The assignment of Brigadier General Souleymane Kandé as military attaché at the Senegalese embassy in New Delhi in May 2024 and the controversy it has raised give us the opportunity to revisit a dimension of Senegal's military history rarely discussed . The patriotism, professionalism and loyalty of the Senegalese Army to civil authorities, in a West Africa which beats the world record for military coups, make it a model respected throughout the world. However, it is important to recognize that the Army is a living social body made up of talented and ambitious men and women. In this respect, it is entirely understandable that the clash of ambitions sometimes creates upheavals. In this brief contribution, I analyze some of the upheavals that shook the Army between the year of its formation in 1960 and during the Presidency of Abdou Diouf.
An exploration of the long-term history of the Senegalese Army reveals that the General Kandé affair is far from being an isolated case. Before General Kandé, two senior army officers were assigned, against their will, as military attachés at Senegalese embassies. The reasons given to justify their assignment are similar to those noted in the case of General Kandé. They mainly concern rivalries and personality conflicts between senior officers. For the case of General Kandé, several theories or rather speculations are put forward. For some, the General is the victim of a cabal of senior officers older than him and who are jealous of his meteoric rise. For others, he paid the price for his presumption when, with the support of President Macky Sall, he ignored the instructions of his superior, the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces (Cemga), Birame Diop, today. now Minister of the Armed Forces, to launch a major offensive against the rebels in Casamance. Still others accuse him of being a hooded opponent of the new regime and even insinuate that he was preparing a coup d'état.
Before General Kandé, two senior officers of the Senegalese Army were assigned, against their will, as military attachés at Senegalese embassies. The stature of these officers and their desire to publicly contest the decision taken against them had, at the time, represented a real threat to the cohesion of the young National Army.
Lieutenant-Colonel (Lc) Mademba Sy is the first senior Senegalese officer to be appointed military attaché against his will. Lc Mademba Sy was, with Lc Jean Alfred Diallo, one of only two officers of this rank in the Senegalese Army when Senegal acquired its independence in 1960. Lc Mademba Sy who, like Lc Jean Alfred Diallo, served in the French Army, was a particularly brilliant and popular officer among officers and enlisted personnel. The colonial archives offer the image of a very ambitious soldier who did not hide his desire to one day become Cemga and perhaps even head of state. He was suspected of being in collusion with a group of officers who worked for him and who were active in undermining the authority of Lc Jean Alfred Diallo, his rival, named Cemga during the 1962 crisis. These officers, said We admired him because he was an infantryman and a leader of men on the battlefield, while Lc Diallo was an engineer officer, more concerned with questions of logistics.
President Senghor, aware of this rivalry and the danger it represented for the young National Army, had removed Lc Sy by having him appointed Chief of Staff of the African and Malagasy Defense Union (Uam/D) whose the headquarters was in Ouagadougou. When Lc Diallo was promoted to Cemga, Lc Sy requested his assignment to Dakar to, he said, help his comrade in the effort to build the new National Army, but he did not receive approval from Cemga. His relations with the latter continued to deteriorate. He had difficulty accepting his tutelage, considering himself the most qualified officer to lead the Senegalese Army. He openly expressed his anger when the Cemga failed to include his name on the advancement table in the Army for 1965, arguing that he had not served a time of command in his rank. After resigning from his post at the Uam/D, Lc Sy, who wanted to return to Senegal, was assigned to Paris as military attaché at the Senegalese embassy. He will later be transferred to Kinshasa. In 1963, his name was associated with rumors of a coup d'état involving twenty officers and non-commissioned officers whose alleged leader, one of the most popular officers in the Army and one of its greatest admirers, died in a mysterious car accident.
The same year (1963) that Lc Mademba Sy was assigned to the Senegalese embassy in Paris, President Senghor made the same decision concerning another army executive, Commander (cmdt) Faustin Pereira. Cmdt Pereira, who had an impeccable service record in the French Army, played a crucial role during the 1962 crisis. He then commanded the Parachute Battalion based in Rufisque. On this fateful day of December 17, 1962, which marked the culmination of the crisis at the top of the State between the President of the Republic Léopold Sédar Senghor and the President of the Council Mamadou Dia, the gendarmerie, the national guard and the Army, responding to the orders of the two protagonists of the crisis, faced each other at the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building and the National Radio. The support of the Army in general and especially of the paratroopers commanded by Commander Pereira to President Senghor was decisive in avoiding a fratricidal war within the Security Forces and for the final victory of the President of the Republic over the President of the Council.
