No quick end in sight to Casamance rebellion

The road between Ziguinchor, capital of Senegal's lush southern region of Casamance, and Cap Skirring, a once booming beach resort, is only 70 kms long. But the journey takes three hours because of military roadblocks and killer pot-holes caused by two decades of strife-related neglect. The Casamance, wedged between Guinea-Bissau to the south and Gambia to the north, was once Senegal's bread basket and a tropical haven for European tourists. But for 22 years it has been the scene of an on-off separatist conflict that has displaced 50,000 people and left hundreds injured by land-mines. Much of the fertile land in Casamance has been abandoned and its beach hotels lie half empty. Hopes of an end to the conflict rose just over a year ago, when some political leaders of the faction-ridden separatist Movement of the Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) said they were abandoning the armed struggle. But other separatist politicians and the armed wing of the movement failed to back the pro-peace factions and many of its rice farmers are afraid to return to their abandoned villages. The level of violence has fallen off sharply from the worst years in the late 1990s and foreign visitors are slowly returning, but sporadic attacks by the separatists are still reported. An ongoing conflict Casamance is physically separated from the rest of Senegal by the English-speaking Gambia. And its people have a distinctive ethnic and religious identity. The Casamance has quite a large population of the Diola ethnic group, which is predominantly Christian and Animist. The rest of French-speaking Senegal, in contrast, is overwhelmingly Muslim. For many of the Diola people, Senegal’s independence from France in 1960 brought little change. Their own traditional political structures appeared unable to accomodate the new Senegalese administration, a hierarchy viewed as mirroring the colonial authorities. There are no exact statistics available on the number of victims since the guerilla conflict erupted in 1982. The Senegalese army claims that hundreds of people have died. It is a ”low-level intensity” conflict according to the army, but a war of liberation according to the rebels. Efforts to negotiate an end to the simmering secessionist conflict took a new turn after President Abdoulaye Wade was elected to office in March 2000. His arrival in power ended 40 years of rule by the Socialist Party (PS) of Senegal's first president, Leopold Sedar Senghor and opened the way for a new approach. Opting for direct dialogue with the separatists, Wade met with longtime MFDC leader Abbe Augustin Diamacoune Senghor in May 2003. But a myriad of talks, encounters and proposals since then has has not yet yielded a general ceasefire. Wade also announced major a US$315 million programme to rebuild the battered infrastructure of Casamance. He promised to repair damaged villages, de-mine the countryside and replace the Joola, a large ferry which plied between Dakar and Ziguinchor, but which sank in September 2002, causing the deaths of 1,800 people. Earlier under former president Abdou Diouf, Senegal found an unexpected ally in Casamance’s southern neighbour Guinea-Bissau, which had previously served as a safe haven for separatist fighters. Kumba Yala was elected president of Guinea-Bissau in 2000 and put an end to the tolerance of the Casamance separatists shown by his predecessors. He sent in the army to chase them out of their bases on the Guinean side of the border. This significantly weakened the rebels' military capability. Peace prospects hurt by divisions in the separatist camp But efforts by the Senegalese authorities to keep the peace process alive have repeatedly thwarted by the MFDC’s deep internal divisions. ”The conditions for reaching a lasting peace are just not right,” Ibrahima Gassama, the head of a local radio station in Ziguinchor, told IRIN. ”There is too much in-fighting, too many divisions.” The main line of fracture is between the political wing, which is itself split into two rival factions, and the military wing known as ”Atika”, which means ”fighter” in Diola. On the political front, the MFDC's historic leader, Diamacoune Senghor, a former Roman Catholic priest is being challenged by Jean-Marie François Biagui, who was exiled in France working for the movement’s external wing, but who returned to Senegal last year and is now based in Dakar. Talks in Paris last week between the external wing of the MFDC and a Senegalese government delegation flopped, producing no breakthrough. Meanwhile, Diamacoune Senghor's call for a general reconciliation assembly of the rebel movement in Ziguinchor at the end of November has been snubbed by political rivals. On the military front, another faction leader, Abdoulaye Dhiediou describes himself as the MFDC’s sole legitimate leader of the movement on the grounds that he has the backing of the guerrilla fighters. He says the movement remains unwaveringly committed to breaking away from Senegal. ”The MFDC’s option today remains independence,” he told IRIN. Talks bog down Dhiediou alleged that the Senegalese authorities were not negotiating sincerely because they prefered to deal mainly with figures whose legitimacy, he said, was not recognised by the fighters in the field. ”If the state fails to accept real negotiations we will leave the way open for hostilities,” he threatened. Dhiediou refused to say how many fighters Atika had, saying ”this is confidential, but we’re still a long way away from peace in Casamance.” There are no independent estimates on the number of guerrilla fighters in Casamance, though Atika claims to control the Bignona district in northwestern Casamance and run several camps there. Local residents estimated that the guerrilla army totalled no more than several hundred fighters. Last September, Biagui, the former head of the MFDC's external wing, unveiled a proposal to turn the movement into a political party, the Movement for a Democratic Civic Federalism, that would conduct a peaceful political struggle for autonomy rather than outright independence. But the MFDC's armed wing rejected this proposal outright, along with Biagui's attempt to assume the leadership of the movement. Dhiediou, who claims to speak for gunmen in the bush, also rejected Diamacoune Senghor's continued leadership of the separatist movement, saying he had become "the creature of the (Senegalese) government, which has corrupted him.” Mame Biram Sarr, the governor of Ziguinchor province, said in-fighting within the separatist movement was holding up peace talks. ”The fact that the military factions have reunited is a positive step, but the divisions in the political wing are blocking talks,” he said. ”Plans to draft an amnesty law have also ground to a standstill until fighters hand in their weapons,“ Sarr added. One local analyst who asked not to be identified said there were also too many fingers in the pie on the government side. Officials from the president’s office, the prime minister’s office and the interior ministry were all involved in contacts with the separatists at different levels, he noted. Civilians caught in the cross-fire Obstacles on the road to peace are continuing to make life difficult for civilians. The Senegalese army for instance is refusing to begin demining operations until a deal is struck to end hostilities and the fighters hand in their arms. Handicap International (HI), an NGO monitoring landmines in the region, said 15 people were injured by land mines during the first 10 months of this year. That represents a sharp drom from 198 in 1998, when the armed conflict was at its height. Many of the mines were planted by the separatists near villages, but the guerrillas never kept track of their location. The Senegalese army has denied laying any anti-personnel mines of its own. The government signed and ratified an international treaty banning the use of landmines in 1998. Thousands of people displaced by the conflict are still waiting for an end to the conflict before returning home. Many have sought refuge in nearby towns and according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, 7,000 have sought shelter in Guinea-Bissau. It has also registered 500 refugees from the Casamance in Gambia. Meanwhile, the Senegalese government is holding back on its promised reconstruction programme for the Casamance until a deal on lasting peace has been signed and the region's vast agricultural potential remains under-utilized. Dhiediou summed up the deadlock by saying : ” Diamacoune and the state talk about development in order to obtain peace, while we want peace to obtain development”.