Thiaroye massacre

The Thiaroye massacre (French: Massacre de Thiaroye) was a massacre of French West African troops, by French forces on the night of 30 November to 1 December 1944. West African volunteers and conscripts of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais units of the French army mutinied against poor conditions and defaulted pay at the Thiaroye camp, on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal. Between 35 and over 300 people were killed.

Background

As colonial subjects, tirailleurs (colonial infantry) were not awarded the same pensions as their French (European) fellow soldiers during and after World War II, pensions that had been promised to them at the beginning of the war. The pensions for veterans of both races were calculated on the basis of living costs in their countries of birth, supposedly lower in colonies than in metropolitan France. These soldiers additionally claimed they were owed back pay due to an order issued by the Minister of Colonies authorizing benefits for ex-prisoners of war from West Africa, which both fell short of the benefits given to French prisoners of war and was in any case not implemented.[1] This discrimination led to a mutiny by about 1,300 Senegalese tirailleurs at Camp Thiaroye on 30 November 1944. The tirailleurs involved were actually from Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Chad, Benin, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, and Togo.[2] The former prisoners of war had been repatriated to West Africa and placed in a holding camp awaiting discharge. They demonstrated in protest against the failure of the French authorities to pay salary arrears and discharge allowances. The immediate grievance was the unfavorable exchange rate applied to currency brought back by the repatriated soldiers from France.[3] A French general, briefly held by the tirailleurs, promised to have the rate changed to a par with that applicable to white veterans.

Suppression

Early the following morning French soldiers guarding the camp opened fire killing between thirty-five and seventy African soldiers. A detailed French-language account of the massacre states that 24 of the former prisoners were killed outright and eleven subsequently died of their wounds[4] However, war veterans claim that over 300 of the black African soldiers were killed while the French only claim 35 deaths.[5] The French provisional government of Charles de Gaulle, concerned at the impact of the Thiaroye incident on still-serving tirailleurs, acted quickly to ensure that claims for back pay and other monies owing were settled.[6]

Aftermath

In March 1945 a military tribunal sentenced some of the survivors to ten years in prison.[7] Five of the prisoners died in detention. As President Vincent Auriol visited Senegal in March 1947, the prisoners were released, but the didn't receive their veteran pension.[3]

After the war ended, the French argued that the tirailleurs were particularly prone to revolt. The French have based this claim on the notion that German soldiers, in an attempt to undermine the loyalty of France’s colonial subjects in Africa, had given the tirailleurs favored treatment as prisoners of war. This ostensibly good treatment of tirailleurs in prisoner of war camps was not, however, based in fact.[8]

Furthermore, there is no mention of the Thiaroye Massacre in any of France's history books taught in school. Despite the complications of the massacre, France still currently has strong political and military connections with Senegal, which could explain why the film was so poorly received and censored in France. A new generation of French leadership wants to confront the past and even planned to build an exhibition about the incident, which would travel to former French colonies in Western Africa in 2013. While the incident is merely mentioned, there is a military cemetery in Senegal that is unkept and receives no visitors. The cemetery holds the unmarked mass graves of the fallen French soldiers. The Senegalese army prevents any film or photography of the cemetery, and many locals consider the cemetery to be haunted due to the fallen French soldiers still awaiting the vengeance of their honor.[5]

In art and literature

Senegalese author and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, directed a film, Camp de Thiaroye (1988), documenting the events leading up to the Thiaroye massacre, as well as the massacre itself. The film is considered historical fiction, as the characters are not necessarily based on actual tirailleurs who were killed. The film received positive reviews at the time it was released and continues to be heralded by scholars as important historical documentation of the Thiaroye massacre.[9][10] The movie was banned in France for over a decade.[5]

Guinean writer Fodéba Keïta wrote and staged the narrative poem Aube africaine ("African Dawn", 1957)[11] as a theatre-ballet based on the massacre.[12] In African Dawn, a young man called Naman complies with the French colonial rulers by fighting in the French Army only to be killed in Thiaroye.[13][14] His works were banned in French Africa as he was considered radical and anticolonial.[15]


Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Senghor wrote the poem Thiaroye as a tribute to the victims of the Thiaroye massacre.

References
  1. Echenberg, Myron (October 1985). "'Morts Pour la France': The African Soldier in France during the Second World War". Journal of African History. 26 (4): 363–380. doi:10.1017/S0021853700028796.
  2. Johns, Steven. "The Thiaroye massacre, 1944". libcom.org. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  3. David Signer, Dakar. "Frankreich verriet die Senegalschützen nach dem 2. Weltkrieg". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  4. Mabon, Armelle (2002). "La tragédie de Thiaroye, symbole du déni d'égalité". Hommes et Migrations (in French). 1235 (1): 86–95. doi:10.3406/homig.2002.3780. ISSN 1142-852X.
  5. Moshiri, Nazanine (22 November 2013). "A little-known massacre in Senegal". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  6. Chafter, Tony (November 2008). "Forgotten Soldiers". History Today. 58 (11): 35.
  7. Mortimer, Edward (1969). France and the Africans 1944–1960: A political history. London: Faber & Faber. p. 60. OCLC 875880806.
  8. Scheck, Raffael (January 2012). "Les prémices de Thiaroye: L'influence de la captivité allemande sur les soldats noirs français à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale". French Colonial History. 13 (1): 73–90. doi:10.1353/fch.2012.0007. S2CID 145216683.
  9. Ngugi, Njeri (June 2003). "Presenting and (Mis)representing History in Fiction Film: Sembène's 'Camp de Thiaroye and Attenborough's 'Cry Freedom'". Journal of African Cultural Studies. 16 (1): 57–68. doi:10.1080/1369681032000169267. JSTOR 3181385. S2CID 191490169.
  10. Kempley, Rita (1 March 1991). "From Africa, A 'Camp' of Tragic Heroes". The Washington Post.
  11. Otero, Solimar; Ter Haar, Hetty (2010). Narrating War and Peace in Africa. University Rochester Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-1-58046-330-0.
  12. Banham, Martin; Hill, Errol; Woodyard, George William (1994). The Cambridge guide to African and Caribbean theatre. Cambridge University Press. p. 43. ISBN 0-521-41139-4.
  13. Esonwanne, Uzo (1993). "The Nation as Contested Referent". Research in African Literatures. 24 (4): 49–62.
  14. Miller, Christopher L. (1990). Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa. University of Chicago Press. pp. 57, 166–67. ISBN 9780226528021.
  15. O'Toole, Thomas; Baker, Janice E. (2005). Historical dictionary of Guinea. Scarecrow Press. pp. 123–124. ISBN 0-8108-4634-9.


Bibliography
  • (in English) Myron Echenberg, "Tragedy at Thiaroye: The Senegalese Soldiers' Uprising of 1944 ", in Peter Gutkind, Robin Cohen and Jean Copans (eds), African Labor History, Beverly Hills, 1978, p. 109-128
  • (in French) Boubacar Boris Diop, Thiaroye terre rouge, in Le Temps de Tamango, L'Harmattan, 1981
  • (in French) Ousmane Sembène, Camp de Thiaroye, Feature Film, Color, 1988, 147min.

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