Senegal PM Seeks To Repeal Contested Amnesty Law
Muhammad Irfan Published December 27, 2024 | 08:10 PM
Dakar, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Dec, 2024) Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said Friday that his government would submit legislation to repeal a law by former president Macky Sall granting amnesty for deadly political violence.
The controversial amnesty was granted just before March 2024 elections as Sall sought to calm protests sparked by his last-minute postponement of the vote in the traditionally stable West African country.
Critics say the move was to shield perpetrators of serious crimes, including homicides, committed during three years of political tensions between February 2021 and February 2024.
But it also allowed Sonko, a popular opposition figure, to stand in the elections after court convictions had made him ineligible, as well as Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who eventually won the presidency.
Sonko's government pledged earlier this month to investigate dozens of deaths resulting from the political violence between 2021 and 2024.
"In addition to putting compensation for victims into the budget, a draft law will be submitted to your august Assembly to repeal the March 6, 2024 amnesty so that light may be shed and responsibilities determined on whatever side they may lie," Sonko said in a highly awaited policy speech to lawmakers.
"It's not a witch hunt and even less vengeance... It's justice, the foundation without which social peace cannot be built," Sonko said.
- 'Home-grown growth' -
Sonko's speech also laid out plans for the next five years to pull Senegal out of three years of economic and political turmoil that have sent unemployment soaring.
He and Faye, who won the presidency and in November secured a landslide victory in parliament, now have a clear path for implementing an ambitious, leftist reform agenda.
"We must carry out a deep and unprecedented break never seen in the history of our country since independence" from France, Sonko told lawmakers.
He said Senegal remained "locked into the colonial economic model" and vowed an overhaul of public action and tax reforms to foster "home-grown growth".
The government will also tap long-awaited natural gas reserves, with production now expected sometime next year, "with the goal of raising Senegal to among the most competitive countries in Africa".
And he reiterated Faye's assertion in November that France should close its military bases in the country, earning applause from lawmakers.
Several former French colonies in West Africa have severed military ties with Paris in recent years, denouncing an alleged infringement of their sovereignty.
France has deployed thousands of troops to help combat jihadist insurgencies across the Sahel in recent years.
Sonko also said the teaching of English would be established in elementary schools, in a country where public education is in French.
