Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: The Tunisian General Labour Union stages a major protest to counter the Saied regime, Mali’s junta charges former Prime Minister Choguel Maiga with embezzlement, and Eswatini faces a lawsuit over its decision to accept third-country deportees from the United States.
Tunisia’s Largest Labor Union Fights Back
Monthslong tensions between Tunisian President Kais Saied and the country’s largest labor union came to a head on Thursday when the group organized a demonstration in the capital of Tunis that was attended by as many as 3,500 people.
The Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), one of the few remaining independent voices criticizing Saied’s administration, called for the march to protest what it described as declining labor and civic rights. “All the foundations of political and civil life have collapsed,” UGTT chief Noureddine Taboubi said at the rally.
The union is nearly 80 years old and was a key driver in Tunisia’s independence from France in 1956, organizing strikes against colonial rule. Its marches were also crucial to the 2011 Arab Spring revolution that toppled the late autocratic President Ben Ali. Today, UGTT represents around a million Tunisian workers.
When Saied first entered office in 2019, UGTT largely aligned itself with the president, but it became more critical of his policies as his rule became more authoritarian.
Since a power grab in July 2021, Saied has ruled by decree, cracking down on dissent and arresting dozens of political opponents and critics on charges of terrorism and crimes against the state. In 2022, he dissolved parliament, fired dozens of judges, and replaced the independent body responsible for judicial independence.
On Aug. 7, UGTT accused the president’s supporters of attempting to storm the union’s headquarters in Tunis following a nationwide three-day transport strike that was organized by the union over low wages and had brought parts of the country to a standstill in late July. Anti-UGTT demonstrators accused the union’s leadership of corruption and “squandering the people’s money,” according to reporting from France 24.
“There are files that must be opened because the people are demanding accountability … so that their money can be returned to them,” said Saied, who defended the anti-UGTT demonstration.
In recent years, UGTT has faced rising public criticism amid internal leadership struggles. In 2021, it removed the two-term limit for its leaders—a decision that proved divisive among its membership, prompting calls for Taboubi to step down. Some Tunisians have also been angered by several strikes this year that affected businesses amid the country’s economic crisis.
Meanwhile, Saied has backed rival unions in an attempt to erode the strength that UGTT derives from its large membership base.
Days after the protest at UGTT headquarters, Saied’s administration abolished union leave for public servants, a policy that allowed unionized state workers to take paid leave for union activities. The Tunisian government called the policy “an illegal procedure and an illegitimate privilege” and threatened legal action against those violating its directive. The move may directly affect UGTT’s ability to organize mass protests.
Regional analysts view Saied’s weakening of union rights as an attempt to curb UGTT’s influence in Tunisian society and thus prevent it from challenging presidential power.
The Week Ahead
Thursday, Aug. 28: The U.N. Security Council discusses Haiti, where Kenyan-led police officers have been tackling street gangs with limited success.
Friday, Aug. 29: Kenya releases inflation data for August.
What We’re Watching
Mali charges former PM. Mali’s military government has charged former Prime Minister Choguel Maiga with embezzlement after his arrest earlier this month. Maiga, who took office following a 2021 coup, was dismissed last November after he publicly criticized the military’s unclear timeline for returning the country to democratic rule.
Maiga’s arrest is the latest in a string of crackdowns by the junta against dissent, and it suggests that there might be internal fractures within the junta. Dozens of Malian soldiers and a French Embassy worker were arrested earlier this month for an alleged attempted coup plot.
Another former civilian prime minister, Moussa Mara, was also recently detained after posting on X about his “unwavering solidarity” for detained critics of the military. Mara served as prime minister from 2014 to 2015 under ex-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
Angola tackles cybercrime. Angolan authorities shut down 25 cryptocurrency mining sites and arrested 60 Chinese nationals running them as part of an Interpol operation between June and August, involving investigators from 18 African countries and the United Kingdom.
Around 45 illegal power stations were being operated to mine the digital currencies, with Angolan police seizing more than $37 million worth of equipment at the sites. The equipment will be sold to support power access in poor communities.
African nations have become a haven for Chinese crypto miners, mainly attracted by cheaper electricity costs, after Beijing imposed a ban on digital currency activities in 2021.
Eswatini faces lawsuit. A group of lawyers and activists have sued Eswatini’s government over its decision to accept five third-country deportees—all convicted felons—from the United States in July. The lawsuit claims that the deal was unconstitutional and violated due process. The case is scheduled to be heard at the High Court of Eswatini in September.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Uganda became the latest African country to accept a third-country deal with the Trump administration. This comes after Rwanda agreed this month to accept up to 250 deportees from the United States.
Bagiire Vincent Waiswa, the permanent secretary of the Ugandan Foreign Ministry, said in a statement that the “temporary arrangement” covers third-country nationals “who may not be granted asylum in the United States but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin.” He added that Uganda prefers to take in deportees from other African countries and would not accept unaccompanied minors or those with criminal records.
This Week in Travel
Luxury tourism pitfalls. As more African governments look to luxury travel as a way to boost their economies, major projects have already fueled protests and accusations of land grabs in Kenya, Tanzania, and the Seychelles.
High-end resorts in Africa are often foreign-owned and have brought limited benefits to locals, with much of their profits flowing overseas, according to new research from the University of Manchester that was published in the African Studies Review.
Large all-inclusive resorts and national parks touting conservation benefits and “high-value, low-impact” holidays hire few locals, and visitors spend little money in local communities, the study found.
Visa tit for tat. Nigeria suggested last week that it would impose reciprocal visa requirements on U.S. citizens after Washington said it would require Nigerians to list all social media accounts and associated phone numbers and emails used in the past five years in order to obtain a visa.
“What you are mandating our nationals to do, we will also mandate your citizens applying for our visa to do,” said Kimiebi Ebienfa, a spokesperson for the Nigerian Foreign Ministry.
In July, Washington limited most Nigerian travelers to three-month single-entry visas. Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar suggested that the move may be linked to the Trump administration’s attempts to pressure Nigeria to accept Venezuelan deportees—an assertion that the U.S. Embassy in Abuja denies.
FP’s Most Read This Week
- Trump Has No Idea How to Do Diplomacy by Stephen M. Walt
- Why the Donbas Matters to Putin So Much by John Haltiwanger
- Why Steve Witkoff Is Trump’s Master of Disaster by Christian Caryl
What We’re Reading
AI’s dirty extraction. In the Republic, Imad Musa argues that even as international institutions tout artificial intelligence (AI) as an important driver of global development, the technology’s growth could put African nations at risk of serious environmental harm.
“AI data centres, known for their intensive energy demands, risk locking the continent into energy pathways that may undermine its climate and development goals,” Musa writes. “Because such infrastructure requires enormous amounts of electricity, water and critical minerals, it may entrench Africa’s role as both an energy supplier and a site for the externalization of environmental costs.”
Ivory Coast’s archivists. In the Guardian, Eromo Egbejule reports on the Baoulécore Archive center in Abidjan, which aims to preserve and document past eras of Ivorian music.
“Hundreds of records and cassettes from Ivorian icons such as Reine Pélagie and Daouda le Sentimental are stacked on shelves alongside other Black musicians such as Sun Ra and Youssou N’Dour,” Egbejule writes.
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