ClariNet story GBISSAU-CASAMANCE from AFP

Guinea-Bissau soldiers push Casamance refugees back to Senegal
Copyright 2001 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet) / Thu, 24 May 2001
11:30:12 PDT

ZINGUINCHOR, Senegal, May 24 (AFP) - Guinea-Bissau authorities backed by
soldiers have violently forced about a thousand Casamance refugees north into
Senegal, witnesses said Thursday.

Government troops began forcing the refugees back to Senegal on May 18 after
razing their houses and slaughtering their livestock. Witnesses said that some
of those pushed out had been there for 10 years.

Village chiefs in the Sao Domingos zone near the Senegalese border, where many
of the refugees has lived to escape fighting to the north, told the refugees to
"find another safe haven," departing refugees told AFP.

The refugees said that the villages of Sounkutoto, Bufa, HLM, Madina and
Nhambalang have been emptied. The refugees came from Senegal's southern
Casamance province, where armed separatists have been fighting for 19 years.

In Sounkutoto, refugees said that soldiers had burned 11 houses and supplies of
food and clothes to flush out Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC)
rebels who led the struggle against Senegal's government.

But refugees explained that the rebels only retreated to their rear base when
army reinforcements arrived, firing rifles and RP-G7 shells.

"We have always told MFDC fighters that our territory is not Casamance; we have
asked refugees to denounce the rebels hiding amongst them," Major Texas, the
Guinea-Bissau officer leading the operation, told AFP.

Texas added that the refugees have always refused to cooperate and have become
"victims of their collusion" with the rebels.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade signed two peace pacts with veteran MFDC
leader Augustin Diamacoune Senghor in March, although renegade rebel factions
have continued to fight, killing about 30 people this year.

Relief organizations in Dakar have estimated there are about 7,500 Senegalese
refugees from the southern province of Casamance in Guinea-Bissau.

About 900 of them were desperate to get back to Ziguinchor, according to
corroborating sources.

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