Analysis

By Bubacarr A. Sankanu, Germany

The Gambia:

Yahya Jammeh's “Jambia”: 16 years of madness

My Dear Brother President Jammeh,

How are you, the First Family and the First Mistresses doing? It has been a while since I last wasted my calories on Gambian politics. Rather than waste my time over “Jamehcracy”, I am focusing on the broader picture of the Gambian Society. Your Administration will be history but the Gambian Society will remain with all its challenges. Besides, Africa needs me more than Mother Gambia.

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 EDITORIAL

Brief Overview: Yahya Jammeh’s Removal

By Mathew K.  Jallow, Associate Editor

If Yahya Jammeh is not removed by our military before the next elections, the results of the 2006 Presidential elections tell a story, and make a clear statement that reflects what Gambians think of him. Apart from the constituency of Kombo East, and four of the five Foni area constituencies, where

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The Gambia Echo experienced technical difficulties for the better part of a week, and we wish to thank our readers for bearing with us during that period.

 The Gambia Echo Newspaper.

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 Analysis

West Africa’s Emerging accountability   

By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong

For long, endemic corruption in West Africa has seen the region engulfed in gruesome civil wars, executions, state collapse, military coup d’états and state paralysis. This made the region Africa’s most troubled and most crime-infested area. Whether in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria or Mali, corruption saw the state helplessly spinning in mid air, gaping for accountability.

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Black UK

twin kids, who Aced Cambridge University Advance Math Exam, are all the rage of the academic world

By Ruth Manuel-Logan on Mar 2nd 2010 12:09PM

Paula and Peter Imafidon are just like any other 9-year olds. They love laughing, playing on the computer and fighting with each other. What sets these twins apart from their peers, though, is that they are, hands down, prodigies who are about to enter high school and make British history as the youngest to do so

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Friends of Gambia’s jailed civil rights activist, Femi peters

I am writing in my capacity as an ordinary friend of Mr. Femi Peters and having fielded several calls expressing outrage at his political persecution and pledges of solidarity on this critical battle for the very essence of our country. The principled stand taken by all in this ongoing fight for justice vindicates the very ideals for which Mr. Peters has staked his personal liberty for the sake of our nation and it's people. It reminds all of us that The Gambia and its true future lies not in the hands of the bloody tyrant or those who eagerly line up to auction their souls to him or to his

Femi Peters, Gambia's prisoner of conscience

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Analysis

Understanding Ghana’s overburdened Police

By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong

Nowhere in Ghana’s budding democracy have any of its institutions been critically tested for fuller scrutiny than its police service.The examination runs in an African atmosphere where indiscipline is an increasingly serious social issue,where states had collapsed and politics paralyzed, where threats of civil wars sometimes flicker, where the tarnished Big Men overly make threats and incites the desperate youth, where armed robbery is a rising menace, where civic virtues are weak and destruction-minded traditional juju-marabou spiritualists support criminals, and some ancient traditions resist to reason with modernity for law and order.

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Ebou Gaye announces book launching

Ebou Gaye, a Gambian writer residing in the UK, has published a new novel under the title Fake love with Author House. Furnished below are some details pertaining to the book and the author. To have a detailed free preview of the book and buy copies on-line, you can visit

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Senegal's first Prime Minister, Mamadou Dia, dies, aged 98 

Mamadou Dia, photographed in Paris in June 1959

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Accra's, ModernGhana, and Lagos's  Nigerian Voice, Publish Editor Mathew Jallow's Commentary.

Two prominent West African newspapers, have published Editor Mathew K. Jallow's article on Foreign Aid and its implications on the african continent.

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Book: The Price of Duty, Balangba

Ebrima Ismaila Chongan's very authoritative book on the July 22, 1994 coup is finally out and readers who wish to purchase this revealing book about the mock executions, the betrayals, and the harrowing brutalities that the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council routinely enforced while Major Chongan and colleagues were behind Gambia’s notorious Mile II Prisons...

