and oversees public media, is viewed as a highly sensitive and strategic organization in a government obsessed with controlling both its image and its citizens' access to information. A fluent English speaker who studied at Georgetown (and earlier spent a year as an exchange student in Erie, PA),Romdhani previously led the Tunisian External Communications Agency, seen by many independent journalists as a censorship mechanism, which it does principally by distributing state advertising to papers and magazines according to their perceived level of loyalty to the government. ¶9. (C) Romdhani's tenure as Communications Minister, which began in fact if not officially in October, has coincided with an unprecedented level of intimidation and repression against independent journalists (although this repression has mainly been implemented by the Ministry of Interior rather than Communications). Though decidedly lacking in credentials either as a reformer or a champion of freedom of expression, Romdhani has consistently kept an open door to senior U.S. Embassy officials, and periodically proven helpful in resolving various technical issues. Romdhani has been a connection we have long valued, particularly given his authority and proximity to the Presidential palace. -------------- Economic Team - Continuity Key -------------- ¶10. (C) Ben Ali has kept his economic team largely in tact. Prime Minister Ghannouchi, the respected, dilligent, pragmatic, and apolitical technocrat, has served in his post since 1999 and with his reappointment appears set to surpass longevity records for senior officials since Tunisia's independence in 1956. Tunis oddsmakers had expected Ghannouchi, reportedly tired after a decade on the job, to move on, but it appears Ben Ali has come to view him as indispensible. Ben Ali also appears to value other members of his economic team - Commerce Minister Ben Mosbah, and Development and International Cooperation Minister Jouni (educated in the U.S.) for the efforts to steer Tunisia clear of the worst effects of the global financial crisis which emerged in late 2008. While Finance Minister Kechich, who probably did more than any other member of the economic team to protect Tunisia from the financial crisis, has been replaced, observers note his tenure was viewed as a success and expect he will be rewarded with a good onward posting of some sort. His successor as Finance Minister, Mohamed Ridha Chalgoum, has been head of the Financial Markets Council, an analogue of the American SEC. Like Kechiche, Chalgoum has a reputation as a competent, apolitical technocrat. ¶11. (C) Also staying on is the U.S. educated Agriculture Minister Abdesalam ansour. Agriculture makes up roughly 11 percentof Tunisia's GDP. Mansour recently sent the Embasy a draft MOU on bilateral agricultural cooperaton. While the GOT draft contained a few non-starters, it could nonetheless offer a structure for mutually beneficial agreement, and the GOT's intiative in proposing the agreement represents animportant opportunity to shore up bilateral technical/economic cooperation. -------------- Repression Likely to Continue Apace -------------- ¶12. (C) Among the most significant aspects of the cabinet shuffle is the retentionof Interior Minister Rafik Belhaj Kacem, which sggests that Ben Ali is satisfied with the way Kaem managed the (profoundly unfair) October 2009 an the harsh campaign of repression against journalists and opposition activists that preceded and fllowed the polls (Refs C and D). Tunisia's Inteior Ministry constitutes, in many ways, a "superMinistry" which casts a long shadow over numerou aspects of daily life in the country and which wields an apparent veto, or at least a strong influece, on decision making at other key ministries. As the Ben Ali government's top "enforcer," Kace's retention suggests the President has no inten to change course on Tunisia's human rights practces. Indeed the clear trend in recent years, paticularly noticeable in the past six months, has ben decreasing tolerance for government criticismand dissent and increasing levels of state repression. ¶13. (C) Another ey government enforcer, Justice Minister Bechir ekkari, who had been distinguished by his use of te judiciary to prosecute and jail government opponents, has been moved to the post of Minister of igher Education and Scientific Research. While mbassy officers have long found it nearly impossble to access university campuses, academic contcts have complained to us about a steady decline in levels of academic freedom in Tunisia, and recen months have seen a harsh government crackdown o student activists. The appointment of Tekkari robably signals the government's desire to furthr clamp down on campus and suppress student activsts who could feed nascent Islamist or other oppostion activities. Tekkari's appointment is also nlikely to improve the percevd decline in academic freedom or improve access to campuses by Embassy officers. GRAY