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LJD to the rescue! Lawyer avails high court with original copy of 1997 constitution after help cry-out

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Lawyer Lamin J Darbo has assisted the high court in Banjul with an original copy of the 1997 constitution.

The high court cried out for help in getting an original copy of the 1997 constitution amid the murder trial of former junta leader Yankuba Touray.

The founder of Dabanani Law Centre Lamin J Darbo was able to avail the court an original copy which was kept in his library. It is not known if it was the only original one in the country.

UDP’s bromance with GDC further underscored as they unleash five to Niamina to help GDC in their battle against NPP

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UDP has prepared five of its top members to help GDC in their campaign in Niamina West as the constituency’s national assembly by-election edges ever closer.

UDP have shown tremendous goodwill to GDC in recent days geared towards helping the party’s candidate defeat his NPP rival. Party officials were dispatched to Niamina as GDC’s Yero Jallow got nominated over the weekend.

UDP national youth president Kemo Bojang shared late on Tuesday a UDP team comprising MP Alhagie S Darbo, MP Fakebba Colley, Sanna Fadera, Hina Marong and Modou Soma Jobe will join the GDC campaign on Wednesday.

Alhagie S Darboe is the UDP national assembly member for Brikama North. Nicknamed Bamba Tulunbali (the crocodile that doesn’t play), Darboe is hugely respected within UDP.

 

SAM SARR – COMMENT: For the people by the people show interview with ambassador Stephen J Rapp

My attention was yesterday drawn to the Sunday October 25 2020 interview of American ambassador-at large Lawyer Stephen J. Rapp by the US-based “For The People By The People” online talk show, hosted weekly by Messrs Banka Manneh, Musa Jeng and Pa Samba Jaw (Coach) on one of their series of topics featuring on my recent publication where I denounced Ambassador Rapp’s misplaced priority of hawkishly and hypocritically campaigning for the arrest, trial and conviction of former President Jammeh in a “hybrid court” reminiscent of the one he had successfully orchestrated against warlord Charles Taylor. The retiree ostensibly in search of a job cannot still differentiate the horrible legacy of Charles Taylor in the eight-year Liberian civil war and that of Yahya Jammeh’s relatively inconsequential crimes in the Gambia usually blown out of their contexts.

Anyhow, as much as I would acknowledge how Jaw and Jeng superficially raised some of my criticisms of the American highlighted in my article-although they never mentioned me by name-it was nonetheless obvious that Mr. Rapp knew exactly whom they were referring to and the content of my story; because at some point of emphasizing his resilience to always pursue heads of state suspected of committing war crimes or crimes against humanity he vowed to return to the Gambia to get Jammeh adding “even if Ambassador Sarr continues to criticize me”.

To be fair with them, I will first commend the hosts for “gently” reminding Mr. Rapp of America’s undesirable state-sanctioned excesses generally attributed to its combat forces deployed abroad to fight dubious wars and by extension to its government especially what had happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and for asking Ambassador Rapp why he is not equally vigilant about investigating or trying to hold any of those suspects accountable in his “so-called hybrid Courts” considering the inflexible antagonistic position of the US government towards any international courts instituted on such, including the ICC.

Additionally, no superpower nation including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council-America, Russia, China, Great Britain and France-has ever cooperated with human-rights-violation investigators pursuing suspects in their various security forces. But they would enthusiastically sponsor or support the investigation, arrest and conviction of other nations’ troops and leaders under the guise of maintaining a fair world order.

Amazingly, Mr. Rapp had no nation of major influence to quote as examples of targeted places by “his hybrid courts” other than Kosovo and another Balkan state ravaged by wars of genocide and crimes against humanity similar to what he said happened in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia that ultimately validated the prosecution of ex-warlord Charles Taylor.

But did any of those serious crimes in those countries ever happen in the Gambia? Of Course not.