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Another top academic journal, Africa Today, reviews Prof. Saine’s book

By Christopher Green, Indiana University–Bloomington

{Saine, Abdoulaye S. 2009. THE PARADOX OF THIRD-WAVE DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA: THE GAMBIA UNDER AFPRC-APRC RULE, 1994–2008. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books. 198 pp. $65.00 (cloth).}

The comparative study of African political history, both intranationally and internationally, offers fascinating and telling information to historians and political scientists alike, given the ability to explore the span of time from the beginning of the drive for independence, in the mid-twentieth century, until today. In many African nations, the short half-century (but less for africatoday 56(2) 107 Book Reviews many Lusophone nations)

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Reputable

Academic Journal, African Affairs, reviews Dr. Saine’s book on Gambia

By David Perfect, Independent Researcher 

(The Paradox of Third-Wave Democratization in Africa: The Gambia under AFPRC-APRC Rule, 1994-2008, By Abdoulaye Saine.  Lanham, MD and Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2009.  x +187pp.  £43.00 (hardback).  ISBN 978 0 7391 2921 0.)

Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia is one of Africa’s longer-serving presidents, having been in power since 1994, first as the leader of the military coup which overthrew Sir Dawda Jawara and subsequently (since 1996) as an elected civilian president.  Abdoulaye Saine’s timely book offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of his rule and by so doing

Prof. Saine, Miami University**

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Femi Peters and The Gambia’s corrupt Judiciary

By Karamba Touray

By now the whole world is familiar with the sordid process conceived and actualized by the President that has resulted in the railroading of Femi Peters. The vile and indolent conduct of the prosecuting
officers and presiding magistrate exemplified by the disregard for due process, trial rules or common decency follow a familiar pattern of

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April 10^th. 2000: The Day of Infamy

By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

On the morning of April 10^th. 2000, a day that will forever remain etched in our collective memories, sixteen innocent middle and high school students were mowed down by the crackle of machine-gun fire on the outskirts of the city of Sere Kunda. The massacre that followed, ordered by the cowardly butcher, Yahya Jammeh, was the worst case of blatant abuse of human rights in our country’s history.

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New York’s Democratic Movement blasts Jammeh for April 2000 massacre

--Urges Int’l. Bodies to arrest Gambian tyrant

Ten years have passed since the April 10 and 11 student massacre, yet people of conscience and believers of justice will never forget this historical tragedy. Today, again the United States based Gambians’ Movement for Democracy and Development (MDD) a Pro-Democracy, Human Rights and Justice Movement commemorates and mourns the events that happened on April 10 and 11, 2000.

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Gambia Moral Congress issues statement on Bloody April, 2000

We join the entire Gambian Nation today in offering our prayers in remembrance of the cold-blooded murder of Gambian pupils and other lives destroyed by Gambian armed forces on the specific orders of Gambian President Yaya Jammeh, on April 10th/11th 2000. Ten years today, a large number of Gambian students took to the streets across the nation to demonstrate against the reckless neglect of the economy, including cascading

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Commentary
April 10 Student Demo– a decade later and still no justice

By D. A. Jawo, Banjul, The Gambia

Today (April 10) is the 10th anniversary of the 2000 student demonstration which was violently suppressed by Gambian security forces, leaving more than 14 young students killed by bullets and several others injured, some maimed for the rest of their lives. The only crime that those innocent young children committed was insisting on staging a peaceful demonstration in order to protest against certain grievances, including the alleged killing of one of their colleagues by the fire brigade personnel in Brikama.

