Senegal violence threatens nation’s stability as specialists name on authorities to instill calm

DAKAR, Senegal — Senegal specialists referred to as on the federal government on Monday to instill calm after days of the deadliest violence in years and considerations it might have lasting penalties.

Days of clashes between safety forces and supporters of opposition chief Ousmane Sonko have killed at the very least 16 individuals and injured a whole bunch of others. Police have arrested 500 individuals, a few of whom used Molotov cocktails and weapons.

“(There’s) the threat of chaos. The threat of civil war,” Alioune Tine, founding father of Afrikajom Center, a West African suppose tank, advised The Associated Press in an interview Monday within the capital, Dakar. “We have never ever lived this situation in Senegal … We cannot go fighting among ourselves and we have to stop now, to make peace now, to be united now.”

The clashes first broke out final Thursday, after Sonko was convicted of corrupting youth however acquitted on costs of raping a lady who labored at a therapeutic massage parlor and making dying threats towards her. Sonko, who didn’t attend his trial in Dakar, was sentenced to 2 years in jail.

Sonko got here third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and is well-liked with the nation’s youth. His supporters keep his authorized troubles are a part of a authorities effort to derail his candidacy within the 2024 presidential election. Under Senegalese regulation, Sonko’s conviction might bar him from operating.

While Senegal, a rustic of round 17 million individuals, has skilled upheaval earlier than, rights teams and analysts say the present clashes are the worst political disaster the nation has seen since 1988, when a common strike and electoral protest shook the facility of the then president, Amnesty International researcher Ousmane Diallo stated.

At the guts of the unrest are fears that President Macky Sall will run for a 3rd time period. The structure limits presidents to 2 five-year phrases. But Sall argues {that a} constitutional reform adopted in 2016 permits him to reset the clock and search one other time period.

“My massive worry is that we are only on the premises of the violence cycle in Senegal as the (possible) announcement of a third mandate run by Macky Sall could trigger a massive popular uprising and violence Senegal has never seen so far,” stated Guillaume Soto-Mayor, researcher on the Middle East Institute.

Some extraordinarily younger individuals are dying each day, and Senegal and its democratic system are presumably on the point of collapse, he stated.

Others Senegalese specialists warn that if the violence continues it may not solely destabilize the nation however may very well be a gap for jihadi violence, which has already wracked a lot of the area, together with in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso.

While a cautious calm returned to Dakar on Monday, with site visitors resuming and a few individuals going again to work after days of shuttering inside, many are bracing for what lies forward.

Sonko’s home is below tight safety, and he hasn’t been seen or heard from for the reason that verdict and it’s unclear when or if he’ll be detained and brought to jail. Sall additionally hasn’t addressed the nation.

Violence erupted in March 2021, killing at the very least 14 individuals throughout clashes when authorities arrested Sonko for disturbing public order on the best way to his court docket listening to. Religious leaders, who maintain vital affect within the nation, had been key in bringing each side to the desk to quell the violence, analysts say.

Since final week’s clashes erupted, some non secular leaders have appealed for calm. Over the weekend, Serigne Mountakha Mbacke, caliph of the Mouride brotherhood, Senegal’s most influential non secular order, referred to as on individuals within the metropolis of Touba, the brotherhood’s headquarters, to cease demonstrating and return house.

Religious leaders are mediating with the events behind the scenes and imagine {that a} minimal consensus is perhaps reached, Cheikh Ahmed Tidiane Sy, president of the Unitary Framework of Islam of Senegal, a Muslim non secular group, advised the AP on Monday. However, obstacles, comparable to Sonko’s arrest stay, which might “still set our country ablaze,” he stated.

While many Senegalese need the upheaval to finish, others say they’ll proceed protesting till there’s justice.