Global Voices » Gambia

Gambia: The Glove Project Film

Ndesanjo Macha — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:38:18 +0000

Matt blogs about a short film showing the work done by the Glove project in The Gambia: “The charity works in a relatively unknown area of The Gambia, north of the river, and seeks to work in partnership with rural village communities, improving health, education and sustainable enterprises.”

Chinese Africans in Hong Kong

Oiwan Lam — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:54:20 +0000

The Republic of the Gambia has no consulate in Hong Kong. But the city has a population of Mainland Chinese Gambian passport holders seeking residency in HK via the Capital Investment Entrant Scheme (CIES). More from David Webb.

Africa: Interview With Africa Desk Officer at the Committee to Protect Journalists

Abdoulaye Bah — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:58:37 +0000

Abdoulaye Bah (AB): First of all, who is Mohamed Keita ?

Mohamed Keita (MK): I run the Africa desk of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which is based in New-York.

AB: What are the aims of CPJ?

MK: CPJ is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide since 1981. CPJ was founded by a group of eminent American journalists, including the late Walter Cronkyte and Dan Rather, to support their colleagues around the world during a period of kidnappings and murders of journalists in Lebanon and Latin America in the 1980s. CPJ cherishes its independence from any government and does not take any contributions from any state.

Logo of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Image source: http://cpj.org/.

AB: What are the African countries where freedom of expression is most at risk?

MK: Eritrea: President Isaias Afewerki brutally closed down the independent press in this Red Sea nation in a September 2001 crackdown on dissent. Since then, Isaias' information minister Ali Abdu runs and directs the propaganda machine of the state-controlled press. The government directs journalists what and how to report on. It is the African country whose prisons are holding the largest number of journalists (at least 28). All the journalists are held in secret prisons without charge or trial and without contact with their families, with many of them thought to have died in custody. Only Iran is imprisoning more journalists worldwide.

Ethiopia: In February 2011, Ethiopian police threatened to throw into prison dissident blogger Eskinder Nega if he did not stop comparing the Arab Spring uprisings to Ethiopia’s 2005 pro-democracy protests. Eskinder was arrested 9 months later on terrorism charges and faces a possible life sentence in a politicized case based on his critical online writings. Ethiopia operates sub-saharan Africa’s most extensive snd sophisticated Internet censorship infrasctructure and was ranked among CPJ’s top 10 Online Oppressors.

The government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is trailing only Eritrea in imprisonment of journalists. Almost all the journalists, including two Swedish reporters, have been charged with terrorism for reporting on opposition and rebel groups. With a series of restrictive laws, Meles' ruling EPRDF has tightned absolute grip over media licensing and regulation, the public state media and all public institutions. The independent press is limited to a handful of private newspapers and one radio station. The government also jams radio programs from Voice of America and Deutsche Welle and bans journalists’ access to the Ogaden where a rebellion is taking place. Meles' government has driven into exile the largest number of journalists in the world over the last decade.

Gambia: President Yahya Jammeh's years of intimidation of the press, a series of arson attacks on media houses, the closure of newspapers and radio stations, the unsolved murder of Deyda Hydara and the disappearance in government custody of reporter Ebrima Chief Manneh, have created a climate of terror for journalists in Gambia and forced the best journalists into exile.

Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe arrested and prosecuted a man last year for posting a political comment on Facebook. President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF has allowed only a handful of independent newspapers to operate in Zimbabwe while retaining absolute grip over media licensing and regulation and national airwaves. Journalists operate under some of the world's most restrictive security and media laws.

Equatorial Guinea: President Teodoro Obiang's grip on the oil-rich nation is based on strict control of news and information. The president and his associates control all the media outlets in the country and no journalist is able to report independently about national priorities or spending or corruption.

Rwanda: Paul Kagame justifies restrictions on the press by invoking Radio Milles Collines, which in fact was a government-sponsored radio station, not an independent station. Kagame's government also abuses laws against “genocide ideology” and “ethnic divisionism” to prosecute and jail critical journalists and opinions contradicting the official version of the 1994 genocide.

Somalia: all belligerents in Somalia's conflict target journalists who are caught in the crossfire between rival militias, warlords, government and insurgents. Somalia is the deadliest country for the press in Africa: at least 40 journalists have been killed since 1992.

South Africa: President Jacob Zuma's ruling African National Congress has faced press criticism over its record on corruption, crime and poverty. To silence the critics, the government has introduced a series of legislative proposals that would criminalize investigative journalists, including the controversial Protection of State Information Bill, which critics have called the secrecy bill. Verbal and physical intimidation of journalists, particularly by the ANC’s youth league is on the rise.

Angola: President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos and his associates of the ruling MPLA control most of Angola's media outlets and enforce censorship of news and information. only 2 newspapers and 2 radio stations were not controlled by the government. Journalists reporting about official corruption are prosecuted and given prison sentences. Security forces attacked and intimidated journalists reporting on anti-government protests by youths calling for Dos Santos to step down.

Angola and Cameroon have introduced legislative measures to combat “internet crime” but the laws punish the electronic dissemination of photos and videos of public events with prison terms.

Democratic Republic of Congo: Journalists operate at the mercy of security forces, rebel groups and powerful politicians who abuse journalists in total impunity. at least 8 journalists have been murdered since 2005 with justice falling short of solving the murders.

Ethiopia's dissident blogger Eskinder Nega. Photo courtesy of Lennart Kjörling.

AB: Bloggers from North Africa have contributed significantly to the success of revolts in the countries of North Africa. Is it conceivable that in sub-Saharan Africa bloggers play a similar role?

MK: Social media tools have become platforms for the kind of dissent that is repressed offline and they are used to organize protests offline. Some governments, such as Ethiopia, Angola, and Cameroon, are beginning to crack down on this use of the Internet, by passing laws against “cyber crime” or intimidating bloggers. In addition, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube users who are posting photos and videos from the streets using their cell phones are breaking some of the biggest news in Africa these days, and traditional media is trying to keep up with them.

AB: In Mozambique, in 2008 and 2010, well before the revolutions in the Arab world, the civil society was able to organize a demonstration against the rising cost of living using SMS. In Ghana, in 2010, citizens participated massively in constitutional review by using Facebook and mobile phones. Should these examples be regarded as exceptional cases or other similar events may occur elsewhere?

MK: Social media in the hands of young citizen journalists is fueling protest movements in Angola, Nigeria and Senegal.

The cover of CPJ

AB: What role do you attribute to social media in Africa and what are the obstacles?

MK: They have democratized news and information - making it more difficult for governments and the enemies of press freedom to keep a nation into the dark. it has created a virtual bridge between Africans in the Diaspora and those in the home countries. but the users are still largely unprepared to the dangers lurking online. Zimbabwe arrested and prosecuted a man last year for posting a political comment on Facebook. and many governments regularly demand email passwords of journalists in custody. Data security is the next challenge for journalists as more of them start to mostly work online.

AB: What can we expect from the African Union?

MK: The AU has a Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression but she works only part time and lacks the resource to do her job. AU member states still lack the political will to respect press freedom and protect journalists. Regional human rights instruments like the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS) give us hope. The court issued landmark rulings against the Gambia on cases of disappearance and torture of journalists, but the problem is enforcement.

AB: The year 2011 was difficult for the press freedom in Africa, how do you see the year 2012?

MK: Each new year brings new challenges in this battle to keep the press free. The secrecy bill in South Africa has to be defeated, because South Africa is a model of democracy and free press for the continent, and this bill threatens to undo 18 years of progress since the end of Apartheid. South Sudan, the world's newest nation, is already abusing press freedom, this is also worrying. Ethiopia and Burundi's abuse of terrorism laws to prosecute and jail critical journalists is a disturbing new trend that has to be stopped. Press freedom is on the brink of extinction in Ethiopia, Angola, Gambia and Rwanda. Niger is probably the best example of a country where press freedom has advanced.

You can follow Mohamed Keita on Twitter @africamedia_CPJ and also read his articles on CPJ blog.

Gambia: International Chef Talks About Working in the Gambia

Ndesanjo Macha — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:37:26 +0000

Kathryn interviews Jonathan Groves, the executive chef at Ngala Lodge in the Gambia: “Have you ever cooked for 900 people for a wedding and have 1,500 turn up! No, unsurprisingly, me neither. Jonathan Groves, the superb chef at Ngala Lodge has.”

