The Casamance occupies a particular place in the Senegalese imaginery: that is, as an exotic or troubled region whose dynamics are somehow thought to be distinct from those of the ‘real’ Senegal. Much recent research has sought to place the Casamance in its national context, demonstrating how exoticism and violence are both related to its peculiar standing in relation to the rest of the country. By contrast, this panel aims to examine the Casamance in relation to the neighbouring states of the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea from colonial times to the present.
Since the 1990s, the Casamance conflict has brought about renewed interest in this part of Senegal, not just on the part of the Senegalese state - which has begun to invest money in alleviating the perceived isolation of the south – but also from also researchers in the field. While some myths continue to be perpetuated, the socio-economic roots of rebellion are now more clearly understood. However, the Casamance represents more than a semi-detatched corner of Senegalese national territory. The peoples of the region have historically enjoyed close links with related peoples in neighbouring states: the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea. The armed rebellion, but also the much everyday life as lived across the border, has been rooted in regional dynamics which remain to be fully explored. This panel aims to tease out some of these links in order to provide a more rounded picture of politics, religion and everyday life in the Casamance, and to provide them with a greater measure of historical depth.
Fuladu is one the largest political formation of the mid 19th century Upper Casamance and Gambia. The Anglo-French border delimiting present day Senegal from Gambia crossed the kingdom at the end of century. This paper examines the relationships between Upper Casamance and the River Gambia immediately after the establishment of the border and the partition of Fuladu in a British and French sphere of influence. Territorial demarcation did not mean in any case the rupture of social and economic ties. People from the Kolda region continued to trade in Gambian Fuladu, as they used to do in the previous decades. Border crossing moreover was welcomed by the British colonial administration eager to tap the flux of trade and seasonal migrants from the Upper Casamance in order to develop the groundnut industry. Gambian chiefs were called to encourage border crossing and to promptly communicate any disturbance provoked by the interference of the French administration within the country. A close examination of colonial documents and oral sources related to the early 20th century allow an understanding of the complex set of interactions generated over time by the establishment of the border between Senegal and the Gambia.
Kombo comprises the most westerly sector of the borderlands between Casamance and the Gambia. The border was forged in the context of Fode Sylla’s religious wars against the non-Islamic polities in the region, followed by his armed struggle against the British. The conflict of the 1890s led to the slight of much of the population towards the north, only part of which returned to the border zone. One reason is that the defeat of Fode Sylla was followed by further despoliation at the hands of French-appointed chiefs. After a brief period of peace, the outbreak of the First World War brought a renewed exodus into the Gambia as whole communities sought to escape forced recruitment by the French. By this point, the Diolas who had fought against Sylla’s conversion by the sword had begun to convert in significant numbers as they moved into the border space. The way of peaceful conversion represented by the likes of the Mauritanian marabout, Cheick Mahfoudz, is widely credited with the undoubted success. Mahfoudz also represented Muslim accommodation with the French. However, there were also more militant versions of Islam afoot and in 1917 jihad was launched against the French at Selety, replicating events within Guinea-Bissau. Thewar which broke out in the 1990s repeated many of the patterns of earlier conflicts, while the refugees gravitated to precisely the same towns as in the 1890s. This paper is concerned with teasing out these historical continuities and addressing issues surrounding memories of conflict.
In September 2002 the ferry le Joola, connecting the Casamance region with the national capital Dakar, capsized off the Senegambian coast. Officially 1,865 people were killed, making this the biggest maritime disaster in human history. The tragedy became a major moral issue for all Senegalese. Why did the ferry capsize? How should this disaster be explained? Was it a divine punishment? Was it the logical consequence of the irresponsible behaviour deemed characteristic for the “homo senegalensis”? Most interpretations are both moral and political. One interpretation in particular, has emphasized the responsibility of the MFDC separatist movement. The process of interpretation has therefore been “politicised”. A category of the Casamance population – the women of the sacred forests – has interpreted the shipwreck as a result of an affliction that haunts the region. These women try to determine the nature of this affliction and establish the causes of the shipwreck. However, they also draw on the disaster to put pressure on the MFDC to end their separatist struggle. Their process of divination retraces the history of the separatist struggle. They “remember” the shipwreck to end twenty years of separatism and thereby inscribe the maritime disaster into their political history. In this paper I suggest that the interpretation of the shipwreck is a political process in which memories of the disaster are mobilised to empower a particular political subjectivity.
The borders that separate Casamance, the southern region of Senegal where a separatist movement, the Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MFDC), has been active for more than twenty-five years, from the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau are indeed borders of war : the separatist maquis have occupied precisely the space that lies between the tarmac roads of Casamance and its international borders. The 1998 mutiny in Guinea-Bissau, started off by accusations of arms trafficking in favour of the MFDC, and the subsequent Senegalese military intervention seem to testify the importance of transborder elements in the Casamance conflict.
Sub-regional dimensions of the Casamance conflict are often interpreted in terms of « ethnic solidarity » : the Diola ethnic group of Casamance, which forms the core of the MFDC, and related groups are spread over the sub-region, and their solidarity is regarded as an element in the development of the MFDC. Alternatively, it is geopolitics that is summoned as an explanation: the Bissau-Guinean and Gambian fears of a Senegalese hegemony, that accounts for a supposed sympathy of both The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau towards the MFDC.
Taking only recent changes in Guinea-Bissau, one comes to the conclusion that much complexity is lost using either of these two paradigms: over the past years, the authorities of Bissau, despite their persistent instability, have consistently tried to break away from the MFDC. The Gambia too has taken to repatriating Casamançais refugees and curbing MFDC networks. Thus, beyond the paranoia with which Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, citizens and states alike, often interpret their mutual relations, one has to see the changing stakes which the MFDC and the instability in Casamance represent for these countries. These changes (particularly the weakening of both the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau) have given Senegal a creater sub-regional edge, allowing it to increase pressure on the MFDC – a key element in its so far successful attempt to stifle the movement.