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Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics,
Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™
“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”
-- Boston Globe
"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."
-- New York Observer
“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING.”
-- John Hodgman,
author, The Areas of My Expertise and correspondent for The Daily Show
"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"
-- The Wall Street Journal
"A surprisingly touching memoir"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."
-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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Main  Bonus Chapter: Senegal
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WHW Bonus: Senegal |
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Sunday, 23 September 2007 |
The following chapter of Who Hates Whom was one of four cut from the book due to space considerations. Please consider the following as something akin to a DVD extra.
Nothing here -- and in fact, none of the book -- should be taken as authoritative. It's just my best shot at summing up everything I can and cramming it into as few entertaining words as possible. This book just seemed like it should exist, so now it does.
Finally, I'll point out my own amusing hypocrisy. The US media get criticism for not covering the conflict more -- in a section I was forced to cut from the book myself. Hrmph.
• Casamance pro-independence rebels v. Senegalese government, 1982-present
• Intermittent fighting among rebel groups themselves, 2005-present
Senegal's Gorée Island is considered by many (not all) historians to have been roughly the Atlantic slave trade’s answer to 7-11: conveniently located (near three big rivers -- the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Casamance), easy to find, and small enough to keep secure. The results? Nearly half a million people were probably yanked into lifelong horror from this area alone, out of the maybe ten million throughout Africa who were kidnapped and sold during the four-century slave trade.
France eventually colonized this whole deal except for the Gambia river and its flanks, which the UK controlled; the claims were resolved as a side issue in the Treaty of Paris which ended the US Revolutionary War. The French remained long after the slave trade was abolished, finally bailing only in 1960, when their military was stretched by the struggle to prevent Algeria from falling into the hands of the Algerians.
A few years later, the UK granted independence to The Gambia (whose government prefers the "The," not unlike El Segundo, Le Havre, or The Donald), which managed a wan semblance of democracy for nearly 30 years, although this one guy always wound up in charge. However, in 1994, a military coup suspended the constitution, banned opposition, and then reinstated democracy on its own terms. Now this other guy always wins.
(Senegal had a similar electoral experience: one guy won everything for twenty years until he retired; his protégé, this guy, won for the next twenty. Then another guy took over, the first non-ruling-party guy ever to run the joint. So, um, democracy. Moving on.)
Meanwhile, both Senegal and The Gambia still have frontiers drawn (in a pattern familiar throughout this book) for the benefit of colonists, not the Africans who live there. In this case, Wolof, Fula, Mandinka, and numerous other folks populate both Gambia and the northern half of Senegal, where everybody usually gets along pretty OK on ethnic and religious grounds.
However, the southernmost bit of Senegal – known as Casamance, for its major river – has a higher concentration of Jola people, whose rural communities have been culturally and economically isolated from the rest of Senegal from the get-go.
In 1982, the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC, in the French acronym) staged protests which turned violent after fighting began with the cops; exactly who started the bodyslamming is disputed. Senegal arrested the leaders, the Jolas got pissed, and things have never quite calmed down.
Seeking both security and common sense, Senegal and The Gambia joined up in 1982, creating (yes!) "Senegambia,” a bold bit of wordplay hailed from Swedenmark to Botswanamibia.
However, the partnership split in 1989 when both sides realized they hadn’t really changed much besides the cool name.
Soon, the Casamance rebellion went military. The MFDC attacked Senegalese government targets with support from factions inside Guinea-Bissau (see "You Got Ghana In My Guinea," pp. 91-94). Senegal has given Guinea-Bissau the occasional stink-eye (and at least one batch of explosive shells), and Casamance has been in low-grade civil war, off and on ever since.
Both the MFDC and Senegalese government say they care deeply for the civilians. Both sides have killed plenty, and some areas are quite thoroughly mined. Over 3500 people have been killed; tens of thousands more fled into The Gambia or Guinea-Bissau.
A 2004 peace deal reached in Ziguinchor looked promising, but unfortunately this just created pro- and anti-deal factions among the rebels, who started attacking each other, too. Still, at this writing, things have at least quieted enough south of the Casamance river for refugees in Guinea-Bissau to return, but north of the river, things are still messy.
Senegal’s president has recently sought the help of over 100 Jola elders, hoping they might broker a final peace deal with the rebels. The rebels responded by going to the nearest government official’s house and burning it down. We'll take that as a "no."
In Western nations which cite concern for civilians as a pretext for war, and despite a death toll comparable to Northern Ireland’s conflict, many Americans have never even heard of Casamance. As I write this, the New York Times archive shows exactly one 53-word mention of the Casamance conflict in the last six years.
Finally, Dakar residents also harbor a much more recent resentment -- toward George W. Bush, who made a televised speech from Gorée Island in 2003.
Other high-profile figures ranging from the Pope to President Clinton to Nelson Mandela have made similar stops with minimal incident. However, according to Reuters (in a widely-published article no longer on their own site), before Bush’s arrival, Senegal’s national capital was shut down, over 1000 residents were taken off the streets, and the roads in and out of the capital were closed. (More from a local witness here.) Then, on the morning of Bush’s speech, the residents of Gorée Island itself were rounded up and herded onto a soccer field, out of sight of the cameras, where they were forcibly held for six hours until the event was finished.
The US president then spoke of his deep belief in liberty and equality, with no hint of irony.
The Senegalese president was instructed not to speak.
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