SENEGALESE REACTIONS TO OFFENSIVE CARTOONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAKAR 000394

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR R, ECA, AF/PDPA, DRL/IRF, AF/RSA, AF/W AND INR/AA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/16/2016
TAGS: PREL KISL KPAO ETRD SG
SUBJECT: SENEGALESE REACTIONS TO OFFENSIVE CARTOONS

REF: STATE 020587

Classified By: CLASSIFIED BY A/DCM CLAUD YOUNG FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND
(D).


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Senegalese reactions to Danish cartoons
have been largely muted and moderate. Nonetheless, Embassy
demarched the Foreign Ministry to denounce violence and
support freedom of speech. END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) On February 14, Political Counselor made reftel
demarche to Pape Oumar Ndiaye, the Director for International
Organizations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.


3. (SBU) Senegalese reactions to Danish cartoons have been
largely muted and moderate. Many have condemned anti-Danish
violence although the Muslim teachers union has called on
Senegalese to boycott Danish goods. President Wade called
the cartoons &blasphemous8 and argued they could "not be
justified under pretext of press freedom." National daily
"Walfadjri" owner called the cartoons "irresponsible,"
betraying a lack of tolerance toward Muslims. His brother,
political and religious activist Ahmed Khalifa Niasse,
criticized the cartoons but added: "I would have liked to
see, along with vehement protests against Denmark and its
exports, a systematic denunciation of terrorist attacks
carried out in the name of Islam -- a sentiment rarely heard."


4. (SBU) Spokesman Abdul Aziz Sy, Junior, of Senegal's
largest brotherhood, the Tidjanes, called two weeks ago for
Tidjane mosques to denounce the cartoons in February 3 Friday
prayers. In a sermon delivered at our political assistant's
mosque, former Islamic Institute Director Rawane Baye
condemned lack of tolerance both by those who drew the
cartoons and those who had used violence to protest them. Sy
himself, at a February 9 Tidjane youth movement rally,
similarly condemned the cartoons and immoderate protests
against them.


5. (SBU) On February 16, Sy, Ambassador Moustapha Cisse and
the Khalife of Pire held a meeting in which they stressed the
cartoons are the disrespectful acts of individuals and not a
collective anti-Islamic movement. Some people present did
trample a Danish flag. Other Muslim groups have called for a
February 18 march from Dakar,s Grand Mosque to the Obelisk
following Friday prayers.


6. (C) Meanwhile, Cheikh Bamba Dieye, a 2005 IVP and a
leading intellectual of Senegal's other major Brotherhood,
the Mourides, told PolOff the cartoons were inexcusable proof
the West had not made an effort to understand Muslims or that
which they hold important. The violence, he said, was being
manipulated by those with their own political agendas and was
highly regrettable but should have been foreseen.


7. (SBU) The only truly hard-line reaction we have seen to
the cartoons came in a joint statement by Airport Mosque Imam
MBaye Niang and disgraced politician Abdou Latif Gueye, a
former Wade counselor jailed in 2002 for misdirecting
government medical supplies. The two argued that Wade had
not moved quickly enough to denounce the cartoons, and said
this should disqualify Senegal from holding the 2007
Organization of the Islamic Conferences (OIC) Summit. No one
else has supported their position.
JACKSON