'Black Tuesday' - The Ethnic tension in the Senegal River Valley

This post looks at a specific day which was named ' Black Tuesday ' surrounding the conflict that has occurred in the Senegal River Valley between Senegal and Mauritania. Initially when i wrote the post entitle , ' The Manantali dam conflicts' I had no idea how brutal and ethnically motivated the conflicts were . However through extensive reading of peer reviewed literature I have read about the atrocities that occurred at the Senegal River basin , specifically between Mauritania and Senegal .

April 20th , 1989 is when a clash occurred between black Haalpilaar fishers and black Haratin Maures that resulted in two deaths. This occurred on the Northern boundary of Senegal . Several days later terrible executions and mutilations of innocent people from Mauritania and Senegal occurred and this caught the eye of critics of political relations between the two countries . This black on black conflict as described by Magistro in 1993, is what set off more deadly events between the two countries.

Late April saw shops destroyed and terrible acts of violence. Then during ' Black Tuesday ' in Nouakchott (capital city of Mauritania) 200 black africans were killed by the black haratin who were under the supervision of the white bidan patrons. The events and violence is best described by a quote in the West African  news magazine : Jeune Afrique : ' In Dakar , in Nouakchott as in the principle cities of the two countries, the scenes of pillage and of vandalism had been , everywhere , accompanied by acts of incredible savagery :mutilated bodies , heads cut off , women disemboweled , children throats slit , etc. ' (Diallo 1989:26)

As you can see the violence which occurred was terrible and it was motivated by ethnic tensions thats exist between the countries . It wasn't a case of black vs white but the ethnic differences that exist . In my next post i will go into more detail as to what the different names such as Haratin and Bidan refer to in terms of there ethnic position .

References :

Diallo, S. 1989 ' Mauritanie-Senegal: apres le cauchemar' . Jeune Afrique, 17 mai . N0 1480: 26-29

Magistro J (1993) Crossing over: ethnicity and transboundary conflict in the Senegal river valley. Cah d’Etud Afr 130/XXXIII-2:201 – 232