The outpouring of energy, disorder and violence seen in the town of Mbacké last Friday is quite unnecessary. The security forces dispersed, with tear gas and truncheons, sporadic gatherings organised by the opposition under the banner of the party Pastef. Large reinforcements of troops were sent to the scene. Ousmane Sonko and his supporters were protesting against the prefect’s ban on a political meeting planned in the town. The inhabitants of Mbacké, and even of the neighbouring town of Touba, were bothered by these events, which, do nothing for the authority of the state and the democratic system.
On the contrary, police repression of such demonstrations undoubtedly harms any regime, especially since in this case, open-mindedness, a sense of dialogue and conciliation would have easily avoided such clashes or outbursts. Indeed, the meeting was not banned for reasons of potential public order disturbances or any threat to peace and security. The reason given by the Prefect was a violation of the regulations governing the organisation of a demonstration on the public highway, in the sense that the letter of the declaration, deposited at the Prefecture of Mbacké, was signed by only two officials, whereas, in the opinion of the administrative authorities, three signatures were needed to comply with the law.
This means that it would have been easier for the Prefect to call the organisers to explain to them, in the privacy of his office, their mistake and ask them to correct without hindrance what ultimately turned out to be only a detail. How many times have prefects, police officers or gendarmes discussed and negotiated with the organisers of public demonstrations in order to make mutual concessions and agree on an itinerary or on the way in which the event was to take place? In administrative practice, it is customary for administrative files to be completed or regularised during processing. The administration must facilitate procedures for its users. For example, the services of the Ministry of the Interior had accepted that the imperfect lists of the opposition for the local and/or legislative elections could be corrected before their publication.
Better still, experience has shown that the Constitutional Council has authorised such and such a candidate to complete an administrative document or to replace it in his or her application for the presidential election. In other words, who can do more can do less. Frankly, democracy and the exercise of fundamental freedoms would easily accommodate such an arrangement without a hitch, let alone lose its soul.
I continue to believe that the public authorities would have gained in persuasion and strengthened the level of trust with the opposition players if they had been more tactful, if they had favoured the didactic side rather than a desire to repress, not to say settle scores. What is the point of banning a meeting that was supposed to be held on 10 February for lack of one signature out of the three required, when it would be authorised for 24 February, the new date chosen by the organisers, who this time took care to include three signatures on the letter declaring the demonstration? Certainly, with this move, the administrative authorities have just boosted the « Pastefians » for their meeting on 24 February. They could not have dreamt of a better publicity and especially of such a good source of motivation! It will be a bet or a challenge for each militant to rally Mbacké to swell the ranks of the meeting and make a demonstration of strength.
However, the meeting in Mbacké could even have turned against the organisers who had, a few days earlier, made irreverent statements about the Khalifa General of the Mourides, Serigne Mountakha Mbacké, as well as many other religious authorities. On social networks, Pastef party activists unleashed their anger on religious leaders and shocked many. This means that this meeting, prepared by other members of the religious families of Touba, sometimes in an irredentist posture towards the Khalifa, could be an act of defiance against the latter. If the state had allowed them to speak profusely at this meeting, the leaders of the Pastef party would have made a mistake, and shot themselves in the foot by continuing to overbid and inveigh against Serigne Mountakha.
Repression Against Pastef in Mbacké: Macky Sall Loses a Coin Toss
Images of police repression in Mbacké and Touba, with the numerous ransacking of businesses and public and private property, have gone around the world and are not to the advantage of the Macky Sall regime. Some have seen the spectre of the deadly events of March 2021 resurface, and it will be difficult to refute the idea that the opposition would be prevented from holding a meeting. It is as if the public authorities are playing into Ousmane Sonko‘s hands, especially with the damage caused to his vehicle, and it seems he had it coming, as images show the driver crashing into a police roadblock. In any case, such damage to the windscreen could have been caused by his own supporters who regularly use these methods to feed their propaganda and manipulation machine. This situation gives credence to the idea of persecution, of a relentless pursuit of this politician who is ‘victimising’ himself, emboldened by such a situation and becoming more and more reckless. One would end up giving him the feeling of being right.
The feeling of injustice is all the more admissible, as at the time when meetings and jamborees by opponents are banned for such slight or spurious reasons, leaders of the presidential camp organise theirs and all other gatherings with crowds occupying the public highway and promoting the candidacy of their champion for the next presidential election in 2024. If all other things were equal, the opposition meeting in Mbacké would have been authorised and would have gone ahead without a hitch. Would we want to prevent a successful opposition rally in a stronghold that is acquired by the opposition to balance the strong mobilisation in Thiès to welcome President Sall? If this was the real motivation for banning the Mbacké meeting, one could consider that the approach was clumsy and lacked intelligence. In any case, the repression produced the opposite effect, because it overshadowed the beautiful achievements and projects exhibited by President Macky Sall in Thiès. Finally, the media and public opinion only remember the violence perpetrated in Mbacké on Friday 10 February 2023 and the fact that the signal of Walfadjri television was cut. What could Walf Tv have done that it had not already done? The novelty, and the most sordid part of the affair, is perhaps that the management of Walf Tv itself admitted that the channel had made a commercial broadcast which, moreover, turned out to be insistent calls for rioting.