Yahya Jammeh ordered the executions

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Sir Dawda Kairaba: A Statesman for the Ages

By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

The term “Founding Father” conjures up mental images of the American Revolution, and applying it to Sir Dawda K. Jawara, has always felt like a stretch for me. Yet, the realism and enigma of Sir Dawda is articulated in the pioneering spirit with which he so ably led The Gambia into the mush-rooming age of political independence. President Jawara was molded by a cast that almost defied definition. As the embodiment of an amalgamation of three cultures wrapped into one person, Sir Dawda, out of social

                            Ex- President Jawara, Education Minister MC Cham and Lady Njaimeh Jawara, 1977 Independence @ MacCarthy Square

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Book Review

The Price of Duty-

Balangba

By Karamba Touray

I'd like to begin this review by stating that the author, Ebrima Ismaila Chongan formerly of the Gendarmerie and Gambia Police Force and now resident in the United Kingdom is my maternal uncle. The Price of Duty-Balangba to be released this April, 2010 is his account of the 1994 coup and its immediate aftermath.

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Echo Analysis 

US Embassy on Femi Peters’ Sentence

By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-In-Chief

Barely a week after the shameful conviction of veteran Gambian politician and civil rights activist, Mr. Femi Peters, for wrongful political assembly, the Embassy of the United States has come up with a well couched diplomatic note expressing concern. While it is clear to all Gambians, international human rights groups and western powers that Yahya Jammeh operates one of the most brutal and most corrupt governments in Africa; a government that routinely targets political opponents and jails them with the aid of a dysfunction and most corrupt judicial apparatus

Barry Wells, Yahya Jammeh, Femi Peters

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Yahya Jammeh fights to keep   Liars' Prize

By Ebrima G. Sankareh

There is a National Prize for Liar of the Decade and three idiots are competing: President Yahya Jammeh, Rui Jabbi Gassama and Ebrima Marreh. While many Gambians contend that Marreh and Gassama may end up winning the trophy especially, if judged from their revealing testimonies in the on-going treason trial of Lang Tombong Tamba and others.

Toney Daba a.k.a Afang Ibilis

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Gambian lawyer, Mai Fatty reacts to Peters’ verdict

--Urges Citizens to rise up in defence of liberty and opportunity

Mr. Peters was arrested, tried and wrongfully convicted for expressing his right to freedom of expression and association, both of which are entrenched provisions under the Constitution. It is very clear that Mr. Peters was victimised for being the Campaign Manager of the United Democratic Party, and a fearless champion of democracy and the rule of law in The Gambia.

Lawyer Mai Fatty at EU , Brussels on Monday

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Press release: "The British Government has been closely following the trial of the Campaign Manager of the United Democratic Party, Femi Peters, accused of holding a rally without permission and being in possession of loudspeakers in a public place without permission, and has noted the verdict and sentences passed down on Mr. Peters.

Femi Peters & Phil Sinkinson, British High Commissioner, Banjul.

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Echo Editorial

The Femi Peter’s Conviction: The Gambian Constitution on Trial; Again.

The judge’s gavel landed softy on a rickety and raggedy dirty-brown court-room table that looked like it never had a coat of varnish. And, the soft-impact thud was barely audible at the far end of the packed and equally dilapidated courtroom house. But, the reverberation was heard around the world. Femi Peters was going to prison.

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Breaking News President Jammeh sacks Lt. Col. Samba Baldeh By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-In-Chief Unimpeachable sources reaching The Gambia Echo report that Gambian President, Yahya Jammeh, has sacked Lieutenant Colonel Samba Baldeh, from The Gambian Armed Forces effective immediately. Baldeh, who was Commanding Officer of the No.1 Infantry Battalion, Yundum Barracks, was handed his termination letter last night as the Gambian leader was poised to leave for Senegal to attend that country’s 50th Independence Anniversary Celebrations.

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Bombshell

The Edu Gomez-Yahya Jammeh nexus

--As daughter, Natalie Gomez weds Jammeh

By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-In-Chief

For the past month, The Gambia Echo has been inundated with damning revelations about the alleged romantic relationship between Gambian leader, Yahya Jammeh, and a young teenager, yet very powerful figure within the corridors of state power named, Natalie Gomez.

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A group of army officers in Guinea-Bissau is reported to have detained the army chief of staff and PM Carlos Gomes Junior in an apparent coup attempt. President Malam Bacai Sanha is said to have held talks with the officers, who say they do not intend to replace him.

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