Senegal. Casamance is the strip of land sandwiched between The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau (Source: Vectorstock.com)
UPDATES:
3 April 2024: Senegal President Faye appoints ally Sonko as prime minister
26 March 2024: Bassirou Diomaye Faye, backed by Ousmane Sonko, wins the presidential election.
15 March 2024: Senegal opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and Bassirou Diomaye Faye, his ally from Senegal, are released from prison
15 February 2024: Senegal's Constitutional Council overturns delay to presidential vote: state news agency.
13 February 2024: Senegal's government suspends mobile internet and bans a march, as authorities face growing anger at home and renewed international pressure over the delay to this month's presidential election.
5 February 2024: President Sal postpones the election until 15 December citing a dispute over the candidate list and alleged corruption within the constitutional body that compiled it.
3 February 2024: Senegalese President Macky Sall announces the indefinite postponement of the presidential election scheduled for February 25, just hours before official campaigning was due to start. He says he
20 January 2024: The published final list of presidential candidates for the 25 February election does not include Ousmane Sonko (see here).
13 January 2024: Senegal’s main opposition politician Ousmane Sonko was eliminated from next month’s presidential election, according to a preliminary list of candidates published by the Constitutional Council on Friday, newspaper Le Soleil reported (see here)
4 January 2024: The Supreme Court on 4 January 2024 rejected Sonko's appeal against his conviction, ruling him out as a candidate in this year's presidential election (see here).
14 December 2023: A lower court today ruled that court Sonko be added back to the nation’s electoral roll, enabling him to run for president in February (see here)
Locals believe that a politician from Casamance will never be allowed to become president of Senegal. The North will not allow it. The French will not allow it. Particularly not now when coups are happening in so many former French colonies in West Africa.
Today, I crossed the border into Senegal from Gambia. Senegal is my 175th country. Unlike most visitors, I headed south into the region of Casamance, which is the part of Senegal that lies between Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.
The name Casamance was coined by Portuguese traders in reference to Kasa Mance, meaning king of Kasa. The Kingdom of Kasa reached its zenith during the 15th and 16th centuries. Kasa imported cotton from Cape Verde for its sizeable domestic cloth industry.
Around this time, Portuguese slave traders and navigators – known as lançados – established trading stations in the area.
Many lançados were Jews escaping persecution from the Portuguese Inquisition. They arrived into a land inhabited by many ethnic groups, although Diola and Bainuk were the two largest groups in Casamance.
The lançados married into local ruling Diola families, thereby securing protection and advantageous trading ties in weaponry, spices, and slaves. They wielded significant power by acting as intermediaries between Europeans and Africans.
In 1570, the Diola joined the lançados in a fight against a coalition of Bainuk and another group, the Mandinka. Lançados trade disrupted Portugal’s ability to collect taxes, so Portugal took the side of the Bainuk and the Mandinka. The conflict did not go well for the Diola, which had to cede territory to the Bainuk and the Mandinka.
Meanwhile, the Diolas’ once powerful cavalry was being decimated by sleeping sickness due to increasing rainfall in this period.
In 1888, a border agreement about was struck between the French colony of Senegal and Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau) under which Portugal would give up possession of Casamance.
This marginalised the Diola further, because while they remained the largest ethnic group in Casamance they only represented 4% of the total population of French Senegal.
Then suddenly there was new hope for the Diola. In 1915, Émile Badiane is born in Bignona district. At school he is brilliant and graduates top of his class. He becomes a teacher and school director. Then he enters politics to improve conditions for the people of Casamance.
Émile Badiane's statue in Bignona district (Source: own photo)
When Senegal's first president to be Léopold Sédar Senghor visits Casamance in January 1946 he meets with Émile Badiane and other local leaders in Ziguinchor, the Casamance capital.
On 4 March 1947, Émile Badiane founds the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC).
Senegal gains independence from France in 1960. Émile Badiane becomes a minister in Senghor's new government.
Then he dies suddenly on December 22, 1972.
