<em>Ripe or Rotting:</em> Civil Society in the Casamance Conflict

Abstract

The article explores the role of traditional and modern actors as well as traditional methods in finding a durable solution to the separatist Casamance conflict, which has experienced an uptick in hostilities since 2009. In 2007, the government named a group of traditional actors, the Comité des Sages, as its official interlocutor with the Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance (MFDC), which was a armed rebel movement against the government of Senegal. However, the approach did not advance the peace process because their base was too limited, their practices of buying access to the MFDC were not sustainable, and the perception of skimming undermined their credibility. Traditional methods will have a role to play, namely, the reversing of oaths taken by combatants when they joined the MFDC, once a large-scale demobilization of forces is possible. Modern and traditional civil society actors have played a role in peacebuilding efforts in Casamance. They include micro-level village associations with localized access to nearby MFDC bases or combatants from their village, meso-level Senegalese NGOs that implement programs in different parts of the region, and macro-level national organizations and individuals based in Dakar and the Casamance with access to high-level decision-makers. Collaboration among these actors balances their strengths and weaknesses, but their interests must align for the collaboration to succeed. An MFDC call for a referendum on independence, akin to the one held in Southern Sudan in January 2011, was firmly rejected, but a more interesting parallel lies in the popular consultation process identified in Sudan’s 2004 peace agreement for the Blue Nile and South Kordofan states and suggested in the December 2004 agreement. Popular consultations allow citizens to indicate if the agreement has been implemented satisfactorily and should be the definitive solution, while the political conference discusses root causes of the conflict and proposes solutions.