In an open letter, congressmen say that “autocratic consolidation” and the treatment of migrants threaten US-Tunisia relations.
United States lawmakers have warned of a “sharp acceleration in Tunisia’s autocratic consolidation” under President Kais Saied, while denouncing the Tunisian leader’s “abhorrent, racist and xenophobic comments about migrants”.
In a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week, members of the US House of Representatives urged President Joe Biden’s administration to “ensure that all US foreign aid to Tunisia supports the recovery of inclusive, democratic governance and the rule of law”.
Washington must also ensure that any aid “directly supports Tunisians in dire economic distress and does not strengthen the hand of those, including internal security forces, who have exacerbated repression and authoritarianism” under Saied, US lawmakers said.
Monday’s letter came in the wake of several high-profile arrests of Tunisian opposition figures, as well as activists, journalists and businessmen in Tunisia. Several detainees have been charged with conspiracy against state security.
US lawmakers said some of those charges were allegedly related to meetings with US diplomats.
Rights groups have accused Saied of seeking to consolidate power from 2021, including closing the elected parliament and ruling by decree before rewriting a new constitution passed in a poorly attended referendum last year.
Opposition groups have said the moves amount to a coup.
Saied has said his actions were legal and necessary to save Tunisia from chaos. He called his critics criminals, traitors and “terrorists” and urged the authorities to take action against them.
In their letter, US lawmakers wrote that the Biden administration should “make it clear that Saied’s crackdown undermines the confidence in the rule of law that is essential for a thriving US-Tunisia relationship and for international monetary support to the Tunisian people. good could come and alleviate the economic crisis. hardship”.
They also capitalized on comments Saied made in February when he claimed that undocumented immigration from sub-Saharan countries is aimed at changing Tunisia’s demographic makeup.
He further claimed that nameless groups had been settling African migrants in Tunisia in exchange for money for the past decade, and called for a crackdown.
The statements were condemned as “racial hate speech” by the African Union.
Human Rights Watch also told Al Jazeera that the rights group had recorded “aggravated spikes of violence against sub-Saharan Africans” in Tunisia following the president’s comments.
In their letter, U.S. lawmakers said the statements “appeared to be designed to create divisions and scapegoats for the country’s acute economic crisis at a time of growing popular mobilization against his policies.”
Lawmakers noted that the US and Tunisia have deepened ties following the country’s 2011 democratic uprising that forced longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from office and ushered in the Arab Spring.
Washington designated Tunis a “major non-NATO ally” after the Tunisian revolution, and the US has dramatically increased bilateral aid to the country over the past 12 years.
As of June 2022, the US State Department says it had provided $1.4 billion to support Tunisia’s transition.
In 2019, the US and Tunisia also signed an agreement for the US Agency for International Development to provide $335 million “to support increased private sector employment and democratic consolidation” over five years.
Still, in its 2023 and 2024 budgets, the Biden administration began to cut some sources of aid to Tunisia.
Rights advocates have also called on the US to halt a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout for Tunisia pending reforms.
In February, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington was “deeply concerned” by reports of politically motivated arrests in Tunisia.
He also said a month later that the department was “alarmed by reports of criminal charges against individuals in Tunisia resulting from meetings or conversations with U.S. embassy personnel on the ground.”
“This, as I said earlier, is part of an escalating pattern of arrests against alleged government critics,” Price said.