These have been troubled times for Senegal, and the « guerrillas » who have been making their mark on the public scene in recent years through outrage, irreverence and intellectual terrorism, have indeed been the major instigators. By opposing the verdict against their leader, convicted of corrupting young people in the Sweet Beauty case against former masseuse Adji Sarr, the league of noisy words and the sect of anti-republicanism wanted to scar Dakar, damage Senegal’s image, instil fear, destroy public property, stone private property and burn down temples of learning. Their aim, if it was anything other than to create disorder, has been achieved. They will have created an urban guerrilla warfare and terrorised everyone in their path.

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Economic activity has slowed, the maintenance of law and order and the infiltration of demonstrations have taken their toll in tragic deaths. Public order and peace have been disrupted. Would-be fascists have shown us that once they have assembled all the ingredients for a « U-fascism », a primitive traditionalism, a rejection of modernity, the crystallisation of social frustrations, gregarious nationalism, the cult of heroism and sacrifice for all, and excessive populism, it was possible to hold a country hostage and attack a state head-on. The dramatic situation in which our country finds itself warrants a closer look, because under the cloak of a struggle for democracy, a defence of freedoms and an upsurge in citizen participation, a coup d’état against the Republic, and an unravelling of what the Senegalese State is, is being orchestrated.

The maquis finds home in Dakar 

The Movement of the Democratic Forces of Casamance (Mfdc), or at least what’s left of it, after being crushed to within an inch of its life by General Souleymane Kandé’s men, and seeing its war economy based on Indian hemp dismantled, will have succeeded in a last stand to transfer its conflict with the State of Senegal to Dakar. There were many who were as mute as carps when they saw the streets of Dakar stormed by guerrillas who have come to instil fear. When people attack vital infrastructure such as the Tiédeume water plant, set fire to the Regional Express Train (Ter) stations, try to cut off traffic on the toll highway and key roads, loot banks, wipe out services and target the Senelec electricity network, all the boxes of domestic terrorism are ticked.  Ousmane Sonko and his legal defence team have shown themselves to be masters of the strategy of rupture, turning the misdeeds of a sex offender into a politico-judicial case with all the ingredients of a conspiracy sauce. His armed wing or self-defence militia will have turned Dakar into a field of ruins to save what remains of his insurrectionary project.

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Senegalese civil society is happy for the Dakar campus to be burnt to the ground in a bid to defend freedoms and protect democracy. If the last supporters of democracy are rebels and agents of chaos, the night of the long knives is not far off, when our all-powerful autocrats and would-be putschists will take it upon themselves to kill all voices of opposition and all clear-headed people who have the courage to say no to their disastrous enterprise. Only in a country gripped by cowardice at all levels would historians be afraid to invoke the burning of the Bundestag in Germany during Hitler’s rise to power, fearing to draw such a parallel to explain the arson attacks on the University of Dakar. This is where a professor-researcher acquiesces when a Faculty of Law is burnt down, to say that the Law taught in lecture theatres deviates from real life (because the judges would have ruled against his champion)! It took the courage of a journalist and analyst like Alioune Ndiaye to address the criminal and terrorist acts committed at Ucad for some of the masters of our historical knowledge to grow a bit and shun revisionism.

This Vicious Game of False Accusations

The rape of young women, particularly in Ziguinchor during demonstrations, hardly moves feminist organisations and vocal civil society actors. Like all rape victims in this country, they are asked to shut their mouths so as not to disturb the course of a far more noble political cause. This troubled situation leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, all the more so because the Senegalese government, through irresponsible blunders or a congenital fear of tackling a problem, always wanting to focus on decay, ends up sowing all the seeds of confusion and encouraging defiance of the authority of the State. The failings of the National Police in its output are just one tree hiding a forest of inconsistencies.

The communication errors of the police do not help

The National Police were keen to inform national and international opinion about the unrest that followed the verdict in the Sweet Beauty case. The police came with factual elements to list the number of arrests, to present the subversive acts that have been committed and to inform the general public of the extent of the danger facing our country. The failures in this communication, which the apprentice « spin doctors » of the Senegalese web have taken great delight in pointing out, have had a detrimental effect on the word of this transmitter, who cannot be weakened or suffer from doubts in these troubled times. Why should the National Police project evidence of rebel infiltration of demonstrations by broadcasting videos taken by ordinary citizens and available on any mobile phone? Why cut video footage of the average person to have his argument debunked by the biggest idiot in the world when it comes to such sensitive crisis communication? A foreign media will take the liberty of dismantling the video evidence presented by the national police to cast doubt on the veracity of the allegations made by the security services. What blessed bread are we giving to all the conspiracy theorists!

What about the protection of plainclothes police officers, whom subversive rhetoric insists on caricaturing as riot police? These officers are being put at risk by a refusal, certainly in high places, to describe the situation as it is. Senegal is beset by domestic enemies and foreign support, and you have to have the courage to read and embrace the rhetoric of the conflict. They are not in the field to chase common looters, but for very specific missions. We cannot allow them to be lynched in this way. There is no conciliatory or reassuring posture that could explain the disqualification of security risks.

A Circus, « Monkeys » and Chaos

The National Police are taking the liberty of telling us that rebels with weapons of war are in Dakar and that the necessary efforts will be made to contain this threat. Such a statement is also the beginnings of an admission that the security and intelligence apparatus may have been seized at some point and that the State was unable to see it coming or was content to overlook the capacity of a domestic enemy to cause harm. The latter, in a game of complacency, would have been rejuvenated. We have seen the ill-fated « Special Force » and « Commando » squads dismantled with serious plans to sabotage vital infrastructure, attack physical targets (magistrates, journalists, officers) and cause massive public disorder, without any steps being taken to declare as terrorist the organisation from which these groups originate.

Our political elite and its barricades

The most regrettable aspect of all this ambient disorder, which has led to law and order being relegated to the background, is the stance taken by the architects of chaos and the holders of power. There is not one to help the other. Alioune Tine, theorist of a civil war, was in a hurry last Sunday, with his wife, to empty the shelves of the Casino supermarket to stock up on provisions before a war that will lead to a « great revolutionary evening » (what a nice way to taunt the Goorgoorlu that he flaunts with tweets and flat, falsely empathetic outbursts in the media). Some of the ruling elite will flee Dakar to take refuge in second homes on the Petite-Côte, if they had not gone into holiday mode between the Decameron and the Riu Hôtel at Pointe-Sarène.

If the Senegalese state is to survive in the face of a domestic enemy that has infested all its layers, camouflaged itself in the mass without ceasing to manipulate, it will owe this only to its solidity, which has been tested by several disastrous trials. This country is at a crossroads, at war with an enemy that wants to bring down the Republic, and it would be a good idea to take a break from all the frills that we would like to pass off as ideals of democracy and freedom. This will involve a systematic ban on marches and gatherings of all kinds, tighter control of the internet, which has become a Radio Mille-collines in the hands of dangerous arsonists, and an increased security presence in all the streets of Dakar. Civil society, political organisations and part of the media have drowned in a partisan game that has prevented them from clearly seeing the immensity of the security risk. It is up to the State to have the courage to pull the plug, to fight the enemy, whatever the cost. There can be no more Junes like this one.

By Serigne Saliou DIAGNE / saliou.diagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH