{"id":1175603,"date":"2023-08-09T15:14:07","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T15:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/08\/niger-coup-senegal-state-repression-macky-sall-ousmane-sonko\/"},"modified":"2023-08-09T15:18:38","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T15:18:38","slug":"in-senegal-the-governments-boasts-about-upholding-democracy-ring-hollow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/08\/09\/in-senegal-the-governments-boasts-about-upholding-democracy-ring-hollow\/","title":{"rendered":"In Senegal, the Government\u2019s Boasts About Upholding Democracy Ring Hollow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Senegal\u2019s government has condemned last month\u2019s coup in Niger, even pledging to send troops to help restore the rule of law. But far from a beacon of democracy, this ally of Paris and Washington is mounting its own bloody crackdown on opposition at home.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n Senegalese president Macky Sall listens at a press conference on June 20, 2023, in Lisbon, Portugal. (Horacio Villalobos \/ Corbis via Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

The coup d\u2019\u00e9tat in Niger<\/a> this July 26 was bound to send shockwaves through nearby capitals \u2014 and just four days later, a joint statement<\/a> from the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) duly expressed \u201czero tolerance for unconstitutional change.\u201d One signatory was Senegal\u2019s president Macky Sall, who has taken a firm stance since rebel officers seized power in Niamey. Last week, decrying<\/a> \u201cone coup too many,\u201d his foreign minister pledged that Senegal was ready to join an ECOWAS military intervention in the country, unless the coup leaders hand power back to the democratically elected government. With Niger\u2019s military junta ignoring the original deadline and diplomatic efforts still floundering, leaders from the fifteen-member bloc are meeting again on Thursday to determine the next steps.<\/p>\n

But for many Senegalese, their government\u2019s rhetoric about the rule of law rings hollow. Even as it decries the putsch in Niger, this key ally of Washington and Paris is overseeing one of the most brutal crackdowns on political opposition since the country won independence in 1960.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

Democratic Backsliding<\/h2>\n \n

\u201cI would say it\u2019s the worst it\u2019s ever been,\u201d said F\u00e9lix Atchad\u00e9, a columnist for the Senegalese news website Seneplus<\/a><\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s not a state of emergency and it\u2019s not a state of siege which are both in the Constitution, but it\u2019s a state of exception where they\u2019re detaining people and then sticking them with any number of charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her part, Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy Africa director for Human Rights Watch, uses the term \u201cdemocratic backsliding\u201d \u2014 a process that she says has ramped up since President Sall\u2019s reelection in 2019. In an interview with Jacobin<\/em>, Nantulya pointed to the repeated arrests of journalists<\/a>, a trend that has contributed to Senegal tumbling over fifty places in Reporters Without Borders\u2019 annual World Press Freedom Index<\/a>. Yet she also cited a strict new counterterror law<\/a>. Since 2021, \u201cterrorist acts\u201d now include \u201cseriously disturbing public order\u201d and \u201coffenses linked to information and communication technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most visible repression over the last two years, however, has centered on opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and his supporters \u2014 a group that tends to be younger<\/a> than most voters in a country where the average age is only nineteen. Founder of the Patriots of Senegal for Labor, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF) party, he came in third place in the most recent presidential election, but his blend of populism and Pan-Africanism has made him a leading contender ahead of the next such contest in February 2024. Over the last couple of years, the forty-nine-year-old former tax inspector has faced a slew of charges that his supporters decry as politically motivated, leading to a cycle of mass protests and violent state backlash.<\/p>\n

In February 2021, Sonko was accused<\/a> of raping a twenty-year-old employee of a beauty parlor, setting off violent demonstrations resulting in fourteen deaths \u2014 twelve of them due to gunshots fired by security and defense forces, according to Amnesty International<\/a>. The highly anticipated case concluded this June, when a court acquitted<\/a> Sonko of rape charges but sentenced him to two years in prison for \u201ccorrupting youth\u201d \u2014 a conviction that could legally prevent him from running for president next February. That news sparked yet another round of mass protests, which resulted in sixteen deaths and five hundred arrests. As the New York Times<\/em> reported<\/a>, death certificates showed that many of the victims were shot with live ammunition.<\/p>\n

Also fueling outrage on the streets was President Sall\u2019s refusal to rule out a third term, despite the Constitution limiting presidents to two terms. For over a year<\/a>, Sall openly flirted with the possibility of running again. Only in early July did he concede that he would indeed step down once his current term is over.<\/p>\n

But that hasn\u2019t eased the clampdown on his rivals. Last Monday, Sonko, who hadn\u2019t even begun his prison sentence for \u201ccorrupting youth,\u201d was detained and hit with separate charges<\/a>, accused this time of \u201cfomenting insurrection.\u201d Then, after temporarily shutting down mobile internet networks, the country\u2019s Ministry of the Interior announced a formal ban of Sonko\u2019s party PASEF. It marks the first time a party has been outlawed since Senegal won independence from France in 1960.<\/p>\n

Last month, authorities also detained Sonko\u2019s lawyer Juan Branco, a well-known French writer, before deporting<\/a> him to France.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Elite Fears<\/h2>\n \n

