Bush visit to Senegal sparks protests
By G. Dunkel
Dakar, the capital of Senegal, was shut down
on July 8. There was no traffic on major streets, no parking
allowed in many places, road blocks, public transportation
perturbed, markets closed. Many people had a lot of trouble
getting to work. Under pressure from U.S. security, the city of
Dakar and the Senegalese government had taken extraordinary
measures for the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush.
So the demonstration against his visit took place on July
7.
Demonstrators chanted "Bush is a killer" and "Abdoulaye Wade
is his accomplice." Wade is the president of Senegal. Banners
read "American-English troops out of Iraq, Bush-Blair to the
World Criminal Court" and "No to the Sene ga lese-American
agreement."This agreement prohibits Senegal from extraditing
U.S. citizens to the World Court.
Malick Ndiaye, a leader of the Coalition of Senegalese
Intellectuals, speaking at a wrap-up rally, raised the three
big priorities of the struggle against Bush's visit: the U.S.
must "compensate the diaspora," "annul Africa's debt" and
"publicly and officially apologize at Gorée" for "all
the evil that the traffic in African slaves caused Black
people." After Ndiaye spoke, trade union and political leaders
spoke of the dangers that Senegal was running in welcoming
Bush.
Bush had a meet-and-greet at the airport with the presidents
of Sierra Leone, Bénin, Gambia, Mali, Niger and Ghana.
The president of Cape Verde was also announced as a visitor.
This was not just protocol. It was a notice to France that the
U.S. government intends to be much more active in West Africa,
both Franco phone and Anglophone, where France has previously
felt it had a free rein.
Reprinted from the July 24, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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