Augustin Diamacoune Senghor

Augustin Diamacoune Senghor (born April 4, 1928 in Senghalène , Casamance , Senegal , † January 13, 2007 in Paris ) was a Senegalese priest and politician.

Father Senghor (not related to former President Léopold Sédar Senghor ) was a charismatic Roman Catholic priest and a leading figure in the independence movement of the Casamance region of Senegal (see Casamance conflict ). Ordained a priest in 1956 , he was director of the Séminaire Saint-Louis de Ziguinchor in Ziguinchor from 1972 to 1975 .

In 1982 he was one of the founders of the largest Casamance rebel movement, the Mouvement des forces démocratiques de la Casamance (MFDC). From 1982 to 1987 and 1990 to 1991 he spent several years in Senegalese prisons because of his political activities.

Senghor was under house arrest from 1995 and began negotiations with the government in 1996. In 2004 he signed a peace agreement with Abdoulaye Wade , President of Senegal. However, various factions of the MFDC refused to participate in the peace agreement and continued the fight. This disagreement has deeply divided the Casamance independence movement. In 2006 violence increased again. In December 2006, the President of the Ziguinchor Region Council , as Basse Casamance is now officially called, was assassinated, for which the government blamed the Casamance rebels.

Analysts believed that Father Senghor's death in January 2007 in the Val-de-Grace military hospital in Paris had made it difficult to find a peaceful solution to the Casamance conflict, as the Senegalese government had to find a new leader to negotiate in Senghor's place . This was made more difficult by the fact that the separatist movement had fragmented since the 2004 peace agreement.

Web links

• Senegal rebel leader praises this , BBC News, January 15, 2007, accessed August 17, 2017