The various statements of the Senegalese President, Macky Sall, on the subject of the war in Ukraine alone cover a good part of the range of positions of African countries vis-à-vis the Russia of Vladimir Putin, whose brutal power attracts some but frightens others even more. There was, on the one hand, the expression of a Head of State anxious to spare a public opinion within which the anti-French speech in particular and anti-Western speech in general rises noticeably. And, on a different note, Macky Sall will assume, in 2022, the rotating presidency of the African Union, 55 members strong, which calls for “imperative respect for the national sovereignty of Ukraine”.
These variations were expressed, Wednesday, March 2, in the enclosure of the United Nations, in New York. The general assembly adopted by an overwhelming majority a resolution with the unequivocal title: “Aggression against Ukraine”. Of the 193 member countries of the UN, 141 have approved the text. Five opposed it. Thirty-five abstained, including 17 African countries, including Senegal. The text nevertheless denounced in terms very comparable to those of the African Union the Russian offensive. ECOWAS, the West African sub-regional organization, and the chairman of the AU commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, had also “condemned the military invasion” and “urged” both parties to ” a ceasefire “.
In Paris, a diplomat concedes, on condition of anonymity, that the Senegalese abstention joined to that of other French-speaking African countries is ” problem “. It would be explained by the ” fear ” that Russia is instilling. “Not the fear of a Wagner-type military offensive [la société privée de sécurité liée au Kremlin très active au Soudan, au Mali et en Centrafrique], but to be the object of a disinformation offensive manipulating public opinion which has reached such a point that it causes a form of paralysis among some of our partners. »
“Reluctance”
Senegal and the other Sahelian countries are coming out of an intense diplomatic sequence alongside France and the European Union. “The “you line up like sheep behind France” narrative hurts them, we recognize in Paris. There is therefore a reluctance among some of our partners to publicly assume a line which is nevertheless theirs”, add this source.
According to one observer, “the Senegalese thus fear a junction between the maneuvers of disinformation and the populist fiber on which a certain number of their political opponents play”. A year ago, Dakar and several other large cities in Senegal were thus the scene of deadly riots provoked by the arrest of Ousmane Sonko, suspected of rape. This fiery pan-Africanist opponent accuses the Western powers of wanting to recolonize Africa economically. Other countries – such as Mali, the Central African Republic, Sudan or Madagascar – are already the subject of what Paris describes as“Russian diplomatic, military and disinformation offensive”. They abstained. Guinea and Burkina Faso did not even take part in the vote.
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