General Souleymane Kandé will have to make do with the title of Military Attaché in India, if the Supreme Court confirms his assignment. He seems to owe this assignment to the fact that he opposed Prime Minister Sonko’s wishes.

It’s one of Macky Sall’s final blows before leaving power. In decree no. 2024-873, issued a few hours before his departure from power, the Head of State determined the attributes and missions of military attachés assigned to embassies. Article 10 of the decree stipulates that a General Officer may be appointed to the post of Embassy Military Attaché. If General Kandé persists in his desire to challenge his appointment, he should also denounce Macky Sall’s decree.

Exiled to the Senegalese Embassy in India: General Kandé Challenges the Decree

He could perhaps invoke the fact that his status is not only that of a General Officer, but that by having exercised the functions of Chief of Staff of the Army, he is an Army General, therefore too worthy of the functions of a Military Attaché.                         

Even worse, Article 7 of the decree, which sets out the classification of diplomatic posts, points out that the diplomatic post in New Delhi is placed in the 5th and last category of countries of “obvious security interest”. The document specifies that classification, “which is subject to periodic evaluation, is at the discretion of the Minister in charge of the Armed Forces, with the advice of the Ministry in charge of Foreign Affairs”. It’s as if, for the time being at least, the Army Chief of Staff has been sent to the world’s last backwater, where Senegal’s security interests are non-existent. Will he be forgotten until he retires? In any case, he still has many years to serve, at just 53 years of age…

Gen. Magatte Ndiaye to succeed Gen. Kandé

We now know a little more about the reasons for this sanction. The afriqueconfidentielle.com website pointed out in a dispatch yesterday that “in a confidential letter number 0431/MFA dated May 16, 2024 entitled ‘Evaluation of military cooperation agreements with France, the United States, Canada and Great Britain’, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko asked the Minister of the Armed Forces, the Armed Forces General Staff and the Cooperation Division to submit to him, ‘before the end of May 2024’, a proposal for the revision of these military agreements with the four countries mentioned. Ousmane Sonko instructed them to make recommendations that could lead to the denunciation of these military agreements”. Le Quotidien was able to independently verify the veracity of this information.

On receiving this letter, the Cemga left it to his staff to reply. Like many other officers, Souleymane Kandé refused to comply, arguing that it was not the PM’s prerogative to question military agreements voted by the National Assembly, or to give instructions to the Army, which is part of the reserved domain of the Head of State. Souleymane Kandé therefore sent back a reasoned letter to this effect.

Ousmane Sonko reportedly didn’t appreciate this response at all, considering it a personal slap in the face. Is this why he asked Bassirou Diomaye Faye for his head?
By Malick GAYE / mgaye@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE