427. Telegram From the Embassy in Tunisia to the Department of State1
648. Fact that has come out most clearly in meetings between Deputy Assistant Secretary African Economic Affairs Tasca and Tunisian officials2 is that massive effort to utilize labor resources is conceived and executed as economic development program. Projects in this program are designed to build and bequeath economic assets to the Tunisian economy and to improve and increase production and distribution.
Tunisian emphasis in the selection of projects has been on (1) identifying and harnessing sources of water, (2) land drainage, (3) irrigation, (4) flood control, (5) erosion control, (6) maintenance and expansion of transportation system, and (7) reforestation and orchard planting. As projects completed, and workers become trained, they are placed on improved lands to produce under the guidance and with the encouragement of people on the foreman and county agent level.
[Page 906]In addition the men on these jobs learn to read and write and are taught a basic skill. It is intensified labor utilization to supplement scarcity of investment capital. Vocational training programs at various technical levels up to agronomical engineer accompany the on-the-job training and teaching of workers.
It happens that in the first uncertain days when the French military and bureaucracy were withdrawing, experimental projects that could be identified as “work relief” were launched as emergency measures to help bridge severe crisis and hardship and were tailored to conform to emergency relief provisions of our own legislation. Those programs provided occasional work on a rotational basis to a limited number of discharged personnel. Last winter, however, and following the discussion of the subject between President Eisenhower and President Bourguiba in December 1959,3 Department–ICA sought and obtained authority from Congress to permit such PL 480 contributions to economic development beyond the end of the emergency;4 thus Congress made it possible for that valuable help to be a regular complement to Tunisia’s own battle against underdevelopment.
Today a peak of some 160,000 men are employed on such projects, but the figure varies seasonally with the rhythm of farm labor requirements, for example in plowing and harvesting periods.
Administratively the program is coordinated in the direction of the plan as economic development. As there is no specific independent budget (comparable to the Tunisian Title II or equipment budget) for this intensive labor utilization for development, we had been assuming that GOT had been drawing on pension funds and the like. However, Minister of Finance Kefacha now informs us development program has also received “reimbursable” treasury advances made possible by past budget surpluses.
It should now therefore be clear that Tunisia is making on its own initiative a massive effort with such resources as it has, manpower, land and water, to develop its economy. If some of the projects are slow in showing a return, in many such uses [cases?] it is in the nature of infrastructure projects to thwart efforts to measure monetary return.
I feel that some of our telegrams since Embtel 950 of January 9 (e.g., 914, 966, 977, 1178, 1416, 274)5 while correctly portraying the nature, scope and purpose of Tunisian self-help economic development, [Page 907] may have fallen short in conveying their message, through the continuation of the use of a title that had more appropriately come into use at the time of the withdrawal and famine emergency 3 or 4 years ago but as the two Presidents agreed in December 1959 no longer applied. While the program before that date had been rapidly evolving toward economic development, it was completely recast a year ago. The criterion now applied by GOT to projects in the program is their contribution to economic development.
A year ago: yes, that was when GOT definitely discarded the available alternative of national compulsory service to overcome underdevelopment. Yesterday, Ladgham as top GOT official in the economic sector (Minister of Coordination), categorically stated to Tasca and me the “ChiCom medal [model?]” (i.e., national service) had been rejected in favor of the democratic free system to valorize labor resource in investment program. If that system fails, the temptation here, and the compulsion in many of the new African states will be to adopt the ChiCom example of Guinea. And there goes a continent.
Given the alternative left, if our deprecation of the Tunisian system contributes to its collapse, I ask Washington to ponder further the consequences of the attitude we assume.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 110.15–TA/11–2460. Confidential.↩
- The Department of State proposed in late October appointing Tasca head of a group of experts to arrive in Tunis at the end of November to study Tunisia’s economic problems. (Telegram 477 to Tunis; ibid., 110/15–TA/10–2860) Eisenhower had suggested such a study in his letter to Bourguiba, supra. Walmsley, however, had recommended postponing the review. (Telegram 556 from Tunis, November 1; Department of State, Central Files, 772.5–MSP/11–160) On November 4, the Department informed him it had decided to put off the review and that Tasca would instead visit Tunis informally around November 21–24 for general orientation. (Telegram 510 to Tunis; ibid.)↩
- See Document 415.↩
- Presumably reference is to Section 601 of P.L. 86–472, adopted May 14; for text, see 74 Stat. 140.↩
- Telegram 914 is printed as Document 416. Regarding telegram 950, see footnote 2 thereto. Telegram 966, January 14, reported that the Tunisian Chief of Staff was impatient at the long delay in receiving the the results of the military survey. (Department of State, Central Files, 771.56/1–1460) Telegram 977, January 18, reported Mokaddem had asked about the status of Tunisia’s request for U.S. assistance for the work relief program. (Ibid., 611.72/1–1860). Telegram 1178 is printed as Document 418. Regarding telegram 1416, see footnote 2, Document 421. Telegram 274 is printed as Document 424.↩