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CREATING MALI 51sion. 79 At its inaugural session, Allasane Haidara made it clear that the HighCommission to the OCRS or the Ministry of Saharan Affairs should avoidmaking the following ‘mistakes’: trying to transfer power from the TerritorialAssemblies to the OCRS; trying to create a territory; andcreating animosity between nomads and sedentary peoples, and between the differentethnic groups of Soudan, Niger and Chad. Certain campaigns of agitation inSoudan lead to believe that there is a risk that this mistake will be made. 80In Soudan Français itself the US-RDA leaders were well aware of thepotential danger of the OCRS and the Qadi’s campaigns in favour of a SaharanTerritory. The US-RDA leaders therefore counteracted all attempts to put theOCRS into effect on Soudanese territory until the September 1958 referendumon the new French constitution, and the creation of autonomous republics out ofthe former Overseas Territories. Modibo Keita would later admit that one of thereasons the US-RDA had campaigned for a ‘Yes’ on the acceptance of the newconstitution and the Communauté Française in the September 1958 referendum,was their fear that a ‘No’ would lead to French incursion on the SoudaneseSahara through the OCRS.In fact, certain Commandants de Cercle in the Northern regions have created themyth of the nomad and the myth of the sedentary, the myth of the white and themyth of the black. They have created an embryo of opposition between white nomadand sedentary African elements. If, by consequence, we had to adopt a standpointwhich risked putting us in opposition to the solidly implanted colonial elementunder these conditions, well, then, surely, the Soudan would have had its northernpart amputated. 81After the establishment of the Soudanese Republic in November 1958, theUS-RDA remained reluctant to OCRS projects on Soudanese territory, andafraid of nomadic agitation in the North in favour of France. Indeed, expectationsamong the nomad populations of Soudan Français about the outcome ofthe referendum were linked to their perceptions of the function of the OCRS. Inshort, they expected that voting in favour of Soudanese participation in theCommunauté Française had meant that their land would stay French within theOCRS. The visit to Goundam of the High Commissioner to the AOF, PierreMessmer, accompanied by high-ranking US-RDA officials in November 1958,798081Territoire du Soudan Français, Cercle de Goundam. Bulletin mensuel de renseignements,Septembre 1957. ACG.OCRS, Haute Commission, Procès-verbal de la session inaugurale tenue à Paris (21au 24 Janvier 1958). ANSOM – 1affpol/2321/6.Speech by Modibo Keita at the 3rd territorial conference of the US-RDA, 29/09/1959. In: Dupuis, J. 1960: 30.