Moreover, it would have been more acceptable to use the risk of unrest or the lack of security elements already deployed, for example in Thiès, as a pretext for banning the meeting. The situation is that the public authorities seem to be fed up with recurrent provocations and defiance and would have liked to make them pay. So be it! However, Ousmane Sonko can remain childish, insolent, immature and irresponsible by advocating the vulgar « gatsa gatsa », but the State does not have to fall to his level. If the public authorities want to show their exasperation, to stop giving him a free ride and to prove to him that the law will always prevail and that republican order will be the rule, they only have to arrest him for good reasons, or let him continue to taunt his fellow citizens, to show insolence towards republican institutions, religious and customary authorities and to continue to insult anyone who does not applaud him.
Stop Sonko Before It’s Too Late!
There is no shortage of good reasons to prevent Ousmane Sonko from doing anything. The case of the alleged rapes complaint by Adji Sarr could have been enough to put him away, even if some would still find fault with it. Even in this case, the violations of the secrecy of the investigation and especially the other types of repeated violations of the conditions of his judicial supervision, give sufficient reason to revoke this measure. Moreover, his multiple calls for insurrection, followed by violent and bloody effects on 6, 7 and 8 March 2021, with their macabre toll of 14 people killed, or calls to prevent the holding of legislative elections in 2022 (4 deaths) should lead him to prison; as well as contempt for judges, bravado, discrediting public institutions, insults and injury, lies and attacks against persons invested with state authority (Justice, police, army, gendarmerie). The Pastef party finances its political activities in flagrant violation of all legal and democratic rules.
All these facts are legitimate reasons that would send any other citizen into detention! In what country in the world can a citizen threaten in front of the television cameras to kill the head of state or to send 200,000 demonstrators to dislodge him from the Palace and stay at home sleeping? In what country in the world would a politician order his driver to run into a police checkpoint and go home quietly? Yes, it has already happened in Senegal! In February 2015, former President Wade, who was no longer in his right mind following the imprisonment of his son Karim, forced his way through a police checkpoint to get to an opposition rally. Legal proceedings were opened against the driver, but the charges were quickly dropped because the authorities did not want to go after the person who gave the order. We want to let it be known that every step backwards the State takes, Ousmane Sonko and his supporters will take three steps forward to trample the rule of law. Reread our text of 29 August 2022 entitled: “Sonko or Frankenstein’s monster.”
The most serious thing is that this feeling of impunity is becoming so ingrained in people’s minds that they end up considering that the public authorities fear the leader of the Pastef party. He himself claims that Macky Sall or his Prime Minister Amadou Ba are cowards. But by this wait-and-see attitude, this inaction, the state authorities are harming the whole Republic and its citizens. However, bad reactions, such as the inappropriate one in Mbacké, would illustrate the allegory of the snake’s track against which one would be relentless. Indeed, if the state cannot act when reason and legitimacy are with it and it prefers to keep its back to the wall in these circumstances, let it continue to do so, and for ever, when the motive becomes illegitimate, not to say spurious. Otherwise, it is this state that will have caused the disturbance of public order, disorder and tumult. The citizens will have resigned themselves to all the misdemeanours. We will either get used to it or everyone will solve the problem in their own way.
Allowing the idea to flourish of Ousmane Sonko seeking to go to prison for less infamous reasons than the case of rape and other sexual abuse of accusations of Adji Sarr; we prefer to say that the reason would not matter, as long as his imprisonment would result from a serious and effective violation of the law of the Republic! Are we seeking to apply and enforce the laws of the Republic or to shame or humiliate a political opponent? The risk is great that the citizen will come to regret the absence of state authority and become nostalgic for Djibo Leyti Ka, who took it upon himself to put an end to provocations and other aggression against the state and the Republic by Serigne Moustapha Sy and the leaders of the Dahiratoul Moustarchidine Wal Moustarchidati Movement. In October 1993, Djibo Ka ordered the police to bring SerigneMoustapha Sy, following serious insults and attacks against President Abdou Diouf. The story goes that in the face of such vile insults against him, President Abdou Diouf was apprehensive about having Serigne Moustapha Sy picked up, but his Minister of the Interior remained steadfast, assuring that he could not allow the Republic to be attacked in this way, even if it meant that his action would cost him his job afterwards!
In February 1994, with the murder of six policemen on Boulevard Général De Gaulle, the Minister of the Interior had Pape Malick Sy arrested and, in the process, dissolved the movement. Another historical example is that of Idrissa Seck, the Prime Minister, who ordered the police to bring Serigne Khadim Bousso, who was being prosecuted for fraudulent bankruptcy and who refused to answer to the courts in 2003, or Aminata Touré, the Minister of Justice, who had Cheikh Bethio Thioune arrested in 2012, in the case of the murder of one of his disciples in Médinatoul Salam. All this was done to ensure that the law remained in force.Unfortunately, one may have the impression today that the rigours of the law only fall on the many young lampooners, onlookers arrested following obvious instigations whose known perpetrators are, however, spared. The arrests of these people become useless and unproductive in the long run.
By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn
