(SenePlus) – In a column published by Le Monde this Saturday, January 11, 2025, the philosopher and historian Achille Mbembé draws up an alarming observation of the political situation in West Africa, where a new state model is taking shape that is hostile to fundamental freedoms.
According to the Cameroonian intellectual, two visions clash today on the African continent. On the one hand, a project of “substantive democracy” carried by a new generation of activists, which closely links decolonization and democratization. On the other, a sovereignist current which, under the guise of anti-imperialism, “considers liberal democracy as a trap, the Trojan horse of Western domination”, writes Mbembé.
It is particularly in West Africa that this second model is taking root, with the emergence of “barracks states” in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger. “The army wants to be the State,” analyzes the philosopher, who emphasizes that “far from seeking to domesticate violence and civilize political mores, the government is assimilated to command and politics to a latent war.”
Guinea as a laboratory of repression
The director general of the Foundation for Innovation for Democracy based in South Africa, particularly points the finger at the situation in Guinea under the regime of Mamadi Doumbouya, who came to power in a coup d’état on September 5, 2021. The country has become, according to him, the “most fertile ground” for liberticidal drift. “The repressive machine is now operating at full capacity,” he says, detailing a system where opponents are arrested at night and detained on the island of Kassa, “where as a general rule, they are physically mistreated and subjected to degrading treatment.”
The author reveals chilling figures: “Between 60,000 and 75,000 Guineans have been killed by successive regimes” since independence, according to the international human rights organizations he cites. Under Lansana Conté’s regime alone, “more than 1.5 million inhabitants fled the country.”
An ecosystem of predation
The philosopher describes a system that goes beyond simple political repression. West African military regimes have put in place what he calls an “expanded matrix of predation”, where “war, the grab economy, extraction and predation” are intertwined. He points in particular to the growing use of mercenaries and the outsourcing of security to private operators.
In Guinea, the economic situation is deteriorating dramatically: “Consumer prices record frequent increases and nearly 10% of Guineans are no longer able to eat enough,” warns Mbembé. Meanwhile, “the struggle for control of the means of predation continues to escalate within the different factions of the army”, particularly in the mining sector.
For the intellectual, this situation makes Guinea “an objective threat to peace, security and regional stability.” He predicts an “intensification of social tensions” and a “radicalization of the opposition”, while the junta prepares to organize “sham elections” to stay in power.