The Diola people have no doubt what happened to Émile Badiane. Prior to independence, he had obtained a written commitment from Senghor that Casamance would be granted independence in exchange for standing united with the rest of Senegal in the fight against France.
Once independence had been been secured, Émile Badiane went to Dakar to meet with Senghor to press his claim for Casamance independence. At dinner, he was poisoned. To make sure Senegal would never have to honour its commitment to Casamance independence, the document is destroyed.
Fast forward to 1982. The Diola people finally organise themselves. MFDC is resurrected and renews the struggle for independence or autonomous administrative status for Casamance.
An armed wing of MFDC is established in 1985 and a low-level insurgency begins in 1990 against the government of Senegal.
Throughout the 1990s, MFDC is aided by Guinea-Bissau President João Bernardo Vieira, but his support ends when he is overthrown in 1999.
Without external support, MFDC increasingly turns to criminal activity to finance its operations; illegal logging, drug cultivation, smuggling, and bank robberies.
MFDC’s moral authority also slowly crumples in this period as the movement increasingly assumes the role of an organisation of and for the Diola people rather than one that represents all the peoples of Casamance.
In 2004, MFDC enters into a peace agreement with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, but several MFDC factions refuse to participate in the peace deal, which threatens their criminal livelihoods.
In 2005 fighting resumes at a low level of intensity.
In October 2010, an illegal shipment of weapons hailing from Iran and destined from Casamance is seized in Lagos, Nigeria.
Heavy fighting erupts in December 2010 and lasts until April 2012, when Macky Sall is elected president of Senegal.
Peace negotiations begin in Rome. On 14 December 2012, President Sall announces that Casamance will be a test-case for a new policy of decentralisation.
In May 2014, Salif Sadio, a faction leader in MFDC, declares a unilateral ceasefire and sues for peace, but he only manages to lose support within MFDC.
Other factions of MFDC continue to fight, this time with external support from Gambian President Yahya Jammeh.
In 2016 Jammeh loses the election. He refuses to step down, but ECOWAS intervenes in 2017 and Jammeh is forced from office.
Once again, MFDC is alone.
Gambia’s new president Adama Barrows is a close ally of Macky Sall. Guinea-Bissau’s new president, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, is also an ally of Sall. With Gambia, Senegal, and Guinea Bissau all singing from the same song sheet MFDC weakens further. The Sikoun faction splits away.
Sensing weakness, on 26 January 2021 Senegal launches a series of military offensives against the remaining MFDC factions.
In early August 2022, another MFDC faction leader signs a peace deal with the Senegalese government following mediation by Guinea-Bissau.
The Senegalese government expresses hope that the few remaining MFDC groups will join the agreement….
There is currently no unrest in Casamance, although heavily armed Senegalese military units patrol the main roads. I can testify to this, because I drove through the region today with Lams and Bax, my two excellent guides (see here)
Entering Casamance from Gambia with Lams and Bax this morning (Source: own photo)
Casamance is beautiful country. The wide Casamance River runs through the western part before emptying into the sea. The river is rich in prawns, oysters, and fish. The land is lush and green, with tall and majestic Kapok and Baobab and palm trees reaching for the sky in between large swamps of white and red mangrove that teem with birdlife.
Casamance is Senegal’s breadbasket.
What is next for Casamance?
The next indicator will be Senegal’s presidential election on 25 February 2024. Macky Sall will not run. One of the front runners is Ousmene Sonko. He is from Casamance and he is upsetting Dakar:
On 17 February 2023, Sonko is forcibly taken from his vehicle in the midst of rallies outside a Dakar courthouse.
On 14 July 2023, Sonko is declared the main opposition presidential candidate.
On 28 July 2023, Sonko is arrested and accused of "disturbing the public order".
On 31 July 2023, Sonko’s opposition party is dissolved by the Senegalese government, triggering national protests.
On 6 August 2023, Sonko is reportedly hospitalised following a week-long hunger strike in protest of his arrest.
In October 2023, a court in Ziguinchor, the capital of Casamance, annuls the removal of Sonko from the electoral lists.
One to watch, this one.
The End