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HIDDEN DEBATES OVER THE STATUS OF THE CASAMANCE DURING THE DECOLONIZATION PROCESS IN SENEGAL: REGIONALISM, TERRITORIALISM, AND FEDERALISM AT A CROSSROADS, 1946–62

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2020

SÉVERINE AWENENGO DALBERTO Open the ORCID record for SÉVERINE AWENENGO DALBERTO [Opens in a new window]
SÉVERINE AWENENGO DALBERTO*
Affiliation:
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut des Mondes Africains, Paris
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Abstract

The article studies the contexts in which the idea of a separation of the Casamance from the rest of Senegal arose during the process of decolonization. The idea was an outgrowth of colonial representations forged since the end of the nineteenth century. It was first formulated by the French authorities in secret discussions with the representatives of the Casamance in the context of the 1958 referendum. It was taken over by local political leaders who saw it as a possible answer to the debates over representation that arose in the post-war process of democratization, and later by proponents of political mobilization at the sub-regional level after independence. By examining this little-known moment of possibility, the article shows that the claims of the current armed independence movement are in fact part of a longer, more ambivalent history in which a separatist imaginary of the Casamance took shape.

Keywords

SenegalWest Africadecolonizationcitizenshipterritorynationalism
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 67 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © The Author, 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I wish to thank Frederick Cooper, Vincent Foucher, Camille Lefebvre, and Ibrahima Thioub for their comments on an earlier version of this article. My gratitude also goes to the people who grant me time for interviews. I also thank the archivists of the Archives Nationales du Senegal (ANS), the Archives Nationales section Outre-Mer (ANOM), and the Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN). Author's email: [email protected].

Translated from the original French by Susan Taponier

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17 Assane Seck, a conseiller of the Casamance at the time but absent from the meeting in Ziguinchor, was the first to put me on the trail of this deal.

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20 Paris-Dakar, 8 Sept. 1958.

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23 Interview with Louis Dacosta, Dakar, 25 Aug. 2004. Louis Dacosta had been one of the leaders of the counter-meeting on 8 Sept. 1958 in Ziguinchor.

24 ANOM 1affpol/2248, Office of the High Commissioner of the Republic in AOF. Collection of the main intelligence reports received by the AOF research department for the period from 15 to 21 Sept. 1958, 19.

25 ANOM 1affpol/2281/5.

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28 Paris-Dakar, 11 Sept. 1958. This activism pushed the new Senegalese authorities to transfer the capital of Senegal from Saint-Louis to Dakar.

29 A. Seck, Sénégal, émergence d'une démocratie moderne, 1945–2005: Un itinéraire politique (Paris, 2005), 48; M. Dia, Afrique: Le prix de la liberté (Paris, 2001), 113–9.

30 Paris-Dakar, 11 Sept. 1958.

31 Interview with Assane Seck, Dakar, 5 Mar. 2003.

32 ANOM 1affpol/2257/3, information bulletin of 15 Aug. to 20 Sept. 1958, Department of Security Services of AOF, 54.

33 ANOM 1affpol/3548, ‘Procès-verbal de la Commission des votes pour le référendum sur la Communauté’.

34 Of course, one might well question its practicability. The later example of the Comores-Mayotte referendum in 1974 nevertheless shows that the French authorities could envision handling such electoral consultations separately.

35 The name ‘Casamance’ had been used at least since the fifteenth century to designate a small part of these areas, in reference to the sovereign (mansa) of Kasa, a Bainun-Kasanke kingdom from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, who was certainly a vassal of the Kaabu Empire. The small state did not coincide with the wider borders of the contemporary Casamance, even at its peak in the fifteenth century. See Schefer, C. (ed.), Relation des voyages à la côte occidentale de l'Afrique d'Alvise de Ca’ da Mosto 1455–1457 (Paris, 1895), 173Google Scholar; Boulègue, J., ‘L'ancien royaume du Kasa (Casamance)’, Bulletin de l'IFAN, série B, 42:3 (1980), 475–86Google Scholar.

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38 ANS 11 D1/337, Administrateur Supérieur of Casamance to Mr. Diagne, Deputy of Senegal, Ziguinchor, 15 Jan. 1927.

39 See in particular the report from the administrateur supérieur Chartier, which sums up the demands of his predecessors: ANS 2G/36–75, Annual General Political Report, Territory of the Casamance, 1936.

40 ANS 11D1/309, Administrator of Overseas Territories, D. Richard, to the Governor of Senegal, Tabou, 29 Nov. 1950.

41 See especially the private archives of Tété Diadhiou, donated to the ANS (Série 1Z). See also S. Awenengo Dalberto, ‘Usages de l'histoire et mémoires de la colonie dans le récit indépendantiste casamançais (1982–2000)’, Outre-Mers, 368–9 (2010), 137–57.

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43 Fleuve: the Lower Senegal, Podor, Matam, Louga, and Linguère cercles; Voie Ferrée: Dakar delegation, the Thiès cercle; Sine-Saloum: the Diourbel, Kaolack, Kédougou, and Tambacounda cercles.

44 With one exception: the conseiller territorial Pierre Édouard Diatta, son of Benjamin Diatta, the Chef de Province of Oussouye.