It was therefore intellectually very dishonest of Mr. Rapp for insinuating that my criticism of his selective approach to global justice when accused of targeting weak leaders over stronger ones as an attempt to discourage him from helping victims of human-rights abuses or other abuses committed by governments likened to the APRC under Jammeh.

I have never for once said anything like that but instead wanted him to understand that even the TRRC he is banking on for evidence to “capture” Jammeh was not necessarily commissioned for that, but to reconcile the political and ethnic difference of a polarized nation, blamed rightly or wrongly to some regrettable incidents associated with the 22 years rule of the APRC government still under investigation.

I have always argued that the APRC government was in form and substance derivative to the AFPRC military junta that came into power in 1994 through a popular and peaceful military takeover, and had maintained the same system of governance even in its democratically elected-civilian image.

But it’s also worth mentioning that most post-colonial military governments in Africa operated like that and were globally endorsed until in the past two decades or thereabout. Indeed military rule in West Africa was a normal and welcomed alternative to corrupt and tribally-constituted civilian governments that for decades served the interest of a few and the Neo-colonial masters. The first wave of coups in Africa were subsequently confirmed to have been instigated, financed or supported by foreign/Western powers for their own political and economic interests.

From the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba to Ghana’s Kwame NKrumah, most of our progressive post-colonial leaders were either assassinated or their governments overthrown on the instigation or sponsorship of certain treacherous Western nations to maintain control of our minds and resources. Eventually the military puppets they had taught the art and science of overthrowing governments graduated and started working for themselves rather than the greedy bastards.

But as typical of foreign or Western wheeler-dealers they soon started to campaign against the legality of military coups when it was no longer profitable to them, in the same manner they had to abolish the three-century old cataclysmic Atlantic Slave Trade when its economic losses started to outweigh its huge profits.

The balkanization of Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884 without the consultation of the African people remains one of the most irreparable damages permanently inflicted in the evolution and salvation of our damned continent. In what has been considered as systematic racism and brazen genocide, Westerners have wiped out millions of people in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Australia and on every foothold of land they find profitable to impose their atrocious dominance for centuries. As long as their financial ledger books were profitably balanced, human lives other than that of Caucasians, meant little or nothing to humanity. They divided us against each other and never hesitated to annihilate dissenting voices or forces. Unless he failed his history classes, Mr. Rapp wouldn’t dispute this theory.

In South Africa Rapp’s ancestors participated, aided or pretended not to know that for close to a century Caucasians violently and fraudulently seized and occupied the land of the indigenous black majority and denied them their most fundamental human rights coupled with persistently killing and dehumanizing them.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established for South Africans to forget those crimes against humanity, forgive each other and forge ahead which otherwise could have culminated into nasty retaliations of unimaginable savagery. Mr. Botha, the last president of Apartheid South Africa refused to appear when summoned before that TRC but eventually walked away with impunity. However in Mr. Rapp’s shallow reasoning one would hope that President Botha should have been tried in a hybrid court to avoid the recurrence of Apartheid in South Africa again.

That was his farcical reasoning when asked why he was so obsessed with pursuing Jammeh. That it would prevent what had happened in the Gambia for 22 years from ever happening again. I expected a smarter train of thought from the lawyer who should have simply been honest enough to disclose his interest in securing a job in the Gambia during these hard times of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. No one has time for these expired lawyers anymore.

Besides, the world has never worked that way. For instance, the world has done everything imaginable to stop African governments from adopting military-style of governments but we still can’t get rid of rogue governments sustained by institutionalized corruption and tribalism and resorting to the same tactics we thought had vanished for good. After years of diligently working to rectify all their shortcomings in past administrations into perfectly civilized nations, the Nigerian, Ivorian and Guinean security forces under orders of their governments are today behaving like how they used to behave under totalitarian rulers. They are in the streets using live rounds to shoot and kill peaceful demonstrators protesting for their basic human and civil entitlements. How many more hybrid courts would Ambassador Rapp have to commission against all these criminals to prevent the recurrence of these incidents the zillionth time?

