Senegambia Confederation - Birth of The Confederation

Birth of The Confederation

In the short term, the Senegambia Confederation was a pragmatic union based on a mutual security interest. As previously mentioned, the Senegalese government had a fear of national instability caused by uprisings in either the Gambia or the Casamance region. This fear nearly became reality on 30 July 1981 when Gambian leftists attempted a coup d’état against President Sir Dawda Jawara. At the request of President Jawara, the Senegalese army entered The Gambia and successfully put down the insurrection. However, this new possibility of forced regime change, so close to home for both Banjul and Dakar, promoted the unification ideas which had been developing in the region. Léopold Sédar Senghor, first President of Senegal, was one of "les trois pères" ("the three fathers") of Negritude — a literary and ideologically socialist movement which encourages Africans throughout the Diaspora to embrace their shared culture. Senghor’s belief in Negritude not only informed a sense of the possibility of unification between Senegal and the Gambia, but it seems to have fostered the belief that unification would happen as an organic process. Senegal and the Gambia commissioned a United Nations report to study the possible plans and benefits of unification between the two countries in the 1960s. Despite the short-lived union, the Senegambia Confederation was one of the longest-lived African unions of the period.