Senegal: Islamics denounce masonic influence

The Senegalese daily Wal fadjiri (The Dawn) and the Muslim, the Islamic students’ newspaper of Dakar, are both well known for their hostility towards political freemasons. At the beginning of September, relying on information which appeared in the French revue Géopolitique africaine, Wal fadjiri published a list of African heads of state who are members of a Masonic Lodge: Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Idriss Deby (Chad), Denis Sassou Nguesso (Brassaville, Congo), Mamadou Tandja (Niger), Gnassingbé Eyademéma (Togo), Paul Biya (Cameroon), Blaise Compaoré (Burkina-Faso) and Omar Bongo (Gabon). The names of other African personalities, now deceased, were also cited: Hassan II, king of Morocco, and General Robert Guéi, responsible for a coup d’état in the Ivory Coast in December 1999.

According to the same sources, most of the Masonic sects are linked to the Grand Orient of France and to the National Grand Lodge of France. They participate in Rencontres Humanistes et Fraternelles Africaines et Malgaches (REHFAM) which have taken place every year since 1992 in an African capital, with the participation of the French Lodges. The last REHFAM were held in Cotnou (1996 and 1997), in Libreville (1998), in Lomé (1999) and in Tananarive (2000).