Mr. Rapp would have sounded a bit more reasonable if his efforts were geared towards stopping coups which will also require stopping corruption and tribal politics still cardinal sticking points that shockingly led to the Malian military takeover, lately. We all thought coups were things of the past, didn’t we?

From my personal perspective, if not confronted with honesty and total commitment, corruption and tribalism from our politicians will certainly continue to justify more coups regardless of the rhetoric or a million convictions in hybrid courts by all ambassadors-at large of the world.

Anyway I would advice Mr. Rapp to better redirect his compulsive and obsessive crusade of capturing and prosecuting Jammeh to the affirmed perpetrators of war crimes or unforgivable heavyweight criminals like George Bush, Tony Blaire (in Iraq and Afghanistan) Nicholas Sarkosy ( in Libya) and a bunch of them protected by the mere color of their skins or national origins.

Mr. Rapp has pointed out his possible reliance on the case-report of the infamous killing of some Ghanians from the TRRC to prosecute Jammeh in a “hybrid court of which I am afraid he would again dismiss my comparison of the similarity of what happened in the debacle of the 2003 invasion Iraq to the killing of those unidentified strangers, as untenable. In that both tragedies occurred from wrong intelligence given to the state but forgivable with the superpower leaders and not with the weaker third-world ones.

Yes, the “Ghanian”-murder issue that Mr Rapp thinks could be his best evidence is still shrouded by a controversial mystery with the key government witnesses behind the tragedy all dead, except perhaps for Jammeh alone who the bias TRRC is not making any efforts invite him to testify. They seem to be only interested in proving the occurrence of the crimes and not the circumstance leading to them which would have probably unveiled results totally different from the stories they want the world to know or believe. In other words, factoring the fact that the former Director General of the NIA, the late Daba Marena and the former Chief of Defense Staff the late Colonel Ndure Cham actually presented the wrong intelligence to President Jammeh that the suspicious strangers from Senegal arrested without ID cards were hired mercenaries to overthrow the APRC government and adding what former president Jammeh may have to explain could ultimately reveal a different conclusion far from the maddening story Essa Faal and group are determined to portray out there.

Marena and Cham had given Jammeh a frightening information that would have been a third incident of mercenaries-1996, 1997 and 2005-or murderous dissidents from Senegal planning and invading the Gambia to violently overthrow the APRC government. Stories had even later emerged that the men composed of different nationalities were “back-way immigrants” swindled by Senegalese racketeers and sent to the Gambia to wait for a nonexistent vessel that was to safely transport them to Europe . But upon arrival the evil Dakar agents tipped off the Gambia security forces including the Director General of the NIA about the “subversive mercenaries”.

That said one would wonder where Mr. Rapp’s ethical and moral standard would recline for accepting evidence from the only witnesses who happened to be the suspects or the Junglers who allegedly carried out the killings but who for three years were arbitrarily arrested and incarcerated in prison without being charged or being provided with any legal counsels until the con-artists from the TRRC appeared before them with the assurance of their freedom hinged on their confession to murdering the “Ghanians” on the orders of President Jammeh?

Most folks subjected to such coercion will agree to any confession just to be free. But there are always the true believers. Hence, the majority of them who agreed and said exactly what the TRRC had ordered them to say were released to go home while the few principled ones who refused to comply still languish in jail. How could ambassador Stephen J. Rapp among all high-profile lawyers rely on evidence provided from these victims in a proper legal setting, hybrid or otherwise and expect to win? Of course, he would collect a desperately needed paycheck from the gullible Gambia government even if he got nothing out of the case.

This country with its fragile democracy will never be reconciled by the bad gringos in charge but may instead be irreconcilably divided into feuding tribal and political groups.

Thanks for reading!

SAMSUDEEN SARR

BANJUL THE GAMBIA.

 

 

 

 

President Barrow declares Thursday public holiday over Maulud Nabi

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President Adama Barrow has declared this Thursday a public holiday throughout the country in observance of Maulud Nabi, locally called GAMO which will be observed on Wednesday night, 28th October 2020.

