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[Adventurer]

Page last updated at 02:32 GMT, Sunday, 17 January 2010
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Senegal offers land to Haitians

Abdoulaye Wade said Haitians could "return to their origin"
Senegal's president says he will offer free land and "repatriation" to people affected by the earthquake in Haiti.

President Abdoulaye Wade said Haitians were sons and daughters of Africa since Haiti was founded by slaves, including some thought to be from Senegal.

"The president is offering voluntary repatriation to any Haitian that wants to return to their origin," said Mr Wade's spokesman, Mamadou Bemba Ndiaye.

Tuesday's earthquake killed tens of thousands and left many more homeless.

Buildings have been reduced to rubble, the distribution of aid is slow, and people have been flooding out of the devastated capital, Port-au-Prince.

"Senegal is ready to offer them parcels of land - even an entire region. It all depends on how many Haitians come," Mr Bemba Ndiaye said.


SENEGAL

[mises]

If the Haitians are at all a rational people they will jump at this offer. Free land. A "region". Wow.

[mises]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hMcQ3akHeBvtnGynUahV7XeCWomw

[On the other hand]

[mises]

[Adventurer]

I looked up Senegal on the Africa page.

Here is what it says:

Page last updated at 15:41 GMT, Tuesday, 27 October 2009
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Country profile: Senegal


Senegal has been held up as one of Africa's model democracies. It has an established multi-party system and a tradition of civilian rule.

Although poverty is widespread and unemployment is high, the country has one of the region's more stable economies.


Overview
Overview Facts Leaders Media
For the Senegalese, political participation and peaceful leadership changes are not new. Even as a colony Senegal had representatives in the French parliament. And the promoter of African culture, Leopold Senghor, who became president at independence in 1960, voluntarily handed over power to Abdou Diouf in 1980.

AT-A-GLANCE

Politics: Abdoulaye Wade came to power in 2000, ending four decades of Socialist Party rule; he won a second term in February 2007
Economy: Agriculture drives the economy; tourism is a source of foreign exchange
International: Senegal has mediated between Sudan and Chad over Darfur tensions; many African illegal migrants use Senegal as a departure point for Europe
Security: Despite a peace deal, a low-level separatist rebellion simmers in Casamance, in the south


Timeline
The 40-year rule of Senegal's Socialist Party came to a peaceful end in elections in 2000, which were hailed as a rare democratic power transfer on a continent plagued by coups, conflict and election fraud.

Senegal is on the western-most part of the bulge of Africa and includes desert in the north and a moist, tropical south. Slaves, ivory and gold were exported from the coast during the 17th and 18th centuries and now the economy is based mainly on agriculture. The money sent home by Senegalese living abroad is a key source of revenue.

A long-running, low-level separatist war in the southern Casamance region has claimed hundreds of lives. The conflict broke out over claims by the region's people that they were being marginalised by the Wolof, Senegal's main ethnic group.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1064496.stm

I am not going to assume Senegal would want to settle them there and, thus, reduce the percentage of that non-Wolof group. This small conflict is like a low scale of what happened with Biafra in Nigeria, I believe.

[jvalmer]

Both countries speak French and both have comparable GDP/capita levels. Wouldn't be too much of a cultural, or standard of living shock to go there.
But I wonder what the real motivation for this is.

[Gopher]

On the Other Hand, probably not an ethnic cleansing plan, you cynical, negative, chronically-suspicious leftist. But I was thinking along similar lines that there is probably more than meets the eye here.

Senagal, a country I know nothing about, may have settlement/developmental plans in mind, moving into new lands within its borders (apparently there is space to take a lot of immigrants), creating new markets, strengthening its economy, etc.

But just because something is not purely altruistic, that does not mean that altruism is absolutely absent, or merely a cover for some deep, dark "true purpose," On the Other Hand.

I have always held Pan-Africanism and especially some African-Americans' "back-to-Africa" schemes as, frankly, hair-brained. Many different ethnicities, tribes, and clans divide Africa. Some of them, in fact, are ultimately responsible for hunting others down and selling them to western European traders as slaves. Others are guilty in this century of genocide.

In any case, how exactly would a descendant of some now anonymous anscestor from perhaps the sixteenth century go about pinpointing, even within 500 miles, exactly where in Africa he belonged? Further, would he speak the language there, and how would he adapt to the political economy and culture there?

[Gopher]

Background re: Senegal

[Adventurer]

Gopher, the majority of slaves in the United States came from West Africa and they were often hailed from Senegal and Gambia and at times from near Ghana. Areas near the coast is where the Europeans would go. In Brazil, many came from Angola. I remember talking to an African American woman who I would give a ride to after her car broke down, and she told me that her grandmother would say they were of (Senegalese background). She didn't quite know where Senegal was, but that's what she said. However, she also had some Cherokee ancestry.

I am not assuming negative motives from the Senegalese Government, but I don't really think Haitians would want to move to Africa. They left Africa 400 years ago. They want to come to America.

[Julius]

Repatriated former slaves = another Liberia.

[djsmnc]

Man, I wish they had done this during Katrina!

[Gopher]

Thank you, Adventurer. I have read this or that re: American slavery, you know.

[conrad2]

Send the entire population of Haiti to Michigan, make Haiti a giant naval base/ terrorist prison, leave Guantanamo, Cuba.

[Adventurer]