The murder of Me Babacar Sèye told by “Le Soleil”

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! Nine pages, big event. On Monday May 17, 1993, the front page of the daily Le Soleil did not embellish its vocabulary. It reads “cowardly assassination”. Saturday the 15th, death.

“Me. Babacar Sèye, vice-president of the Constitutional Council, assassinated on Saturday when he had just left his office, was buried yesterday afternoon in Saint-Louis…”. Yesterday, Sunday May 16, 1993, “Me Babacar Sèye, victim of the policy of the worst” was buried. From Senegal to France, from the bar association to political parties, we are offended, we regret, we denounce. The pages of the national daily collect everything.

The director of Le Soleil, Alioune Dramé, wondered in these words: “Land of religion, honor, peace, chivalrous spirit, fraternity, teranga, kinship and cousinhood, where adversity, whatever its passionate charge, has never gone beyond the time of roses, has our Senegal suddenly become porous to the gangrene which has destroyed countries like Lebanon, undermined so many other nations in Africa and sabotaged others around the world? “.

Also read: Me Babacar Sèye Stadium in Saint-Louis: A forgotten monument, a dream to rebuild

He questioned, while the Socialist Party (PS) affirmed. “By its unprecedented and villainous character, it is difficult not to think that this crime is first and foremost political,” said the PS. The Senegal Independence and Labor Party (Pit-Sénégal), in its press release relayed by Le Soleil, condemned “the use of violence and fascist methods in the settlement of political problems”.

Unprecedented event and villainous process: the photos convey the content of these expressions. On the one hand, the left window of the car which was shattered. On the other hand, the bullet holes visible on the body of the car. And since images can say as much, or even more, than words, page 5 of the newspaper, on May 17, 1993, adopted the style of comic strips. The drawings of Mr. Sèye’s gray Renault 25 Beverly then accompany the story of this “Italian-style attack” which took away the Saint-Louisian.

At 2:30 p.m., the deceased left the Constitutional Council. And, as Cheikh Tidiane Fall wrote, “nothing suggested the drama which was going to occur a little further on the Corniche, precisely 2 km 700 from the judicial institution of which Mr Babacar Sèye was the vice-president”.

The R 25 was going to take Avenue des Ambassadeurs. Mr. Sèye will not cross it. Gunshots, “Mr Babacar Sèye was fatally hit by a bullet which penetrated the left temple”. Other details populate the article by Cheikh Tidiane Fall…

The Sun also tells us that “as soon as he learned on Saturday the sad news of the assassination of Me Babacar Sèye, vice-president of the Constitutional Council, the head of state went to the morgue of the Main hospital to bow over the mortal remains…”.

It is in Saint-Louis that the deceased rests. We paid homage to him there, before burying him. In pain, of course, but Saint-Louis knows how to remain dignified, even in pain. Badara Diouf’s text notes this fact. And it would still take pages and pages to report all these testimonies given by everyone about the first Senegalese lawyer registered at the bar in 1947.

By Moussa SECK