Global: Replacing Moreno Ocampo at the International Criminal Court

Evan Fleischer — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:28:49 +0000

Luis Moreno Ocampo's term as the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is coming to an end. The elections for judges are scheduled for the tenth session of the Assembly of States Parties at United Nations Headquarters from the 12-21 December, 2011.

So who might end up replacing Luis Moreno Ocampo as Chief Prosecutor of the ICC? As of the time of writing, the frontrunner is the Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of Gambia.

Other candidates include:

… Andrew Cayley, a co-prosecutor at the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia who comes from Britain; Tanzania's Chief Justice Mohamed Chande Othman; and Robert Petit, a counsel at the crimes against humanity and war crimes section of Canada's Justice Department.

The ECCC court room on 20 July 2009 during testimony of former Khmer Rouge prison guard Him Huy. Courtesy of Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

“Any of those four would be an improvement,” Joshua Rozenberg of the BBC's Law in Action writes in response to a query from the author:

@JoshuaRozenberg: @efleischer Any of those four would be an improvement. Come to think of it, anyone would be better.

Almost in counterpoint to Rozenberg’s disapproval however, is Bensouda herself. In an interview with The Global Observatory, she stresses the idea of letting the court be the court:

I think one of the strongest arguments to make about not amending or changing anything is, at least let the court go into full cycle, let it try and test all the parts of the statute that we will be dealing with, before you want to amend it.

In reaching out to the online community specifically interested in the International Criminal Court, Jesse Loncraine of IJ Central, an activist organization created by Skylight Pictures, wrote that:

If Bensouda takes over, expect a victim driven approach.

And the idea of this ‘victim driven’ approach manifests itself at least within the interview with The Global Observatory:

You should also take note that the ICC is the first international criminal court created that also took into account victim participation. Most of it was as a result of what happened in the ad-hoc tribunals and how the victims felt so helpless, that they are just passive subjects, they are used as witnesses but when it comes to them participating, having their views and concerns, and at the end of the day seeking reparations, it did not happen. It is happening at the ICC. Again, I give examples of the trials that have taken place so far and how the victims have been very active subjects in those trials.

[…]

It is not the work of the Office of the Prosecutor, of course, to deal with reparations. It is the judges, and they will decide how they want to decide, and the trust fund for victims will take it up from there. But what we have been doing at the level of the Office of the Prosecutor is see how we can connect situations that can help each other.

Global Voices has previously reported on efforts to bring the British-born Prime Minister of Thailand to the International Criminal Court, Kenyans organizing to show support for the ICC (or texting their votes to save a suspect), the Sudanese blogosphere reacting to the arrest warrant issued against Omar al-Bashir (as well as here), African bloggers reacting to Karadžić’s arrest, the trial of Charles Taylor at the ICJ and more.

One of the issues in dealing with a global institution is to begin to work towards building a global conversation around it; in taking a step back and in reply to being queried as to what he thinks about the court, Ahron Young, the Melbourne Bureau Chief for Sky News, writes:

I agree that people in corrupt countries need to do something and the ICC offers at least some hope that something can be done.

Jahanzaib Haque, web editor for The Express Tribune, writes:

I don't have a strong opinion about the ICC, but I am a believer in justice without borders, and the ICC is a (flawed) necessary step in the right direction towards a unified, cosmopolitan existence for all.

Gambia: Pigs, Cows and Birds

Ndesanjo Macha — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:36:05 +0000

Lynn blogs about pigs, cows and birds in Gambia: “I got two melons straight from the field and one bag of charcoal for a future barbeque. The most beautiful part of the journey is seeing the birds. Tiny pillar box reds called red billed fire finches and a carmine bee-eater; soft floaty blues called blue bellied rollers; northern red bishops…”

Protecting African Forests: Wangari Maathai's Legacy

Lova Rakotomalala — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:46:19 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage Forest Focus: Amazon.

Wangari Maathai, a prominent Kenyan environmental and political activist and 2004 Nobel prize winner passed away on September 25, 2011. She was the first African woman to be awarded the prize and is recognized worldwide as the leading figure in the fight to protect the environment through sustainable actions on African continent. She was also part of the jury at the World Future Council Award this past week.

Wangari Maathai. Image under CC License from Wikipedia.

The council has selected Rwanda and Gambia as the winners of an award for best forest policies in 2011. The awards also highlighted the US Lacey Act amendment of 2008 which prohibits all trade in wood and plant products that are knowingly illegally sourced. The Lacey Act has already had a major impact in curbing down the illegal logging of rosewood from Madagascar's rainforests.

Other African nations have also done remarkably well in protecting their environment in the face of increasing threats from climate change.

Rwanda

Rwanda was awarded the prize for their continued effort in reversal in the trend of declining forest cover. The philosophy behind the prioritizing of reforestation is explained as follows [fr] on afrik.com:

Les experts disent que le transfert de propriété des terres et des ressources aux communautés locales est un moyen de sortir de la tragédie des biens communs, [..] Le gouvernement est actuellement en train de mettre en oeuvre une stratégie de développement économique et de réduction de la pauvreté qui considère l’inversion de la déforestation comme un facteur crucial dans la réduction de la pauvreté, et a fixé l’objectif d’augmenter la couverture forestière du pays de 30 pour cent d’ici à 2020. La couverture forestière a déjà augmenté de 37 pour cent depuis 1990.

Experts argue that the transfer of land properties and resources to local communities is an important channel to exit the tragedy of commons […] the government is currently putting in place a strategy for economic development and poverty reduction that regards reforestation as crucial factor in poverty reduction and sets as a goal to increase the forest area of the country by 30% from now to 2020. The forest cover has already increased by 37% since 1990.

Gambia

Tree in Gambia by Guillaume Colin on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

The Gambia’s Community Forest Policy is the other African nation recipient of the first Silver award. Eduardo Rojas Briales, assistant director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, explains:

The success of the Gambia's Community Forest Policy proves that even in the world's poorest countries, with the right policies and adequate legislation in place rural populations can benefit economically and significantly improve their food security. In Gambia the innovative policy included forest tenure transition from state ownership to management by local communities, which enabled them to reduce illegal logging and benefit from using the forest products.[..] Gambia has managed to buck a strong deforestation trend in Africa with over 350 villages managing twelve percent of the country’s forests, with a net increase in forest cover of 8.5 percent over the last two decades.

Madagascar

The institutional measures with the most successful impact with protecting the endangered rain forest of Madagascar can be credited to the US Lacey Act amendment of 2008 which prohibits all trade in wood and plant products that are knowingly illegally sourced.

Illegal logging of Madagascar rosewood has plagued conservation effort for several years. This trafficking has increased at an alarming rate since the political crisis of 2009, as explained previously on in these interviews and in this report.

Why is the Lacey Act effective in having an impact across borders ? Tewolde Berhan Egziabher, director general of Environmental Protection Authority in Ethiopia explains:

The strength of the Act lies in its ability to target and place responsibility on every stage of the timber supply chain. It has forced importers to take responsibility for their wood products and has already produced positive results in increasing due diligence assessments and demand for certified wood products.

This Act has also been critical in protecting the endangered species of lemurs in the the Malagasy rain forest, most notably the silky Sifaka:

Trouble in Lemur Land from Erik R Patel on Vimeo.

The Lacey Act has also indirectly created a small diplomatic incident between France and the United States, when the First Lady Michelle Obama gifted a Gibson guitar to the model/singer and France's first lady Carla Bruni [fr]. Malagasy blogger Avylavitra explains the incident [mg]:

Fa ny tena anton-dresaka eto dia ny fanomezana nomen’ny vadin’ny filoha Amerikana, Michelle Obama ho an’i Carla Bruni, vadin’ny filoha frantsay Sarkozy, nandritra ny vovonan’ny OTAN tany Strasbourg tamin’ny taona 2009. Gitara Gibson no natolony tamin’izay fotoana izay, vita avy amin’ny hazo Andramena, hazo sarobidy voarara ny famoahana azy avy aty Madagasikara,

What really got people talking was the fact that the gift that American first lady Michelle Obama gave Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni at the NATO meeting in Strasbourg, France in 2009. The Gibson guitar is made of rosewood, a type of precious wood that is protected from commercial endeavors in Madagascar.

Senegal

Protecting forests also means fighting back the desertification across the African continent due to climate change. The Green Great Wall (GGW) initiative is a transcontinental project, under the umbrella of Community of the Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) and the African Union that strives to be a multi-species vegetal belt 15 km wide that will link Dakar and Djibouti and stretch over a distance of about 7000 km.

The Sécheresse/Désertification blog explains in further detail the implications of project [fr]:

Entre 2006 et 2007, quatre mille hectares soit environ sept kilomètres d’arbres ont déjà été plantés sur le tracé sénégalais de la Grande Muraille Verte. en 2008, l’Etat plantera des arbres sur une superficie de deux mille hectares dans la région de Louga. Ces végétaux sélectionés et adaptés au territoire, seront boisés en bloc contrairement aux plantations déjà existantes qui sont cultivées de façon discontinue [..] La muraille traversera le Sénégal, la Mauritanie, le Mali, le Burkina Faso, le Niger, le Nigeria, le Soudan, l’Erythrée et finira à Djibouti [..] Le professeur Dia a annoncé que la désertification a fait perdre au Sénégal près de deux millions d’hectares de terres arables.

In 2006-07, 4000 hectares, i.e 7 kilometers of trees were planted on the Senegalese trace of the Great Green Wall. In 2008, the State will also plant 2,000 hectares in the Louga region. The selected plants are adapted to the territory and will be grown in block as opposed to the existing parsimonious vegetation [..] The Wall will cross Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Eritrea and will end in Djibouti [..] Professor Dia states that desertification has already caused the loss of 2 millions hectares of arable lands in Senegal

The legacy of Wangari Maathai will live on with all the measures taken by each African nation. Her message to the world was that we collectively need to make sure that the challenge of desertification is being met heads on and to realize that local communities must be an integral part of this challenge.

This post is part of our special coverage Forest Focus: Amazon.

Update on Global Voices Mentorship: Meet the Activists

Leila Nachawati Rego — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 07:01:03 +0000

For over a month, ten Global Voices bloggers have been working with activists from ten different countries as mentors of members of the new Blogger Swarm of Activista, the youth network of international development organization ActionAid. The mentorship focusses on blogging, networking and online capacity building.

Members of the Activista Blogger Swarm (pictured here) are each working with a Global Voices mentor

In a previous post we introduced all the participants, and now we would like to invite you to find out more about the activists involved, via the Activista Youtube channel. Here's Kodili, from Uganda, sharing why she became an activist, her motivations and her expectations of the Blogger Swarm project:

Follow the Swarm!

The Blogger Swarm aims to put youth at the forefront of the discussion about food and climate justice, the issues on which the activists involved are focusing their individual work and research.

With the help of Global Voices mentors they are working on their blogging skills while getting more comfortable with using digital tools for collaborative work and online networking. Here is a list of some of their latest blog posts:

Awa Njie (Gambia) | Overcoming global hunger and poverty - smallholder women farmers are the key players
David Habba (Nigeria) | “I will never be a farmer!”
Anajana Luitel (Nepal) | Is our education reproducing gender norms?
Benadette Chandia Kodili (Uganda) | Waste is wealth
Emilia Jomalinis (Brazil) | Try a kitchen garden
Hannah Moloney (Australia) | Hats Off to Small Farmers
Collins Odhiambo (Kenya) | Government's deaf ears to the hungry
Tina McPherson (Australia) | If you always do what you have always done, you WON'T always get what you have always got
Elly Ahimidiwe (Tanzania) | My father, the feminist
Afrin Chowdhury (Bangladesh) | Blogger Swarm and me
Loyiso Zweni (South Africa) | Why my friends do not want to be farmers

To stay updated subscribe to the Blogger Swarm blog or follow our mentors and mentees list on Twitter.

Thanks for supporting this initiative!

Gambia: Peace Corps Volunteer Visits Gambia After 38 Years

Ndesanjo Macha — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:39:50 +0000

“The first black US Peace Corps volunteer to come to The Gambia, in 1970, nine years after the founding of Peace Corps by former US President John F Kennedy in 1961, has arrived in The Gambia with his family, to share his experience as a peace corps volunteer,” Shout-Africa reports.

Global Voices Bloggers to Mentor Youth Activists from 10 Countries

Solana Larsen — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:24:46 +0000

Members of the new Activista Blogger Swarm (pictured here) will each be working with a Global Voices mentor

Today we announce the names of 10 Global Voices bloggers and 11 activists who will be working together virtually over the next months as part of a new mentoring initiative developed by Global Voices and Activista, the youth network of international development organization, ActionAid.

Activista has selected activists from 10 countries on five continents to form part of a “Blogger Swarm” which will be blogging on the Activista website over the next 12 months. Their goal is to get youth around the world involved in discussions about development, and especially food and climate justice.

The new bloggers have just completed an intensive workshop in Tanzania where they have been trained in journalism and technical skills, like video production.

Two years ago, 31 Global Voices bloggers mentored participants of another ActionAid workshop in Denmark. One former mentee, Casper Knudsen, is now an organizer of the new Blogger Swarm.

Our hope is that the mentors will provide friendship, technical support, and feedback as they accompany the new bloggers on their journey into the online world.

Without further ado, here are the 10 new mentors and 11 mentees.

Global Voices Mentors | Activista Mentees

Collins Mbalo (Kenya) | Elly Ahimidiwe (Tanzania)
Danica Radisic (Serbia) | Afrin Chowdhury (Bangladesh)
Gershom Ndhlovu (Zambia) | Loyiso Zweni (South Africa)
Kevin Rennie (Australia) | Benadette Chandia Kodili (Uganda)
Kounila Keo (Cambodia) | Anjana Luitel (Nepal)
Leila Nachawati (Spain/Syria) | Awa Njie (Gambia)
Maria Isabel Guerra Campoblanco (Peru) | Hannah Moloney/Tina McPherson (Australia)
Nwachukwu Egbunike (Nigeria) | David Habba (Nigeria)
Mariana Freitas Gomes de Oliveira (Brazil) | Emilia Jomalinis (Brazil)
Sana Saleem (Pakistan) | Collins Odhiambo (Kenya)

Best wishes to everyone!

Africa: 11 Ways For African Revolutionaries to Get Around Internet Blockades

Ndesanjo Macha — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:32:19 +0000

Willemien Groot's Guide for African Revolutionaries: 11 Ways to get around internet blockades: “Internet blockades are more the rule than the exception in non-democratic countries. But there are ways to get round them, even though no censorship circumvention tool is 100 percent safe. Rule number 1: you’re clever, but the authorities are cleverer.”

Gambia: On Gambia's First President

Ndesanjo Macha — Mon, 30 May 2011 13:11:29 +0000

Mathew K. Jallow discuses the legacy of Sir Dawda K Jawara, Gambia's first president: “As president, Sir Dawda Jawara was unlike most African leaders and politicians of his generation; leaders who took advantage of their positions to enrich themselves with the wealth of their people. If there was one negative about the era of Sir Dawda on which there is universal agreement among Gambians, it was that he overstayed as president…”

Gambia: The Arrest, Detention and Release of News Reporter

Ndesanjo Macha — Sat, 14 May 2011 10:34:11 +0000

Learn about the arrest, detention and subsequent release of a judicial reporter of The Daily News in Gambia: “Baba Sillah was assigned to make further findings about the alleged murder of one Cherno Alieu Suwareh, who was allegedly tortured to death by four officers of National Drug Enforcement Agency of The Gambia.”

Africa: Drug trafficking and African politics

Ndesanjo Macha — Mon, 09 May 2011 13:17:17 +0000

Ken discusses drug trafficking and African politics. He notes that Kenya, Gambia, Ghana, South Africa, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea have experienced allegations that people high up in government are involved in drug trafficking: “The latest news on this subject is the jailing of Sheryl Cwele, the wife of South Africa’s intelligence minister.”

Gambia: Coalition for Change Distances Itself From Government's Position

Ndesanjo Macha — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:42:27 +0000

The Coalition for Change – The Gambia (CCG) dissociates itself from position of the Gambia Government regarding Cote d’Ivoire: “The most recent inconsequential state televised statement of President Jammeh calling for fresh elections and refusing to recognize President Alassane Ouattara in defiance of the international community…”