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Casamance - 1980s - Grievance

In the initial years of the movement (1982-1990), the MFDC capitalized upon the grievances of the local populations, and received support from them. It used low-level violence against the state in the name of these populations.

The causes of the conflict and its perpetuation were complex. Factors often cited as contributors include historical factors, economic neglect, lack of job opportunities for youth, land rights issues, and disrespect for indigenous cultural norms. The conflict had had negative effects on virtually every aspect of life in the Casamance: the environment had degraded due to uncontrolled exploitation or neglect, normal village life and social support systems had been disrupted, poverty had increased, the cities were overcrowded, schools and health posts had been closed or displaced, and investment and tourism had declined. The origins of the MFDC date back to the colonial period, when the French were unable to defeat or negotiate treaties with the highly decentralized Diola, the main ethnic group in the region. There is a widely believed claim that Casamance was administered separately from the rest of Senegal under direct authority of the governor of French West Africa, and was integrated with Senegal only toward the end of the colonial period. This claim was refuted when the former director of the French archives for West Africa, Jacques Charpy, released evidence on December 21, 1993 in the form of an historic statute that Casamance never was an autonomous territory, and that during the colonial era, the territory between Gambia and Guinea-Bissau was administered by the French governor of Senegal. However, the belief about the Casamance having once been separately administered became the basis for a later claim to the right of self-rule.

Rebels in Senegal's southern Casamance [Cassamance] province had been waging a bloody independence campaign against the central government in Dakar since 1982. The Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance (MFDC) had long used Senegal's southern neighbor Guinea-Bissau as a launching pad for attacks inside Cassamance. Guinea-Bissau's former president, Joao Bernardo Viera, was accused of supplying the rebels with weapons until he was overthrown in a coup in May 1999.

President Senghor attempted to integrate Casamance by offering patronage positions to regional leaders such as Emile Badiane. The government, however, used northern intermediaries to administer the Casamance, much as the French had done. The northern civil servants assigned to Casamance appropriated land and exploited natural resources in ways that raised the ire of the Casamançais. Tensions escalated between 1980 and 1983 through a series of unfortunate incidents: the death of a student at a demonstration at the Ziguinchor high school; a peaceful march that resulted in heavy-handed suppression by President Diouf; and arrests, trials, and imprisonment of Casamançais leaders. These events galvanized significant elements of the local population into rebellion, although initially the MFDC had only traditional weapons and a few antique guns. In May 1990, the MFDC officially declared an armed struggle for independence.

In 1982, supporters of the Mouvement des Forces Democratiques de la Casamance demanded that the Government of Senegal grant independence to the Casamance region, an isolated section of southwestern Senegal located between Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. This demand sparked a three-decade-long conflict, which only recently began to be resolved.

In time the MFDC split into two and then three factions, and for a time, slightly more than one-quarter of the Senegalese military was deployed to the region. Senegal’s image suffered due to reports of human rights abuses by the military. Negotiations led to a series of short-lived agreements that all failed, largely because of the internal divisions within the MFDC. Military defeat of the MFDC proved impossible, however, due to the heavy forests and the MFDC fighters’ ability to retreat across the borders of Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.