According to F\u00e9lix Atchad\u00e9, elite fears of Sonko stem in part from his political program. The former civil servant and trade union activist has famously called for Senegal to leave the CFA franc, a currency founded in the colonial era which, pegged to the euro, is still today used by fourteen African countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two things that irritate,\u201d Atchad\u00e9 told Jacobin<\/em>:<\/p>\n

He calls for monetary sovereignty, which hurts the interests of the comprador bourgeoisie who wants there to be a CFA franc linked to the euro, which helps these people maintain their advantages. The second source of irritation is that he appears to take seriously the critique of international financial institutions over what\u2019s called \u201cbad governance\u201d in Africa. He\u2019s someone who says \u201cthere are problems of bad governance and corruption and they need to come to an end.\u201d This is common in African political discourse \u2014 anybody aspiring for higher office or already in power says this. But there\u2019s a way of saying it and conceptualizing it that can scare certain people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sonko\u2019s experience as a tax inspector lends his political discourse extra weight. Calls to rein in tax fraud and corruption are grounded in his firsthand experience of the system.<\/p>\n

But even beyond his political program, Atchad\u00e9 said that Sonko\u2019s base of support and apparent disinterest in making peace with ruling \u00e9lites have made many of the latter uneasy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSonko\u2019s party doesn\u2019t fall within the bounds of how the dominant classes conceive of handing over power,\u201d the columnist told Jacobin<\/em>. \u201cThe social forces that support Ousmane Sonko are social forces that are truly at odds with the system as it is, with the inequalities that continue to grow, even within the elites. These are the forces that support Sonko and his party, and that scares some people. That\u2019s why the repression taking place is happening amidst the silence of these elites.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Ties With Paris<\/h2>\n \n

That apparent unwillingness to speak out extends beyond Senegalese borders.<\/p>\n

Much like the United States, the French government has been reluctant to publicly criticize the democratic backsliding in Senegal, a former colony and ally with which it has enjoyed warm relations for decades. While Paris may want to avoid the impression of interference, Human Rights Watch\u2019s Carine Kaneza Nantulya said that Western governments could still be more proactive in their condemnation of abuses. \u201cWhen you have the excessive use of force, we should hear the voice of France and the US,\u201d she told Jacobin<\/em>. \u201cAfrican citizens should hear their voices and not in small diplomatic meetings behind closed doors. They need to be louder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arnaud Le Gall<\/a>, an MP from the left-populist France Insoumise and member of the National Assembly\u2019s foreign affairs commission, agreed that President Emmanuel Macron should speak out, but remained skeptical. \u201cHe should do it,\u201d Le Gall said. \u201cBut given the domestic situation in France, I don\u2019t know how he would. He\u2019s more of a symptom of what\u2019s happening around the world, which is the authoritarian drift of neoliberalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senegalese authorities also maintain friendly relations with French business leaders. While today it has dropped behind China, France has historically been Senegal\u2019s largest source of foreign investment, with companies like Auchan<\/a>, D\u00e9cathlon<\/a>, and Total<\/a> familiar to many residents of Senegal. In addition to meeting with Macron, President Sall has cultivated ties with Marine Le Pen, even meeting the far-right politician in January when she visited a rice farm majority-owned<\/a> by a French shareholder and a sugar production facility owned by a French billionaire.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop and the broader history of French colonialism, Sonko\u2019s critique of \u201cneocolonialism\u201d has real popular appeal. In an interview with Jacobin<\/em>, Dr Dialo Diop, a longtime activist and vice president of PASTEF, whose responsibilities include questions related to Pan-Africanism and historical memory, strongly denied that the party is \u201canti-French.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTalking about anti-French sentiment is a very politician-like and very French way to belittle a movement with ambitions that are continent-wide,\u201d Diop said. \u201cThis is about a position that is defended by entire populations and represents a massive desire to break with Fran\u00e7afrique, its crimes, its misdeeds, its pillage, and its dispossession.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re African patriots and Pan-African democrats,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe\u2019re only against contempt, anti-black racism and racist crimes against black people, wherever they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

For similar reasons, Diop said that he did not want to see Senegal dragged into a war driven by what he viewed as Western interests. \u201cThe threat to intervene, driven by the French and the Americans, is in the natural order of neocolonialism, but in today\u2019s context, it\u2019s no longer tolerated or accepted by African peoples,\u201d he said. \u201cThe world has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow PASTEF member Guy Marius Sagna, a member of Senegal\u2019s National Assembly, recently criticized the government\u2019s support for an invasion of Niger. Corresponding with Jacobin<\/em> over WhatsApp, he shared one of his formal written questions to the government. It asks how \u201cone of the world\u2019s thirty poorest countries\u201d could be brought into a conflict with Niger and expresses Sagna\u2019s \u201ctotal disagreement\u201d: \u201cA war against Niger in which Senegal participates: not in my name!\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The coup d\u2019\u00e9tat in Niger this July 26 was bound to send shockwaves through nearby capitals \u2014 and just four days later, a joint statement from the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) duly expressed \u201czero tolerance for unconstitutional change.\u201d One signatory was Senegal\u2019s president Macky Sall, who has taken a firm stance since [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2784,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175603"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2784"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175608,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175603\/revisions\/1175608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}