The Spotlight: Sainabou Phall By Yero Jallow Today, our spotlight is on one of the Diaspora activists, Sainabou Phall, fondly Sister Sai (pronounced Sei). Sai lives in Las Vegas Nevada though off and on, she in the Washington DC area. In talking to Gainako, Sai disclosed that she is working on some projects currently to help liberate the Gambia. For Sai, she believes in action movement, and spends her time and energy to see something going for Gambians. Name, fame, position, credit and material are far from her agenda. Sai said she is in it…
Author: Gainako
By Baba Galleh Jallow The African condition is desperate and ugly. African intellectuals know this. What are they doing about it? These old but perennially new realities were the recent subject of a series of articles and a panel discussion on Kairo News. One of the pieces published by Kairo was an open letter to African intellectuals in which the writer seemed to wonder what African intellectuals working in international educational and other institutions are doing about the desperate situation in their own native backyard. What seemed to escape critical scrutiny in the conversations on Kairo News was whether…
“A soldier without Political Education is a virtual Criminal” Thomas Sankara As a law abiding African, far to many times we have found ourselves using and making all kinds of convoluted argument , just to avoid acknowledging an obvious fact, that is the enemy of the African people is the Military elite. At this point, from historical reference, it is very reasonable to conclude ALL national African military establishment are outright enemies from within to their own people.I will further qualify this statement by advocating the only good African military is a regional African military . case in point ,…
By Mathew K Jallow Last week, two different reports focused on separate aspects of the Gambia’s political quandary, yet the reports are similar in a major way. Human Rights Watch’s blistering criticism of the two decades of political tyranny and administrative mayhem, and the Standard Newspaper’s shocking revelations of the mind-boggling state of mental health in the Gambia, encapsulate the tragic human devastation in a country that continues to veer dangerously towards utter instability and self-destruction. But the Gambian regime’s denials of brutal human rights abuses, repeated with amazing frequency by Yahya Jammeh’s lapdogs, has not hindered international institutions from…
By Sanna Camara The complete impunity with which Gambian state security services have committed numerous serious human rights violations against the people of Gambia over many years reflects fundamental disregard for citizens’ most basic human rights, a rights report has said. An independent, international organization that works as part of a vibrant movement to uphold human dignity and advance the cause of human rights for all, in its 89-page report released on Thursday indicted the Gambia government over various and diverse cases of human rights violations, abuses and non-conformity to national and international standards. “The Gambian government has an…
Gainako has confirmed that several Gambians who were awarded Hajj tickets to perform the 2015 Muslim pilgrimage in Mecca were denied visa entries to Saudi Arabia. The annual Hajj ticket allocation which has turned political and created a lot of division within the population has been a hot topic in Gambia this year. The controversial ticket allocation appears to have brought a lot of embarrassment to many families this year especially when they announced to their families, relatives and friends that they are going to perform the Hajj only to not be able to secure Visa. Reliable reports from family…
We are pleased to announce the launching of our brand new website SENEGAMBIA DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE ORGANIZATION (SENDGO). After four months of hard work and dedication and achieving a very successful mission on a EUROPEAN TOUR including a very fruitful meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in LONDON, on September 7th, 2015. We are delighted to officially announce the launching of this impressive website on September 17, 2015. The new site launch is available and the URL is www.Senegambiademocracy.com Our goal with this new website is to provide our visitors an easier way to learn about SENEGAMBIADEMOCRACY.ORG,…
Picture source: Google images Patriotism has been defined and interpreted differently but one thing is certain, the true meaning remains the same. The meaning that really attracts and resonates with me is the one given by Teddy Roosevelt, who defined patriotism as “standing by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public office.” A lot of philosophers found this to be interesting as Roosevelt was dubbed a militarist and a warmonger. Of all the people that would advocate for true patriotism, critics…
By Sanna Camara The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that interest on Gambia’s debt burden has consumed a rising share of government resources in recent years, reaching over 22 percent of government revenues in 2012. “Most of this was paid on domestic debts,” the Funs stated, adding that large fiscal deficits – financed mostly by domestic borrowing – have added to the government’s heavy debt burden. In a media dispatch issued over the weekend, the executive board of the IMF said they came on an ‘Article IV Consultation in The Gambia’, which they held on the 11th September.…
Just past 10 p.m. one night in November 2012, Bakary was pushed into a cell deep inside the headquarters of Gambia’s dreaded National Intelligence Agency (NIA). The cell was so notorious it had its own name: bambadinka – “the crocodile hole.” There was almost no air in the tiny, mosquito-infested black space, and six thick padlocks made escape impossible. Bambadinka was the very worst cell in the entire NIA complex – a fact which, as a senior intelligence official himself, Bakary knew only too well. “It was at this point that I started to think I might die,” he told Human Rights…