UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN West Africa: Senegal's Guinea Bissau intervention 98.8.20

IRIN West Africa: Senegal's Guinea Bissau intervention 98.8.20


RICA: Senegal begins to explain Guinea Bissau intervention

ABIDJAN, 20 August (IRIN) The Senegalese government this week said that its troops would remain in neighbouring Guinea Bissau for the foreseeable future as the vanguard of an eventual West African ECOMOG peacekeeping mission.

For the first time, analysts said, the announcement was accompanied by statements published by the official press and in parliamentary responses, explaining some of the motives behind its decision to intervene. The government, however, stopped short of giving precise figures on casualties or the cost of the operation.

A West African specialist told IRIN that the public were beginning to ask questions about the intervention because of deaths among Senegalese soldiers, and because of fears that the country had become too embroiled in its neighbour's affairs.

In a no-confidence debate which the government easily defeated, Prime Minister Mamadou Lamine Loum said on Monday a force of 2,300 men were currently deployed in Guinea Bissau, where they had prevented a coup d'etat and so succeeded in the main aim of their mission. "We will not repatriate them," he told the National Assembly. They would in fact constitute part of the ECOMOG contingent due to deploy in the country, he added.

The troops were sent in shortly after 7 June, when President Joao Bernardo Vieira sacked General Ansumane Mane as his armed forces chief of staff following accusations that senior army officers were smuggling arms to separatists in neighbouring Senegal's southern province of Casamance. As an army revolt led by Mane gathered momentum, Senegal said Vieira had invited Dakar to send troops. A smaller contingent was also sent by Guinea (Conakry). Immediately a ceasefire was signed on 26 July, Senegalese President Abdou Diouf announced that his forces would abide by the terms of the agreement.

A fortnight before the ceasefire, as news reports carried accounts of fierce battles and incidents of looting allegedly involving Senegalese soldiers, the country's five main opposition parties said in a joint statement they were concerned that the intervention had turned into a "real war" which could affect the stability of Senegal itself. Iba Der Thiam, leader of the Convention des democrates et patriotes (CDP), who is also spokesman for the parliamentary opposition bloc, called the intervention "totally unacceptable".

The government, he added, had not consulted the National Assembly, political parties or the public. It was a "disturbing" state of affairs, he said, considering "the loss of life" among Senegalese soldiers.

At the same time, United Nations agencies and humanitarian organisations repeatedly called on Senegal to open its borders so that emergency supplies could be sent in to assist 350,000 people the UN estimated had been displaced by the fighting.

The Senegalese authorities, diplomats recalled, agreed to facilitate the aid flow and merely reiterated, without further explanation, that they had been invited to intervene under the terms of "legal, mutual defence accords". Diplomats said the main motive in fact had been to cut off all aid from Guinea Bissau reaching separatists of the Mouvement des Forces Democratiques de Casamance (MFDC). An indication of this came in an editorial this week in the official daily, 'Le Soleil', which set the tone of government reasoning by saying the MFDC had given the army mutineers in Guinea Bissau considerable support.

In short, the paper said, what was being discussed here was the country's first military intervention abroad as a sovereign state since independence from France in 1960. Senegal, which had previously intervened in Liberia as part of an ECOMOG peacekeeping force, "had its reasons" for the deployment. These included defending the "democratic, legal government" of Guinea Bissau, regional peace and "the internal security of our own borders".

The West Africa specialist said, however: "There is no question that they are in there because of the Casamance problem. They have been concerned that Guinea Bissau soldiers have been selling the MFDC weapons purchased cheaply from Cuba. Dakar thus feels obliged to do something, but the problem is that they are getting out of their depth." Public opinion was turning against the intervention, while on a regional level, he said, the intervention policy was at odds with Senegal's neighbours.

It was thus last week that the questioning got tougher, leading to what was described as one of the liveliest recent debates in the National Assembly.

Last Friday, the veteran Senegalese opposition leader, Abdoulaye Wade, told a news conference that with a ceasefire in place, he saw no further need to maintain troops across the border. Wade, leader of the liberal-leaning Parti Democratique Senegalais (PDS) added: "I demand that our soldiers be repatriated without delay." He said he would call on the public to put pressure on President Diouf. "The Senegalese people are urging the President of the Republic to tell the truth about Guinea Bissau."

By Monday, when the National Assembly convened to debate the no-confidence motion, the questioning intensified, according to a blow-by-blow account published in the newspapers. The motion was called by a former foreign minister, Djibo Ka, leader of the Renouveau Democratique (RD) which broke away from the governing Parti Socialiste (PS).

"Had there not been a ceasefire, it would have been difficult to withdraw honourably," he said. "The nation has the right to know the casualty figures among our soldiers." Ablaye Faye, leader of another opposition group, said: "This war has cost money. How much? How much is Senegal paying? Are you getting the money through your ambitious belt-tightening plan? How much is Guinea Bissau paying?"

Prime Minister Loum responded: "All I can tell you with certainty is that not an extra centime has been allocated to the army in this respect. This mission has been accomplished within its budget." The precise cost would be given in the next national budget. So far, he said, about 50 Senegalese soldiers had lost their lives or been reported missing in action in Guinea Bissau. The casualty figure cited, said a Western military expert, appeared to be too low given the intensity and the duration of the mission.

Senegal would keep its army units in Guinea Bissau, he emphasised, as long as the state deemed necessary.

Abidjan, 20 August, 1998

[ends]

[The material contained in this communication comes to you via IRIN West Africa, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci for more information or subscription. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this report, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. IRIN reports are archived on the Web at: http://www.reliefweb.int or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to <archive@ocha.unon..org> - mailing list: irin-wa-updates]

Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 16:44:56 +0000 (GMT) Subject: IRIN West Africa: Senegal's Guinea Bissau intervention 98.8.20 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980820162919.21759A-

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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