Dakar delays troops pullback from Casamance

Although Senegal’s delay in withdrawing troops from the troubled Casamance area could complicate talks to end 18-years of war in that southern part of the country the measure is popular with residents in the area, analysts say.

“The Casamance people have welcome the troops’ stay because they provide them more security,” Babacar Gueye, a professor of political science at Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop University, told IRIN on Tuesday.

The Senegalese army announced on Monday that the 2,400 paratroopers and commandos that were due to leave on Wednesday and be demobilised would now serve in Casamance until December. In all, 4,500 troops are deployed to the south of the country to contain the MFDC’s 18-year bid for independence, AFP said.

President Abdoulaye Wade, who took office in April, says he prefers direct talks with the MFDC as a way to achieve peace. Underlining this, AFP reported that Wade’s prime minister, Moustapha Niasse, paid “a simple courtesy call” on Saturday on the MFDC leader, the Reverend Diamacoune Senghor.

Citing an interview with a private Dakar FM radio station, Wal Fadjri, AFP reported Senghor as saying that the two conditions for peace in Senegal were the withdrawal of Senegalese troops from the south and the removal of all land mines in the area.