Cmdt Pereira, like his comrade Lc Mademba Sy, had difficulty accepting the supervision of Cemga Diallo. When, after his appointment, the latter sent him a soldier to serve as liaison between his unit and the General Staff, he refused to receive him. This act of insubordination cost him his command and 45 days of rigorous arrest. After serving his sentence, President Senghor appointed him military attaché at the Senegalese embassy in Washington.
But unlike Lc Mademba Sy, who seems to have joined his post reluctantly but without apparent resistance, Commander Pereira moved heaven and earth not to leave Senegal. He would have asked several personalities to intercede on his behalf, including the Caliph General of the Mourides, Serigne Falilou Mbacké, a close friend of President Senghor. He also tried to mobilize certain non-commissioned officers for his cause and even allegedly gave the President of the Republic, who was in charge of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, a three-day ultimatum to reinstate him in his command of the Parachute Group. This activism would have irritated President Senghor who ordered him to return to his post on October 18, 1963 at 3:30 a.m. and he complied. He was retired in 1969 after his return from Washington.
However, even in civilian life, Commander Pereira will remain under the radar of the authorities. In December 1969, he was arrested following a denunciation by General Amadou Fall, a former Cemga whom he contacted to ask him to take the lead in a plot against President Senghor. A list of personalities expected to form a new government in the event of the success of the so-called Christmas plot was reportedly found at his home. Commander Pereira and his accomplice, Lieutenant Coly, will be tried on December 19 and sentenced to 5 years and 8 years in prison respectively despite the absence of tangible evidence. It appears that the authorities wanted to silence a former soldier known for his harsh criticism of government policy and the head of the Army.
The attempted coup d'état which was allegedly conceived by Cemga Joseph-Louis Tavarez de Souza in 1988 and which President Abdou Diouf mentions in his memoirs would undoubtedly have constituted the greatest crisis in the political history of independent Senegal if it had materialized. This affair, nipped in the bud, has not yet finished revealing all its secrets. The President describes, in detail, how the magistrate Andresia Vaz revealed to him a conversation she had had with one of her friends, wife of Colonel Gomis, leader of the paratroopers, who was contacted by Cemga de Souza to participate in the coup . General de Souza was promoted to Cemga by President Abdou Diouf in 1984, replacing General Idrissa Fall who was appointed by President Senghor.
President Diouf describes the relationship between General de Souza and a mysterious Frenchman who encouraged him to take power. All this happened in 1988, the year when Senegal was experiencing one of the most serious political crises in its history. Abdoulaye Wade, the opposition leader, was in prison. And for the first time, car bombs exploded in Dakar. The Frenchman would have convinced Cemga that the situation was quasi-insurrectional and the coup d'état was the only way to restore order. President Diouf succeeded in foiling the coup attempt, but refrained from bringing the alleged culprits to justice. More surprisingly, Cemga received the same treatment as its predecessors. He was appointed Ambassador of Senegal to Bonn. But the following year, the President dismissed De Souza from his position and retired Colonel Oumar Ndiaye, former Intendant General of the Army, and Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bampassy, former leader of the commando troops. They were punished for “serious faults in the service and against discipline”. Other sources indicate, however, that they were punished for having expressed reservations about the use of the troops for law enforcement duties during the 1988 post-election riots.
It should be noted that De Souza has always denied his involvement in a coup attempt. In an interview with the newspaper Sud Quotidien dated November 29, 2014, he reaffirmed his innocence and insisted on his opposition in principle to coups d'état. He died on July 3, 2017. In the article announcing his death, the journalist wrote: “Appreciated by his peers and hated by his superiors, civil authorities…” This observation is consistent with the testimonies I received from a retired senior officer. The latter considers Cemga De Souza as the best leader to have led the Senegalese Army. He was close to the troops, whose living and working conditions he considerably improved. He created the Military Construction Cooperative (Comico) which enabled many soldiers to have a roof over their heads. It is therefore quite possible that General De Souza would have been a victim of his popularity and the fear and jealousy of his peers and leaders.
These events that I have just described do not in any way alter the identity fundamental of the Senegalese Army which defines itself as a Nation Army. It is certainly not a long, quiet river, but during more than sixty years of existence it has demonstrated that it has the resources to manage its internal contradictions without harming the stability of the Republic.
Sheikh Anta BABOU
History teacher
University of Pennsylvania
Related News :