45 ANS 21G/219/178, ‘The Casamance Security Sector’, meeting of the SFIO Party of Ziguinchor, 22 Oct. 1947.

46 Ibid.

47 ANS 11D1/309, statutes of the MFDC.

48 APPIC, minutes of the MFDC-BDS meeting, Dianki, Mar. 1955.

49 APPIC, L. S. Senghor to E. Badiane, Paris, 10 Mar. 1951.

50 APPIC, letter from E. Badiane to P.-I. Coly, Sédhiou, 20 Mar. 1951.

51 APPIC, MFDC, ‘Structuring of MFDC-BDS sections’, 1951.

52 ANOM, 1affpol/1004, minutes of the Voting Census Commission of 17 June 1951.

53 Interview with Yoro Kandé.

54 Interview with Sancoung Sané, Sédhiou, 6 Aug. 2002.

55 APPIC, MFDC, minutes of the extraordinary convention in Marsassoum on 14–15 Nov. 1953.

56 ANS 2G/53–213, ‘Senegal, Quarterly Summary of Events, 4th Quarter 1953’; ANS 11D1/309, note on the MFDC, 20 May 1954.

57 APPIC, MFDC, minutes of the extraordinary convention in Marsassoum on 14–15 Nov. 1953.

58 Ibid.

59 Interview with Mamadou Dia, Dakar, 4 Jan. 2004.

60 ANS 21G/220/178, tract put out by the MAC, 9 Dec. 1955.

61 ANOM 1affpol/2263, M. Dia, annual report to sixth BDS convention, Ziguinchor, 19–21 Apr. 1954.

62 Cooper, ‘Conflict’, 1538.

63 ANS 21G/220/178, ‘Intelligence: Public BDS meeting in Rufisque on 25 Dec. 1955’. Senghor was referring to the Lebu patronym of Seck, which originates in northern Senegal. Seck's family had settled in the Casamance at the end of the nineteenth century.

64 Ly, A., Les regroupements politiques au Sénégal: 1956–1970 (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar; Zuccarelli, F., La vie politique sénégalaise 1940–1988 (Paris, 1988)Google Scholar.

65 ANOM 1affpol/2263, BPS circular, Dakar, 7 Aug. 1957.

66 ANS 11D1/309, Session Secretary D. Koita and Session Chairman N. Konaté, resolution to dissolve the MAC, signed in Ziguinchor, 1 Sept. 1957.

67 ANS 21G/217/178, minutes of the meeting of 13 June 1956 held by the BDS, MPS (Senegalese section of the RDA), SFIO, and Union Démocratique sénégalaise (UDS) parties.

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69 L. S. Senghor, ‘Pour une solution fédéraliste’, in ‘Où va l'Union française? From colonialism to association’, special issue, La Nef, 9 (1955), 159.

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76 CADN Fonds Ambassade de France à Dakar (FAFD), file 385, B.S. Senegal 4.4.61, meeting between Casamançais and a Gambian delegation from the PPP.

77 CADN FAFD, file 385, B.S. Senegal 7.4.61, meeting between Gambian members of the PPP and Casamance parliamentarians.

78 CADN FAFD, file 385, Governor of the Casamance at Intersen in Dakar, 17 Oct. 1961.

79 CADN FAFD, file 318, B.S. Senegal 10.1.61, meeting of Casamançais with Portuguese Guineans and Gambians.

80 ANOM 1affpol/3548, ‘Procès-verbal de la Commission des votes pour le référendum sur la Communauté’.

81 Interviews with Doudou Sarr, Louis Dacosta, Cheikh Coly, Cherif Tounkara, Assane Seck; Seck, Emergence, 53–69 and 117–38.

82 Senghor quoted in CADN FAFD, file 385, Ambassador C. H. de Boislambert to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dakar, 15 Nov. 1961.

83 ANS VP/208, Governor of the Casamance to the Border Police Chief in Kolda, 9 July 1962.

84 Senghor, Politics, 118.

85 ANS VP/93, ‘Note on the political situation in British Gambia on the eve of the general elections in May 1962’, London, 9 May 1962.

86 Lewin, A., Ahmed Sékou Touré: Président de la Guinée. Tome IV: 1960–1962 (Paris, 2009), 11-12, 33Google Scholar.

87 Interview with Assane Seck, Dakar, 5 Sept. 2004. Confirmed by other interviews with Louis Dacosta.

88 This context of opportunity is reminiscent of the trans-border mobilizations of the Sawaba party analyzed by K. van Walraven, who shows that the party's social base was nevertheless much wider. See van Walraven, K., The Yearning for Relief: A History of the Sawaba Movement in Niger (Leiden, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 CADN FAFD, file 318, B.S. Senegal 10.1.61, meeting of Casamançais with natives of Portuguese Guinea and of the Gambia.

90 This was symptomatic of the ability of the PRA-S in the Casamance to unite different bases of opposition to the central government: the former chefs de canton felt threatened by the policy adopted by Senghor and Dia.

91 CADN FAFD, file 318, B.S. Senegal 31.1.61, Association Nationale des Ressortissants Casamançais hors Région.

92 CADN FAFD, file 318, B.S. Senegal 10.1.61, meeting of Casamançais with natives of Portuguese Guinea and of the Gambia.

93 P. Bourdieu, Homo academicus (Paris, 1984), 207–50.

94 Interview with Yoro Kandé. Diallo and Badiane died in 1971 and 1972.

95 Interviews with Abbe Augustin Diamacoune Senghor, Ziguinchor (between 2003 and 2006), and Mamadou Nkrumah Sané, Paris (between 1999 and 2007). See also Diamacoune Senghor, A. A., Casamance: Pays du refus (Ziguinchor, Senegal, 1995)Google Scholar.

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