IDEX Program Officers, Kat and Vini are in Africa visiting IDEX partners in South Africa. But they also spent one week in Senegal and met with a number of NGOs there to explore the possibility of IDEX expanding our work to Senegal. Vini recently sent us more details about Senegal and specifically Casamance.

Very few people outside West Africa actually know about the painful Casamance conflict. Fewer still in the "international community" have done much to build peace in the region. It is the longest running armed struggle in West Africa with over 20 years of conflict. For more information read The Casamance Conflict: Out of Sight Out of Mind.

The 2 sides, the separatist group MFDC (Movement of Democratic Forces of the Casamance) and the Senegalese government, have been fighting over the question of independence for the Casamance region. In the process they have impacted the people of Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia, the two neighboring states. Tens of thousands have been killed, almost 80,000 displaced as per numbers from Caritas and UNHCR. Before the separatist movement in Independent Senegal, the region was a colonial battlefield for the French and the Portuguese.

Landmines are still strewn all over the region including the once beautiful national parks. All sides heap blame on each other. Not until 2004 did relative calm begin to return to the region. The impetus for peace came from the people of Casamance. They wanted to bring home their relatives and rebuild the region.

It is in this context that we get to meet with USOFORAL, AJAC and AJAEDO, 3 distinct groups that work in Enampor and Oussaye areas of Casamance. Of the people we meet most are elders. They had returned home in the past decade, having longed to be reunited with their land for over 30 years. They now teach the younger women and men of the region forgotten sustainable agriculture practices, using land and cultivation as concrete peace building methods.

The drive from Ziguinchor to Oussaye is lush, past the Casamance River and through orchards of orange, mangoes, palm oil and papayas. It’s beauty disguising a bloody history.

Chartered airplanes from all over Europe fly into the beaches of Cap Skirring, just an hour's drive from this impoverished region where recently returned displaced people are slowly but certainly rebuilding their homes, communities and lives. Two separate worlds exist in Casamance - the gorgeous luxury resorts of Cap nestled amongst landlessness, broken and displaced families from 3 decades of war that the people of the region never want to encounter again.

Labels: AJAC, AJAEDO, Casamance, Senegal, USOFORAL

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