In an interview with France 24, the former Prime Minister of Senegal, Aminata Touré, showed her embarrassment towards Macky Sall who agreed to chair the Paris Pact for the People upon his departure from the Senegalese presidency, at the request of Emmanuel Macron.
Correspondence in Abidjan, Bati Abouè
If there is life after the presidency of the Republic, it must ensure the honorability of the country that we have led. This is, at least, the lesson that the former Prime Minister of Senegal, Amanita Touré, is trying to teach former President Macky Sall who took the reins of the Paris Pact for the People, just a few weeks after the inauguration of Bassirou Diomaye Faye as President of the Republic. The ex-president will therefore only have been out of work for a few days before finding a new job in France where his offices are housed at the headquarters of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.
But whatever honors the former president may find in his new job, his former Prime Minister believes that he should have a duty of reserve towards Senegal because he benefits from the compensation granted to him by the Constitution . Furthermore, she said, as commander-in-chief, Macky Sall leaves with many military secrets as well as “the mapping of our natural resources”, she denounced, describing this decision as “collusion” with the former colonizer.
The ghosts of 3 years of repression
On April 2, Macky Sall handed over power to Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a 44-year-old tax inspector, elected 5th President of the Republic of Senegal after three years of political crisis and a violent crackdown that left around sixty dead and more than 300 injured, according to Amnesty International. Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko, the two new heads of the Executive, were also among the hundreds of people imprisoned. Both were released just ten days before the end of the election campaign, which was rescheduled under pressure from the street and due to the intransigence of the Senegalese Constitutional Council. In particular, the latter had rejected, as unconstitutional, the postponement of the date of the presidential election, as well as the decisions of the national dialogue, the ultimate objective of which was to allow the former president to continue to remain in power beyond the end of his term.
All these maneuvers had caused new outbreaks of violence in Dakar and in several regions of the country, as well as new deaths that increased the toll of the repression of the regime. But seeing that he could no longer maintain himself, the former president had an amnesty law passed covering the three years of repression. But despite this legal obstacle, a collective of victims of the Macky Sall regime was formed in Dakar. It asks the new regime to issue arrest warrants to the Moroccan authorities so that they can hand over the former president who now lives in Marrakech.
What happened during these bloody events
The former Prime Minister, who was also opposed to the said amnesty law, supports the initiatives of the said collective because there can be no lasting peace without justice, she said. “We need to clarify everything that happened during these bloody events so that we know those who are behind these deaths of young people who were demonstrating. So that in the end, those responsible are convicted by the courts. We saw it with Pinochet but also closer to us with Dadis Camara,” she argued.
That said, it would first be necessary to overcome the barrier of the amnesty law, then convince the Moroccan authorities and, finally, the French leaders before bringing the former president before the courts of his country. The fact that Macky Sall now heads an international organization should logically help cement his double immunity. Moreover, it is not excluded that he negotiated this position with the French president of whom he now becomes the special envoy with this ulterior motive. But whatever he thought, Aminata Touré makes fun of the former Senegalese president becoming the employee of his former colleague.
However, this is not the first time that France has recycled former Senegalese presidents. In 2002, Jacques Chirac brought Abdou Diouf out of retirement to become secretary general of La Francophonie after 19 years of reign at the head of his country. Since his election, the Senegalese had not hidden his agenda at the head of this institution: ensuring “the consolidation and influence of French in the world”, promoting “the teaching of French and its status in international organizations” and ensure “that all countries in the French-speaking world feel the moral obligation to express themselves in French in international organizations and conferences. »There is therefore nothing new under the Téranga sun.