“The holiday is to commemorate the birth of Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) with an all night vigil. Muslims recite the Holy Quran, narrate the life history of the Prophet of Islam as a model for Muslims as well as invoke religious songs throughout the night.

“President Barrow takes this opportunity to wish Muslims at home and abroad a blessed holiday,” State House said in a statement.

Back way: Senegal sounds alarm over migration surge after boat disaster

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By AFP

Senegal’s government has said it is worried about a “resurgence” of migrants hoping to reach Europe, after a disaster off the West African nation’s coast last week claimed lives.

In a statement published Monday, government spokesperson Ndeye Ticke Ndiaye Diop pointed to a rise in migrant vessels intercepted by the Senegalese navy this month.

On Friday, fuel drums aboard one of these traditional wooden boats caught fire 80 kilometres (49 miles) off the southern city of Mbour, the statement said.

The incident caused the death of “more than 10 youngsters”, Senegalese President Macky Sall said on Twitter, although local press reports put the death toll at several dozen people.

AFP was unable to independently confirm the number of dead.

Senegal’s navy said that it rescued 51 people, without specifying the original number of people aboard the boat.

“The government has noted with regret the resurgence of clandestine emigration by sea,” the statement said, adding that patrols had rescued 388 people at sea between October 7 and Friday alone.

West Africans desperate to get to Europe have increasingly opted to take the Atlantic route to the Spain’s Canary Islands in recent years, as authorities have clamped down on crossings from Libya.

The archipelago lies more than 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the coast of Africa at its closest point, but the route is perilous.

At least 251 people died attempting the crossing between January 1 and September 17, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), compared to 210 fatalities for the whole of last year.

In the northern Senegalese city of Saint-Louis, several families told AFP that they had heard no news from 14 of their relatives aboard the vessel that caught fire on Friday.

Ousmane Djigo, a Saint-Louis resident, said his brother boarded the vessel after his friends told him he would arrive in Spain without problems.

“There was only one choice left to my big brother, to emigrate to earn a living,” he said.

Busy Tuesday at foreign affairs as foreign diplomats take turns to hold talks with Dr Mamadou Tangara

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Three foreign diplomats took turns to hold talks on foreign minister Dr Mamadou Tangara on Tuesday, according to the foreign minister.

Dr Tangara first had an audience with the Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to The Gambia, His Excellency Tolga Bermek, in his office in Banjul.

“The two officials discussed issues of mutual interest and also ways and means of further strengthening the already cordial bilateral relations between The Gambia and the Republic of Turkey,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry added: “After his meeting with the Turkish Diplomat, Foreign Minister Tangara had a telephone conversation with the Ambassador of Japan to The Gambia based in Dakar, Senegal. His Excellency Ambassador ARAI Tatsuo informed Foreign Minister Tangara that the new Government in Japan is willing and ready to strengthen bilateral cooperation with The Gambia in all aspects.

“The two officials also worked out modalities to sign the Exchange Notes between the two countries within the framework of Japan’s Food Assistance Programme. The food assistance programme improves food security in the country and also addresses nutritional needs.

“Also at the Foreign Ministry was the new British High Commissioner to The Gambia, His Excellency David Belgrove OBE. The two officials discussed issues of mutual interests to The Gambia and the United Kingdom.”

Muslims in Gambia stand by their Prophet following French president’s comments

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Muslims in the country that are online have been taking part in a strong show of solidarity towards the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad.

The French president sparked outrage in the Muslim world when he said Islam is in crisis. He spoke against the backdrop of the beheading of a teacher who showed offensive cartoons he associated to Prophet Muhammad to his students.

While there are protests in some Muslim countries over Emmanuel Macron’s comments, Muslims in The Gambia are taking part in a campaign on Facebook dubbed, ‘Respect Prophet Muhammad – the Prophet of peace and tolerance’.

Most are having the solidarity message displayed underneath an updated profile picture.

