Senegal, 1962 — dissident coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 13 February 1962, during the slow deterioration of the power sharing arrangement between President Leopold Sedar Senghor and Prime Minister Mamadou Dia in newly independent Senegal. Under the parliamentary system inherited from the Mali Federation, Dia as president of the council held most economic and internal authority while Senghor handled foreign policy, an arrangement that bred rivalry. Dia pursued a more radical socialist course, sought an exit from the groundnut economy and closer ties with the Soviet bloc, positions that alarmed France and Senegal's conservative marabout establishment.
The rivalry climaxed only in December 1962, when Dia used the gendarmerie to block a censure vote, Senghor accused him of attempting a coup, the assembly voted to remove him, and Dia was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. Decades later General Jean Alfred Diallo stated that Dia never actually attempted a coup and the charge was fabricated. The February coding sits in the earlier phase of this widening rift within the ruling UPS.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
43302131962
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Senghor prevailed in December 1962; Prime Minister Dia was arrested and imprisoned, and Senghor established a presidential regime.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
South China Morning Post
Washington Post, Times Herald
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →