Land issues in Senegal: a tenacious imbroglio

Land tenure is the day-to-day expression of the intimate relationship between man and land; of the rights that man has exercised over it throughout time and space, and of their conservation, publication and safeguard against the incessant assaults of the selfish interests of the men who fight over them.In this first quarter of the twenty-first century, these rights are still characterized by conflict, which continues to grow in Senegal, a highly disputed area because it has become a political, economic, social and cultural issue.How did it come to pass that land disputes are now a daily headline in local newspapers? To find the answer to this question, we need to take a chronological look at Senegal's land policies and regimes over the course of its history.In the beginning, it was fire and axe; today, it's DSCOS (Direction pour la Surveillance et le Contrôle de l'Occupation des Sols) and tear gas grenades.