Tribute to Senghor
2001-12-21 16:47
Dakar - Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade has declared 15 days of national mourning for the country's founding head of state, Leopold Sedar Senghor, who died on Thursday, aged 95.
"I decree that the national mourning shall last for 15 days, I
decree that the national flag shall fly at half-mast," Wade said
late on Thursday.
Warm tributes to the poet-president, who led Senegal to
independence from France in 1960 and governed for two decades, were being paid by African and world leaders, and prominent people
particularly in the French-speaking world.
"I was his adversary, but admired him for all that," the former opposition leader Wade said as he announced the period of mourning and plans for a national funeral.
Father of democracy in Africa
"He gave me the chance to express my ideas," Wade added,
stressing that he had been allowed to form his opposition
Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) at a time when most of Africa was "a mosaic of single-party states".
"Democrats should be grateful to him."
Senghor died on Thursday afternoon at his home in Normandy in
northern France, where he had lived for two decades. He stepped
down from office at the end of 1980.
Wade said that arrangements for his funeral were to be made with the late statesman's family.
His death was announced by the Senegalese leader during a summit in Dakar, where regional co-operation and the creation of a single currency were topping the agenda for the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).
West African leaders at the summit held a minute's silence.
Post-colonialist
Wade picked up on Senghor's contribution to unity, declaring
that "we should not forget that Senghor fought against
'Balkanisation' in colonial times, long before independence".
A poet and essayist who set the stage for the Black
Consciousness movement, Senghor was also the first black African to be admitted to the elite Academie Francaise, custodian of French
language and culture.
Senghor was described in an interview on Friday by Abdou Diouf, who succeeded him as president of Senegal, as a man of vision, action, parity and goodness.
"I will always be beside him," Diouf said of his colleague and
friend, citing Senghor as a "father figure, as much on a political
level as on a spiritual level".
Diouf, who has been living in France and not been back to
Senegal since he lost presidential elections in March 2000 to Wade,
said he would be attending the funeral.
His death leaves Africa 'orphaned'
"He adopted me, trained me, gave me responsibilities and helped
me take over from him as the head of state."
Diouf said his lasting memories of Senghor would be of
"humility, faith in God and in humanity, a belief in work done hard and well, a man who was organised and methodical".
French President Jacques Chirac spoke with both Wade and Diouf by telephone on Friday to pay tribute to "one of the greatest
contemporary humanists" and "a major actor in the history of
Africa", Chirac's office in Paris said.
Gabonese President Omar Bongo said in a message of condolences
sent to Wade that Senghor's death had orphaned Africa.
"How can I not give vent to my emotions, which overcome me at
this moment in time, and not pay homage to this great man, who has left the African continent an orphan?" Bongo asked.
"For Africa, a voice has been stilled: the voice of a statesman, a poet, a humanist."
Former United Nations secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
who now heads the International Organisation of Francophony, called Senghor "the spiritual guide" of francophony.
Boutros-Ghali paid homage to "a statesman who allied wisdom and courage", a "humanist and philosopher who gave us a brilliant
vision of a world where cultures and religions would be reconciled enough to undertake a dialogue of peace" and "a poet who understood the universe but remained deeply attached to the natural values of the black world". - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA