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UAE document exposes Abu Dhabi’s plan for Tunisia crisis

January 4, 2018 at 7:48 am

Arabi 21 has obtained a secret UAE document that exposes Abu Dhabi’s plan for dealing with the recent crisis in Tunisia. The crisis erupted after the UAE banned Tunisian women from travelling on Emirates Airlines.

The four-page document, which is published exclusively by Arabi 21, was issued by The Policies Planning Department at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on 27 December. It is addressed to just five top officials including the Foreign Minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayid, and the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash.

The document, a copy of which is published by Arabi 21, includes eight recommendations for the UAE to deal with the crisis. The most important and most prominent of these is the one made by the document recommends that the Foreign Ministry should “mobilise media associations and websites within Tunisia in order to turn the debate against the Ennahda movement claiming that it is responsible for the large number of IS (Daesh) women who now give a bad name to Tunisian women and undermine their progressive image in people’s minds”, as stated in the document.

This recommendation exposes the manner in which the UAE pays money to some media outlets in the Arab world in order to mix the forces of democratic political Islam with the Daesh group that recruits suicide bombers and carries out terrorist operations inside Arab and Western countries. The document recommends rerouting the ongoing Tunisian popular rage against the UAE to a debate about the Ennahda movement, which is headed by Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi. The movement represents what has become known as the Islamic democratic trend, whose discourse is becoming increasingly popular across the Islamic World, including within the Gulf states themselves.

The document also recommends “ruling out completely the prospect of apologising to Tunisia, since an apology would damage the image of the United Arab Emirates and because the matter is linked to a security and sovereign matter that should be adhered to and therefore no attention should be paid to the demands of offering an apology.”

The second recommendation is “the necessity of paying attention to the manner in which the Ennahda Muslim Brotherhood has been employing this crisis and how they have been attacking the UAE. As an example, Soumaya Ghannoushi  attacked the UAE and linked the sovereign UAE decision to what she called the Arab Spring”.

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The document adds that “Sebsi and his government do not pay attention to the fact that demanding an apology from the UAE serves the interests of the Ennahda movement, which will employ escalating the crisis in order to redeploy and mobilise domestically prior to the next elections”, as the document stated.

This second document constitutes an encouragement to intervene in Tunisian domestic affairs and incites the “Nida Tunis” party, to which President Sebsi belongs, against the Ennahda Islamic party. It seeks to imply to President Sebsi that escalating the crisis will only serve his opponents in the coming elections.

In the third recommendation, the document deems it “important for the UAE foreign ministry to link its decision to the notion of preventive and pre-emptive security intervention and to consider the decision to be part of the provisional precautionary temporal measures that may be lifted once danger comes to an end. After all, this matter is associated with the movement of foreign terrorist fighters across airports. It also coincides with the information that points to the fact that the Daesh has ordered the use of women in terrorist operations, in the aftermath of the siege imposed on male terrorist fighters.”

The fourth recommendation draws attention to the necessity of “being alert to the fact that undermining the position of Nida Tunis Party would only serve the interests of the Ennahda Movement. That is why it is recommended not to weaken the position of President Sebsi and his party. Hence, it is necessary for the UAE political and media discourse to stay away from making any direct or indirect threat to the interests of Tunisians resident in the UAE, who number around 28 thousand.” This shows that the UAE has placed at the top of its list of objectives confronting Ennahda, or at the least besieging and weakening it.

Read More: Increase in number of Tunisians seeking to leave

The fifth recommendation in the document is “continuing to reiterate, calmly, the UAE explanation and stress that the UAE regards highly the friendship and fraternal ties with the brothers in Tunisia، that it harbours great respect for the status of the Tunisian woman in her country and for her progressive pioneering role in all fields and that it is keen for Tunisia to remain a friendly country toward the UAE.”

This policy has, in indeed, been put to implementation as evident from the commentary made by poets and personalities known for their close links with Abu Dhabi praising Tunisia and its women for the purpose of containing the wave of anger.

In the sixth recommendation, the document suggested that “the UAE should continue to welcome the statements made by the Tunisian Presidency Spokeswoman Saida Grash, who stated that what is going on between Tunisia and the UAE has not reached the level of a diplomatic crisis and that matters between them are not handled in a hostile spirit. In addition, the remarks made by the Tunisian ambassador in the UAE, in which he said that the UAE Tunisian ties were strong and solid and that they were stronger than any temporary problem.”

In the seventh recommendation, the document called for “avoiding any media attack on the visit to Tunisia by Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan “because Tunisia would respond by saying that this is a sovereign decision”, as the document put it.

In the eighth, and most dangerous, recommendation, the document says: “it would be possible to mobilise media associations and websites inside Tunisia in order to turn the discussion against Ennahda, for being responsible for the large number of IS (Daesh) women who ended up giving the Tunisian woman a bad name and distorting their progressive image in people’s minds.” This confirms, beyond doubt, that the UAE is relying on the mobilisation of its media and political networks in order to use the issue of terrorism against Ennahda and distort its image in the eyes of Tunisian and world public opinions.

This document, which has exclusively been obtained by Arabi 21, represents the strongest expression of concern by the UAE toward the crisis that erupted with Tunisia recently. This happened when Tunisians were taken by surprise by a decision to ban Tunisian women from travelling on board Emirates Airlines. Later on, Tunisia responded by banking UAE planes from landing in Tunisian airports. There has also been a massive wave of popular anger within Tunisia against the UAE, including several campaigns conducted through the social media.