Abstract
The duration and low intensity of the separatist conflict in Casamance, Senegal, find some explanation in the balance of forces and geopolitical context. Primarily, however, it can be explained through the ambivalent relationship between the most separatist part of Casamance, the one peopled by ethnic Diola, and the state. This is not a story of insurmountable distance but of a proximity forged in the 1950s through formal education, migration, and state employment. Both this connection and the state itself faced crisis in the 1970s. Members of Diola literati then reshaped an earlier elite regionalism with a mounting cultural pride to search for a state of their own. Still, the Senegalese state survived and revamped its relationship to the Diola, explaining the present lull in violence.
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Notes
- 1.
Englebert and Hummel (2005: 421).
- 2.
Englebert (2009: 156).
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
Portuguese ethnography used the ethnonym “Felupos,” still in use in Guinea Bissau.
- 6.
Defenders of a Casamançais difference note that Casamançais used to say “I am going to Senegal” when travelling from Casamance to Dakar (and some still do today), their adversaries point out that people from the Senegal river valley or Eastern Senegal say the same and have not asked for independence.
- 7.
Méguelle (2013).
- 8.
Roche (1985 [1976]).
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Marut (2010: 58).
- 12.
Indeed, nowadays, it is the Kasa, the southwestern portion of Lower Casamance where Islam is the least strong and where traditional Diola religious institutions are at their strongest, which is seen as the real Casamance, a process which Marut (2005: 315) has aptly called a double reduction.
- 13.
Mark (1978).
- 14.
Contrary to what hasty analysts have argued, neither Casamance nor Lower Casamance host a majority of Catholic (and/or followers of a traditional African religion): just like in North Senegal, Muslims have long been a majority in Casamance, even among the Diola. No matter Father Diamacoune’s leadership, the MFDC is a religious mix, just like Casamance itself, and has never declared itself against Islam. What is true is that Lower Casamance hosts one of the most significant Catholic (and “animist”) minorities in Senegal. Foucher (2003).
- 15.
Trincaz (1984: 43).
- 16.
See Thomas (1958–1959) and C. Roche (1985 [1976]). Thomas’ structuro-functionalism lends itself well to essentialism. Roche was the head of the Ziguinchor lycée in the early 1970s and his 1976 book on the conquest and resistance of Casamance has been a major source for the MFDC, providing some of its favorite quotes, such as Governor General Van Vollenhoven’s complaint in 1917: “We are not the masters of Lower Casamance. We are only tolerated there.”
- 17.
For a sample of MFDC discourse, see the commented separatist text in Darbon (1985).
- 18.
On slavery in pre-colonial Diola society, see Linares (1987) and Baum (1999). According to Baum, the acephalousness of Diola society noted from the nineteenth century could be the product of the fracturing of more hierarchical structures. The current existence of sets of villages falling under the ritual purview of certain “priests-kings” could be a vestige of these structures.
- 19.
The expression “Casamance naturelle” has been in wide use in the Senegalese parlance, especially since the division of the administrative region of Casamance in two and then three units (Ziguinchor and Kolda in 1984, and then Sédhiou in 2008). It testifies to the persistence, even in pro-Senegalese thought, of the sense of a Casamançais difference steeped in the natural environment.
- 20.
In the framework of the OAU charter, the MFDC’s claim makes sense: if indeed colonial borders are the basis for postcolonial states, it is important to be able to argue that Casamance and Senegal were separate in the colonial era. But Englebert and Hummel (2005: 419–420) are probably right in assuming that the colonial “evidence” is mobilized primarily to the benefit of an internal audience.
- 21.
- 22.
Boone (2003).
- 23.
McGovern (2013).
- 24.
It is remarkable that the one Diola community that had taken the lead in conversion to Islam and groundnut cultivation, the Buluf subgroup, also led the way in education and, later, in support for separatism.
- 25.
Foucher (2011: 88).
- 26.
Tomàs (2010: 155) gives a modern-day example of the persisting nordiste sense of centrality: a nordiste soldier reproaches an old Diola with having a bizarre Diola name, instead of a « classic » (to him), Muslim one….
- 27.
Anderson (1991).
- 28.
On female Diola migration, see among others Lambert (1999).
- 29.
- 30.
The homonymy with Father Diamacoune Senghor is a coincidence.
- 31.
Separatist history insists that the MFDC was created in March 1947, a date repeated since by most scholars. Séverine Awenengo, the most seasoned specialist of the late colonial Casamance, convincingly defends 1949. Perhaps the separatists were keen to establish that the first MFDC had been created before Senghor’s BDS, and to allow for the inclusion in its history of a little-known figure, Victor Diatta, a Diola évolué mysteriously murdered in Dakar in 1948 and whom they see as an early martyr of their cause.
- 32.
The distinction seems to have been a question of degree, for some Casamançais of known nordiste origin, like Ibou Diallo (born in Sédhiou in a family hailing from Saint-Louis), were MFDC figures, while others fought it.
- 33.
Amadou Lamine Daffé, a citoyen and SFIO leader from Sédhiou, suggested the separation of Casamance to the Senegalese Territorial Assembly in 1948. The idea was rejected and Daffé disappeared from politics. Daffé, a former policeman and a trader, has the profile to be the missing link between French and African reflections on a separation of Casamance. See Awenengo (2005) and Manga (2012).
- 34.
In 1954, under pressure from the young radicals, MFDC went for “affiliation” to BDS instead of the “integration” proposed by Badiane. But it stopped de facto to function as a separate entity.
- 35.
Awenengo (2005).
- 36.
Separatists have alleged that the “No” vote won a majority in Casamance, a claim taken up by hasty researchers. The “No” won only 2.2% of the votes in Senegal as a whole, and 7.4% in Casamance. It was concentrated in the city of Ziguinchor and its surroundings, but it did make some progress beyond.
- 37.
Awenengo (forthcoming). It is probably confused memories of this episode that have come up in Father Diamacoune’s hitherto undocumented claims that Badiane signed in 1960, a contract with Léopold Sédar Senghor to stay with Senegal, a contract he claims came to term in 1980. See introduction to Father Diamacoune in the following paragraphs.
- 38.
Awenengo (forthcoming).
- 39.
Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes, Fonds Dakar Ambassade 655, lettre manuscrite, Ziguinchor, le 2 novembre 1970, du Consul à Ziguinchor, Parandel, à Monsieur le Conseiller.
- 40.
Interview, founding member of Sunu Gaal, Dakar 2012–2013.
- 41.
He resigned in December 1980 handing over power to his Prime Minister, Abdou Diouf.
- 42.
Bayart et al. (2001). Indeed, the democratization of the 1950s had had a comparable effect.
- 43.
Interview, MFDC militant, Ziguinchor (2000).
- 44.
Lambert (1998: 587) hypothesizes that the MFDC insists that it is a Casamançais, not a Diola movement because of “an underlying distinction in African political ideology between nationalism and ethnicity,” the former “modern” and good and the latter “backward” and bad. One could add that the MFDC cares for modernity precisely because it is a movement of the évolués.
- 45.
Amnesty International, La torture au Sénégal: Le cas de la Casamance, 23 May 1990.
- 46.
Charpy’s report is accessible in Charpy (1994).
- 47.
Mané’s coup was related to Casamance, for Mané rebelled because President Nino Vieira, who had become a close partner of Senegal, was under pressure to curb the arms trade to the MFDC, and blamed it on him.
- 48.
Another nongovernmental organization, the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, tried all the while to reach out to the other factions with Dakar’s blessing, but failed.
- 49.
Badiate has a good relationship with the Front Nord moderates and has been mending bridges with Gnantang’s faction, now led by Kompas Diatta. During the first semester of 2013, the Front Nord witnessed the creation of another faction led by Paul Ouloukassine Diatta.
- 50.
For a transcription of a rare mid-1980s recorded MFDC propaganda session, see Gasser (2000).
- 51.
- 52.
Senegal is a giant relative to its neighbors. It covers about 200,000 km2, Guinea-Bissau only 36,000, and the Gambia 11,300. Senegal counted 12.8 million inhabitants in 2011, Gambia 1.7 million inhabitants in 2008, and Guinea-Bissau 1.5 million in 2009.
- 53.
Instability in Guinea-Bissau has occasionally called Senegal’s influence into question, and the emergence of Gnantang’s more radical faction in 2009 may have had something to do with the killing of Dakar’s favorite partners in Bissau.
- 54.
Indeed, some sources insist that cannabis producers in the Djibidione area did much to convince the MFDC to establish a base in their area, to keep the Senegalese security forces at bay.
- 55.
There are indications that some Fula youth have joined though.
- 56.
One of the few names that come to mind is that of the now defunct military leader Vieux Faye, a Diola-ized Serer born by the Guinea-Bissau border. Some MFDC electronic communications are signed with patronyms identified with non-Diola groups, but these could be pseudonyms (http://www.members.tripod/casamance).
- 57.
The most notable massacres include those perpetrated in Pointe Saint-Georges and Cap Skirring in 1992, and in Bélaye and Niahoump in 2001. Each incident saw the death of a dozen or a few dozen people.
- 58.
Interview, female civilian resident of a Front Nord controlled area, district of Bignona (2004) and personal communication from Rudolf (2013).
- 59.
Lambert (1998) and Foucher (2011). Tomàs (2010) notes that the MFDC had difficulties getting purchase in areas of the Diola subregion of Huluf because people there bore with Senegal but had little interest in an alternative. Interestingly, that sub-region was long one of the least affected by the “modernist anxiety.”
- 60.
- 61.
An experience repeatedly made by the author of the present text, and humanitarian workers and journalists.
- 62.
Marut (2010: chap. 7).
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Foucher, V. (2019). The Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance: The Illusion of Separatism in Senegal?. In: de Vries, L., Englebert, P., Schomerus, M. (eds) Secessionism in African Politics. Palgrave Series in African Borderlands Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90206-7_10
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