Buur Joe Bi, aka Cissey Ba, started the month of June tweeting frantically. As protests spread across Senegal over the two-year prison sentence for opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, the 26-year-old tweeter reported on VPN systems to circumvent the government shutdown of social networks such as WhatsApp or Facebook ordered by the authorities and warned that the police were using live bullets against the demonstrators. It was a deadly omen: a few hours later he was shot dead in a protest in Dakar, the country’s capital.
Buur Joe was one of the more than 20 victims – 16, according to official figures – registered since the beginning of the worst spiral of social violence experienced in Senegal, considered a symbol of stability in Africa. In addition to the capital, there was looting and burning of banks, gas stations, supermarkets, public buildings and French interests in other cities of the country. Senegal falters.
The Senegalese political analyst Saiba Bayo, who underlines the “overwhelming levels of human rights violations” by the law enforcement forces – there are more than 400 injured and hundreds arrested – believes there are reasons to be worried. “Distrust in the president and the judicial authority or the police is at the lowest point in history. And the worst thing is that there are two opposing sides”.
At the heart of the outburst is the announcement on June 1 of the popular politician Sonko’s two-year prison sentence for the crime of “corruption of the youth”, which would de facto serve to prevent his candidacy presidential elections of 2024. From the side of the young politician, a conspiracy is denounced to derail his aspirations to be president.
The case is a legacy of the complaint for rape that a young employee of a massage parlor launched in 2021 against Sonko. Although the court acquitted the opposition leader due to lack of evidence, the forced turn to now accuse him of “attempting against morality and facilitating the debauchery” of the young woman is proof for the opposition that the target is to liquidate the main rival of President Macky Sall, in power since 2012. Former finance official and mayor of Ziguinchor, capital of the dissident Casamance region, Sonko enjoys great popularity thanks to the fight against corruption and a pan-Africanist and anti-colonial speech .
Sall’s ambition to retain power is the other crux of the matter, as he is considering running for a third term, despite the fact that it is prohibited by the Constitution. The current president’s side argues that he can run because the law was reformed during his first term and therefore the limitation would not count retroactively, a tactic used to cling to the throne in other African countries such as Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Burundi and the Republic of Congo.
Bayo describes the accusations against Sonko as “shame and infamy” and warns that “if the president does not take a step back and insists on running for a third term, I fear we will end up in a war and Sall will consolidate his dictatorship”.
Accusations of police repression and violence have skyrocketed in recent days and the internet has been flooded with videos of uniformed men beating protesters in alleys and images of men in civilian clothes with firearms shooting protesters.
The Government denied everything and said that the armed men were violent demonstrators, although several videos, viewed by this newspaper, show how they act in the face of police passivity.
Senegalese activist and Creu de Sant Jordi Bombo Ndir also believes that Sall’s “arrogance and lust for power” is leading the country to a dangerous impasse. “The degradation of democracy during his mandate is alarming, if someone does not think like him or is a threat to his power, he eliminates him”. Ndir cites two recent cases: in 2017, the former mayor of Dakar, Khalifa Sall, and the son of former president Wade, Karim Wade, his main rivals at the polls, were removed from the electoral race through judicial maneuvers .
But anger not only responds to democratic decay, it also rhymes with poverty. The Senegalese political analyst René Lake emphasized this week in a televised debate the root of the anger and confusion among young people. “The situation is very difficult for many, unemployment is extremely high, 75% of the population is under 25 years old, the education system is collapsing… The increase in poverty is a reality for the majority”.
The UN’s World Food Program puts a number on the sensation of free fall: 39% of the country lives below the poverty line.