‘Salifu is nothing’: GDC’s MC Cham Jnr fires back at Jokadu MP as he turns his back on party

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GDC national youth president MC Cham Jnr has fired back at Jokadu MP Salifu Jawo who has sensationally left the party and joined NPP.

Mr Jawo has claimed the behaviour of GDC leader Mamma Kandeh sparked his decision to abandon the party.

The party’s national youth president MC Cham Jnr has now come forward to react to Mr Jawo’s claims.

He said: “There are things we should not talk about. Because Salifu is not someone who can change anyone and take him to Barrow. The sign came at his village where he held a meeting and inform them he was going to Barrow. If he had any influence, he would take along that crowd with him to Barrow.

“He says people were calling and congratulating him but those where Barrow supporters but no GDC supporter would congratulate him. And that place [Jokadu] is a GDC stronghold. So it’s just Salifu who has left and he cannot take anyone with him. The important thing is for us to continue working.

“When we were forming GDC in 2016, we did without no MP, no councillors and we got 17 percent. Yes we need MPs, we need councillors but at the end of the day if they want to leave, nobody can force them to stay. But at the end of the day people are coming to join GDC. So Salifu is not someone to talk about. Let’s forget about Salifu, Salifu is nothing.”

 

MP warns Niamina West by-election will prove NPP’s unpopularity

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Barrow and his NPP who are about to test their popularity by entering the race in the tiny Niamina West Constituency by-election would first discover their unpopularity which would prove that the electorate of Niamina West are not as desperate as the NPP who are trying to patch up their disorganized campaign in this looming by-election, MP Omar has said.

The Niamina East lawmaker argued: “The president’s political party NPP was exclusively formed within the State house without the full involvement of the masses but by few individuals whose future is tied to Barrow’s presidency and are doing everything in their power to ensure they safeguard and protect their positions hoping that with Barrow at the helm of affairs their interests and future can be secured. Would one be wrong to call NPP a State house party (SHP) as they continue to hold rallies there.

“Similarly, the establishment of the said party by few elites in the state house undermines the political participation and consultations at the grassroots. The manner of it’s formation makes the electorate to view the party as a party of few selfish individuals who are desperate as effective structures are not in place across the country. As it stands now, the only functional executive position in the NPP are the party leader and the admin secretary flouting the IEC requirement of a complete executive structure, which is yet to be met.

“Furthermore, the regional and sub- regional committees of the party are fragile and weak as they are formed out of desperation, betrayal of the national trust and agenda, cannot be a true national political entity that can unite and protect the cohesion of national integrity.

“However, the grapevine has it that the party leader might not be elected flag bearer by the Congress due to his incapacity to mend the looming fragmentation of the interest groups competing to control and manage him which has now showing signs that the party is losing support at the grassroots and becoming very unpopular.”

Disturbed CA Calls for Peace in Nigeria

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Citizens’ Alliance has called for an end to violence in Nigeria as the country struggles to deal with angry youths.

Nigeria has been rocked by violent protests in recent weeks over police brutality, which has seen a police anti-robbery unit accused of human rights violations scrapped.

CA said in a statement: “We have been following the reports of the unfortunate incidents in our sisterly country of The Federal Republic of Nigeria. Citizens Alliance is disheartened by the deteriorating situation including and especially the loss of precious human life.

“We call on the Government and all stakeholders to work together for a peaceful resolution and to bring the violence to an immediate end. CA stands with our Nigerian brothers and sisters, extend our deepest condolences for the lives lost, and enjoins on all parties to prioritize the lives, well-being, and development of Nigeria.”

Photojournalist Ebou Waggeh, known for his brilliant shots of places, dies at 63

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Photojournalist Ebou Waggeh has suddenly died on Monday, his family has confirmed. Mr Waggeh was aged 63.

The Wax Media founder is known for taking brilliant shots of streets and places; he did a wonderful job taking shots of almost all the streets in Banjul and posting them online.

