Thousands of Senegalese soldiers are currently serving on UN and African Union peacekeeping missions in various countries including Darfur, Liberia and Ivory Coast. Several thousand more are, or have been, deployed to the Casamance region of Senegal where a separatist rebellion is simmering.
By Sheriff Bojang Jnr.
Yet despite the demand for military personnel there are approximately 40,000 ex-soldiers in Senegal. Half of these have left the armed forces in the last decade.
Joblessness everywhere
Alassane was 19 years when he joined the military. He enlisted partly because his childhood friend, who was already a soldier, convinced him that the army would open the gateway to employment and success.
“There was joblessness everywhere in Dakar and it impacted more on those of us from the suburbs that didn’t have rich or influential relatives,” he says.
Alassane’s initial idea was to serve the mandatory two-year term in the military and within that period he would learn electrical engineering given that he had an interest in wiring. He mentioned this idea to some of the recruiting officers and they assured him that it was possible, and lauded him for his ‘sense of purpose’.
False dreams
But more than twelve months into his military career, he was becoming convinced that what he had planned he would never achieve.
Although he received recommendations from his superiors for his ‘leadership qualities’ on numerous occasions, he waited in vain for them to mention the skills training that persuaded him join the force.
After two years of successful service in the army, based in the troubled region of Casamance, Alassane was discharged from the military. His first challenge was how to fit back into the civilian life, and the second challenge was how to find a job.
Psycho
With no skills suitable for the civilian labour market, he spent more than two years looking for job. He started by looking for a ‘decent job’ and later moved to looking for ‘any kind of job’.
He moved to a family house where he shared a small bedroom with five others. His privacy disappeared; family and neighbours respect for him dwindled. Then Alassane’s childhood sweetheart who he planned to marry wasn’t interested anymore because she believed the situation has turned him into a 'psycho'.
“It surprises me how the whole world can turn against you just because you are no longer getting up early in the morning to go to work or you are unable to solve the problems of neighbours and relatives,” recalls Alassane.
Alassane currently spends his days serving as a referee for non-league football games on the dusty fields of Dakar.
Treated like animals
Jean Leopold Gueye, the Secretary General of the Association of Ex-Senegalese Soldiers blames both the government and the military hierarchy for ignoring the plights of his colleagues who were prepared to ‘sacrifice their lives for Senegal’.
The authorities, according to Gueye, are treating the ex-soldiers like animals.
The army was unavailable to comment at the time of writing, despite repeated requests. But a government official admitted that thousands of ex-soldiers are either jobless or are engaged in low-income jobs because of a lack of post-military skills training.
45 days
The Senegalese army has recently initiated a 45-day skills training programme for soldiers completing their military careers. Mohamed is one of the ex-soldiers who has completed the programme and according to him, it was “a joke.”“How can anybody seriously learn a skill in 45 days?” he asks.
Mohamed, an army infantry officer who also served in Casamance, spent the 45 days trying to acquire skills in mechanics. He now works as a security guard for a private security firm. He joined the firm after unsuccessfully looking for ‘good jobs’ for more than a year.
Most of the private security guards in Senegal are ex-soldiers who are overworked and underpaid, with hardly any medical insurance or other benefits.
Many more ex-soldiers across the country are unemployed.
Copyright 2011 By RNW. All Rights Reserved.
He moved to a family house where he shared a small bedroom with five others. His privacy disappeared; family and neighbours respect for him dwindled. Then Alassane’s childhood sweetheart who he planned to marry wasn’t interested anymore because she believed the situation has turned him into a 'psycho'.
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