Leans on West but Keeps Wary Eye on Algeria, Libya : Tunisia Shifts to a Balancing Act

TUNIS, Tunisia — The art of Tunisian diplomacy consists of being able to look over both shoulders at once.

Like a mouse caught between two cats, Tunisia must keep a wary eye on its two much larger neighbors, Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast.

It is too small to risk antagonizing either of them, yet the remarkable success of Tunisia’s foreign policy over the years has been its ability to remain the most solidly pro-Western of all Arab states even though it looks, on the map, like little more than a morsel about to be devoured by the two anti-Western giants that flank it.

Policy Shift Seen

To maintain its independence, Tunisia traditionally has relied on its Western friends, particularly the United States and France, its former protecting power. Yet over the past few years, according to diplomats and other analysts here, several factors have converged in a way that is likely to produce at least a nominal shift in Tunisia’s foreign policy by obliging it to moderate its pro-Western posture.

The most important of these was the removal from office last Nov. 7 of President Habib Bourguiba, who is at least 85. Bourguiba’s pro-Western sentiments were so strong that even a U.S. diplomat once described them as “unnatural” for a country of Tunisia’s size and position in the world.

The departure of Bourguiba, who was forced into retirement because of his growing senility, has meant that Tunisia has adopted a more pro-Arab position on regional issues, less out of choice than of necessity.

“Under Bourguiba, people were under the impression that Tunisia was almost anti-Arab,” Mahmoud Mestiri, Tunisia’s new foreign minister, said in a recent interview. “But now this is finished . . . now we want good relations with the rest of the Arab world. As a small country, we feel we can have good relations with everybody and play a positive role in our region and in the Middle East as a whole.”

Ties Re-Established

Toward this end, Tunisia has re-established relations with Libya, severed in 1985, and with Egypt, severed in 1979. It may soon also normalize relations with Ethiopia, Mestiri said.

This shift in outlook and emphasis does not mean, he said, that Tunisia’s basic foreign policies will change or that its friendship with the West will be lessened.

“We are proud of our friendship with the United States and France and we want it to continue,” he went on. “For us, these are not tactical friendships. They are strategic.”

Seeking Cultural Balance

It does mean, however, that as an Arab country on the African side of the Mediterranean, Tunisia will try to achieve a better balance among the three cultures whose convergence makes up the Tunisian identity--the Arab, the African and the Mediterranean.

“Tunisians say now they are Arab first, African second and Mediterranean third,” said a Western diplomat who noted that, under Bourguiba, “it was the other way around.”

At least two other factors are important to this shift, the diplomat and others agree.

One is Tunisia’s need to accommodate its neighbors and the other is the shock that Tunisia felt after Israel bombed the Tunis headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in October, 1985.

Until then, Tunisia, under Bourguiba, had been an “almost unquestioning friend of the United States,” a Western diplomat said. Indeed, it was partly at the request of the United States that Tunisia agreed, with what were then serious misgivings, to take in the PLO leadership following its ouster from Lebanon in a U.S.-brokered evacuation.

Assumptions Questioned

But President Reagan’s initial praise for the Israeli bombing, which also caused Tunisian casualties, deeply unsettled Tunisia’s assumptions about the United States.

“Tunisia had always assumed it could count on the United States for its security, but the bombing removed this assumption from Tunisian calculations,” the diplomat said.

Mestiri agreed that the raid had created “permanent doubts about U.S. reliability,” but he said an even bigger problem now in U.S.-Tunisian relations is the question of military debt, most of which Tunisia incurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when it bought heavily to help its small army deter the Libyan threat.

Although U.S. military assistance switched to all-grant aid in 1985, Tunisia remains so heavily in debt that this year it will be paying back more to the United States in debt and interest than it will receive in aid.

Debt Payment Crisis

“This is a catastrophe for Tunisia and for U.S.-Tunisian relations,” Mestiri said, and added that he hopes a way can be found to forgive or at least postpone the repayment of the military portion of Tunisia’s debt.

“This is the biggest problem we have with the United States right now,” he said.

Ultimately, and of necessity, most of Tunisia’s foreign policy calculations boil down to how it can keep the cats next door at bay.

Algeria is not a military threat but it is putting heavy diplomatic pressure on Tunisia to patch things up with Libya’s Col. Moammar Kadafi, who is constantly seeking new countries to merge with and gets very upset when he is just as constantly rebuffed. In Tunisia’s case, Kadafi’s merger-mania resulted in a 1974 union agreement that was abrogated by Bourguiba less than 24 hours after it was signed.

Relations Broken

There followed, in turn, an extremely tense period in Tunisian-Libyan relations that culminated nearly three years ago in Libya’s decision to summarily expel 32,000 Tunisian workers and send letter bombs to Tunisian journalists. Tunisia responded by breaking diplomatic relations.

The decision to resume relations last December in part reflects Tunisia’s new post-Bourguiba determination to get along better with its Arab neighbors. But more importantly, it also reflects Tunisia’s dependence on Libyan markets for a number of its exports and on Libya’s role as a sponge that soaks up some of Tunisia’s 400,000 unemployed.

“We don’t want to admit it,” a senior official said, “but like it or not, we depend on Libya.”

The rapprochement with Libya, mediated by Algeria, came about after Kadafi agreed to establish a $10-million fund to compensate the Tunisian workers he kicked out, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, in 1985.

Distrustful of Kadafi

Tunisian officials, still clearly distrustful of Kadafi, are hoping that this is as far as the rapprochement will go. But they acknowledge they are also under pressure now from Algeria to drop their opposition to Libya’s admission into a regional treaty of friendship that includes Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania. If they do, these officials say, it will only be with the assurance that Kadafi has read and promised to abide by the provision of the treaty that calls on member states to respect one another’s frontiers.

Kadafi, on his best behavior, visited Tunisia last month to discuss what he said were his plans for regional “unity.”

The Tunisians did not say much about the visit, but it was obvious that the two sides held different views about the treaty.

“Kadafi wants the treaty to serve as a license to further his regional ambitions,” one analyst said. The Tunisians, for their part, want it to be a leash.