Excerpt from document summary
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.

Full Document

VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTU #0034/01 0151638
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
P 151638Z JAN 10
FM AMEMBASSY TUNIS
TO RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7151
INFO RUCNMGH/MAGHREB COLLECTIVE
Content
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.

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Summary
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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.

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Recommendations
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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