Author: Gainako

WHO WAS AMY JACQUES GARVEY ? (1896-1973) – AN AFRICAN HEROINE REMEMBERED By Sainey Faye July 25th,1973 ……On this date, Amy Jacques Garvey, UNIA organizer and wife of Marcus Garvey died  in Jamaica. Seldom do we honor our women for their heroic deeds and sacrifices, they rendered in the African liberation or Black liberation struggle.  Amy Jacques Garvey is one many in our worldwide African liberation struggle, who deserves admiration, honor, and respect for her positive contributions to our cause. She was a staunch Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist in the twentieth century, and a militant activist for freedom and justice for Blacks/African people. She was…

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE 26 July 2013 Amnesty International strengthens presence in West Africa with new regional headquarters Amnesty International is to open a West Africa headquarters in Dakar as part of a major drive to increase the impact of its human rights work in the region. The office is set to open in October 2013, as the world’s largest human rights movement looks to build on its 50 years of achievements in mobilising people across the world to act in solidarity for freedom and justice.

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Standing Up Against Injustice: A Memoir. By AMADOU SCATTRED JANNEH. Xlibris: USA, 2013. Pp.132, $19.99, ISBN: 978-4836-2844-8. By Abdoulaye Saine* In 2003, dissident-turned collaborator, Dr. Amadou S. Janneh, announced his decision on Gambia-L, to join the Jammeh-led, APRC-Government, which he had sarcastically called (Aimless People Running our Country-APRC). The announcement sent shock-waves and disappointment in dissident political circles in both the diaspora and in The Gambia. Dr. Janneh, who had aptly described Jammeh’s capricious “hire and fire policy,” to highlight the short-term tenure of ministers, decided to return home primarily because of the infrastructure developments Jammeh had initiated in his…

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July 24, 2013 Mr. Ed Rogers, Chairman Coalition of Gambian Civil Society Organizations BGR Group C/O DUGA The Homer Building PO Box 4507, NE Eleventh Floor South Washington, DC 20017 601 Thirteenth Street, NW Washington DC, 20005 Dear Mr. Rogers, GAMBIAN CSOs PROTEST BGR GROUP LOBBYING DEAL WITH PRESIDENT JAMMEH We, the undersigned Gambian civil society groups write to protest against your consideration to accept to serve as lobby group for President Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia. As Gambian groups with the sole objective of defending and promoting the rights of our people, we are appalled to learn that your…

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“[E]very country with a terrible human rights record has someone in Washington to try to get them out of the soup.  If you have money, you can hire yourself representation” says a senior congressional aid some years ago.  It was true then.  It is true today.  You will recall my recent entanglement with my good friend, Jackson McDonald, who served distinctively as Deputy Mission in Abidjan before being appointed Ambassador to The Gambia.  He later turned lobbyist at the K-Street firm of Jefferson Waterman International LLC. (JWI), a firm by Ken Silverstein in a 2002 article in the American Prospect…

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A BRIEF REALISTIC REMINDER OF HOW ISLAM HONORS AND ELEVATES WOMEN. Lamin Sabally, Minneapolis, Minnesota A great number of western media has been chronically abuzz with degrading stories depicting women as having their rights systemically suppressed in Islam. These negative and very disturbing truncated stories have therefore permanently shaped a strong public opinion in the western world about Islam, which is equally gaining huge followership in the west at an unprecedented speed.  From all carefully verified and vetted signals, these are mainly falsified characterizations of women’s rights within the purview of Islamic law (Sharia). Unfortunately, the mere mention of sharia…

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Madam Zeinab Suma Jammeh’s frequent shuttles to and from America raised a lot of suspicion and created many unanswered questions in most Gambian quarters. Some asserted that she is ducking under diplomatic immunity to ferry President Jammeh’s cocaine to America.  Others insinuated that she is a shopaholic who only lands in the Gambia to collect millions of dollars from cocaine rich Jammeh to lavish in America on shopping sprees.

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By Baba Galleh Jallow The people of No Talk Republic were saddled with a curious dilemma that was amply expressed by the fact that nowadays, their country was called No Talk Republic. Clinging furiously to his conviction that he had the best and brightest answers to all the questions in the world, Gyant DaMidget resolutely trampled on, crushing the weak, smacking the defenseless, slapping the innocent and banging the heads of vulnerable families on the wall. He liked to show people that he was more powerful than they were. As he grew fatter, the people grew thinner. Things got so…

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News of the appointment of a Ghanaian Justice Mabel Agyemang as new Chief Justice of the Gambia replacing Justice Wowo has been confirmed. This appointment of a Ghanaian trained lawyer who has served as an expert Appeal Court judge from the Commonwealth Secretariat; the Ghanaian Judiciary and Swaziland among others brings some form of hope and optimism to the Gambian Judiciary. At least from the very fact that she comes from a model Democratic West African State of Ghana known for its strong independent judicial and democratic institutions, one may be incline to believe that she will try to push Gambia’s justice system…

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