At the dawn of the political crisis of December 1962, which opposed the President of the Council Mamadou Dia to President Léopold Sédar Senghor, General Amadou Fall had adopted a position of neutrality. He had summoned the young officers to remind them that the army should not get involved in political conflicts.
However, this neutrality was compromised by the intervention of France. Under the leadership of Colonel Leblanc, commander of the French military base in Cape Verde, and Jean Alfred Diallo, an officer repatriated from France, Senghor put in place a strategy to ensure military support.
The dismissal of General Amadou Fall
Without constitutional prerogatives, Senghor replaced General Amadou Fall with Jean Alfred Diallo, a Franco-Senegalese mixed race. This decision, in violation of military rules, led to the arrest of Mamadou Dia and a profound transformation of the Senegalese army. Amadou Fall, for his part, was placed under arrest in Gorée for 60 days, before being placed under house arrest and removed from the army.
Militarization under Jean Alfred Diallo
Colonel Jean Alfred Diallo, who officially became CEMGA in February 1963, carried out profound reforms. In particular, he created the elite corps of commandos, which he entrusted to Captain Idrissa Fall. This unit played a key role in repressing the electoral riots of December 1963, causing the deaths of hundreds of demonstrators in Dakar, with the support of the French army.
Colonel Diallo also entrusted command of the paratroopers to Captain Faustin Pereira, the same person who had arrested Mamadou Dia.
An army under foreign influence
The politicization of the Senegalese army in the 1960s is inseparable from the complex relations with France. In his memoirs published in 1992, General Diallo declared: “Mamadou Dia never staged a coup d’état against Senghor… The story of the coup d’état is pure fabrication. »
After his retirement, Jean Alfred Diallo returned to France, where he lived until his death in 2011, in Boulogne-Billancourt.
A dark and decisive page in Senegalese history
General Amadou Fall embodies dignity and ethics in a period when Senegalese institutions were put to the test. Disbarred for having defended the neutrality of the army, he remains an emblematic figure in Senegalese history.