In September, the journalist displayed his brilliance by capturing President Barrow as he waved at a small crowd on Bertil Harding Highway from the window of a moving car.

Mr Waggeh had previously worked at GRTS.

Barrow continues his onslaught on GDC: Jokadu MP Salifu Jawo ditches opposition party for NPP

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Jokadu MP Salifu Jawo has explained why he left GDC to join President Adama Barrow’s National People’s Party.

Jawo had earlier confirmed his exit from GDC to The Standard but on Monday, the lawmaker explained at a meeting in Kerr Pateh Jawo, Jokadu his reasons for abandoning GDC.

“Wherever I want, I join because they say, ‘freedom of speech, freedom of association’,” Jawo said on NPP TV.

He added: “He [Mamma Kandeh] said to I Honourable Salifu Jawo ‘what I said is not enough, I will now formalise it by writing to you and say I have expelled you from the party’. That’s all I am waiting for from him now.

“But I just want to say that whether he does it or not, I Honourable Salifu Jawo he would never have my ‘yes’ (submission). Because he wants to involve me in fraud and I will not accept that. Because when I was entering parliament I swore to go by what’s right and the truth. So if he is a party leader and says he wants to rule this country based on bad laws, I Honourable Salifu Jawo is not part of it.”

It comes as Asse Sowe also left GDC to join NPP.

Mai says the needs of the ‘poor’ people of Niamina have been relegated in the political equation

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As Barrow’s NPP and GDC square up for the Niamnia West seat, the leader of the Gambia Moral Congress says the forthcoming elections have been misinterpreted by many as a personal political championship between President Barrow and Mama Kandeh, thus relegating the needs of the poor people of Niamina in the political equation.

GMC leader Mai Fatty said the highly anticipated by-elections should be about a contest of ideas and who can best represent the welfare of the constituency. GMC has not put up a candidate in the by-election.

“The election should be about who can best represent the welfare of the constituents based on their integrity, track-record, competence & vision. It should be about a contest of ideas, now reduced to some type of political carnival’’.

The forthcoming National Assembly by-elections is slated for November 7, 2020 where the NPP is expected to lock horns with the GDC. Both parties did their nominations on Saturday with GDC filing Yerro Jallow as its candidate while Barrow’s NPP put up Birom Sowe.

 

NEA’s crackdown on plastic bag sees hundreds arrested while smuggling methods get solved

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The National Environment Agency’s fresh crackdown on plastic bags has seen the environment agency arrest hundreds of offenders.

The agency on its official Facebook page on Monday said enforcement on the ban on plastic bags Order 2015 has resulted in hundreds of “offenders arrested, hundreds taken to magistrate courts, whilst hundreds awaiting bail at different police stations or possible evacuation to Mile two if no one is willing to bail them”.

“The NEA therefore call on all citizens and non-alike residing in the country to be law abiding, noting that Environmental protection is everyone`s business. The ban on plastic bags came to order since July 2015,2 NEA said.

An official of the agency told The Fatu Network the crackdown began since last week and it has also seen the agency disentangle the different smuggling methods including women pretending to be pregnant when it’s plastic bags that they would attach to their stomach.

IOM gives laptops, printers and other work items to foreign ministry after request

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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Gambians Abroad (MOFA) on Friday received office equipment from the International Organisation for Migration (OIM) at the request of the Diaspora Affairs Division of the Ministry, the foreign ministry said.

The equipment were received by the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Sulayman Omar Njie, for onward delivery to the Diaspora Affairs Division.

The donated items were four laptops, four all in one coloured printers, four Wi-Fi routers, four executive chairs, four file cupboard, four file tray, four reception area chairs, one projector, one projector screen, four office desk with drawers, four uninterrupted power supply (UPS) 650 VA, four electrical adapters, one office TV, one office fridge, one paper shredder, one portable flat printer with scanner, four desktop lights and 10 boxes of white paper. Apparently, the donation is part of support to boost the quality of services at the Diaspora Division.

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