Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06DAKAR316
2006-02-08 18:39:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Dakar
Cable title:  

EX-PM SECK RELEASED FROM PRISON: WHY AND WHY NOW?

Tags:  PHUM PGOV KJUS SG 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO0355
PP RUEHPA
DE RUEHDK #0316/01 0391839
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 081839Z FEB 06
FM AMEMBASSY DAKAR
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4179
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DAKAR 000316 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR AF/W, AF/RSA, DRL/PHD AND INR/AA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/08/2016
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KJUS SG
SUBJECT: EX-PM SECK RELEASED FROM PRISON: WHY AND WHY NOW?

REF: A. DAKAR 0181


B. 05 DAKAR 2509

Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROY L. WHITAKER FOR REASONS 1.4 (B)
AND (D).

SUMMARY
-------
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DAKAR 000316

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR AF/W, AF/RSA, DRL/PHD AND INR/AA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/08/2016
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KJUS SG
SUBJECT: EX-PM SECK RELEASED FROM PRISON: WHY AND WHY NOW?

REF: A. DAKAR 0181


B. 05 DAKAR 2509

Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROY L. WHITAKER FOR REASONS 1.4 (B)
AND (D).

SUMMARY
--------------

1. (C) The Government released former Prime Minister Idrissa
Seck from Reubeuss prison on February 7 after charges against
him were "partially" dropped. It remains unclear which
charges might be held open; one fallback is an accusation of
undue accumulation of wealth. Seck was released precisely at
the time that Senegal was playing a key Africa Cup soccer
match, presumably to reduce media coverage. President
Abdoulaye Wade, meanwhile, was in Equatorial Guinea. There
were numerous legal and political reasons for Seck's release.
Most important is that Wade needs to quell tensions in his
ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) before his most
important speech of the year, the April 4 Independence Day
address. END SUMMARY.

&NON LIEU PARTIEL8
--------------

2. (SBU) A judicial finding of "non lieu," as we understand
it, signifies that a charge has been dropped for lack of
evidence. The judges investigating Seck decided on the
apparently highly unusual finding of partial non-lieu.
Whatever its precise legal import, this means the judges hold
open the possibility of reopening the investigation of Seck
at a later date. We are trying to determine exactly what
charges may be left open. One default possibility is a
catch-all charge of undue accumulation of wealth. In any
case, the judges also ordered Seck's release.


3. (SBU) Seck gave a statement on arriving home, but he was
released from prison almost precisely at the time Senegal was
playing a key Africa Cup soccer match; so relatively few
people heard it. Newspapers the next morning divided between
those who headlined Seck's liberation and those that lamented
Senegal's football loss. President Wade, meanwhile, was in
Equatorial Guinea and made no comment on the Seck release.

WHY AND WHY NOW?
--------------

4. (C) Jurists have been arguing for weeks that the
government's allegedly faulty application of the law and

non-constitutional manipulation of national institutions
would soon force Seck's release (Ref A). Timing also played
a part. Perhaps no one in Government noticed, but the time
Seck spent in prison (July 15 - February 7, or 6 3/4 months)
virtually equaled the seven months then-opposition leader
Wade spent in prison in 1993. More pressing is Wade's need
to have his ruling PDS apparatus fully unified when he gives
his important Independence Day address April 4. On that day,
he will both present his vision of the future to the nation
and issue marching orders to his party for the February 2007
elections, and he needs to have neutralized public resentment
at Seck's arrest.


5. (C) While we cannot quantify Seck's popularity either in
the PDS or beyond, it is clear that Wade's loyalists fear his
capacity to spoil their election chances. Furthermore, Seck
has threatened to mobilize or energize non-partisan
opposition to Wade and the PDS. To take just one example,
the Tidjane Brotherhood, Senegal,s largest religious
brotherhood, is increasingly restless with what it sees as
Wade's neglect, and its youth movement will hold its annual
gathering in the Tidjane capital of Tivaouane on February 9.
Last year, youth chairman Moustapha Sy faced down a cabinet
minister and demanded Seck's reintegration into the PDS.
This year he might have called for his immediate release, and
that could have further catalyzed Tidjane political
discontent.


6. (C) We spoke February 7 to law professor and former Wade
counselor Mamadou Camara (Ref B),who predicted to us five
months ago that Wade would not allow the charges against Seck
to stand. Camara says Seck's release was necessary to
satisfy Seck loyalists, to mollify those in the PDS who think
Wade had victimized Seck and to abort any potential
cooperation between Seck and the opposition. According to
Camara, Wade will now be free to undertake a strategy of
"sausage slicing" against the opposition, cutting off and
co-opting influential segments or individual leaders one at a
time ) as he has done so successfully over the last six
years.


7. (C) Senegal Radio and Television (RTS) Director and Wade
communications honcho Moustapha Dieng predicted to us
February 6 that internal PDS opposition to Seck's release

DAKAR 00000316 002 OF 002


will be intense. Ministers whose ambitions were stymied by
Seck when he was Prime Minister will seek to block his
reintegration into the party leadership. Newly appointed
Agriculture Minister and Wade diehard Farba Senghor, Dieng
singled out, has identified himself almost totally as a Seck
enemy over the last six months, and would find it extremely
hard to work with Seck in preparing the PDS election campaign.


8. (C) Over lunch February 8, Samba Bathily and two other
Seck activists told us they consider that Seck remains
outside the PDS. They believe Wade needs Seck more than Seck
needs Wade, that he will never dare reinstitute legal charges
against him; time is on their side; Wade is running scared;
and it will be in Seck's interest to put off any deal until
just before the election, if indeed at all. What they wish
for is to see Seck run for Parliament as de facto head of the
opposition's parliamentary list. Then, they believe he would
become National Assembly President and the next in line to
the presidency.

COMMENT
--------------

9. (C) Seck's release from prison is only the first step in
his possible political rehabilitation. Many Senegalese are
certain Wade and Seck have struck a deal, possibly involving
Seck's active support for Wade in the election campaign,
though no one yet knows the details. Some suspect charges
have been left open in case Seck reneges on any commitments
he has made, and that if he causes trouble for Wade, he will
find himself again before the courts. We have always
underscored our support for a fair and transparent process,
and Senegal's judges to their credit have done the right
thing to date. The Secretary's July 20 press conference,
Congressmen Wolf's November letter and Codel Kolbe's January
4 intervention with President Wade almost certainly played a
key role in bringing Seck's incarceration to an end. END
COMMENT.
JACKSON