Ndeye Marie Thiam - Women of Senegal: agents of peace
The physical and moral suffering undergone by the valiant people of Casamance is incalculable and, as usual, it is the women and children who pay the highest price. From their position as victims, women have decided to become committed agents of peace
There was once a region, tucked in the southern part of Senegal, tranquil and beautiful, gifted with a rich cultural diversity and immense agricultural resources, fisheries and tourism. It was commonly known as ‘la verte Casamance’ (‘Green Casamance’).
The women of Casamance are well aware of the incalculable and destructive consequences of the conflict in the region and in the rest of Senegal. Today they are ready to face the situation, hand in hand, with all the women of our country. We need to take this conflict out of its corner of indifference to raise its status to a key national concern.
In truth, all the women of the world share the same desire to offer a healthy and peaceful environment to their family and to their respective countries. In our neighbouring countries, the Mano River Women’s Peace Network brings together Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Conkary. They have done, and continue to do, remarkable work to re-establish and strengthen peace in this part of West Africa. These women have been able to overcome the geographical and linguistic barriers which separate them; they have been able to be true peacemakers.
There was once a region, tucked in the southern part of Senegal, tranquil and beautiful, gifted with a rich cultural diversity and immense agricultural resources, fisheries and tourism. It was commonly known as ‘la verte Casamance’ (‘Green Casamance’).
Sadly, this is the Casamance that has been the theatre of an armed fratricidal conflict between the Senegalese state and members of the pro-independence Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFCD). We’ve now witnessed thirty years of conflict! It stands out as one of the longest conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, bringing with it a long history of tragedies: thousands of mines buried into the soil, raids, carjackings and an economy of war in full expansion. This has seriously harmed the agricultural and tourist economy, which have been bled-dry. According to Jean François Lepetit, chief of the Handicap International mission in Casamance, at least 90% of mined land still needs to be cleared.
‘Green Casmance’ experiences this conflict through the loss of human lives (more than 3,000 deaths directly linked to the conflict) and constraints on economic and social development. The physical and moral suffering undergone by the valiant people of Casamance are incalculable, and, as usual, it is the women and children who pay the highest price.
Women may not fight, but they the carry the weight of the suffering; they bear the mental and physical scars of the horrors of war. Faithful guardians of traditional values, they undergo all sorts of ills which are given names like rape, abductions, mutilations...
Whole villages have been emptied of their peaceful inhabitants, leaving total desolation in their place. The village of Oulampane, on the edge of the border between Senegal and Gambia, was suspected of welcoming and housing rebels. It was set on fire by the Senegalese army’s military forces. The women in the region lost all their goods. They were forced to abandon their village against their will and to seek refuge on Gambian soil. Women from the rural community of Boutoupa suffered a similar fate. Out in a truck in search of cashew nuts, they fell upon a mine...Many others have been victims of rape as they return from the rice fields where they work in rice cultivation or market gardening. I could talk endlessly about the abuses undergone by women.
And what of the immense cohort of displaced men, women and children? We have seen more than 150,000 displaced persons and/or refugees in our region, more than a hundred villages abandoned in the last fifteen years, with lands polluted with mines. And this is without mentioning, of course, the material deprivation that continues to rise.
And this is why we say with force and determination: STOP! All of this has to stop.
Women: committed agents of peace
From their position as victims, women have decided to become committed agents of peace. In this vein, on September 21st 2011, women’s organisations from the regions of Kolda, Sédhiou and Ziguinchor united their forces in creating the Platform of Women for Peace in Casamance (PFPC). At first an informal structure of consultation and dialogue, the PFPC, strong with its 170 member organisations and operations across the whole of Casamance, quickly became a front-line player in the pursuit of peace. Through its platform, women demanded frank, sincere and inclusive negotiations between the Senegalese state and the MFDC.
The vocation of the PFPC is simple: to bring together the energies, competences and expertise of women in order to propose a concrete and consensual solution to end the Senegalese crisis in Casamance. It has developed a strategy of intense lobbying, both with the government and with the MFDC. It engages in the fight against the violation of human rights and provides an important role in monitoring and denouncing violations perpetrated against civilian populations... read more:
