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Momodou
Denmark
11497 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jun 2021 : 16:14:19
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GAMBIA-L Digest 65
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Re: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied by "Sirra Ndow" <sirra@hotmail.com> 2) Fwd: Warning: could not send message for past 4 hours by Gunjur@aol.com 3) The gov't bereaucrat I would forvever remember by KTouray@aol.com 4) Re: MUSA NGUM IN A PLAY-BACK SESSION by msarr@sprynet.com 5) New member by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) 6) Hoax viruses by momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara) 7) Internet humor by Ylva Hernlund <yher@u.washington.edu> 8) (PART2) THE CONFUSION ------ SHIA - SUNNI DEVIDE by BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> 9) RE: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied by "N.JARJU" <CD6C6JNJ@swansea.ac.uk> 10) RE: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied by "hurai betts" <Oneke@msn.com> 11) Re: MUSA NGUM IN A PLAY-BACK SESSION -Reply by Ndey Fatou Jabbie <NJ173949@gwmail.kysu.edu> 12) Fwd: AFRICA-AGRICULTURE: Drawing Inspiration from the East by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) 13) Fwd: AFRICA-FOOD: Prices Rise in Towns as Crops Rot in Fields by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) 14) Fwd: AFRICA-AGRICULTURE: Pumping the Way to Food Security by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) 15) (PART2) THE CONFUSION ------ SHIA - SUNNI DEVIDE !!! by BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> 16) irrelevant issues. by "YAYA S. SISAY" <sisayy@wabash.edu> 17) Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone by Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> 18) Re: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied by "M'BAI OF" <O.F.M'Bai@icsl.ac.uk> 19) Re: (PART2) THE CONFUSION ------ SHIA - SUNNI DEVIDE !!! by "SISSOHO EM" <E.M.Sissoho@icsl.ac.uk> 20) Danish DANIDA`s reports on danish-african projects etc.. by =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk> 21) Re: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone by "BEYAI" <P.L.Beyai@newcastle.ac.uk> 22) Re: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied by Ndey Fatou Jabbie <NJ173949@gwmail.kysu.edu> 23) GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT FLOWN BACK HOME BY THE PRESIDENT!! by BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> 24) Re: observer editorial-justice delay is justice denied by BASIRU NDOW <bxn4929@omega.uta.edu> 25) 4 All the Lawyers & those interested in Law by "Dr. S. G. Kamara" <73244.2701@CompuServe.COM> 26) Fwd: Nigeria to be connected to the Internet by Mbk007@aol.com 27) Re: GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT FLOWN BACK HOME BY THE PRESIDENT!! by Tamsir Mbai <mba4224@etbu.edu> 28) Re: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone by binta@iuj.ac.jp 29) Apology by binta@iuj.ac.jp 30) Re: GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT FLOWN BACK HOME BY THE PRESIDENT!! by BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> 31) Re: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone by Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> 32) Gambian Domestics in Kuwait by Andrea Klumpp <klumpp@kar.dec.com> 33) Re: Gambian Domestics in Kuwait by Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> 34) Re: Gambian Domestics in Kuwait by BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> 35) Re: GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT by BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> 36) Re: observer editorial-justice delay is justice denied by Haddijatou Kah <jkah@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> 37) Gambians abroad to earn a living by =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk> 38) Update: Education Group by Andrea Klumpp <klumpp@kar.dec.com> 39) Fwd:Sub-Saharan Countries Get UNDP Fund for Internet by Latir Downes-Thomas <latir@earthlink.net> 40) Temporary unsubscription by Salifuj@aol.com 41) Re: GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT FLOWN BACK HOME BY THE PRESIDENT!! by Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca> 42) Re: Gambian Domestics in Kuwait by Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca> 43) POLYGAMMY by Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca> 44) Re: POLYGAMMY by Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca> 45) Democracy Under Pressure by "M. Darboe" <mdarboe@fred.net> 46) UDP Reaction to recent Crisis in Parliament by "M. Darboe" <mdarboe@fred.net> 47) Fwd: Virus Warning!!!! by TOURAY1@aol.com 48) Re: POLYGAMMY by "Famara A. Sanyang" <famaraas@amadeus.cmi.no> 49) Re: POLYGAMMY by "D. Singhateh" <dawdas@u.washington.edu> 50) Guinea Bissau & the CFA... by mbaldeh@zenithtvl.com 51) Re: Guinea Bissau & the CFA... by Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> 52) Internet Connectivity for The Gambia by ABDOU <at137@columbia.edu> 53) Greetings to All! by ASJanneh@aol.com 54) Fwd: Politics This Week (April 18th - April 24th 1997) by binta@iuj.ac.jp 55) Self Introduction by Paul Jammeh <st2063@student-mail.jsu.edu> 56) Re: Guinea Bissau & the CFA... by "BEYAI" <P.L.Beyai@newcastle.ac.uk> 57) Resubscribe OMAR SAHO by Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> 58) RE: Online Services Free (fwd) by "Malanding S. Jaiteh" <msjaiteh@mtu.edu> 59) Forwarded posting of Omar Saho by "A. Loum" <tloum@u.washington.edu> 60) Film Festival by "William O'Donnell" <billod@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> 61) by sarian@osmosys.incog.com (Sarian Loum) 62) Jammeh Visits Dakar by ASJanneh@aol.com 63) Re: Guinea Bissau & the CFA... by "M'BAI OF" <O.F.M'Bai@icsl.ac.uk> 64) Guinea Bissau & the CFA (Response to Mr. by mbaldeh@zenithtvl.com 65) by "D. Singhateh" <dawdas@u.washington.edu> 66) Mali wins payback fro Switzerland (fwd) by Senessie Turay <9210077@talabah.iiu.my> 67) Diouf And Jammeh On Free Movement by mmjeng@image.dk 68) by "Bahary Dukuray" <bdukuray@login.eunet.no> 69) New Member by ABALM@aol.com 70) New member by momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) 71) Re: New Member by BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> 72) New Member (Forwarding) by ABDOU <at137@columbia.edu> 73) Re: POLYGAMMY by Gunjur@aol.com 74) Re: POLYGAMMY by Gunjur@aol.com
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Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 05:42:14 PDT From: "Sirra Ndow" <sirra@hotmail.com> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied Message-ID: <199704201242.FAA22688@f36.hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain
>Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 23:01:28 -0400 (EDT) >From: Gunjur@aol.com >To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> >Subject: Re: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied > >Hi everyone,
>I hope l am not stepping on any toes here, but l'd like to address something >l've been observing. It seems that people tend to get rather emotional and >in some cases even downright belligerant in responding to comments etc > concerning the various topics debated on this Gambia-L. Correct me if l am >wrong, but l am under the impression that this is a forum for us to keep in >touch as well as engage in intelligent discussion, where everyone is >entitled to give their opinion. Surely , one can disagree with a statement >without putting the writer of such statement down.Let us debate with >intelligent words and a lot of respect for one another. When we disagree, let >us respond in such a way as to gently pass on some new insight that the >person we are responding to may have overlooked or didn't know. In this >manner, we will all continue to learn from one another. > >Jabou.
Hi L-ers,
I cannot agree with Jabou more. The kind of "debate" that has been going on on the L certainly is not what I'd expected. Everyone has their opinion of course and is entitled to them but that shouldn't mean disrespect to others who happen to think or see things differently.
I am particularly addresing this to Omar M'bai. If you think a certain topic is "a waste of (your) time", for God's sake don't pertake in it or if you do, don't try to force your opinion down people's throat. We understand were you're coming from but that doesn't necessary mean everyone has to agree with your POV. These debates I believe are meant to be intellectual discussion, not personal name-calling dramas.
Sirra Ndow
====================================================================== sirra@hotmail.com ======================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------- Get Your *Web-Based* Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------
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Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 11:38:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunjur@aol.com To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Fwd: Warning: could not send message for past 4 hours Message-ID: <970420113824_741166032@emout18.mail.aol.com>
Please forward to Andrea. Thanks. Jabou --------------------- Forwarded message: From: MAILER-DAEMON@vbo.dec.com (Mail Delivery Subsystem) To: Gunjur@aol.com Date: 97-04-20 03:43:13 EDT
This is a MIME-encapsulated message
--JAA08323.861522158/mail.vbo.dec.com
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Return-Path: Gunjur@aol.com Received: from server21.digital.fr (server21.digital.fr [193.56.15.21]) by mail.vbo.dec.com (8.7.3/8.7) with ESMTP id FAA11049 for <klumpp@kar.dec.com>; Sun, 20 Apr 1997 05:34:23 +0200 (MET DST) From: Gunjur@aol.com Received: from emout04.mail.aol.com (emout04.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.95]) by server21.digital.fr (8.7.5/8.7) with ESMTP id FAA25230 for <klumpp@kar.dec.com>; Sun, 20 Apr 1997 05:39:38 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout04.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id XAA17897 for klumpp@kar.dec.com; Sat, 19 Apr 1997 23:32:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 23:32:17 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <970419233216_-1936382212@emout04.mail.aol.com> To: klumpp@kar.dec.com Subject: Re: first results of survey
Andrea, I meant 5 hours per month. I will be happy to help with the evaluation. I did not save the response from members. Can you re-send the responses for the comparison? Thanks. I do not know you or the nature of your work. Just curious. By the way, I am a she. Jabou.
--JAA08323.861522158/mail.vbo.dec.com--
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Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 14:54:54 -0400 (EDT) From: KTouray@aol.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: The gov't bereaucrat I would forvever remember Message-ID: <970420145453_-734468949@emout19.mail.aol.com>
Government bereaucrats are known the world over for being insepient foot-draggers who seem to bask at wasting peoples time even for the simplest of tasks.So pervasive is the problem that most people don't look forward to doing any kind of business with the government especially when there are time constraints. You can then imagine my wariness when as a Schedules Assistant at the Traffic department of GPTC i was assigned to design, coordinate and impliment the transportation of thousands kids from all the schoolsin Banjul and kombo St Mary's area to the stadium before 10 am. This was 1990 the silver jubilee of our Independence. My instructions were to ensure that the number of students to be transported which my boss meticulously negotiated at the ministry of Education was not to be increased under any circumstances. I was also told i could not paralyse the entire national bus services especially the provincial services that generated almost three quarters of our revenues. My boss rightly felt that like the school bus service this was just another gov't mandate our Corporation was saddled with. Like the previous years we were told the gov't would pay the bills when it came due , a statement none us in our right minds believed. Armed with the parameters set forth by my boss i realised i was up for for an uphill battle with the headmasters of each of the schools in the region. As the principal education officer for the greater Banjul area an affable gentle looking lady by the name of Ms Adelaide Sosseh was designated as my laison. She was responsible for all the schools in the area and after my first meeting with her I came out convinced that she was that rare breed of bereaucrats who can get things done. She had her own plans but she immediately proposed her offices( which incidentally were just 10 minutes from our headquaters) be used as a venue for me to both present my plan and also meet all the headmasters with whom i would deal. I would later realise that she wanted all those concerned to have a fair hearing to their proposals and also to leave in the end with a clear understanding of what was required of them.The first of what became three meetings became somewhat heated with each headmaster jockeying for large representation in the number of students. As the chairwoman of the meeting she accomodated each participant only periodically injecting to ask for clarifications. When the headmasters were done she invited me to make my presentation. I began by cautioning that almost each of them would have to significantly scale back on their numbers because i had only 70 buses to work with and that all the kids would have to be inline in the stadium at 10am. As a result no specific school was going to be allocated buses exclusively but rather all 70 buses would be criss-crossing from one school to the other. At this point some raised concern that their kids would be arriving piece meal at the stadium instead of one big trip leading to disorganisation on the stadium grounds. I did not anticipate the logistics at the stadium ground while the kids are being ferried in, but the able chairwoman stepped to suggest that one teacher go on each trip to ensure order once they disembark. I also emphasized that all buses would be running on exact time schedules effectively ruling out any waiting time. Any bus that was 5 minutes late for a pick up was to be immediately reported to operators standing by. By the time the meeting ended Mrs sosseh made sure that we had infact agreed on all the matters except the number of kids for each school.She said she would defer the matter to the next meeting. I noticed that her style was to seek consensus wherever she could but all of us at the table knew that she was in charge primarily because she made prompt decisions when the meeting looked like it was winding in circle. Her approach was both starling and effective. By the end of the third meeting Mrs Sossehsucceeded in reigning in her leutenants in terms of their demands if they exceeded what she felt were the therasold of reason, and in the same token she was able to wrest a few more buses from a reluctant GPTC mainly through persuation and gentle arm twisting. The headmasters were quite pleased with there involvement in the whole process a step Mrs Sosseh could have easily sidesteped by just giving them quotas. I was the most pleased of all because the whole operation went without a glitch and i remember looking at the sea of kids in bright colored uniforms singing the national anthem. None of this could have turned out the way it did if it were not for the efforts of a very many people especially Mrs Sosseh who brought order , involvement and ultimate success to what was at the time a fairly complicated endeavor.Even though this is seven years later and i have not spoken to Mrs Sosseh and i doubt she remembers me I am still enormously proud of her. I think she is a quintiessential achiever the likes of who our nation is clamoring for. It is my sincere hope that she and those like her are enthrusted the solemn resposibility of leading in some capacity. I will always remember Mrs Adelaide Sosseh
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Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 16:55:42 -0700 From: msarr@sprynet.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: MUSA NGUM IN A PLAY-BACK SESSION Message-ID: <199704202355.QAA04387@m7.sprynet.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
He is to be here May 24 & 25th. He will have another playback session on the 24th during the evening party and there is scheduled to be a SAMBASOHO on Sunday.
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:19:08 +0200 From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: New member Message-ID: <19970421082225.AAA29718@LOCALNAME>
Gambia-l, Sam Njie has been added to the list. Welcome to the Gambia-l Sam, please send an introduction of yourself to gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Regards Momodou Camara
******************************************** Homepage: http://home3.inet.tele.dk/mcamara Djembe Magazine On-Line: http://www.djembe.dk DAPAMDA On-line: http://www.djembe.dk/dapamda/ ***********************************************
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 13:48:05 +0200 From: momodou@inform-bbs.dk (Momodou Camara) To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Hoax viruses Message-ID: <14548958.19068801@inform-bbs.dk>
There has been a sudden increase in warnings about hoax viruses, such as AOL4FREE, PenPal Greetings, Deeyenda, Irina, and Good Times. Hoax viruses usually claim to infect your PC just by reading an email message. There is no known mechanism for a virus to infect your system in this way. If you receive an e-mail message warning of a disk being erased just by reading an e-mail message, please DO NOT PASS IT ON. The spread of the rumors has become a serious problem on the Internet.
More information about hoax viruses is available at the following URLs: http://kumite.com/myths http://www.mcafee.com/support/hoax.html http://www.drsolomon.com/vircen/mailhoax.html http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/
However, you CAN get a virus by reading an attachment in an email message, such as an MS Word or Excel document, which is infected by a macro virus. You can also get a virus by running an executable program (such as *.exe or *.com) someone e-mails you as an attachment. A tiny program called AOL4FREE.COM has been found, apparently written to copycat the hoax virus. Do not run this program or click on it as an attachment. You can safeguard your computer by installing reputable Anti-Virus software (McAfee, Dr. Solomon's, and Symantec are just three examples).
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 10:00:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Ylva Hernlund <yher@u.washington.edu> To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Internet humor Message-ID: <Pine.A41.3.95b.970421095920.65096A-100000@dante05.u.washington.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Q: How many internet mail list subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 1,331: 1 to change the light bulb and to post to the mail list that the light bulb has been changed 14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently. 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs. 27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs. 53 to flame the spell checkers 156 to write to the list administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list. 41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames. 109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this email exchange to alt.lite.bulb 203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling and alt.punctuation about changing light bulbs be stopped. 111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts **are** relevant to this mail list. 306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty. 27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs 14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected URLs. 3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list. 33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all headers and footers, and then add "Me Too." 12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy. 19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three." 4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ. 1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup. 47 to say this is just what alt.physic.cold_fusion was meant for, leave it here. 143 votes for alt.lite.bulb.
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 20:57:21 +0300 From: BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: (PART2) THE CONFUSION ------ SHIA - SUNNI DEVIDE Message-ID: <335BAA81.3A9E@QATAR.NET.QA> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
ISLAM AND THE Shia-Sunni CONFUSION
"On the face of it, there is one monolithic Islamic Faith; in essence each Moslem believes in the Islamic Ideal. But,in practice, political and historical factors have helped to create differences within the community.These are essentially of social and cultural nature. ..... There are other shades of opinion within the Sunni and Shia, often based in cultural factors with little doctrinal significance. In many cases, there is an overlap between the practice of a sect within the shia and one within the Sunni."
BY A NOTED SUNNI SCHOLAR
So,we need to clarify this other subject that has cropped up as an unexpected offshoot to the Farakan controversy,namely, The Shia-Sunni Devide. Whereas we Gambians have no business getting caught up in the crossfire of the eternal tribal war between the Arabs and the Persians, as each one of them struggles for the control of the soul of the Moslem World, we nonetheless need to have a clear understanding of what and why they are so intensely and passionately opposed to each other, if for nothing else because the Gambian and Senegalese Moslems,whether they know it or not, practise both the Sunni and Shia Traditions,albeit almost all of them consider themselves Sunnis.
Despite geographical proximity between the Arabs and Iranians and despite the massive intermarriage between them,the only thing these two peoples can and do agree on is that The Quran is the true word of God and that Prophet Mohammad is the last prophet and that there would be a Last day of Judgement.And the rest,almost anything else,is up for sale! debateable,I mean.The problem with this situation is that they agree on the simplest of the issues - issues that even uneducated moslems have no problems with,which, in short, means that the Arabs and the Iranians will almost never agree on anything except for the fact that both of them belong to the same religion.And yet each of them is right to some extent because each side has substantiated its claims by providing piles and piles of evidence form the Quran,the Prophetic Sayings and Islamic Jurisprudence.And in truth, there is nothing wrong with such differences since the prophet himself said that THE DIFFERENCE OF OPINIONS AMONG HIS FOLLOWERS IS A BLESSING FOR THE MOSLEM UMMAH. So,as we will now see, the issues involved here are too huge,complex and dangerous to be left to the narrow interpretations of the amateurs . So,for the sake of providing unbiased factual knowledge about this subject for all those GambiaNetters who may have been confused by this whole debate,I will in the following paragraphs expalin the things that the SHIAS and the SUNNIS agree on and the things they disagree on and why.And ,along the way,I will also try to expalin how and why Gambian Moslems are simultaneously Sunni and Shia.But before doing that I want to add one very important point here: ONE of the strong points of Islam is that it has no priesthood and that means that,in theory atleast, every moslem has the right to open the Quran and read it and interpret it for him- or herself and that he or she is not bound by the interpretation of any scholar.This democratic ideal,as great as it is ,is a source of lot of chaos in the Islamic world;all of us have now become used to seeing half of our that little Gambia starting the month of Ramadan one day,and the other half the next day.All of that chaos has its source at the democratic nature of Islamic Jurisprudence.So, Because of the fact that the Quran is the most complex and difficult document written in the Arabic Language,which means that most uninitiated Arabs can't understand except bits and pieces of it, let alone those people living in 'For The Gambia ,Our HomeLand'. And characterizing translating the Quran into the English language as problematic is a gross understatement.
The first person to enter Islam is ,of course,Khadija,the Prophet's employer,financial backer and wife, the wealthiest lady of Quraish, the Prophet's clan. And the second person to enter was was Ali, the prophet's cousin and later on Son-in-law;because Ali married Fatima, the daughter of Khadija and the Prophet. Ali's charisma, strong personality, integrity and intelligence is well documented in both Islamic History and Jurisprudence and undisputed by both the Sunni's and Shia.The Prophet himself was so impressed of his intelligence one day that he said of him: " I Am The City Of Knowledge, And Ali Is Its Gate." The Sticking Point between the Shias and the Sunnis is Ali, the prophet's son-in-law; Fatima,the prophet's first daughter; Hassan &Huaain, the twins of Ali and Fatima and Grandchildren of the Prophet.And these people are called in Arabic and the Quran as THE AHL ALBAYT (the people of the House/family) and lets listen to the Quran: "And stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling,display like that of the former times of ignorance; and establish regular prayer, and give regular charity; and obey God and his Apostle.And God only wishes to remove all abominations from you, Ye the Members of the Family and to make you Pure Spotless."The key word here is PURE and SPOTLESS.The Shia argument goes like this: If Ali is the gate to the city of knowledge,pure,spotless and cousin,confidant,and a very good friend of the Prophet and saying nothing of the fact that he and his mother in-law were the first people to enter Islam,then there was no one in Quraish as remotely spiritually qualified as he was to take the prophet's place,and that all these things could not have happened by accident: it was preordained by God that he was the heir to the prophet,and that he was infact once told by the prophet to take his place after his death.And one of the major events that helped confirm their suspicion was that immediately after the Prophet had died, the elders of Quraish hastily organised a secret meeting in which Ali was deliberately left out even though he was in town, a characteristic Arab intrigue,out of which Abubakr, a powerful Quraish businessman and father of the prophet's second wife,Aisha, was elected.So, for the Shia,all of the three Caliphs that preceded Ali (Abubakr,Omar and Uthman) are fakes because they conspired and intrigued their way to the Caliphate as a result of hunger for power and a clear violation of the wishes of the prophet and an insult to the people of the house.And because of this, only a minority among the Shias recognize these three caliphs.
The Sunnis very strongly disagree on this point.They argue that the Caliph,the elected successor of the prophet succeeds him only politically and militarily but does not have the religious authority of the prophet, and because of that,the moslem community reserves the right to elect anyone who has good leadership qualities,regardless of whether that person has specialized religious knowledge.And the Shias are adamant.They quote a verse in chapter(4):"He Who Obeys The Apostle,Obeys God"And they interpret this verse to mean that the only way you can get through to God is through the Prophet, and since the Prophet is the city of knowledge and Ali is the Gate to that city, there is no way you can get into that city without getting through the gate.And they go on to say that the Imams and Islamic Scholars are the successors to the people of the House,and therefore are the natural leaders of the Islaimic Community.And they base that argument on a verse in chapter(4) "O Ye who believe,Obey God,and obey the Apostle and those charged with authority among you; if you differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to God and His Apostle,if you do believe in God and the last day,that is the best and most suitable for final determination." So,for the Shias,leadership of the Moslem Community is vested in the Imam(Religious Leader) who although not a prophet,is a devine inspired religio-political leader.And Because the Imam must be a distinguished scholar and jurist, he is the final authoritative interpreter of the islamic law.
The Sunni, on the other hand, believe that since the Prophet's role in revealing god's laws in the Quran and guiding people to God in the Sunnah ended with his death,therefore, the difficult task of interpreting Islam,especially,those issues not explicitly mentioned in the Quran, lies in consensus(Ijmaa) or collective judgement or ruling of the traditional religious scholars.But the Shias don't believe that God would leave the moslems without guidance,and because there are lots of hidden meanings,and lots of abreviations in the quran that still nobody knows their meanings,only devine inspiration could reveal those things,thus the role of the Imam.But, as far as the Sunnis are concerned, the moslem community can do just fine,by just interpreting the Quran literally.Because God and humans have a direct relationship,so that Saints and Sholars cannot be intermediaries to God.They are only the formal interpreters of the religion.That is why the Sunni Orthodoxy,the group most hostile to the Shias,views belief in shrines and saints as heretical and a dangerous deviation from the true worship of God.
The Shias, backed by lots of evidence from the Quran,are neither appologetic nor repentant.They argue forcefully, that intercession is an integral part of the devine plan for salvation.For them, Ali and the other main Imams were devinely inspired people who because of their spirituality were intermediaries between God and the believers. And that ,in the absence of an Imam, a distinguished Islamic Scholar can act as the supreme guide and authority on Islamic Law and thus becomes the paragon of Islamic behaviour.And in chapter (16), the Quran says: "God sets forth(another) parable of two men: one of them dumb, with no power of any sort; a wearisome burden is he to his master; whichever way he directs him, he brings no good; Is such a man equal with one who commands justice, and is on a straight way?" and again in chapter (39) the Quran says: "Is one who worships devoutly during during the hours of the night prostrating himself or standing (in adoration), who takes heed of the hereafter, and he who places his hope in the mercy of his Lord (like one who does not)? Say: are those equal, those who know and those who do not know. It is those who are endued with understanding that receive admonotion."
Another important difference between the Shias and the Sunnis is their interpretation of Islamic history. For the Sunnis,because of their majority status - ninety percent of moslems throughout the world are sunnis - and becuse they pschologically feel like the winners, atleast numerically, they tend to interpret early islamic History and even recent ones with regards to their success and power as sign of God's guidance and reward to the faithful and validation of their belief and claims. As for the Shias,because of their minority status in the Moslem world, in addition to the manner in which they were traumatized by the assassination of Ali and his two children, Hassan and Hussein by the families and supporters of the first three Caliphs, interpret history as the enactment of the struggle and sacrifice of an oppressed and disinherited minority community endevouring to restore God's rule on earth of the entire community - the Moslem Ummah. And such a struggle must be led by the imam.It is a struggle in God's way, irrespective of the forces of evil personified by satan ranged against them.The lives of the Imams are seen as embodying this struggle; and their martyrdom esp. that of Ali, Hassan and Hussein give them a model. These two attitudes towards history basically accounts for the difference between the international behaviour of Saudi Arabia and Iran.
So,in conclusion,we can now say that both the Shias and the Sunnis believe in the same five pillars of Islam. But whereas the Sunnis perform the five daily prayers in five separate sessions, the Shias perform them in three different sessions instead. And whereas the Sunnis would eat when on travel during the month of ramadan but pay back in full the number of days spent on the journey after the Ramadan, the Shias, when travelling in the month of ramadan, fast until mid-day and would not pay anything back. In the Shia tradition, it is perfectly acceptable for a male and a female moslem adults to agree to marry only temporary, esp. when both of them meet in a distant land where they don't want to commit adultery. This has not been acceptable to the Saudis. But a couple of months ago, some distinguished Islamic Scholars there said that such an arragement should be legalised, since it had been at one time or the other been legalised by the Prophet.Becaus that would help reduce the unacceptably high number of unmarried women in the kingdom. These basically are the similarities and differences between the shias and Sunnis, so that the antagonism between the Arabs and the Iranian have very little to do with Islamic theology as such, but everything to do with their tribal hatred for each other , that in addition to their divergent and often hostile geo-political ambitions. So, it is just a propaganda that the Shias believe that Ali is a Prophet or that God made a mistake in sending Prophet Mohammad instead of him. But it is perfectly understandable why the uninitiated would confuse the shade for the substance.
IN THE NEXT AND FINAL EPISODE, WE WILL SAY A COUPLE THINGS ABOUT WHY THE SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN THE SUNNI AND SHIA TRADITIONS SUIT THE SENEGAMBIANS BETTER THAN OPTING FOR ONE OR THE OTHER. AND UNTIL THEN ..................................
REGARDS BASSSS!! . . -- SZDDˆð'3Af¨
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 20:59:58 GMT0BST From: "N.JARJU" <CD6C6JNJ@swansea.ac.uk> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: RE: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied Message-ID: <30BB80B251F@CCUGRAD2.SWAN.AC.UK>
> Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 22:34:15 -0400 (EDT) > Reply-to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu > From: Gunjur@aol.com > To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List > <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> > Subject: RE: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied
> Mr. Betts wrote about Gambian lawyers' fear of marabouts etc. I think that > aside from this, there is also the fact that a Gambian magistrate would > probably be subject to a lot of finger pointing if they preside over a case > and "God forbid" send someone's son or daughter to prison. The nature of > our society is such that some of the people would find it hard to view > such situations objectively and just accept that one is merely doing one's > job. This is unfortunately true of our society. > > Jabou.
> Please my comment on the issue of Marabouts and pointing of fingers are inevitable; but my advise to we the young is that, let us not fear these things at the detriment of our societies. When we practice justice without fear, I am of the opinion that nothing will happen to us.
Could you believe that many cases are taken to Marabouts that are yet to materialise? Secondly, whether a Gambian sentences your son / daughter or not another person will do it if he /she deserves to be sentenced.
Please Jabou, in many cases Marabouts' action never act if the person is innocent. Allah is there for us all, and Allah loves Justice over everything else. Let all young people interested in law read and go home to practice it, if not we shall continue to depend on foreign labour. Allah is the best Judge and whosoever harms you unjustly shall pay for the price in the Hereafter. Please fear less about Marabout business ( THEY DO NOT HAVE INDEPENDENT POWERS BUT DEPEND ON ALLAH ).
May Allah give us the Will to practise justice.
Thanx Nyaks.
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 97 19:36:10 UT From: "hurai betts" <Oneke@msn.com> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: RE: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied Message-ID: <UPMAIL15.199704212020490850@msn.com>
Just a note of correction, it's Ms Betts, not Mr., and your point is well stated. Hurai
-----Original Message----- From: GAMBIA-L-owner@u.washington.edu On Behalf Of Gunjur@AOL.COM Sent: Saturday, April 19, 1997 9:34 PM To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List Subject: RE: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied
Mr. Betts wrote about Gambian lawyers' fear of marabouts etc. I think that aside from this, there is also the fact that a Gambian magistrate would probably be subject to a lot of finger pointing if they preside over a case and "God forbid" send someone's son or daughter to prison. The nature of our society is such that some of the people would find it hard to view such situations objectively and just accept that one is merely doing one's job. This is unfortunately true of our society. Jabou.
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 17:05:04 -0400 From: Ndey Fatou Jabbie <NJ173949@gwmail.kysu.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: MUSA NGUM IN A PLAY-BACK SESSION -Reply Message-ID: <s35b9e4a.032@gwmail.kysu.edu>
HELLO, CAN YOU PLEASE SPECIFY WHERE MUSA NGUM WILL BE HAVING A PLAY-BACK SESSION THIS COMING MAY.
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 23:48:23 +0200 From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Fwd: AFRICA-AGRICULTURE: Drawing Inspiration from the East Message-ID: <19970421225147.AAA39298@LOCALNAME>
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved. Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 17-Apr-97 ***
Title: AFRICA-AGRICULTURE: Drawing Inspiration from the East
by Josephine Masimba
HARARE, Apr 17 (IPS) - Much of China receives less than 50 mm of rain each year, a fate shared by many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, but China grows enough food for its 1.2 billion people whereas some African nations do not.
One of the things that has enabled China to feed its people is the use of irrigation technology developed in the country, according to Zhou Weiping of the irrigation and drainage corporation of China's Ministry of Water Resources.
''The main reason for the success in the development of irrigation technology in China is the involvement of government,'' Zhou told IPS here at an Apr. 14-17 East and Southern African Workshop on Technology Transfer in Support of Food Security.
The encounter was organised by the U.N Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the International Programme for Technology Research on Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) to look at ways to make irrigation technology accessible to African small farmers.
It brought together experts, governmental officials, farmers and representatives of non-governmental organisations from 15 countries, including Asian and African ones, as well as delegates from multilateral institutions.
According to Zhou, who presented a paper at the meeting, in 1995 there were 10,286,000 mechanical irrigation and drainage machines in China, whose Ministry of Machinery was managing 166 irrigation-equipment companies with a total staff of 65,000 by that year.
Explaining China's irrigation takeoff, Zhou said: ''A rather complete system including product research and development, quality control, after-sales service, marketing and numerous enterprises (has) been formed. It is very convenient for farmers to purchase and use small irrigation equipment in China.''
The 41 percent of China's arable land that is irrigated produces 80 percent of total national grain output. Sub-Saharan Africa, in contrast, irrigates only four percent of its farmland and this has had an effect on its performance in agriculture.
Factors such as inefficient water use, a poor resource base and lack of land titles have impeded the improvement of farming in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, according to a 1996 FAO/IPTRID survey on the three countries plus Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Moreover, irrigation is expensive in the first three nations.
''The cost of irrigation equipment, either manufactured and or assembled locally or imported was 2 to 10 times higher than in Asian countries, depending on the equipment,'' noted the FAO'S Arumugam Kandiah. ''For example, the cost of locally manufactured treadle pumps in Malawi and in Zambia was respectively 100 and 400 percent more than in Asia.''
''However, in Zimbabwe the situation is relatively better and there is clear evidence of succesful smallholder irrigation. For example, sprinkler irrigation is used in about 10 percent of the 8500 ha smallholder irrigation,'' said Kandiah. He attributed this to the close links between Zimbabwe's commercial farming sector and that of neighbouring South Africa, whose technology is relatively advanced.
According to F.H Koegelenberg, irrigation engineer in the department of agriculture of South Africa's Western Cape province, ''South African companies have the capacity to manufacture relevant and suitable equipment for small-scale farmers in other parts of Africa.''
However, ''export of products to other African countries is diificult due to design, knowledge and financial shortcomings,'' he said. ''Suitable dealers, irrigation merchants and extension officers with the expertise to handle even conventional irrigation systems are hard to find.''
This week's workshop promoted the transfer of irrigation technology both within the continent and to Africa from Asia, where countries such as China and India have developed low-cost, watering methods.
According to Kandiah, treadle pumps like those used in Asia are suitable for lifting water from shallow water bodies and can be used by individual farmers in parts of East and Southern African.
Groups of farmers, he said, could also benefit from the small tanks that have been used successfully in Sri Lanka and India, for example. Most of these tanks have a storage capacity of 100,000 to 500,000 m3 and they cost about 800 to 1,000 U.S. dollars per ha.
There is also scope for exchanges within the continent.
In Kenya, the non-governmental Appropriate Technologies for Enterprise Creation (APPROTEC), has been helping to develop the manufacture of irrigation equipment, according to its technical director, Martin Fisher.
His institution designs the equipment and ''the whole business package required,'' Fisher told IPS. ''Then we train private sector manufacturers to produce that machinery and equipment.
''We see small-scale irrigation as a very high-potential small business, because if you own a hectare of land and you start growing high-value cash crops, specially fruits and vegetables, you can make a lot of money,'' he said.
''In Kenya, if you take a hectare of land and start growing for the local market, maybe tomato, or kales or cabbages, you can make an increased income of about 2,500 U.S. dollars per year,'' Fisher added. ''But if you start supplying vegetables for the export markets ... you can make as much as 25,000 dollars in additional income per year from having two additional planting seasons on that one hectare.''
But for Zhou, the bottom line is that governments have to take the responsibility to identify and promote appropriate technologies for their peoples. ''Manufacturers are not interested in increasing farmers' income. It's the profit (that motivates them),'' he said. (END/IPS/JM/KB/97)
Origin: Harare/AFRICA-AGRICULTURE/ ----
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 23:48:23 +0200 From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Fwd: AFRICA-FOOD: Prices Rise in Towns as Crops Rot in Fields Message-ID: <19970421225147.AAB39298@LOCALNAME>
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved. Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 15-Apr-97 ***
Title: AFRICA-FOOD: Prices Rise in Towns as Crops Rot in Fields
By David Hecht
DAKAR, Apr 15 (IPS) -- Mountains of food are left to rot in parts of Africa because of inefficient delivery systems to the urban areas and, as a result, city dwellers pay high prices for local produce or consume more imported goods.
Experts who have gathered this week in Dakar to address the issue of food security in African cities, say that, with the rapid growth of the continent's towns, the already fragile infrastructure needed to deliver local produce is breaking down. The cost of inefficient supply and distribution systems, they add, is paid for by African consumers.
''Seventy percent of the cost of food items in some cities is from marketing rather than production,'' says UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) expert Richard Roberts.
The result is that consumers become poorer because their purchasing power drops. Moreover, the local produce loses its competitiveness against imports.
Development efforts in Africa have long focused on increasing food production but ''we have come to realise that more and more of the food that is being produced is going spoilt,'' says Roberts, who heads the Agricultural Marketing and Rural Finance Service division (AGSM) which organised Apr. 14-18 sub-regional meeting for Francophone Africa.
The problem has a direct impact on poverty and malnutrition in urban areas, says Olivio Argenti, who co-ordinators FAO's programme to improve food supply and distribution systems.
According to an FAO case study on the deterioration of food delivery to Dakar, 12 percent of infants aged from 1 to 5 years are severely malnourishied. That's double what the figure was six years ago.
This week's meeting represents the first time FAO has brought together high-level experts and policy-makers specifically to address food security from the point of consumption rather than production. The aim, says Argenti, is to help African governments better ''link urban and rural issues into agricultural policy.''
Food security ''means more than just providing food,'' says Roberts. It has to be delivered ''at the right time, in the right form and to the right place.'' He adds that many producers and marketers lack basic information about consumption patterns, the availability of storage facilities, transport schedules and the spaces available where their goods can be sold.
Africa's rapid urbanisation has exacerbated the problem in several ways. As cities expand, surrounding farmlands are replaced by new settlements populated by people from the rural areas. They, ironically have often just given up farming to look for more profitable work in the urban areas. In the meantime, the demand for food in the cities grows.
The problem is most acute in Sahelian countries where much of the land is too arid to farm. In Dakar, whose population doubles every 25 years, the 'green belt' around the city is disappearing. Now the food is coming from hundred of kilometres away.
Many of the former farmers around Dakar have become what people here pejoratively call 'bana bana', or middlemen. The government has tried to break up some of the bana bana's transport network claiming they are extorting huge profits. But the FAO case study concludes that, as most of the bana bana's vehicles are old, their prices are high to cover the costs of frequent breakdowns.
The more inefficient and expensive the delivery of local food becomes, the more urban markets open up to imports. And this has largely remained true despite high import tariffs and, in the countries of francophone Africa, a 50 percent devaluation in 1994 of the CFA franc, their common currency, which doubled the price of imports.
The co-ordinator of the Dakar case study, Papa Seck, says he was ''astonished'' to find out how many food items are still imported that could be produced within the country. Ninety-eight percent of all milk produces are imported, he says. ''Even though the quality is not as good as local milk, it just works out cheaper.''
Dakar also imports 95 percent of its rice, the main staple, even though the French government has invested millions of francs into local rice production while the Senegalese government has imposed taxes of up to 46.8 percent on imported rice to protect the local product.
The FAO officials co-ordinating this week's meeting stress that bringing the local rice to market is only part of the problem. The quality of production is poor and the irrigation needed in Sahelian region is expensive. Also at issue is the lack of a cohesive rice policy with the United States pushing the Senegalese government into export crops instead of rice, while the French continue to finance the latter.
''We cannot address all the issues of food security at this week's meeting,'' says Argenti, although he recognises that they are interrelated. To consider the food supply and distribution aspect, the FAO officials have called on agriculturists, nutritionists, economists, geographers, and urban planners to meet with national and local policy makers.
Food delivery requires a multidisciplinary approach, says Argenti: ''When a nutritionist in the ministry of health wants to promote the consumption of a particular diet, she needs to check with the agriculture ministry what foods they are trying to produce and with the commerce ministry as to what imports are being discouraged.''
Experts say the first step is to create an enabling environment for food delivery through appropriate legislation. Laws should aim to ''structure market interactions'' says FAO consultant Carmac Cullinan, rather than ''regulate conduct'' or ''seeking specific results''.
The FAO also plans to offer training programs to the actual deliverers and suppliers of food, to help them reduce overheads.
Seck cautions against grand schemes since they can ''cause more problems than they solve''.
Many of the supply and distribution systems in Africa operate outside of government control, often within families, or ethnic and religious groups. These informal businesses have ''a logic of their own which we still mostly do not understand,'' says Seck. ''How then can we tell them what to do?'' (END/IPS/DH/KB/97)
Origin: Harare/AFRICA-FOOD/ ----
[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS) All rights reserved
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 23:48:24 +0200 From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Fwd: AFRICA-AGRICULTURE: Pumping the Way to Food Security Message-ID: <19970421225147.AAC39298@LOCALNAME>
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved. Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 16-Apr-97 ***
Title: AFRICA-AGRICULTURE: Pumping the Way to Food Security
by Josephine Masimba
HARARE, Apr 16 (IPS) - Promoting small-scale irrigation is the key to food security in Africa, where only a small percentage of farmland gets enough water, according to experts.
''We know that in African countries at this stage of development, small-scale irrigation probably is more reliable and more resilient than large-scale irrigation,'' Hans Wolter, of the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) told IPS.
Wolter was one of the speakers at an Apr. 14-17 Southern African workshop on irrigation technology transfers, held in Harare.
Underscribing the importance of irrigation in food production, Arumugam Kandiah, senior officer of the FAO's Agriculture Department in Rome, said: ''Between 30 to 40 percent of the world's food comes from the irrigated 16 percent (about 250 million ha) of the total cultivated land.''
However, he said, ''there are wide regional variations in the proportion of agricultural land that receives irrigation: 38 percent in Asia, 15 percent in Latin America; and 4 percent in sub- Saharan Africa.''
Within Africa itself, where most people are subsistence farmers vulnerable to unreliable rains, natural disaster, political and economic instability, access to irrigation differs immensely. ''Six countries (Egypt, Madagascar, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Sudan) account for nearly 75 percent of the total irrigated land in Africa,'' Kandiah said.
According to Kandiah, many sub-Saharan African states have realised the importance of irrigation in food production, but its development is still hobbled by factors such as the ''relatively high cost of irrigation development, inadequate physical infrastructure and markets, poor investments in irrigation, lack of access to improved irrigation technologies and lack of cheap and readily available water supplies.''
The main thrusts of this week's workshop included making cheaper and appropriate irrigation technology used in parts of Asia available to Africa's farmers.
''We have found that the cost of a small diesel pump in India is three or four times less than on the market in African countries,'' said Wolter. ''In addition, the on-farm productivity of a water pump is about half for African countries, so it's not surprising that irrigation is not developing as fast as we would want it to.''
Missions to Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia organised last year by the FAO and the International Programme for Technology Research on Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID), found that improved irrigation technologies and crop husbandry practices could transform 80 to 85 percent of food producers there from small-scale and mostly dry- land subsistence farmers into economically viable, substantive farmers.
''There are three elements involved,'' Wolter told IPS, ''one is how to make it (technology) available on the market. Second, how to promote local manufacture and local services so that the problems of spare parts' supply and repairs and so forth do not arise. The third is how to create an enabling environment that would address questions of taxes and tariffs, knowledge generation and know-how transfer, and perhaps credit and marketing.''
The answer, according to Wolter, lies in ''the transfer of technology from other developing countries, for example India and China, who are perhaps a bit more advanced in manufacturing and they have developed technologies which we think are very suitable for application in African countries and they are much cheaper.''
The FAO/IPTRID meeting was convened to review the findings of the missions taken by these two bodies in Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Kenya and to discuss the opportunities to transfer improved, low-cost, water-saving technologies within and among African and other countries.
The experts also came to Harare to identify mechanisms for irrigation technology transfer and adoption, including ''an enabling environment'' for local manufacture and supply of irrigation equipment and services to small-scale farmers (including marketing, credit and extention.
The ultimate goal is to recommend actions to be taken at the national and sub-regional levels to promote small-scale irrigation development through the transfer and adoption of appropriate technologies.
The list of participants included high-level representatives of research and training institutions, governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOS), bi-lateral and multilateral agencies, sub- regional and regional agencies, equipment manufacturers and suppliers and private investors from 15 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. (end/ips/jm/kb/97)
Origin: Harare/AFRICA-AGRICULTURE/ ----
[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS) All rights reserved
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 21:47:34 +0300 From: BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> To: GAMBIA-L@U.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: (PART2) THE CONFUSION ------ SHIA - SUNNI DEVIDE !!! Message-ID: <335BB646.2D4@QATAR.NET.QA> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
ISLAM AND THE Shia-Sunni CONFUSION
"On the face of it, there is one monolithic Islamic Faith; in essence each Moslem believes in the Islamic Ideal. But,in practice, political and historical factors have helped to create differences within the community.These are essentially of social and cultural nature. ..... There are other shades of opinion within the Sunni and Shia, often based in cultural factors with little doctrinal significance. In many cases, there is an overlap between the practice of a sect within the shia and one within the Sunni."
BY A NOTED SUNNI SCHOLAR
So,we need to clarify this other subject that has cropped up as an unexpected offshoot to the Farakan controversy,namely, The Shia-Sunni Devide. Whereas we Gambians have no business getting caught up in the crossfire of the eternal tribal war between the Arabs and the Persians, as each one of them struggles for the control of the soul of the Moslem World, we nonetheless need to have a clear understanding of what and why they are so intensely and passionately opposed to each other, if for nothing else because the Gambian and Senegalese Moslems,whether they know it or not, practise both the Sunni and Shia Traditions,albeit almost all of them consider themselves Sunnis.
Despite geographical proximity between the Arabs and Iranians and despite the massive intermarriage between them,the only thing these two peoples can and do agree on is that The Quran is the true word of God and that Prophet Mohammad is the last prophet, and that there would be a Last day of Judgement.And the rest,almost anything else,is up for sale! debateable,I mean.The problem with this situation is that they agree on the simplest of the issues - issues that even uneducated moslems have no problems with,which, in short, means that the Arabs and the Iranians will almost never agree on anything except for the fact that both of them belong to the same religion.And yet, each of them is right to some extent because each side has substantiated its claims by providing piles and piles of evidence from the Quran,the Prophetic Sayings and Islamic Jurisprudence.And in truth, there is nothing wrong with such differences since the prophet himself said that THE DIFFERENCE OF OPINIONS AMONG HIS FOLLOWERS IS A BLESSING FOR THE MOSLEM UMMAH. So,as we will now see, the issues involved here are too huge,complex and dangerous to be left to the narrow interpretations of the amateurs . So,for the sake of providing unbiased factual knowledge about this subject for all those GambiaNetters who may have been confused by this whole debate,I will in the following paragraphs expalin the things that the SHIAS and the SUNNIS agree on and the things they disagree on and why.And ,along the way,I will also try to expalin how and why Gambian Moslems are simultaneously Sunni and Shia.But ,before doing that, I want to add one very important point here: ONE of the strong points of Islam is that it has no priesthood and that means that,in theory atleast, every moslem has the right to open the Quran and read it and interpret it for him or herself and that he or she is not bound by the interpretation of any scholar.This democratic ideal,as great as it is ,is a source of lot of chaos in the Islamic world;all of us have now become used to seeing half of our that little Gambia starting the month of Ramadan one day,and the other half the next day.All of that chaos has its source at the democratic nature of Islamic Jurisprudence.So, Because of the fact that the Quran is the most complex and difficult document written in the Arabic Language,which means that most uninitiated Arabs can't understand except bits and pieces of it, let alone those people living in 'For The Gambia ,Our HomeLand'. And characterizing translating the Quran into the English language as problematic is a gross understatement!
The first person to enter Islam is ,of course,Khadija,the Prophet's employer,financial backer and wife, the wealthiest lady of Quraish, the Prophet's clan. And the second person to enter was Ali, the prophet's cousin and later on Son-in-law;because Ali married Fatima, the daughter of Khadija and the Prophet. Ali's charisma, strong personality, integrity and intelligence is well documented in both Islamic History and Jurisprudence and undisputed by both the Sunnis and Shias.The Prophet himself was so impressed by his intelligence one day that he said of him: " I Am The City Of Knowledge, And Ali Is Its Gate." The Sticking Point between the Shias and the Sunnis is Ali, the prophet's son-in-law; Fatima,the prophet's first daughter; Hassan & Hussain, the twins of Ali and Fatima and Grandchildren of the Prophet.And these people are called in Arabic and the Quran as THE AHL ALBAYT (the people of the House/family) and lets listen to the Quran: "And stay quietly in your houses,and make not a dazzling,display like that of the former times of ignorance; and establish regular prayer, and give regular charity; and obey God and his Apostle.And God only wishes to remove all abominations from you, Ye the Members of the Family and to make you Pure Spotless." The key word here is PURE and SPOTLESS.The Shia argument goes like this: If Ali is the gate to the city of knowledge,pure,spotless and cousin,confidant,and a very good friend of the Prophet and saying nothing of the fact that he and his mother in-law were the first people to enter Islam,then there was no one in Quraish as remotely spiritually qualified as he was to take the prophet's place,and that all these things could not have happened by accident: it was preordained by God that he was the heir to the prophet,and that he was infact once told by the prophet to take his place after his death.And one of the major events that helped confirm their suspicion was that immediately after the Prophet had died, the elders of Quraish hastily organised a secret meeting in which Ali was deliberately left out even though he was in town, a characteristic Arab intrigue,out of which Abubakr, a powerful Quraish businessman and father of the prophet's second wife,Aisha, was elected.So, for the Shia,all of the three Caliphs that preceded Ali (Abubakr,Omar and Uthman) are fakes because they conspired and intrigued their way to the Caliphate as a result of hunger for power and a clear violation of the wishes of the prophet and an insult to the people of the house.And because of this, only a minority among the Shias recognize these three caliphs.
The Sunnis very strongly disagree on this point.They argue that the Caliph,the elected successor of the prophet succeeds him only politically and militarily but does not have the religious authority of the prophet, and because of that,the moslem community reserves the right to elect anyone who has good leadership qualities,regardless of whether that person has specialized religious knowledge.And the Shias are adamant.They quote a verse in chapter(4):"He Who Obeys The Apostle,Obeys God"And they interpret this verse to mean that the only way you can get through to God is through the Prophet, and since the Prophet is the city of knowledge and Ali is the Gate to that city, there is no way you can get into that city without getting through the gate.And they go on to say that the Imams and Islamic Scholars are the successors to the people of the House,and therefore are the natural leaders of the Islaimic Community.And they base that argument on a verse in chapter(4) "O Ye who believe,Obey God,and obey the Apostle and those charged with authority among you; if you differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to God and His Apostle,if you do believe in God and the last day,that is the best and most suitable for final determination." So,for the Shias,leadership of the Moslem Community is vested in the Imam(Religious Leader) who although not a prophet,is a devine inspired religio-political leader.And Because the Imam must be a distinguished scholar and jurist, he is the final authoritative interpreter of the islamic law.
The Sunni, on the other hand, believe that since the Prophet's role in revealing god's laws in the Quran and guiding people to God in the Sunnah ended with his death,therefore, the difficult task of interpreting Islam,especially,those issues not explicitly mentioned in the Quran, lies in consensus(Ijmaa) or collective judgement or ruling of the traditional religious scholars.But the Shias don't believe that God would leave the moslems without guidance,and because there are lots of hidden meanings,and lots of abreviations in the quran that still nobody knows their meanings,only devine inspiration could reveal those things,thus the role of the Imam.But, as far as the Sunnis are concerned, the moslem community can do just fine,by just interpreting the Quran literally.Because God and humans have a direct relationship,so that Saints and Sholars cannot be intermediaries to God.They are only the formal interpreters of the religion.That is why the Sunni Orthodoxy,the group most hostile to the Shias,views belief in shrines and saints as heretical and a dangerous deviation from the true worship of God.
The Shias, backed by lots of evidence from the Quran,are neither appologetic nor repentant.They argue forcefully, that intercession is an integral part of the devine plan for salvation.For them, Ali and the other main Imams were devinely inspired people who because of their spirituality were intermediaries between God and the believers. And that ,in the absence of an Imam, a distinguished Islamic Scholar can act as the supreme guide and authority on Islamic Law and thus becomes the paragon of Islamic behaviour.And in chapter (16), the Quran says: "God sets forth(another) parable of two men: one of them dumb, with no power of any sort; a wearisome burden is he to his master; whichever way he directs him, he brings no good; Is such a man equal with one who commands justice, and is on a straight way?" and again in chapter (39) the Quran says: "Is one who worships devoutly during during the hours of the night prostrating himself or standing (in adoration), who takes heed of the hereafter, and he who places his hope in the mercy of his Lord (like one who does not)? Say: are those equal, those who know and those who do not know. It is those who are endued with understanding that receive admonition."
Another important difference between the Shias and the Sunnis is their interpretation of Islamic history. For the Sunnis,because of their majority status - ninety percent of moslems throughout the world are sunnis - and because they pschologically feel like the winners, atleast numerically, they tend to interpret early islamic History and even recent ones with regards to their success and power as sign of God's guidance and reward to the faithful and validation of their belief and claims. As for the Shias,because of their minority status in the Moslem world, in addition to the manner in which they were traumatized by the assassination of Ali and his two children, Hassan and Hussein by the families and supporters of the first three Caliphs, interpret history as the enactment of the struggle and sacrifice of an oppressed and disinherited minority community endeavouring to restore God's rule on earth of the entire community - the Moslem Ummah. And such a struggle must be led by the Imam.It is a struggle in God's way, irrespective of the forces of evil personified by satan ranged against them.The lives of the Imams are seen as embodying this struggle; and their martyrdom esp. that of Ali, Hassan and Hussein give them a model. These two attitudes towards history basically account for the difference between the international behaviour of Saudi Arabia and Iran.
So,in conclusion,we can now say that both the Shias and the Sunnis believe in the same five pillars of Islam. But whereas the Sunnis perform the five daily prayers in five separate sessions, the Shias perform them in three different sessions instead. And whereas the Sunnis would eat when on travel during the month of ramadan but pay back in full the number of days spent on the journey after the Ramadan, the Shias, when travelling in the month of ramadan, fast until mid-day and would not pay anything back. In the Shia tradition, it is perfectly acceptable for a male and a female moslem adults to agree to marry only temporary, esp. when both of them meet in a distant land where they don't want to commit adultery. This has not been acceptable to the Saudis. But a couple of months ago, some distinguished Islamic Scholars there said that such an arragement should be legalised, since it had been at one time or the other been legalised by the Prophet;Because that would help reduce the unacceptably high number of unmarried women in the kingdom. These basically are the similarities and differences between the shias and Sunnis, so that the antagonism between the Arabs and the Iranian have very little to do with Islamic theology as such, but everything to do with their tribal hatred for each other , that in addition to their divergent and often hostile geo-political ambitions. So, it is just a propaganda that the Shias believe that Ali is a Prophet or that God made a mistake in sending Prophet Mohammad instead of him. But it is perfectly understandable why the uninitiated would confuse the shade for the substance.
IN THE NEXT AND FINAL EPISODE, WE WILL SAY A COUPLE THINGS ABOUT WHY THE SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN THE SUNNI AND SHIA TRADITIONS SUIT THE SENEGAMBIANS BETTER THAN OPTING FOR ONE OR THE OTHER. AND UNTIL THEN ..................................
REGARDS BASSSS!! . . -- SZDDˆð'3Af¨
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 23:16:45 -0500 (EST) From: "YAYA S. SISAY" <sisayy@wabash.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: irrelevant issues. Message-ID: <1F9CF006258@scholar.wabash.edu>
Why don't we all just leave peoples businesses and try to talk about Gambian related issues. People are sick of reading a bunch of unnecessary mails. A lot of people don't have time to read about 30 messages everyday. Come on yall. This is rediculous.
I don't mean to offend anybody but this is getting to be too much. The only reason why some of us joined the List was to help each other with current issues in the Gambia and have contacts with other Gambian students. Please use personal addresses if you wanna talk to somebody about somethin' else. Yaya.
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 10:45:44 +0200 From: Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone Message-ID: <2.2.32.19970422084544.0069e6e8@golf.uib.no> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
HI G-LERS! THIS MIGHT BE OF INTEREST TO SOME OF YOU. MY QUESTION IS, WHAT IMPLICATION DOES THIS HAVE ON THE STRENGTH OF ECOWAS....IS THIS NOT YET A MORE VULNERABLE POSITION, AUTONOMY WISE, OF THIS CRUCIAL ORGANIZATION OF OUR REGION?????? WHAT DO YOU THINK??
REGARDS, ::)))Abdou Oujimai
FORWARD:
Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone ------------------------------------------- April 18, 1997=20 by Ali Idrissou Toure, PANA Correspondent=20
COTONOU, Benin (PANA) - Guinea-Bissau was officially admitted as a member of the CFA Franc Zone at a two-day meeting of the Council of Ministers of Finance of France and French-speaking African countries which ended on Thursday in Cotonou, Benin.=20
The French Minister of Finance, Jean Arthuis, and the Guinea-Bissau delegation signed the additional clause to the existing agreement enabling France to extend its monetary co-operation with the West African Economic and Monetary Union to Bissau.=20
As from May 2, the CFA Franc is expected to replace the Peso as the official currency of Guinea-Bissau, according to a statement issued at the end of the meeting.=20
The Governor of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), Charles Konan Banny, said Guinea-Bissau's transition to the CFA Franc zone involved= "a heavy financial transaction" necessitating the injection of some 6 billion CFA Francs (about 12 million U.S. dollars into the country's economy .=20
Guinea-Bissau has therefore become the 15th member of the Franc Zone which already comprises Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.=20
In a related development, the statement said "the replacement of the French franc by the Euro (the European single currency) in 1999 will not affect the exchange rate of the CFA franc and the existing monetary co-operation between France and the African member countries of the Franc Zone".=20
The French franc has been linked to the CFA (African Finance Community) used by the African countries at a fixed exchange rate which now stands at 100= CFA for one French franc after the devaluation of the CFA franc by 50 percent at a high-level meeting held in Dakar (Senegal) in January 1994.=20
Previously the exchange rate was 50 CFA =3D 1FF.=20
The French Minister told reporters in Cotonou that "the Euro will be a world-wide reserve currency against which the value of the CFA Franc will be determined".=20
According to the statement, the ministers of finance of the Franc Zone expressed satisfaction at the progressive economic growth rate recorded in the UEMOA countries (around 5 percent) and at similar developments in the member States of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC ).=20
In a Declaration adopted at the end of their meeting, the ministers called for increased private investment in the countries of the Franc Zone in order to maintain high growth on a long-term basis.=20
According to the Declaration, the commitments made by the Governments, particularly in their structural adjustment programmes, are aimed at "fostering a more stable macro-economic environment".=20
Among other things, the ministers recommended the harmonization of budgetary and monetary policies, taxation and customs services in a regional framework= as well as increased consultation with the private sector on matters concerning the formulation of economic policies".=20
The Declaration further stressed the need for security of investment, improved infrastructures and state disengagement from productive sectors.=20
----------------------------------------------------------------------------= ----
Copyright =A9 1997 Panafrican News Agency. Distributed via Africa News= Online. All rights reserved. May not be redistributed, posted to any other location, published or used for broadcast without prior written authorization from Africa News Service.=20
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 13:59:51 +0000 From: "M'BAI OF" <O.F.M'Bai@icsl.ac.uk> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied Message-ID: <199704221258.NAA13315@netmail.city.ac.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Sirra Ndow, I could have replied to your mail but I have chosen not , not that I can't because I've got an answer to any allegations against me but its simply because I don't think I should for so many reasons . Its up to you to find out what those reasons are .
thanks. omar
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 13:58:50 +0000 From: "SISSOHO EM" <E.M.Sissoho@icsl.ac.uk> To: KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA Cc: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: (PART2) THE CONFUSION ------ SHIA - SUNNI DEVIDE !!! Message-ID: <199704221257.NAA13118@netmail.city.ac.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
SIR, Thank you once again for a well researched and lucidly presented piece on a difficult subjet for many moslims. Please help me with my will of god conondrum. should muslims be fatalists? can we change our destiny with prayers? respecfully, Edrisa Edrisa M.sissoho ********************* London House Mecklenburgh Square London WC 1N 2AB 0171 837 888 ext 2349 *************************** "ALLIS VOLANS PROPRIS*
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 16:04:43 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk> To: "'gambia'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Danish DANIDA`s reports on danish-african projects etc.. Message-ID: <c=DK%a=_%p=DIF%l=DKDIFS02-970422140443Z-1668@dkdifs02.dif.dk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Friends, after reading the news/reports on Africa-food/agriculture put forward by Momodou Camara, I should like to introduce for those of you, who are interested, the reports from DANIDA. DANIDA is the danish governments department for development-programmes all over the world. Many of the reports are right now being published on the internet. If you go to:
http://www.ingenioren.dk/danida/danida.html
you will find access to lots of officials report on topics like:=20 technology, education programmes, transport, fisheries, poverty, social infrastructure, economic, veterinary medicine, Bilharziasis, primary health care, production sectors, dairy, forestry etc.
There are also reports like: "Lessons from the Rwanda Experience" - The Report of the international response to conflict and genocide in Rwada.
You can download the reports, and read or print them afterwards. The reports are from Asia, Africa, South and Central America. Most of the african reports are from countries where Denmark runs most of the activities over the years (Tanzania, Zambia, Kenye etc). But here you have a chance of reading the "cards/hands" and opinion of the donor-country so to say. Maybe you will not agree on all you find there, but it=B4s sometimes interesting to know how the so-called "partner" thinks or evaluate the "partnership".
Asbj=F8rn Nordam
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 16:58:20 GMT0BST From: "BEYAI" <P.L.Beyai@newcastle.ac.uk> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone Message-ID: <20109A3096A@TOWN9.ncl.ac.uk>
> Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 10:45:44 +0200 > Reply-to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu > From: Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> > To: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> > Subject: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone
Mr. Gibba, My question is what strength has ECOWAS that will be eroded by this action of Guinea- Bissau? For many years that organisation could not even become a credible customs union let alone achieve the status of a free trade area. Unless we try to drop our much cherish nationalistic views, we have no future in the World economy.
Countries like Gambia did not success in attracting FDI(foreign direct interest) because of her small size, location, poor infrastructure etc. Could you imagine big companies like Nissan or Toyota investing in the Gambia? How many of us buy new vehicles in a year? It might be difficult to tackle some of these problems right way but we can surely forge a good relationship with our ECOWAS neighbours which will help open and widen our market. How many treaties and protocols have been signed and not implemented? No amount of the tax-holidays and other incentives can attract foreign investors if there is no market to sell their products.
I am sorry that I do have time to elaborate but the main benefits of the said action by Guinea-Bissau is the ease in terms of foreign exchange difficulties they have been facing. Furthermore, people do not have to declare their currencies at the ports of entry in both Bissau and Senegal.
Although the cold -war is over, the new war is an economic one. Since the French have lost their influence in Rwanda and are about to in Zaire, they have no alternative but to look for new allies in Africa. If we Africans cannot unite, outsiders will use economic inducement to pave their way.
Some people might blame lack of political stability as the reason for low FDI in West Africa. But could they equally explain the reasons for the continuous presence of Shell and other multinationals in Nigeria and the signing of new contracts with the rebel leader in Zaire? Political stability is normally use for convenience but multinationals look for their interest first before anything else. Their interest in our area lies in a wider market.
So to avoid loosing more members, we have to move forward otherwise we might also be forced to join the CFA zone.
Cheers, PLB
> > > FORWARD: > > Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone > ------------------------------------------- > April 18, 1997 > by Ali Idrissou Toure, PANA Correspondent > > COTONOU, Benin (PANA) - Guinea-Bissau was officially admitted as a member of > the CFA Franc Zone at a two-day meeting of the Council of Ministers of > Finance of France and French-speaking African countries which ended on > Thursday in Cotonou, Benin. > > The French Minister of Finance, Jean Arthuis, and the Guinea-Bissau > delegation signed the additional clause to the existing agreement enabling > France to extend its > monetary co-operation with the West African Economic and Monetary Union to > Bissau. > > As from May 2, the CFA Franc is expected to replace the Peso as the official > currency of Guinea-Bissau, according to a statement issued at the end of the > meeting. > > The Governor of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), Charles > Konan Banny, said Guinea-Bissau's transition to the CFA Franc zone involved "a > heavy financial transaction" necessitating the injection of some 6 billion > CFA Francs (about 12 million U.S. dollars into the country's economy . > > Guinea-Bissau has therefore become the 15th member of the Franc Zone which > already comprises Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, > Chad, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Mali, Niger, Senegal > and Togo. > > In a related development, the statement said "the replacement of the French > franc by the Euro (the European single currency) in 1999 will not affect the > exchange > rate of the CFA franc and the existing monetary co-operation between France > and the African member countries of the Franc Zone". > > The French franc has been linked to the CFA (African Finance Community) used > by the African countries at a fixed exchange rate which now stands at 100 CFA > for one French franc after the devaluation of the CFA franc by 50 percent at > a high-level meeting held in Dakar (Senegal) in January 1994. > > Previously the exchange rate was 50 CFA = 1FF. > > The French Minister told reporters in Cotonou that "the Euro will be a > world-wide reserve currency against which the value of the CFA Franc will be > determined". > > According to the statement, the ministers of finance of the Franc Zone > expressed satisfaction at the progressive economic growth rate recorded in > the UEMOA > countries (around 5 percent) and at similar developments in the member > States of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC ). > > In a Declaration adopted at the end of their meeting, the ministers called > for increased private investment in the countries of the Franc Zone in order > to maintain high > growth on a long-term basis. > > According to the Declaration, the commitments made by the Governments, > particularly in their structural adjustment programmes, are aimed at > "fostering a more > stable macro-economic environment". > > Among other things, the ministers recommended the harmonization of budgetary > and monetary policies, taxation and customs services in a regional framework as > well as increased consultation with the private sector on matters concerning > the formulation of economic policies". > > The Declaration further stressed the need for security of investment, > improved infrastructures and state disengagement from productive sectors. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Copyright c 1997 Panafrican News Agency. Distributed via Africa News Online. > All rights reserved. May not be redistributed, posted to any other location, > published or used for broadcast without prior written authorization from > Africa News Service. > >
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:07:09 -0400 From: Ndey Fatou Jabbie <NJ173949@gwmail.kysu.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: observer editorial-justice delayed is justice denied Message-ID: <s35cd42c.082@gwmail.kysu.edu>
DEAR JABOU, I AM NOW RELIEVED THAT SOMEBODY FINALLY TALKED ABOUT THIS ISSUE OF PEOPLE TAKING MESSAGES ON THE GAMBIA-L TOO PERSONAL. WE ARE ALL GAMBIANS ONE AND THE SAME, SO IT IS VERY WRONG IF WE SHOULD SEND OUR FELLOW CITIZENS VERY OUTRAGEOUS MESSAGES ON THE GAMBIA-L. THESE KIND OF MESSAGES CAN MAKE PEOPLE HAVE TWO STATE THEIR OPINIONS WITHOUT BEING BLASTED CRUDELY ON THE GAMBIA-L WHERE EVERY "SAMBA",' DEMBA" AND "PATEH" GETS TO READ IT. WE SHOULD BE GLAD THAT WE HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO COMMUNICATE TO ONE ANOTHER AND SHARE COMMON INTEREST. THEREFORE LET US ALL BE AND HANDLE MATTERS IN A MORE PROFESSIONAL AND MATURE MANNER. I AM SORRY IF MY MESSAGE SHOULD OFFEND ANYONE ,BUT I JUST THINK THAT IT IS ABOUT TIME FOR US TO BE ONE IN A NO MAN'S LAND. THANKS JABOU .
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 22:30:18 +0300 From: BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> To: GAMBIA-L@U.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT FLOWN BACK HOME BY THE PRESIDENT!! Message-ID: <335D11C9.5B8D@QATAR.NET.QA> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
A GAMBIAN STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY HERE HAS INFORMED ME THAT A WEST AFRICAN FRIEND OF HIS HAD TOLD HIM THAT WHEN THE GAMBIAN PRESIDENT,MR.JAMMEH, VISITED KUWAIT A COUPLE OF WEEKS BEFORE THE HAJJ, WAS SHOCKED TO LEARN THAT SIX GAMBIAN GIRLS HAD EARLIER ARRIVED IN THIS GULF COUNTRY TO WORK AS DOMESTICS.
AND IN A CHARACTERISTIC JAMMEH FASHION, THE PRESIDENT TOLD THESE GIRLS THAT FOR GAMBIAN WOMEN TO TAKE UP THIS KIND OF WORK IN SUCH A DISTANT LAND AWAY FROM HOME,A PLACE WHERE THERE IS NO GAMBIAN EMBASSY TO PROTECT THEIR INTERESTS INCASE OF PROBLEMS,WAS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE TO HIM OR TO THE GAMBIAN SENSIBILITY.AND HE THEN TOLD THEM TO GO AND BRING ALL THEIR BELONGINGS,WHICH THEY DID; AND HE THEN QUICKLY MADE ARRANGEMENTS WHICH RESULTED IN THEIR IMMEDIATE REPATRIATION BACK HOME.
NOW,WE THE GAMBIANS IN QATAR HERE ARE NOT SURE WHETHER THIS STORY IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE.BUT I AM PERSONALLY VERY INTRIGUE BY IT AND I HOPE IT WILL DO THE SAME THING TO ALL OF YOU GUYS AND GIRLS DOWN THERE.AND I WOULD VERY MUCH LOVE TO HEAR YOUR REACTIONS TO IT!!
THE OTHER REASON FOR BRINGING THIS UP ON THIS LIST IS TO ENQUIRE FROM OUR APPARENTLY SLEEPING COMMERCIAL PARTNERS AT THE GAMBIA OBSERVER WHETHER THEY HAVE HEARD ANYTHING TO THIS EFFECT, AND IF SO, COULD THEY BE KIND ENOUGH TO GIVE US THE FULL STORY.WE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE ANSWERS TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:-
1) WHO IN FACT HAD CONTRACTED THESE GILRS, A GAMBIAN OR A KUWAITI?
2) WHO PAID FOR THEIR AIR PASSAGE,THEMSELVES OR THE RECRUITERS?
3)HAS MR. JAMMEH SAID OR DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS SUBJECT SINCE?
REGARDS BASSSS!! -- SZDDˆð'3Af¨
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:53:54 -0500 (CDT) From: BASIRU NDOW <bxn4929@omega.uta.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: observer editorial-justice delay is justice denied Message-ID: <199704222053.PAA13390@omega.uta.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Basiru Ndow Section 311 bxn4929@Omega.uta.edu Ian Alexander 086-82-4929 -------------------------------------- hello everyone, i believe there are dozens of issues that need to be addressed concerning the future of our government.i honestly will disagree with most of you that foreigners are occupying positions in our legal system because gambians don't want to, the isssue here is the authorities will not allow gambians to occupy these positions because of there own interest or fear of prosecution of their wrong doings. look at the era of former regime (jawara's), it has gone to a point where the head of the arm forces was even a foreigner,was this a cover up for their own security or because there were no gambians ??.The judicial system in the gambia is in __serious crisis,how can foreigners like the nigerians occupy the majority of the positions when nigeria has one of the worst record of human rights violation in africa. the issue of checks and balances is totally absent in our judicial system because these foreign lawyers or judges are pperforming their duti es with directions from the govt. How can the foreigners occupy the most sensitve positions of a govt.ie chief justice,..dir of public prosecution etc...Is this a mockery to our judicial system or a cover up.the former regime did the same thing during their era and now they are the victims of their own actions.to support my point ...has any firm actions been taken during the GCDB crisis. GCU crisis..JAHAPACHA rice project...etc..and in all these cases large amount of tax payers money is been misused , and is still happening with the present regime. so for thirty two good years the gambia is still where it started from. to The issue of foreign teachers in the gambia ,i believe there are lot of good gambian teachers in the gambia ,but we the gambians are discouraging our fellow gambian teachers because considering the fact that most gambians would prefer to pay lot of money to foreign teacher than a gambian teacher of the same qualification or even better. the point is we gambians believe too much on foreigners or foreign diplomats instead of trying to be selfreliant. T The vice presidency issue in the gambia, Did the president ever outline the duties and responsibilities of the so called lady vice president other than those of her ministry, or is this another of way covering up because Edward signateh does not satisfy the age requirement for a vive president,if not then why should he be assign all the functions that a vice president should have . finally let us make the best use of our education and then gambia will be free of hungry leaders and dishonest interllectuals, then we wil not be victims of a corrupt so ciety .
bye everyone !!!!!
Basiru !!!!
ering up or misleading the
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Date: 22 Apr 97 19:41:09 EDT From: "Dr. S. G. Kamara" <73244.2701@CompuServe.COM> To: GAMBIA-L <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: 4 All the Lawyers & those interested in Law Message-ID: <970422234108_73244.2701_FHO57-2@CompuServe.COM>
Forwarded from LEONENET for your amusement. Laugh ....!
Kamara.
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
From: INTERNET:DAVISEM@WPMAIL.ONC.JHU.EDU, INTERNET:DAVISEM@WPMAIL.ONC.JHU.EDU TO: "LEONENET", INTERNET:LEONENET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU DATE: 4/17/97 8:25 AM
RE: 4 All the Lawyers & those interested in Law
From: DAVISEM@WPMAIL.ONC.JHU.EDU
Just a few lines I gleaned from the Baltimore Sun 2day. There are not reprinted by kind permission and I donot have any copyright on them. etc. etc for the legal stuff....
The following are questions aktually asked of witnesses by attorneys during trails and the insightful responces they aktually received ....
Q. Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep he doesn't really know about it until the next morning? Q. The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he? Q. Were you present when your picture was taken? Q. Were you alone or by yourself? Q. Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war? Q. Did he kill you? Q. How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision? Q You were there until the time you left, is that true?
Q. So the date of conception was August 8? A. Yes Q. And what were you doing at that time?
Q. She had 3 children, right? A. Yes Q. How many were boys? A. None. Q. Were there any girls?
Q. You say the stairs go down to the basement? A. Yes. Q. And these stairs, did they go up also?
Q. Mr. S..., you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon, didn't you? A. I went to Europe, sir. Q. And you took your new wife?
Q. How was your first marriage terminated? A. By death. Q. And by whose death was it terminated?
Q. Can you describe the the individual? A. He was about medium build and had a beard. Q. Was this a male, or a female?
Q. Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent yopur attorney? A. No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
Q. Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people? A. All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
Q. Do you recall the time that you examined the body? A. The autospy started around 8:30pm. Q. And was Mr. D..... dead at the time? A. No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autospy.
Q. You were not shot in the fracas? A. No, I was shot midway between the fracas and the navel
Q. Are you qualified to give a urine sample? A. I have been since early childhood.
Thats all 4 now folks. You all have a blessed day.
Caio N.Emile ______ A Vinyl Junkie All these Years ______
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 01:02:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Mbk007@aol.com To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Fwd: Nigeria to be connected to the Internet Message-ID: <970423010242_-199602334@emout11.mail.aol.com>
T --------------------- Forwarded message: Subj: Nigeria to be connected to the Internet Date: 97-04-22 20:31:53 EDT From: MKora70383 To: Mbk007
ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuter) - Nigeria will be connected to the Internet as soon as projects aimed at providing the necessary circuit facilities are completed, the number two man in Africa's most populous nation said Monday.
Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Oladapo Diya told the start of a three-day Internet workshop in the capital Abuja that Nigeria was committed to having full Internet services.
``Already we have granted licenses to private Internet service providers to serve as focal points and outlets for Internet services,'' Diya said.
The Abuja workshop, ``The Development of Internet in sub-Saharan Africa,'' drew experts from the United States, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Gambia and ends Wednesday.
The Internet, a group of computers interlinked and exchanging information using the latest technology, was first developed by the U.S. Defense Department and now has more than 20 million regular users worldwide.
Its use in Africa is currently limited by lack of local gateways or nodes located within African countries and the prohibitive cost of dialing to nodes abroad.
13:20 04-21-97
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 01:27:05 -0500 From: Tamsir Mbai <mba4224@etbu.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT FLOWN BACK HOME BY THE PRESIDENT!! Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970423020753.3857b67e@etbu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 10:30 PM 4/22/97 +0300, Bass wrote: I WOULD VERY MUCH LOVE TO HEAR YOUR REACTIONS TO IT!!
Bass, you asked what our individual takes on this issue was. i, much like you, personally think that a few more questions need to be answered before any reasonable judgement can be passed. In addition to your list of questions, i think the following need to be answered as well: 1. how old were these people? 2. did they go to Kuwait by choice and in good faith or were they conned by promises of countless rewards? 3. what are the working conditions in these countries? The combination of question 1 and 2 above will determine to a large extent what could or should be done about the case. If the people involved were old enough to make their own decisions and they chose to do what they did, then i don't think this is an issue worth discussing. The reason i'm saying so is because their situation would then be much like many of ours, who travel to other countries in the name of "hustling." On the other hand if the people involved were juveniles, then my guess is that everybody knows what should be done. Finally, if the working conditions in Kuwait are not derogatory and subservient, then these people should have been left in Kuwait to do their jobs. What makes them any different from the maids who come to Banjul and the Kombos to find work between Christmas and summer? Some even stay permanently. Another point to consider here is that these people are driven by a lack of employment opportunities in The Gambia. While these people probably don't have any qualifications, i can empathize with them in the hope that it was a difficult decision for them to go to Kuwait in the first place. The sole provider of their families have probably either lost their jobs or never had one. It's difficult to run any family without the necessary finances, wouldn't you agree? If you notice, the very foundation of my article is based on probability. So until the answers to my questions earlier are answered, this is NOT a VERDICT on my part. So long everybody. Good luck in your endeavours wherever you are. peace!!!!!!!! It's Tamsir.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 16:18:33 +0900 (JST) From: binta@iuj.ac.jp To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone Message-ID: <199704230716.QAA16320@mlsv.iuj.ac.jp> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 16:58:20 GMT0BST, gambia-l@u.washington.edu wrote... P.L.Beyai> > Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 10:45:44 +0200 P.L.Beyai> > Reply-to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu P.L.Beyai> > From: Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> P.L.Beyai> > To: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> P.L.Beyai> > Subject: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> Mr. Gibba, P.L.Beyai> My question is what strength has ECOWAS that will be eroded by this P.L.Beyai> action of Guinea- Bissau? For many years that organisation P.L.Beyai> could not even become a credible customs union let alone achieve the status of a P.L.Beyai> free trade area. Unless we try to drop our much cherish nationalistic views, P.L.Beyai> we have no future in the World economy. P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> Countries like Gambia did not success in attracting FDI(foreign P.L.Beyai> direct interest) because of her small size, location, poor infrastructure etc. P.L.Beyai> Could you imagine big companies like Nissan or Toyota investing in the Gambia? P.L.Beyai> How many of us buy new vehicles in a year? It might be difficult to tackle some of these P.L.Beyai> problems right way but we can surely forge a good relationship with P.L.Beyai> our ECOWAS neighbours which will help open and widen our market. P.L.Beyai> How many treaties and protocols have been signed and not implemented? P.L.Beyai> No amount of the tax-holidays and other incentives can attract P.L.Beyai> foreign investors if there is no market to sell their products. P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> I am sorry that I do have time to elaborate but the main benefits of P.L.Beyai> the said action by Guinea-Bissau is the ease in terms of foreign P.L.Beyai> exchange difficulties they have been facing. Furthermore, people do P.L.Beyai> not have to declare their currencies at the ports of entry in both P.L.Beyai> Bissau and Senegal. P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> Although the cold -war is over, the new war is an economic one. Since P.L.Beyai> the French have lost their influence in Rwanda and are about to in Zaire, P.L.Beyai> they have no alternative but to look for new allies in Africa. P.L.Beyai> If we Africans cannot unite, outsiders will use economic inducement to pave their way. P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> Some people might blame lack of political stability as the reason for low FDI in West Africa. P.L.Beyai> But could they equally explain the reasons for the continuous presence of Shell and other P.L.Beyai> multinationals in Nigeria and the signing of new contracts with the rebel leader in Zaire? P.L.Beyai> Political stability is normally use for convenience but P.L.Beyai> multinationals look for their interest first before anything else. P.L.Beyai> Their interest in our area lies in a wider market. P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> So to avoid loosing more members, we have to move forward otherwise P.L.Beyai> we might also be forced to join the CFA zone. P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> Cheers, P.L.Beyai> PLB P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > FORWARD: P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone P.L.Beyai> > ------------------------------------------- P.L.Beyai> > April 18, 1997 P.L.Beyai> > by Ali Idrissou Toure, PANA Correspondent P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > COTONOU, Benin (PANA) - Guinea-Bissau was officially admitted as a member of P.L.Beyai> > the CFA Franc Zone at a two-day meeting of the Council of Ministers of P.L.Beyai> > Finance of France and French-speaking African countries which ended on P.L.Beyai> > Thursday in Cotonou, Benin. P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > The French Minister of Finance, Jean Arthuis, and the Guinea-Bissau P.L.Beyai> > delegation signed the additional clause to the existing agreement enabling P.L.Beyai> > France to extend its P.L.Beyai> > monetary co-operation with the West African Economic and Monetary Union to P.L.Beyai> > Bissau. P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > As from May 2, the CFA Franc is expected to replace the Peso as the official P.L.Beyai> > currency of Guinea-Bissau, according to a statement issued at the end of the P.L.Beyai> > meeting. P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > The Governor of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), Charles P.L.Beyai> > Konan Banny, said Guinea-Bissau's transition to the CFA Franc zone involved "a P.L.Beyai> > heavy financial transaction" necessitating the injection of some 6 billion P.L.Beyai> > CFA Francs (about 12 million U.S. dollars into the country's economy . P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > Guinea-Bissau has therefore become the 15th member of the Franc Zone which P.L.Beyai> > already comprises Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, P.L.Beyai> > Chad, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Mali, Niger, Senegal P.L.Beyai> > and Togo. P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > In a related development, the statement said "the replacement of the French P.L.Beyai> > franc by the Euro (the European single currency) in 1999 will not affect the P.L.Beyai> > exchange P.L.Beyai> > rate of the CFA franc and the existing monetary co-operation between France P.L.Beyai> > and the African member countries of the Franc Zone". P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > The French franc has been linked to the CFA (African Finance Community) used P.L.Beyai> > by the African countries at a fixed exchange rate which now stands at 100 CFA P.L.Beyai> > for one French franc after the devaluation of the CFA franc by 50 percent at P.L.Beyai> > a high-level meeting held in Dakar (Senegal) in January 1994. P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > Previously the exchange rate was 50 CFA = 1FF. P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > The French Minister told reporters in Cotonou that "the Euro will be a P.L.Beyai> > world-wide reserve currency against which the value of the CFA Franc will be P.L.Beyai> > determined". P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > According to the statement, the ministers of finance of the Franc Zone P.L.Beyai> > expressed satisfaction at the progressive economic growth rate recorded in P.L.Beyai> > the UEMOA P.L.Beyai> > countries (around 5 percent) and at similar developments in the member P.L.Beyai> > States of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC ). P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > In a Declaration adopted at the end of their meeting, the ministers called P.L.Beyai> > for increased private investment in the countries of the Franc Zone in order P.L.Beyai> > to maintain high P.L.Beyai> > growth on a long-term basis. P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > According to the Declaration, the commitments made by the Governments, P.L.Beyai> > particularly in their structural adjustment programmes, are aimed at P.L.Beyai> > "fostering a more P.L.Beyai> > stable macro-economic environment". P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > Among other things, the ministers recommended the harmonization of budgetary P.L.Beyai> > and monetary policies, taxation and customs services in a regional framework as P.L.Beyai> > well as increased consultation with the private sector on matters concerning P.L.Beyai> > the formulation of economic policies". P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > The Declaration further stressed the need for security of investment, P.L.Beyai> > improved infrastructures and state disengagement from productive sectors. P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> > Copyright c 1997 Panafrican News Agency. Distributed via Africa News Online. P.L.Beyai> > All rights reserved. May not be redistributed, posted to any other location, P.L.Beyai> > published or used for broadcast without prior written authorization from P.L.Beyai> > Africa News Service. P.L.Beyai> > P.L.Beyai> >
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 17:38:12 +0900 (JST) From: binta@iuj.ac.jp To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Apology Message-ID: <199704230835.RAA17741@mlsv.iuj.ac.jp> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Gambia-l,
I sent out an almost 'unreadable' mail to the List. It was not intended to be so. Please, accept my most felt apology for that error.
Lamin Drammeh..
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 11:28:30 +0300 From: BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT FLOWN BACK HOME BY THE PRESIDENT!! Message-ID: <335DC82E.EB2@QATAR.NET.QA> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
MR.NBAI!! THANKS FOR YOUR PRAGMATIC RESPONSE! TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS,I DON'T KNOW HOW OLD THESE GIRLS WERE,AND I CANNOT REALLY TELL YOU WHETHER THESE GIRLS WENT TO KUWAIT IN GOOD FAITH,BUT A SENEGALESE MAN HERE TOLD ME YESTERDAY THAT HE HAD BOARDED A PLANE IN EUROPE WITH SIX GAMBIAN GIRLS WHO TOLD HIM THAT THEY WERE STUDENTS ON THEIR WAY TO KUWAIT TO FURTHER THEIR EDUCATION.WAS THIS A COVER UP ON THEIR PART OR HAD THEY BEEN MADE TO BELIEVE THAT THEY WERE GOING TO STUDY THERE?! I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT.
YOUR THIRD QUESTION IS THE MOST CRITICAL ONE! IN KUWAIT'S CONSTITUITION,LIKE ALMOST ALL THE ARAB GULF COUNTRIES,THERE IS NO MENTION OF A DOMESTIC HELP,AND THAT MEANS THAT THEY DON'T LEGALLY EXIST;NEEDLESS TO SAY THAT A NON ENTITY CANNOT HAVE A RIGHT. AND IN ADDITION TO THAT,IN TRADITIONAL ARAB CULTURE, A DOMESTIC HELP IS THE SLAVE,AND IF YOU ARE BLACK IN ADDITION TO THAT,IT BECOMES EVEN MUCH MORE COMPLICATED.AND FURTHER,AS ANY PHILLIPINO DOMESTIC IN THE GULF WOULD TELL YOU - MOST OF THE DOMESTICS IN THESE COUNTRIES ARE PHILLIPINO GIRLS- THE INCIDENTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULTS ON THE PART OF THE MALE MEMBERS OF THE EXTENDED FAMILY FOR WHICH ONE WORKS IS HORRENDUOUSLY HIGH.PERHAPS YOU HAVE HEARD ABOUT THAT CELEBRATED MURDER TRIAL IN THE U.A.E IN WHICH A MOSLEM PHILLIPINO GIRL STABBED HER EMPLOYER TO DEATH AS HE WAS FORCING HER TO HAVE SEX WITH HIM.I PERSONALLY THINK THAT THAT CASE WAS AT THE BACK OF PRESIDENT JAMMEH'S MIND WHEN HE REPATRIATED THE GIRLS.SO,I DON'T THINK ITS AS SIMPLE AS TRYING TO GET A JOB FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE IF YOU CAN'T GET IT IN YOUR MOTHERLAND!BUT IF THE OBSERVER PEOPLE HAVE WOKEN UP FROM THEIR SLEEP LATELY,THEY CAN BE ENORMOUSLY HELPFUL IN PROVIDING US WITH THE FACTS.
REGARDS BASSSS!!
Tamsir Mbai wrote: > > At 10:30 PM 4/22/97 +0300, Bass wrote: > I WOULD VERY MUCH LOVE TO HEAR YOUR REACTIONS TO IT!! > > Bass, you asked what our individual takes on this issue was. i, much like > you, personally think that a few more questions need to be answered before > any reasonable judgement can be passed. In addition to your list of > questions, i think the following need to be answered as well: > 1. how old were these people? > 2. did they go to Kuwait by choice and in good faith or were they conned > by promises of countless rewards? > 3. what are the working conditions in these countries? > > The combination of question 1 and 2 above will determine to a large extent > what could or should be done about the case. If the people involved were old > enough to make their own decisions and they chose to do what they did, then > i don't think this is an issue worth discussing. The reason i'm saying so is > because their situation would then be much like many of ours, who travel to > other countries in the name of "hustling." On the other hand if the people > involved were juveniles, then my guess is that everybody knows what should > be done. > Finally, if the working conditions in Kuwait are not derogatory and > subservient, then these people should have been left in Kuwait to do their > jobs. What makes them any different from the maids who come to Banjul and > the Kombos to find work between Christmas and summer? Some even stay > permanently. Another point to consider here is that these people are driven > by a lack of employment opportunities in The Gambia. While these people > probably don't have any qualifications, i can empathize with them in the > hope that it was a difficult decision for them to go to Kuwait in the first > place. The sole provider of their families have probably either lost their > jobs or never had one. It's difficult to run any family without the > necessary finances, wouldn't you agree? > If you notice, the very foundation of my article is based on > probability. So until the answers to my questions earlier are answered, this > is NOT a VERDICT on my part. So long everybody. Good luck in your endeavours > wherever you are. peace!!!!!!!! > It's Tamsir.
-- SZDDˆð'3Af¨
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 13:59:59 +0200 From: Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone Message-ID: <2.2.32.19970423115959.006c0a3c@golf.uib.no> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 16:58 22.04.97 GMT0BST, you wrote: >> Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 10:45:44 +0200 >> Reply-to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu >> From: Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> >> To: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> >> Subject: Guinea-Bissau Joins CFA Franc Monetary Zone
Mr Beyai, thanks for your comments. You wrote:
"Mr. Gibba, My question is what strength has ECOWAS that will be eroded by this action of Guinea- Bissau"?
I am not necessarily stating that ECOWAS has any significant "strength" worth commenting on. The reason for this lack of strength, in my opinion, brings us to your next statement:
"For many years that organization could not even become a credible customs union let alone achieve the status of a free trade area."
WHY? this is because this organization is comprised of a majority of members who's entire economies are being structured and controlled not by themselves but by France, thus undermining any of ECOWAS' policies that are to be or designed for the sole benefit of member states; and may turn unfavorable to France and/or the EU.
Further, you wrote:
"Unless we try to drop our much cherish nationalistic views, we have no future in the World economy".
On the contra, the reason why we are left behind in the world economy is we fail to "cherish any nationalistic views", as you put it. All other regions are doing exactly that in the name of "protectionism". What are they protecting and against whom? They are protecting their regional and eventually national interests against other regions. Why are there calls for a revised World Trade Agreement? This is because regions like ours have been marginalized by those "Agreements". What is the EU's and other regional organization's success story compared to ours? "NATIONALISM or REGIONALISM". I am 100% for a monetary union within ECOWAS but the kind of union I would like to see, should be that based on our own resources, controlled by ourselves, with absolutely no outside influence. Don't get me wrong, I am aware of the state of a global interdependency. This should be a balanced one, not that of one party being more dependent than the other.
Unless the CFA Zone members take a complete break-away from the French Franc, ECOWAS will never be effective. This is what brought about my frustration learning that there is yet another increase in it's (CFA Zone) membership from another member state of ECOWAS. What does others think?????
Regards, ::)))Abdou Oujimai
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 14:48:40 +0200 From: Andrea Klumpp <klumpp@kar.dec.com> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Gambian Domestics in Kuwait Message-ID: <335E0528.2CC6@kar.dec.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hello GambiaNetters,
when calling The Gambia I got to know the following:
1) WHO IN FACT HAD CONTRACTED THESE GILRS, A GAMBIAN OR A KUWAITI? it was a Gambian agency which employs people for e.g. Kuwaitian employers. They have an office in Kuwait which takes care on the employees and their concerns abroad.
2) WHO PAID FOR THEIR AIR PASSAGE,THEMSELVES OR THE RECRUITERS? don't know
3)HAS MR. JAMMEH SAID OR DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS SUBJECT SINCE? He just gave a short comment on his arrival at Yundum, like: he came with Gambians who were maltreated abroad. Since then he gave no statement.
1. how old were these people?
they are in the 20s, one (a teacher) in the 40s. All females. The latter was employed as a teacher and guaranteed to work as a teacher but had to do domestic work.
2. did they go to Kuwait by choice and in good faith or were they conned by promises of countless rewards?
they were employed by the agency in Gambia and went voluntarily.
3. what are the working conditions in these countries?
working from morning til midnight, they were beaten, physically maltreated (no sexual harassment reported). They have repeatedly complained at the local agency because of the maltreatment, bad working conditions and the salary, which was around D1200 (in Kuwait!!)
The story has been covered by TV and newspapers in the Gambia. FOROYAA is still about to confirm and investigate the matter. They haven't reported on this story yet. I'll see, whether I can get a fax copy of the Observer or Point.
I don't know how serious the office in Kuwait took the complaints of the women. Perhaps they were lucky that Y.Jammeh intervened. I mean, I can't imagine that our Chancellor Kohl would have done the same for me.
Greetings, Andrea
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 15:29:32 +0200 From: Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Gambian Domestics in Kuwait Message-ID: <2.2.32.19970423132932.006bff98@golf.uib.no> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hi again G-Lers!
Based on Andrea's information, I think the President has just done what he had to do - protect the interest of his people. Maybe it is even done leniently, given the fact that we still don't know what further steps are taken by the authorities. It's about time our authorities take such steps to protect our peoples as other nations are doing. Maybe when all questions put forward by Bass and Tamsir are answer, lessons could be learnt from all this.
Personally, as a Gambian, I am proud that my President could be so concerned to the extent of acting immediately. This offers some degree of trust when it comes to the security of Gambians abroad.
Regards, ::)))Abdou Oujimai
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 17:00:59 +0300 From: BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> To: klumpp@kar.dec.com Cc: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: Gambian Domestics in Kuwait Message-ID: <335E161B.9D@QATAR.NET.QA> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Andrea Klumpp wrote: > > Hello GambiaNetters, > > when calling The Gambia I got to know the following: > > 1) WHO IN FACT HAD CONTRACTED THESE GILRS, A GAMBIAN OR A KUWAITI? > it was a Gambian agency which employs people for e.g. Kuwaitian > employers. They have an office in Kuwait which takes care on the > employees and their concerns abroad. > > 2) WHO PAID FOR THEIR AIR PASSAGE,THEMSELVES OR THE RECRUITERS? > don't know > > 3)HAS MR. JAMMEH SAID OR DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS SUBJECT SINCE? > He just gave a short comment on his arrival at Yundum, like: he came > with Gambians who were maltreated abroad. Since then he gave no > statement. > > 1. how old were these people? > > they are in the 20s, one (a teacher) in the 40s. All females. The latter > was employed as a teacher and guaranteed to work as a teacher but had to > do domestic work. > > 2. did they go to Kuwait by choice and in good faith or were they > conned by promises of countless rewards? > > they were employed by the agency in Gambia and went voluntarily. > > 3. what are the working conditions in these countries? > > working from morning til midnight, they were beaten, physically > maltreated (no sexual harassment reported). They have repeatedly > complained at the local agency because of the maltreatment, bad working > conditions and the salary, which was around D1200 (in Kuwait!!) > > The story has been covered by TV and newspapers in the Gambia. FOROYAA > is still about to confirm and investigate the matter. They haven't > reported on this story yet. I'll see, whether I can get a fax copy of > the Observer or Point. > > I don't know how serious the office in Kuwait took the complaints of the > women. Perhaps they were lucky that Y.Jammeh intervened. I mean, I can't > imagine that our Chancellor Kohl would have done the same for me. > > Greetings, Andrea
ANDREA!!
THESE ARE THE KINDS OF ANSWERS GAMBIAN STUDENTS HERE WANTED TO KNOW FROM ME.SO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SUCH A BRILLIANT JOB!! AND PLEASE KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK DOWN THERE.
REGARDS BASSSSS!! -- SZDDˆð'3Af¨
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 17:21:48 +0300 From: BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> To: GAMBIA-L@U.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: Re: GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT Message-ID: <335E1AFC.27E9@QATAR.NET.QA> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> > 1) WHO IN FACT HAD CONTRACTED THESE GILRS, A GAMBIAN OR A KUWAITI? > > it was a Gambian agency which employs people for e.g. Kuwaitian > > employers. They have an office in Kuwait which takes care on the > > employees and their concerns abroad. > >=20 > > 2) WHO PAID FOR THEIR AIR PASSAGE,THEMSELVES OR THE RECRUITERS? > > don't know > >=20 > > 3)HAS MR. JAMMEH SAID OR DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS SUBJECT SINCE? > > He just gave a short comment on his arrival at Yundum, like: he came > > with Gambians who were maltreated abroad. Since then he gave no > > statement. > >=20 > > 1. how old were these people? > >=20 > > they are in the 20s, one (a teacher) in the 40s. All females. The latte= > r > > was employed as a teacher and guaranteed to work as a teacher but had t= > o > > do domestic work. > >=20 > > 2. did they go to Kuwait by choice and in good faith or were they > > conned by promises of countless rewards? > >=20 > > they were employed by the agency in Gambia and went voluntarily. > >=20 > > 3. what are the working conditions in these countries? > >=20 > > working from morning til midnight, they were beaten, physically > > maltreated (no sexual harassment reported). They have repeatedly > > complained at the local agency because of the maltreatment, bad working > > conditions and the salary, which was around D1200 (in Kuwait!!) > >=20 > > The story has been covered by TV and newspapers in the Gambia. FOROYAA > > is still about to confirm and investigate the matter. They haven't > > reported on this story yet. I'll see, whether I can get a fax copy of > > the Observer or Point. > >=20 > > I don't know how serious the office in Kuwait took the complaints of th= > e > > women. Perhaps they were lucky that Y.Jammeh intervened. I mean, I can'= > t > > imagine that our Chancellor Kohl would have done the same for me. > >=20 > > Greetings, Andrea > > ANDREA!! > > THESE ARE THE KINDS OF ANSWERS GAMBIAN STUDENTS HERE WANTED TO KNOW > FROM ME.SO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SUCH A BRILLIANT JOB!! AND PLEASE > KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK DOWN THERE. > > REGARDS BASSSSS!! > --=20 > SZDD=88=F0'3Af=A8=03
-- SZDDˆð'3Af¨
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 10:28:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Haddijatou Kah <jkah@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> To: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: observer editorial-justice delay is justice denied Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.93.970423100736.18310A-100000@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
IN RESPONSE TO MR NDOWS CONTRIBUTION IN RESPECT TO FOREIGNERS OCCUPING POSITIONS IN THE LEGAL SYSTEM. MOST, IF NOT ALL THE NIGERIANS EMPLOYED IN THE JUDICIARY OR MINISTRY ARE ON ATECHNICAL ASSISSTENCE SCHEME.THE BULK OF THEIR COSTS IS BEING MET BY THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT.GAMBIANS WHO HAVE THE REQUISTE QUALIFICATIONS ARE JUST NOT INTERESTED IN THE BENCH. THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE IS PRESENTLY SHORT STAFFED. I AM SURE NO NATION WANTS TO HAVE THEIR LEGALM SYSTEM MANNED BY FOREIGNES FOREVER BUT IN THE ABSCENCE OFA BETTER ALTERNATIVE SHOULD THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM COME TO A STANDSTILL?
On TuBYE JATOUe, 22 Apr 1997, BASIRU NDOW wrote:
> Basiru Ndow Section 311 > bxn4929@Omega.uta.edu Ian Alexander > 086-82-4929 > -------------------------------------- > hello everyone, > i believe there are dozens of issues that need to be addressed > concerning the future of our government.i honestly will disagree with > most of you that foreigners are occupying positions in our legal system > because gambians don't want to, the isssue here is the authorities will > not allow gambians to occupy these positions because of there own > interest or fear of prosecution of their wrong doings. look at the era > of former regime (jawara's), it has gone to a point where the head of > the arm forces was even a foreigner,was this a cover up for their own > security or because there were no gambians ??.The judicial system in the > gambia is in __serious crisis,how can foreigners like the nigerians > occupy the majority of the positions when nigeria has one of the worst > record of human rights violation in africa. the issue of checks and > balances is totally absent in our judicial system because these foreign > lawyers or judges are pperforming their duti es with directions from the > govt. How can the foreigners occupy the most sensitve positions of a govt.ie > chief justice,..dir of public prosecution etc...Is this a mockery to our > judicial system or a cover up.the former regime did the same thing > during their era and now they are the victims of their own actions.to > support my point ...has any firm actions been taken during the GCDB > crisis. GCU crisis..JAHAPACHA rice project...etc..and in all these cases > large amount of tax payers money is been misused , and is still > happening with the present regime. so for thirty two good years the > gambia is still where it started from. to > The issue of foreign teachers in the gambia ,i believe there are lot > of good gambian teachers in the gambia ,but we the gambians are > discouraging our fellow gambian teachers because considering the fact > that most gambians would prefer to pay lot of money to foreign teacher > than a gambian teacher of the same qualification or even better. the > point is we gambians believe too much on foreigners or foreign diplomats > instead of trying to be selfreliant. > T > The vice presidency issue in the gambia, Did the president ever outline > the duties and responsibilities of the so called lady vice president > other than those of her ministry, or is this another of way covering up > because Edward signateh does not satisfy the age requirement for a vive > president,if not then why should he be assign all the functions that a vice > president should have . > finally let us make the best use of our education and then gambia > will be free of hungry leaders and dishonest interllectuals, then we wil not > be victims of a corrupt so ciety . > > bye everyone !!!!! > > Basiru !!!! > > > > > > > ering up or > misleading the >
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 16:34:23 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Asbj=F8rn_Nordam?= <asbjorn.nordam@dif.dk> To: "'gambia'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Gambians abroad to earn a living Message-ID: <c=DK%a=_%p=DIF%l=DKDIFS02-970423143423Z-1759@dkdifs02.dif.dk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
This information calls for a comment from me:
"what are the working conditions in these countries?
working from morning til midnight, they were beaten, physically maltreated (no sexual harassment reported). They have repeatedly complained at the local agency because of the maltreatment, bad working conditions and the salary, which was around D1200 (in Kuwait!!)
The story has been covered by TV and newspapers in the Gambia. FOROYAA is still about to confirm and investigate the matter. They haven't reported on this story yet. I'll see, whether I can get a fax copy of the Observer or Point."
This is really something to learn from. I=B4m glad that it is televised = in The Gambia, so other gambian women can see what the conditions for labouring abroad can be, so they are more prepared. If it=B4s as = described here, I thank that the President took action.=20 Some young danes every year ends up in situations like that. Not that they travel abroad and take a job to earn money for a living or because their families are depending on them, more for the chance of seing the world. Even they know about working conditions, trade unions, they take the chance for adventure, which can turn out a nightmare. Maybe Mr. Kohl of Germany would not do anything, but surely the danish government do something, if we get information about a dane ending up like the gambian women in Kuwait.
Maybe the gambian TV should portrait some of you who are living in the west, so the families and the ordinary gambians could get a more differentiate picture of the conditions under which you live, study, work. It is not "glamour" all of it.
Asbj=F8rn Nordam
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 19:40:52 +0200 From: Andrea Klumpp <klumpp@kar.dec.com> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Update: Education Group Message-ID: <335E49A4.1385@kar.dec.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Hi,
this is to give you a short update on the progress of the education group and to introduce our work to the new members. The education group consists of 25 people who are prepared to spend time, money or both to support education in The Gambia. =
We made a survey to have a basis for a draft proposal which we want to present to the list as soon as possible.
After evaluating our questionnaire, we got the below listed results. The selection of school(s) and whether or not to start it on a formal/informal basis is still open because there was no clear majority.
One of our members, Omar S. Saho is actually in The Gambia and he visited The Gambia College on our behalf. We are looking forward to his experience there and wait with drafting the proposal til he is back, which will be Tuesday next week.
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, ARGUE AND BRING IN IDEAS!
1. Selection of schools:
7 people would like to support a school in the rural area 6 people want to choose it by random selection 4 would choose a primary school 4 would choose a secondary school 5 prefer a high school 5 want to support The Gambia College
2. We plan to provide text books and other materials
3. We want to do this on a regular basis
4. We want to set up an own procedure 4 people prefer a formal basis 4 people prefer a informal basis
5. The local affiliate in The Gambia should be a private person
6. Around 5 people will look for others to join the venture
7. Other roles of our group: - gather funds and materials to assist individuals and institutions in need. - develop mentorship and guidance programs to prepare kids for higher education - Provide a forum through which matters ralating to advancement of the education in The Gambai can be discussed and channeled to authorities in The Gambia.
8. Our support: 12 people offered funding between =A7100 p.a. and =A725 p.m. 11 people offered their time for setting the process up keep it running
9. Other ideas: - Combination of options - help not biased, distributor in Gambia with much time - shipping computers - companies hire students from form 4 up - setting up liasons with univ., enroll G. students + provide funding - setting up a homepage for education in G. (database on schools, funding-info, enrollment ...) - getting school(s) online
This is an impressive outcome and we are very pleased that so many people committed themselves to the project. MANY THANKS to all of you! But education in The Gambia needs plenty of support and the more people join us, the more effective our support is going to be ...
Thanks for reading through.
Greetings, Andrea For the education group
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 16:43:57 -0400 From: Latir Downes-Thomas <latir@earthlink.net> To: Gambia-L <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Fwd:Sub-Saharan Countries Get UNDP Fund for Internet Message-ID: <335E748D.5725@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
LAGOS (April 23) XINHUA - Eight sub-Saharan African countries will benefit from a 10.2-million-U.S.-dollar fund from United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for Internet services. These countries include Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Congo, Sao Tome and Principe and Cape Verde, according to the Guardian today. To benefit from the fund, countries will have to provide a counterpart fund that is 50 percent of the UNDP amount, said Richard Kerby, the Information Manager of the UNDP Africa Regional Bureau. Thirty-one African countries are currently said to be linked with Internet, but most of them including Nigeria can only access the gateway through Foriegn Internet Service Providers, the newspaper said. Only South Africa, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, Mauritius, Senegal, Zambia and Zimbabwe have full internet connectivity, it added. Ray Akwule, a professor from the Goerge Mason University of the United States was quoted as saying that the lack of knowledge rather than funds and technology accounted for the underdevelopment of Internet in Africa. On the other hand, Richard Kerby said, the lack of adequate telecommunications infrastructure and enabling policy environment is preventing African countries from getting more international support in development Internet Services. Enditem 23/04/97 18:18 GMT Copyright 1997
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 16:52:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Salifuj@aol.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Temporary unsubscription Message-ID: <970423165118_548975935@emout01.mail.aol.com>
Please, temporarily sign me off as I will be away for the next two weeks.
Thanks.
-Sal
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Momodou
Denmark
11497 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jun 2021 : 16:14:32
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 17:58:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca> To: BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@qatar.net.qa> Cc: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: GAMBIAN DOMESTICS IN KUWAIT FLOWN BACK HOME BY THE PRESIDENT!! Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9704231717.A18992-0100000@mach1.wlu.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
hello Everyone!!! I hope you all had a good Eid!!! I find the information that Bass sent very amusing and intriguing!!! I'm very impressed if the story is true that Jammeh showed such concern for his fellow Gambians.......especially if there was no Gambian Embassy to protect them. And yes I would also like answers to the questions Bass asked??? especially if he actually paid for their fares.....or did they have to pay for their fares and leave the country just because their President said so!! I would also like to know what happened to the girls after they got home.....did he find them a job after they lost the ones they had......did he give them money to take care of themselves until they could get back on their feet again after they got home??? Or does he expect that their families are young enogh and doing well enough to take care of one more person???? I guess it's good that he cared enough to remove them from a place where they had no protection.......and I guess it's better to get help at home from friends and relatives. What I question most is the manner in which the whole situation was handled.......was it rash or did he talk to the girls and figured the best solution was being sent home?????
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 18:19:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Cc: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: Gambian Domestics in Kuwait Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9704231829.A18992-0100000@mach1.wlu.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
After recieveing Andreas info, I have to agree with Abdou Oujimai that the President did the right!!!! Ancha.
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 19:09:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca> To: SISSOHO EM <E.M.Sissoho@icsl.ac.uk> Cc: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: POLYGAMMY Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9704231923.A26503-0100000@mach1.wlu.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
This is a topic that's been on my mind and I had a question or two regarding polygammy. It would seem that the trend at home these days is for men at home to have two wives or more. I know that Islam allows it but aren't there conditions under which polygammy is allowed in Islam..........like your first wife is fatally ill..........or she cannot give you children????? I'm not exactly sure what the conditions are.....but I believe that there are conditions. I think a lot of men at home just use the religion as an excuse to marry more than one wife......... I really would like the input of everyone of this matter!! hope to hear from people soon!!! Ancha.
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 19:15:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Cc: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: POLYGAMMY Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9704231938.A26503-0100000@mach1.wlu.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
With regards to the info we recieved from Andrea, I have to say that I agree with Abdou Oujimai that Jammeh did the right thing!!! Ancha.
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 21:39:05 -0400 From: "M. Darboe" <mdarboe@fred.net> To: "'gambia-l@u.washington.edu'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Democracy Under Pressure Message-ID: <01BC503B.BB949260@mhorn.fred.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
16, Buckle Street Banjul, The Gambia
17th. February, 1997
The Clerk of the National Assembly Independence Drive Banjul, The Gambia
Dear Sir,
I hereby forward the text of a motion which I wish to move to the next = sitting of the National Assembly for inclusion in the agenda.
MOTION FOR THE APPOINTMENT OF AN INDEPENDENT COMMITTEE OF INVESTIGATORS INTO = THE GAMBIA GOVERNMENT FOREIGN BANK ACCOUNTS
BE IT BE RESOLVED:
That this assembly appoint AN INDEPENDENT COMMITTE OF INVESTIGATORS, to = investigate:
1) a. the source and the extent of government holdings, with foreign = banks covering the period January, 1994 to date;
b. all transactions effected to the said accounts with particular = reference to payment made from government/non-government;
c. the circumstances relating to the US $24.7 Million (Twenty-Four = Million Seven Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) paid into private = Bank accounts referred to in the court proceedings No. C/P449/95 & = P/11445/95 in the Republic of Canton De Geneve between the Gambia and = Ebou Jallow.
2) THE COMMITTEE SHALL COMPRISE:
a. The president of the Gambia Court of Appeal as Chairman,
b. Four members of this Assembly at least two of whom shall be members = of opposition parties; and=20
c. Two other persons from the general public one of whom shall be a = Banker.
3) The committee shall commence its sitting not later than four weeks of = the date of its appointment.
4) The committee shall within six weeks of the commencement of its = sittings submit its report and recommendations to the National Assembly = through the speaker of the National Assembly who shall make it available = to the members of the Assembly.
5) The committee shall sit in public and shall release its report and = recommendations to the public.
6) The committee shall have all the powers vested in a commission of = inquiry in accordance with the law and all powers vested in a Committee = of the National Assembly by the constitution.
7) The Secretary-General and the Head of the Civil Service shall provide = the committee with all the staff, facilities and funds required.
8) The committee shall appoint its own Secretary and Counsel on such = terms and conditions it considers appropriate. Where such staff are = civil servants, the head of the Civil Sevice shall release then = forthwith to the committee.
9) The Inspector-General of Police shall provide adequate security for = the committee.
10) The members of the Committee and staff shall in the performance of = their functions enjoy all the immunities and priviledges of judicial = officers and members of the National Assembly.
11) The expense of Commision shall be a charge on the Consolidated = Revenue Fund.
Respectfully submitted.
Yours faithfully,
HON. KEMESSENG JAMMEH
.........................................................................= ............................................ 26 Buckle Street Banjul The Gambia
The Clerk of the National Assembly National Assembly Service Independence Drive BANJUL
RE: MOTION
Please refer to the motion dated 17th February Which I submitted the = same day for inclusion in the agenda of the second sitting of teh = National Assembly, scheduled to take place from 24th February to 29th = February 1997.
I also refer to you to the WADDA/JAMMEH discussion in the office of the = speaker on Thursday 27th February centred around the reason why this = motion did not feature in the Order of Business for that Session. The = Honourable Speaker explained that my motion was not accomodated simply = because he was making legal consultations on the subject matter.
In this connection I wish to express my very deep concern and I would = strongly urge that the motion as submitted in accordance with standing = order 26 be included in the agenda of the next sitting of the National = Assembly.
Thank you in anticipation of a positive response.
Yours faithfully,
Hon. Kemeseng Jammeh MEMBER FOR WESTERN JARRA =09 =09 .........................................................................= ........................................... National Assembly Service Legislative Chamber Independence Drive Banjul
LEG/1092(7) 18th March 1997
Hon Kemeseng Jammeh Member for Western Jarra 26 Buckle Street BANJUL
RE: MOTION
I refer to your updated letter and subsequent reminder dated 10th March = 1997 relating to the above mentioned subject.
I am directed to inform you that the Notion cannot be entertained.
DS NJIE CLERK OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 23:10:43 -0400 From: "M. Darboe" <mdarboe@fred.net> To: "'gambia-l @u.washington.edu'" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: UDP Reaction to recent Crisis in Parliament Message-ID: <01BC503B.BD8A9600@mhorn.fred.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Press Release
1) The inauguration of the national Assembly and the coming into force = the the Constitution of the Second Republic of The Gambia in January, = 1997, brought about a new hope for a brighter future; for the Gambian = people; a future characterized by the rule of the law, good governance = and the democratic culture as a basis for genuine socio-economic = development. However, it is now abundantly clear that this hope is = being continously shattered by the government's persistent violation of = the constitution. The UNITED DEMOCRATIC PARTY UDP) has exposed in very = clear terms these violations and called upon the Government to ensure = that appropriate remedial actions be taken. Our timely interevention = has resulted in the President constituting a new cabinet in accordance = with requirements of the constitution.
2) Similarly, we now observe with great concern deliberate violations of = the constitution at the levels of the National Assembly- an institution = whose independence of the Executive is provided for in the constitution. = The UDP believes that the National Assembly shall assert its = independence and abide by the constitution in both letter and spirit. = However, recent violations have been perpetrated through the Speaker of = the National Assembly by misguided acts which are designed to stiffle = the genuine debate matters of national interest raised by Opposition = members of the National Assembly. It should be remembered that the = National Assembly, in accordance with the constitution and standing = orders, is empowered to institute proper checks and balances to ensure = democratic rule, good governance and the respect of human rights. The = absence of such checks and balances will bring about the disregard for = transparency, accountibility and probity leading to anarchy.
3) In strict compliance with the provisions of Section 101 of the = constitution and the existing standing orders, and the spirit of = transparency, accountability and probity as part and parcel of good = governance, the UDP member for Western Jarra and the leader of the = Opposition in the National Assembly, Hon. Kemeseng Jammeh, on the 17th = of February, 1997, submitted to the clerk of the National Assembly a = copy of a motion for inclusion in the agenda of the second sitting of = the National Assembly, scheduled for 24th. to 29th Febryary, 1997.
The prominent features of this government are however corruption, = persistent violations of the constitution, lack of accountability, = transparency and probity. The regime is corrupt and persisitently = refuses to be accountable.
You will recall that during the early days of the military take over, = even as recently as the regime decided to mastermind and manipulate the = electoral system inorder to transform itself into a "civilian" = government, the justification for the takeover was the "rampant = corruption", lack of transparency and accountability. Commissions of = Enquiry which are still operating continue to confiscate properties of = individuals, impose penalities and freeze individual accounts and = assets. Some of these assets ended up being allocated to Senior = Military Officers. These Commissions are indeed a mere facade, a tool = to fight against pro-democratic elements. In fact some people who are = closely allied to the military dictatorship ( the present regime is for = all purposes and intent a military one) and who were ordered by the = commissions to refund thousands and millions of Dalasi have, in some = cases, been reinstated in their jobs, their private accounts defrozen = and their travel documents returned to them. Others in fact have been = appointed as nominated members of the National Assembly by, or elected = as such under the sponsorship of, the present regime. The amounts which = were supposed to be paid back to the State coffers have been "silently = ignored".
The members of the National Assembly of the major opposition party, our = party, THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC PARTY, recently submitted questions for = oral answers as required by the Standing Orders of the National Assembly = on the sources of funds for certain projects. Similarly, a series of = questions tending to elicit information on the cost of the President's = overseas travels (cost of aircraft charter, per diem and imprest) were = disallowed by the Speaker without giving any reasons. We believe the = Speaker disallowed the questions on these and other issues because they = are likely to expose the corrupt practices of the regime. In the same = vain, a Motion proposed by our members of the Assembly for the = establishment of an independent investigate committee on the amount of = US $24.7 Million unaccounted for and diverted into private bank accounts = in foreign banks was disallowed without any justification. Our party = strongly believes that such an investigation would reveal the extent of = the financial mismanagement of the regime.
We wish to convey to you, as a major traditional development partner of = this country the views of our party which enjoys the support of a large = percentage of the country's tax payers about the corrupt nature of the = present AFPRC/APRC government, its lack of transparency and = accountability.
4. That President Yahya Jammeh further explained to the Bank Manager = that Ebou Jallow was withdrawing the money "to carry out some commercial = operation" in Europe.
5. That an additional amount of US $20 Million was deposited in Citibank = Switzerland in the name of Ebou Jallow.
6. In view of the above startling revelations, which were made in a = court of law, the United Democratic Party which is genuinely committed = to transparency and accountability, strongly believes that this = irregular transaction must be brought before the National Assembly so = that a proper investigative mechanism is instituted in the spirit of = public accountability.
7. These revelations call into question the proper management of our = financial resources and unless we as a nation get into the heart of the = matter, donor agencies and our development partners will be utilised for = their designated purposes. It is for this reason that the UDP strongly = believes that the National Assembly should investigate this matter to = determine whether transactions have been conducted in accordance with = laid down government procedures.
8. In addition to rejecting this motion the Speaker has disallowed a = number of questions submitted by our Members. Some of these include = questions on the cost of the President's overseas travels and the = issuance of Gambian diplomatic passport to a non-Gambian.
9. Section 109 (2) (b) of the Constitution empowers the National = Assembly to appoint a committee to investigate any matter of public = importance. The subject matter of the proceedings in the Swiss Court = well qualifies as "a matter of public importance." The way and manner = in which those responsible for the syphoning of this huge amount of = money without due regard for established totally disappointed by the = decision of the Speaker for rejecting the inclusion of such a matter of = public importance in the business of the National Assembly.
10. By these actions, the independence and credibility of the National = Assembly are seriously being compromised and demonstrate once again the = ruling party's lack of commitment to its own slogan of transparency = accountability and probity. In disallowing questions and Motions at = will the Speaker has started the process of reducing the legislature = into a rubber stamping institution. It is the state of affairs such as = this which led the Constitutional Review Commission to remark on the = former House of Representatives as follows: "The House of = Representatives which under normal terms symbolizes the sovereign power = of the people as the highest representative body in the country deralled = from its traditional role as the focal point of good government, natural = justice and social order, to become a helpless caricature, a poor = apology of a democratic institution...and became useful only as a = rubber-stamping machinery."
11. The actions of the Speaker will catalise the present National = Assembly sliding into the same position as it forebearer. Certainly, = the unjustifiable trend as demonstrated, in no uncertain terms, the fate = of democracy in the country.
THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC PARTY SECRETARIAT 16, BUCKLE STREET BANJUL.
15TH. APRIL, 1997
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 01:26:53 -0400 (EDT) From: TOURAY1@aol.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Cc: MauryD221@aol.com Subject: Fwd: Virus Warning!!!! Message-ID: <970424012653_1986787639@emout02.mail.aol.com>
--------------------- Forwarded message: From: hopesv@ccmail.orst.edu (Vanelda Hopes) To: cbbrown@earthlink.net, julieann9@aol.com, touray1@aol.com Date: 97-04-23 19:22:07 EDT
Anyone who receives this must send it to as many people as you can. It is essential that this problem be reconciled as soon as possible. A few hours ago, I opened an E-mail that had the subject heading of "AOL4FREE.COM". Within seconds of opening it, a window appeared and began to display my files that were being deleted. I immediately shut down my computer, but it was too late. This virus wiped me out. It ate the Anti-Virus Software that comes with the Windows '95 Program along with F-Prot AVS. Neither was able to detect it. Please be careful and send this to as many people as possible, so maybe this new virus can be eliminated. > > DON'T OPEN E-MAIL NOTING "AOL4FREE" > > Be aware that there are letters going around that you have won free AOL until 1998....or AOL4free...... PLEASE DELETE...... it contains a virus that will wipe out your harddrive > after you download and it executes. > > SUBJECT AREA OF EMAIL....... CONGRATULATIONS! You are a WINNER! > > SUBJECT AREA OF EMAIL.......AOL 4 Free - Get AOL For Free > > SENDERS................................Matthews27 or VPVVPPVVP > > WARN YOUR FRIENDS > > > > **************************************************************************** Carol A. Wagner Academic Advisor Department of Educational Psychology Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4225 409-845-1833 409-862-1256 (FAX) Frances (Worchel) Prevatt, Ph.D. Department of Educational Psychology Texas A&M University College Station, Texas 77843 (409)845-1898 fax862-1256 FWorchel@tamu.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 13:47:16 GMT+1 From: "Famara A. Sanyang" <famaraas@amadeus.cmi.no> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: POLYGAMMY Message-ID: <22DF5733B92@amadeus.cmi.no> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Ancha,
There have been a very long and interesting discussion about polygamy on Gambia-l, I think it was around the end of February. I will advice you to either refer to Bass who wrote some very interesting pieces on the topic, or get in touch with Abdou Touray or the other subscription managers to get an address of the archives of Gambia-l postings. This also applies to all the other interested parties. Please, don't get me wrong, this is just a suggestion, to avoid a repetition of what have been said already. If the list members think the topic deserves another discussion now, then we should go ahead. Shalom, Famara.
> Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 19:09:09 -0400 (EDT) > Reply-to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu > From: Ancha Bala-Gaye u <bala7500@mach1.wlu.ca> > To: GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> > Subject: POLYGAMMY > X-To: SISSOHO EM <E.M.Sissoho@icsl.ac.uk>
> This is a topic that's been on my mind and I had a question or two > regarding polygammy. > It would seem that the trend at home these days is for men at home to > have two wives or more. I know that Islam allows it but aren't there > conditions under which polygammy is allowed in Islam..........like your > first wife is fatally ill..........or she cannot give you children????? > I'm not exactly sure what the conditions are.....but I believe that > there are conditions. I think a lot of men at home just use the religion > as an excuse to marry more than one wife......... > I really would like the input of everyone of this matter!! hope to hear > from people soon!!! > Ancha. > @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Famara A. Sanyang Chr. Michelsens Institute (CMI) Development Studies and Human Rights Fantoftvegen 38, N-5036 Fantoft, Bergen, Norway. Telephone: 47 55574388 Priv. 47 55289124 Telefax : 47 55574166 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 09:22:53 -0700 (PDT) From: "D. Singhateh" <dawdas@u.washington.edu> To: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: POLYGAMMY Message-ID: <Pine.A41.3.95b.970424083327.10188A-100000@dante07.u.washington.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hello sir Ancha if may, I do not think I share your notion on the trend of polygamy in the Gambia. Needless to say, Islam has been used by some people if not most with that kind of idea, as a scapegoat to fulfill their desire to marry more than one wife. However, as reality starts to sink in and that truth of having more than one wife could no longer be evaded, some people are turning away from what used to be considered a norm (marry many wives, have lots of children and bust your social status). I would love to dwell on my ideas a little bit more but I feel the urge to pen off(brevity is the soul of wit: Shakespeare). Besides, as Mr. Sanyang rightly put, this topic was thoroughly dealt with not long ago. If you have any more questions you may want to refer to the archives. Thank you, though, for your concern and vigilance.
you brother, dawda singhateh
On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, Ancha Bala-Gaye u wrote:
> This is a topic that's been on my mind and I had a question or two > regarding polygammy. > It would seem that the trend at home these days is for men at home to > have two wives or more. I know that Islam allows it but aren't there > conditions under which polygammy is allowed in Islam..........like your > first wife is fatally ill..........or she cannot give you children????? > I'm not exactly sure what the conditions are.....but I believe that > there are conditions. I think a lot of men at home just use the religion > as an excuse to marry more than one wife......... > I really would like the input of everyone of this matter!! hope to hear > from people soon!!! > Ancha. >
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 14:45:15 +0100 From: mbaldeh@zenithtvl.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Guinea Bissau & the CFA... Message-ID: <199704241844.OAA13880@cam-mail-relay1.bbnplanet.com>
The recent devaluation of the CFA franc plunged the economies of the countries in this monetary zone into an abyss. Most people became poor overnight. Prosperous businessmen saw themselves picking up the bread crumbs off their once overfilled dining tables. Smaller businessmen, overtaken by this whirlwind, shed a lot of tears after their sudden fall. Who was behind this mayhem? France. Yes, by a single fell swoop France unilaterally decided to devaluate the CFA franc, thus sending millions of people in its former colonies a begging. The shock was so strong that the ripples were acutely felt in neigbouring countries.
The Gambia, the whipping boy of the Senegalese ultra-right, was castigated for its lax custom control and accused for the nth time of ecouraging fraud into Senegal. At Senegalese border posts, passengers were humiliatingly searched and dispossessed of such items as palm oil bottles, sugar, chinese green tea, etc. bought in The Gambia and mostly intended as gifts in the sense of Senegambian "teranga" (hospitality). Gambians returning from abroad had thousands of dollars seized from them at Yoff Aiport. The Senegalese government in utter contempt of the ECOWAS treaty stalled the Gambian re-export trade by prohibiting any goods from The Gambia through their borders. In certain cases, this heavy-handed counter attack went to the point of ridicule. In 1994, some people from Basse (The Gambia) who had gone over to Wellingara (Senegal) to buy iced water during the month of Ramadan were stopped on their way back and had the water seized by the Senegalese customs officials!
Does the entry of Guinea Bissau into the CFA zone therefore herald better days for its people? The answer in my opinion is no. On a positive note, let's say that the Bissau govt. will have the readily convertible currency it so badly needs for its imports. Its people will no longer need to exchange their currency for their travel needs.
Since the creation of the CFA on 25th December 1945, states within this monetary zone have seen market prices of basic commodities fluctuate due largely to the value of the CFA franc against the French franc. Surprisingly though, for reasons such as protectionism and narrow nationalism, these States have failed to implement policies that would encourage the free movement of people and goods within the zone. This runs counter to the growth of their markets and encourages the flight of capital to foreign countries and financial institutions. It gives more powerful nations such as France the opportunity to dominate these open, unguarded markets and thus apply a firm grip on the political lives of the respective govts. within the zone. Guinea-Bassau is already impoverished by its war of liberation against Portugal. Its wounds have hardly healed. The diplomatic problems caused by the Casamance rebellion on its northern borders is an added strain in its economic relations with its more powerful neighbour, Senegal. With the narrow economic base of Guinea Bissau, imagine the consequences of another crisis within the CFA zone as the EU moves closer into monetary union.
It is my believe that flag-bearing, narrow nationalism does not help African nations in achieving the unity necessary for economic growth. Allow me to digress and say that the current issue of technical assistance from Nigeria, Ghana, and Sierra Leone to The Gambia is a case in point. If such assistance was to be withdrawn to-night based on the premise that only Gambians should occupy those positions, the judiciary, the medical service, the education system will be crippled. It is my opinion that Gambians have been under-educated for decades. Until 1982 the country had only one Sixth Form, which had limited places for a priviledged few. Do we know how many of our brilliant youths are there who, due to insufficent opportunities, dropped out of school and who could have been lawyers, doctors, teachers? The judiciary dept. is so understaffed that young graduates from FBC are made senior magistrates to handle district courts within one year of their graduation. Some may not even have done the Bar.
African governments seem to give more importance to neo-colonialist organizations such as the Commonwealth and the Francophonie than to OAU and ECOWAS. The Anglophone-Francophone rift is so intense that it hampers our efforts to unify our people. Creating large organizations and adopting verbose resolutions just to be collecting fat salaries and per diem constitutes a mockery of Africa's ideals for independence and development. It is time that African regional and sub-regional organizations grow teeth.
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 22:07:30 +0200 From: Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Guinea Bissau & the CFA... Message-ID: <2.2.32.19970424200730.006b9a60@golf.uib.no> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
BALDEH! THANKS FOR YOUR WELL ELABORATED PIECE. AM GLAD YOU CAN GO INTO DETAILS UNLIKE ME DUE TO MY PRESENT WORK LOAD.
you wrote:
.....African governments seem to give more importance to neo-colonialist >organizations such as the Commonwealth and the Francophonie than to OAU and >ECOWAS. The Anglophone-Francophone rift is so intense that it hampers our >efforts to unify our people. Creating large organizations and adopting >verbose resolutions just to be collecting fat salaries and per diem >constitutes a mockery of Africa's ideals for independence and development. > It is time that African regional and sub-regional organizations grow teeth.
I COULDN'T SAY MORE. A CHANGE OF ATTITUDE IS WHAT WE NEED. WHEN I SAY "WE" AM REFERRING TO BOTH OUR GOVERNMENTS AND THE ORDINARY SAMBA, DEMBA AND PATEH.
REGARDS, ::)))Abdou Oujimai
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 17:08:44 -0400 (EDT) From: ABDOU <at137@columbia.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Internet Connectivity for The Gambia Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95L.970424165937.27358A-100000@terve.cc.columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hi folks, The Gambia has lately not had internet connectivty because of problems with its access provider. I have been asked to research ISPs with a public X.25 interface and to also ask the help of the list in the same quest. It would therefore be very helpful if you can ask your ISP whether they have public X.25 interface and can handle multiples of accounts. Preferably , the ISP should not be a very small operation. Please let me know at my PRIVATE email address (abdou@cs.columbia.edu) if you find any such ISP. Thanks and bye for now, -Abdou.
******************************************************************************* A.TOURAY Computer Science Columbia University New York, NY 10027
MY URL ON THE WWW= http://www.cc.columbia.edu/~at137
A FINITE IN A LAND OF INFINITY. SEEKING BUT THE REACHABLE. I WANDER AND I WONDER. ALAS, ALL RESPITE IS FINAL. *******************************************************************************
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 19:10:57 -0400 (EDT) From: ASJanneh@aol.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Greetings to All! Message-ID: <970424190954_1254268388@emout20.mail.aol.com>
Gambia-l:
sincere greetings to all Gambia-lers. I missed many of the interesting exchanges of ideas and information during the past month or so, but I hope to be back on track now. If any one has Pa-Abdou Barrow's e-mail address, please forward it to me so that I can add him again.
Salaam! Amadou Scattred Janneh Knoxville, TN (423) 919-6498 (423) 544-7748
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 10:35:41 JST +900 From: binta@iuj.ac.jp To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Fwd: Politics This Week (April 18th - April 24th 1997) Message-ID: <199704250131.KAA09073@mlsv.iuj.ac.jp> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: MULTIPART/MIXED; BOUNDARY="-1560449-174981250-78688:#1424228352"
---1560449-174981250-78688:#1424228352 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Gambia-l,
Is this of interest to members? Otherwise, I will cease forwarding it to the List on a weekly basis. Individual members interested in subscribing to this may do so free of charge. See the bottom of the forwarded message for the way to subscribe.
Lamin Drammeh. ---1560449-174981250-78688:#1424228352 Content-Type: MESSAGE/RFC822
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******************************************************************** Welcome to Politics This Week (April 18th - April 24th 1997) A summary of the world's main events from The Economist Also available at http://www.economist.com/ ********************************************************************
Contents 1. Politics This Week 2. Information about this newsletter
CHIRAC'S GAMBLE President Chirac called a general election in France, with the two rounds scheduled for May 25th and June 1st. If the current centre-right coalition government wins, France will be better able to press on with economic reform and impose the further austerity needed if it is to join Europe's single currency. If it loses, both plans could fail.
The European Commission predicted that all EU countries bar Italy and Greece would have budget deficits small enough to let them qualify for the single currency in 1999. The IMF, though, said that Germany and France would miss the deficit target, but predicted that monetary union would anyway start on time.
The European Union's farm commissioner, Franz Fischler, said that surplus cereal stocks could rise more than 20-fold by 2005 unless the common agricultural policy is drastically reformed.
The reformist United Democratic Forces won a majority in Bulgaria's parliamentary elections. The party promises to bring in a currency board, privatise most of state industry and stamp on crime.
IRA terrorists brought further havoc to Britain's roads and transport with coded warnings and a bomb in the north that paralysed roads and railways. Days later, London was similarly hit, causing the closure of its main airports, several railway stations and main roads.
Talks between Germany's ruling coalition and the opposition Social Democrats on reforming the tax system broke down. The government wants to cut taxes by DM30 billion ($17.5 billion) but the Social Democrats insist on lowering social-insurance charges to create jobs.
SIEGE ENDS In Peru troops stormed the Japanese ambassador's residence, where left- wing guerrillas had been holding hostages since mid-December. Of 72 hostages, 71 survived; of 14 guerrillas, none. President Alberto Fujimori's popularity soared.
The Whitewater special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, won a six-month extension of the grand jury investigating the business affairs of President Clinton and his wife.
Mr Clinton, on a visit to parts of the upper mid-west devastated by floods, promised $488m in federal assistance. Almost the whole population of Grand Forks, North Dakota, a city of 51,000, had to leave their homes after the Red River rose 26 feet above flood level.
A special summit, chaired by Colin Powell, was due to open in Philadelphia to discuss ways of increasing and improving volunteerism in America. A poll by CNN/USA Today/Gallup showed that 65% of Americans claimed to have done volunteer work in the past year.
The wreckage of the A-10 fighter which went missing on routine air- force manoeuvres three weeks ago was found on a mountainside in Colorado.
BIBI SPARED Israel's top law officers found insufficient admissible evidence to press charges against Israel's prime minister and justice minister. Mr Netanyahu's coalition survived but he came under pressure from his partners to sack the justice minister.
In two nights of slaughter, 135 men, women and children were hacked to death by Islamist terrorists in two villages in Algeria.
The United States growled warnings at Iraq for sending helicopters into the no-fly zone in southern Iraq to pick up pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia. Reports from India allege that the still unknown number of pilgrims who died in last week's fire in Mecca had been shut into their compound.
The UN's new special envoy for Western Sahara, James Baker, went to Morocco on a fact-finding trip to the long-disputed territory. He will also visit nationalist camps across the border in Algeria.
Rebels who control eastern and southern Zaire opened a second front west of the capital Kinshasa. They deny killing hundreds of Rwandan refugees in central Zaire. The UN suspects they are deliberately blocking food supplies to the refugees and is investigating genocide.
SUPERPOWER VETO The Chinese and Russian presidents, Jiang Zemin and Boris Yeltsin, signed a declaration in Moscow opposing the dominance of one superpower in the post-cold-war world. The United States was not named in the declaration. Mr Yeltsin is expected to visit China in November.
The United States banned new investment in Myanmar, said by the State Department to be moving towards large-scale repression.
In India, the Congress party agreed to continue to support the minority United Front government after the Front chose a new prime minister, 77-year-old Inder Kumar Gujral, a former foreign minister, to replace Deve Gowda.
Hwang Jang Yop, the highest-ranking official to defect from North Korea, arrived in South Korea by way of China and the Philippines. He claimed that the North was preparing for war.
Plans for a conference to bring peace to the Korean peninsula stalled when the United States turned down North Korea's demand for food aid and diplomatic recognition as a condition for starting formal negotiations.
Cambodia asked the United States for assistance to control drug trafficking, which was "new, growing and sophisticated".
***** If you find our summaries service useful, please tell your friends. Invite them to subscribe by forwarding this e-mail to them.
************************************************************************* This is a free newsletter published by The Economist newspaper. To find out where best to direct queries to The Economist, send a blank e-mail message to help@economist.com
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---1560449-174981250-78688:#1424228352--
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 21:28:56 -0500 (CDT) From: Paul Jammeh <st2063@student-mail.jsu.edu> To: To: GAMBIA-L:@student-mail.jsu.edu, gambia-l@u.washington.edu, ;, ; Subject: Self Introduction Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.970424210121.4077A-100000@student-mail.jsu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hi Gambians & friends of Gambia,
Though late, please accept my well overdue self introduction as a new member. Exams are kicking my butt as we head towards the end of the semester, and there was really no space to let a cat swing.
Anyway, as a new member, I am most delighted to be part of this network.Special thanks to Dr. Amadou Janneh for helping list me in this effective and most profound Gambian "bantaba". Greetings to all of you from Jacksonville,AL.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Paul Dembo Jammeh, a Gambian, and a 1987 & 1989 st. Augustine's high school graduate.Presently, I am enrolled in Jacksonville State University, in Jacksonville, Alabama (NOT FLORIDA).Being here in this remote southern city is becoming fun. We are nine Gambians, eight of which are attending the same college. We hope to have more Gambian enrollment by the fall. So please come on board, have fun, and enjoy the unquestioned Alabama weather.
Anyway, thanks for the time. Paul
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 10:59:02 GMT0BST From: "BEYAI" <P.L.Beyai@newcastle.ac.uk> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Guinea Bissau & the CFA... Message-ID: <2430FFC6752@TOWN9.ncl.ac.uk>
> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 14:45:15 +0100 > Reply-to: gambia-l@u.washington.edu > From: mbaldeh@zenithtvl.com > To: "GAMBIA-L: The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> > Subject: Guinea Bissau & the CFA...
> The judiciary dept. is so understaffed that young graduates from FBC are > made senior magistrates to handle district courts within one year of their > graduation. Some may not even have done the Bar.
Mr. Baldeh, Thanks for a nice piece on Guinea- Bissau. However, I did not see the link with the appointment of magistrates in the Gambia. Why did you specifically mentioned FBC students and not other law students from Nigeria, Malaysia, Ghana etc. I am sure comments like yours could discourage people who genuinely want take up certain positions back home. If lawyers go private, you blame them for not being patriotic and if they work for their government, you question their qualifications and mode of promotion.
I must admit, I do not know much about the legal profession but could our lawyers tell us whether Bar is a prerequisite for admission into the Bench?
It is a real sacrifice for people to go back home and work for their country. If not for anything else, I think they deserve better than the kind of comment you have made.
Cheers, PLB
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 13:00:15 +0200 From: Abdou Gibba <Abdou.Gibba@smr.uib.no> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Resubscribe OMAR SAHO Message-ID: <2.2.32.19970425110015.0067f1c4@golf.uib.no> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
LIST MANAGERS, OMAR SAHO IS BACK FROM GAMBIA AND HAS IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THE EDUCATION GROUP, COULD YOU PLEASE RESUBSCRIBE HIM INTO THE LIST.
HAVE A NICE WEEKEND U'ALL ::)))Abdou Oujimai
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 08:58:07 -0400 (EDT) From: "Malanding S. Jaiteh" <msjaiteh@mtu.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: RE: Online Services Free (fwd) Message-ID: <199704251258.IAA22196@oak.ffr.mtu.edu> Content-Type: text
Forwarded message: > From john@4pt0.com Thu Apr 24 20:03:37 1997 > X-Authentication-Warning: mtu.edu: Host [206.43.151.2] claimed to be cal.calcom.com > Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 17:01:19 -0700 > Message-Id: <199704250001.RAA02316@cal.calcom.com> > From: "4.0 Resumes and Job Listings"<john@4pt0.com> > To: <msjaiteh@mtu.edu> > Subject: RE: Online Services Free > > > [My apologies if you received more than one copy of this > email. Our mail server has been acting up. We didn't want > to miss you because of a technical problem.] > ________________________________________ > > > Hello, > > Please allow me a moment of your time to ask if you or > anyone you know is looking for a full-time, part-time, > summer, internship, or co-op job? If so, a new web site > dedicated solely to college students is available to search > for college student employment positions COMPLETELY > FREE. > > http://www.4pt0.com > (think of 4pt0 as 4.0 -- straight A's) > > Even better, you can make it easy on yourself by > submitting your resume so companies can come looking > for YOU. You may cut-N-paste your resume into the > database (text or HTML format) or use our online form > with detailed help on how to write a professional resume. > > We are contacting a select number of individuals on > campuses across America. You can be one of the first to > submit your resume and search our NEW and GROWING > database of job listings. We are BRAND NEW and all > services are COMPLETELY FREE for both you AND > companies. We make NO money from this web site. > > It is our goal to make this web site very simple to use for > both you and employers. Please check out our web site > and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me at > john@4pt0.com > > Thanks for your time and I hope we can be of service to > you. > > Sincerely, > John Anthony, President > 4.0 Resumes and Job Listings > > P.S. Please feel free to forward this message to others > that may be able to take advantage of our services. >
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 09:02:39 -0700 (PDT) From: "A. Loum" <tloum@u.washington.edu> To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Forwarded posting of Omar Saho Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.95.970425084905.27812C-100000@saul2.u.washington.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hi Everyone, this is from Omar Saho. Thanks Tony
---------- Forwarded message ----------
To: <Gambia-l@u.washington.edu> From: Olafiaklinikken Olafia <olafia@online.no> Subject: REPORT FROM GAMBIA COLLEGE
Hello folks
Iam back from the Gambia I did visited the Gambia College but neither the Principal, V.Principal, Registra or D. Registra were available.I did get a meetings with the Heads of the different departments like Education, Agriculture, Publiv Health and so on. Though Ahdrea=B4s friend couldn=B4t= take along all the materials he wanted to send. The samples she brought along was highly appreciated as gifts not samples. Especially the diskettes which were badly needed, they were put into use in my presence to show how badly it was needed. The diskettes were a real good start. Thanks alot Andrea for your concern towards our motherland.
Concerning needed books the Heads of the various departments agreed upon that this have to be discuss and work our between the students and libarians. They believe that it will be more appropiate that the students and the libarians set up the list of needed books.
We were thinking of donating books and other school materials, but the situation is not as easy as we thought over here. Chairs are very limited if not scared. Students have to be running nuts to find chairs for attending lectures, this i have witnessed. These are the materils i informed that are needed seriously and fasT: PENS, PENCILS, MARKERS, CHALK(assorted), FILES, ERASERS, PUNCHING & STAPLING MACHINES, DUPLIVCATING & PHOTOCOPYING PAPERS, SHARPENERS, MANILA CARDSORION PAPERS, DISKETTES (3.5,1.44mb), CELLOTAPES, RIBBONS (for Espon LQ510ESC), DUSTERS,PHOTOCOPIERS, OVERHEAD & SLIDE PROJECTORS, TELEVISION AND VIDEO, COMPUTER & PRINTERS, COMPUTER TABLES, CLASSROOM CHAIRS, STEREO SETT WITH TURNTABLE, INTERCOM SYSTEM. Concerning an Auditorium that belongs to the plans or future as informed and there is whatsoever no hints or plans to get one for the College.
The Home Economics deparment seriously needed COOKERS, KETTLES AND COOKING UTENSILS.
It was not easy to make appoinments with the college. There is only one telephone line which is in the secretary=B4s office, if one calls to Dr. bojang he has to be fetch. The heads of departments has no telephones in their offices. The telephone at the secretary=B4s office is just a simple telephone handsett. The College need a switchboard and other handsetts. I will be donating a switchboard with 22 channels or 10 handsetts and the the college produce their own switchboard.This will make communication easier. Any questions or comments are welcome.
with kind regards=20
Omar S. Saho
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 12:18:52 -0400 From: "William O'Donnell" <billod@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Film Festival Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.3.95.970425121622.14767A-100000@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Greetings, Does anyone know when the next Pan-African Film Festival in Burkina Faso is? If you do, any information on getting tickets or passes? Cheers, -bill
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \ William O'Donnell / / Dept. of History \ \ The Johns Hopkins University / / 3400 N. Charles St. \ \ Baltimore, MD 21218 / / http://jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu/~billod \ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 09:38:04 -0700 From: sarian@osmosys.incog.com (Sarian Loum) To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Message-ID: <199704251638.JAA15499@thesky.incog.com>
All,
Omar Saho is added back on line.
Sarian
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 13:04:32 -0400 (EDT) From: ASJanneh@aol.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Jammeh Visits Dakar Message-ID: <970425130415_1121062615@emout10.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="PART.BOUNDARY.0.28394.emout10.mail.aol.com.861987855"
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<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Senegal-Gambia </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgcolor=3Dffffff> <META name=3D"DATE" content=3D"19970425"> <META name=3D"SUBJECT" content=3D"Senegal-Gambia "> <CENTER><img src=3D"http://www.africanews.org/PANA/images/panabar.gif"></= CENTER>
<HR SIZE=3D5 WIDTH=3D75%> <CENTER><a href=3D"/cgi-bin/redir?SpaceID=3D85&AdID=3D391&URL=3Dhttp://ww= w.newspage.com/NEWSPAGE/itsplash.html" target=3D"_top"><img src=3D"/nt/ad= s/banners/greencli.gif" border=3D1 width=3D468 height=3D60 alt=3D"Click h= ere for customized business news--FREE!"><br><font size=3D-2>Click Here</= font></a> </CENTER>
<HR SIZE=3D5 WIDTH=3D75%> <H2> <!--plsfield:HEADLINE--> Diouf, Jammeh Sign Accords On Free Movement =
<!--plsfield:TODAY--> </H2>
<P> <B>Apr. 25, 1997</B><BR> <P> <I> <!--plsfield:BYLINE--> Moses Draku PANA Correspondent =
</I> <P> <!--plsfield:TEXT--> <p> DAKAR, Senegal (PANA) - Senegal and the Gambia Thursday in =
Dakar signed several accords on the free movement of people and =
goods across their common borders. <p> The agreements were signed at the= end of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's working visit to the senegalese capital which lasted a few hours. <p> The accords approved mechanisms geared to facili= tate =
transactions and the movement of goods and services. <p> Host president = Abdou Diouf and Jammeh also agreed to harmonize road tariffs paid by Gambian and Senegalese haulers.<p> The measure is ex= pected to impact positively on inter-state =
tourism and trade. <p>Officials in Dakar said Gambian and Senegalese exp= erts would =
meet to consolidate the agreements. <p> On security at their common bord= er, periodical meetings will =
be held at ministerial level, in conformity with the one of the =
conventions signed by the two parties on Thursday. <p> The two countries= also decided to pool resources in tackling =
any outbreak of epidemics. <p> Jammeh told newsmen before his departure = Thursday afternoon =
that he was satisfied with the state of cooperation between the =
two neighbours. <p> He said lingering problems on the movement of goods = and =
services between the two countries had been resolved. =
<CENTER> <P> <HR SIZE=3D5 WIDTH=3D75%><P> Copyright © 1997 The Panaf= rican News Agency. All Rights Reserved. </CENTER><p> <H5> <CENTER> Material may not be redistributed, posted to any other location, published or used for broadcast without written authorization from the Panafrican News Agency. B.P. 4056, Dakar, Senegal. <BR>Tel: (221) 24-13-95 | Fax: (221) 24-13-90 | E-mail: quoiset@sonatel.senet.net </H5>
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 18:24:06 +0000 From: "M'BAI OF" <O.F.M'Bai@icsl.ac.uk> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Guinea Bissau & the CFA... Message-ID: <199704251722.SAA24596@netmail.city.ac.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Hello Mr. Beyai , with regards to your question as to whether the Bar is a prerequisite for admission into the Bench, the answer to that according to the English Legal system , is YES. To be appointed as a Bencher in England and Wales , a person has firstly to qualify as a Barrister and secondly has being practicing for atleast 15 years, before being recommended to the Lord Chancellor for appointment as a judge or a magistrate.
thank you M'bai Omar F.
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 17:34:26 +0100 From: mbaldeh@zenithtvl.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Guinea Bissau & the CFA (Response to Mr. Message-ID: <199704252133.RAA28642@cam-mail-relay1.bbnplanet.com>
Mr. Beyai, thank you for your comment on the Guinea Bissau issue.
As regards your question on the link between this issue and the appointment of magistrates in The Gambia, I first asked my readers to "allow me to digress" from the discussion on Guinea Bissau in order to give an example of how narrow nationalist sentiments do not encourage economic growth in Africa and that calling for the withdrawal of technical assistance when The Gambia cannot afford at this time to do without it constitute such sentiments.
While I do not hold anything against FBC graduates, I was just supporting the point made by Hadijatou on the staffing situation within the judiciary. I did not at any moment say that one has to do the Bar to be called to the Bench. In any case, I thank Mr. Mbai for providing you with a lucid response. What I said was that young graduates in law (regardless of the institution they came from) are appointed to positions where expertise is needed. I consider it more prudent to allow a person who is familiar with the routines of a court of law to preside over a case where an individual's liberty is at stake. Having a mere degree in law straight from college without any preparation though the Bar cannot give a person such expertise. I stand to be corrected by the lawyers. I respect the magistrates for the tough working conditions and poor salaries that they have to put up with, but that does not annihilate the legal requirement to appoint magistrates to positions that they are qualified for and not for their patriotic sentiments.
I am looking forward to the day when there will be so many law graduates in The Gambia that we would not need to supplement our shortages from outside. I am looking forward to the day when a patient would not die in a Gambian health center because of the shortage of qualified doctors. I am also looking forward to the day when I would not need to hire the services of a qualified teacher to help my children catch up in school because I cannot afford an expensive institution with better academic staff.
You said I complained when people choose to be private practitioners and complained again when they make sacrifices to serve the State as magistrates. Unless you are using the second person plural, I have never made such a complaint, if my memory serves me right. Be assured that I believe in free enterprise and I respect other peoples right to choose and I would not give or take an iota of such a right.
I do not think that stating that the judiciary dept. is understaffed or that law graduates without sufficient expertise should not be given the responsiblities to head judicial institutions would discourage others to go home and serve the nation. I would ask you to go through G-L's archived mail and read my position on homecoming. It is only a person who has no intention to go home that would use my above statement to say "uhuh, Mr, Baldeh has said that people without sufficient expertise in a certain function should not be given the responsiblity to occupy such functions, so I am not going back", simplistic as this may sound. In my article on dual nationality I said, and I repeat, that the govt. of The Gambia should initiate certain provisions in the national law in order to encourage people to "return to what is rightly their cradle, although I would not take it (the lack of such legal provisions) as an excuse for turning my back away (from my motherland)."
Thanks for inviting the clarifications.
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 18:27:47 -0700 (PDT) From: "D. Singhateh" <dawdas@u.washington.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Message-ID: <Pine.A41.3.95b.970425182023.44126A-100000@dante13.u.washington.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hello guys, here is little something ( a breather as I refer to it ) that some of you may find very interesting. It is intended to give you a break, you so deserve, from what ever is racking your brain. I hope you find it amusing.
Subject: Fwd: Top 10 reasons computers must be male / female (fwd) Top 10 reasons computers must be male: 10. They have a lot of data but are still clueless. 9. A better model is always just around the corner. 8. They look nice and shiny until you bring them home. 7. It is always necessary to have a backup. 6. They'll do whatever you say if you push the right buttons. 5. The best part of having either one is the games you can play. 4. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on. 3. They are logical but without emotions. 2. Big power surges knock them out for the night. 1. Size does matter. Top 10 reasons compilers must be female: 10.
Picky, picky, picky. 9. They hear what you say, but not what you mean. 8. Beauty is only shell deep. 7. When you ask what's wrong, they say "nothing". 6. Can produce incorrect results with alarming speed. 5. Always turning simple statements into big productions. 4. Small-talk is important.. 3. You do the same thing for years, and suddenly it's wrong. 2. They make you take the garbage out. 1. Miss a period and they go wild.
You all have fun and enjoy life, after all at the end of the day, its not how many toys you have but how much fun you have.
Thanx for your time. Dawda M. L. Singhateh
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Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 09:34:57 +0800 (SGT) From: Senessie Turay <9210077@talabah.iiu.my> To: gambia-l <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Subject: Mali wins payback fro Switzerland (fwd) Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.970426093445.18971B-100000@talabah.iiu.my> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 19:22:06 +0200 From: Yusuf Bangura <Bangura@UNRISD.ORG> To: LEONENET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: Mali wins payback fro Switzerland
Mali wins payback from Switzerland in embezzlement procedures
by Sylvia Passelaigue-Merle
LAUSANNE, Switzerland, April 25 (AFP) - In a historic move that could spell trouble for greedy dictators, Swiss banks have been ordered to pay back 3.2 million Swiss francs (2.3 million dollars) to Mali by a federal court, a federal police bureau spokesman said Friday. "Funds of 3.2 million Swiss francs will be given to Mali under the terms of procedures started in 1991," spokesman Folco Galli said, adding that "we have still not been notified" of the March federal court judgement. "Mali has done what no other country has done until now: it has introduced penal procedures against the perpetrators of embezzlement and (the country's) former leaders," said Genevese lawyer Guy Fontanet, stressing that Mali had set an example. For the first time, Switzerland will return money seized by a former leader of a third world country, and put it into an account opened by the Malian National Bank. In 1991, non-governmental organization Swiss Development Aid started legal proceedings against former Malian dictator Moussa Traore, who was overthrown in a 1991 military coup, and the former director of Mali's national tobacco and matches company, who are suspected of banking ill-gotten funds in Switzerland. A number of other cases were also brought against Malian managers in France, Monaco, the United States and Canada on charges of illegal enrichment, embezzlement of public assets and corruption. In 1991, the sums in Switzerland were estimated at more than one billion Swiss francs. Bamako asked Bern for international assistance in investigating the charges after Traore's fall from power. However, given the amount of time that has elapsed, Swiss bank accounts owned by the suspected fraudsters could have been partly emptied, Swiss Development Aid lawyers said. Switzerland has been accused by a variety of parties around the world of concealing facts, under judicial pretexts, about controversial funds said to belong to dictators ranging from deceased Filipinian Ferdinand Marcos to Zaire's still living Mobutu Sese Seko. Bern a week ago refused to freeze Mobutu's assets, which are estimated at four billion Swiss francs. Alain Tripod, another lawyer hired by Swiss Development Aid, stressed that the Malian authorities had obtained legal condemnation of Boubacar Dembele, former director of Sonatam (Mali national cigarette and match company), suspected of corruption. In the case of the Marcos funds, the Philippine courts have made no judgement condemning the family of the former president, thus failing to meet conditions for freeing some 500 million dollars frozen in Swiss banks accounts. Switzerland demands that suspected embezzlers first be definitively condemned in their own countries before any restitution procedures can be considered. The Swiss Parliament has written such a provision into a new law on international judicial cooperation in penal cases which came into effect in February. Formerly, Switzerland did not require an explicit judgement to return funds. According to the federal police office, ten countries have requested Swiss judicial help regarding looting of funds by former chiefs of state or their relatives. Opinion is split on how effective Bern's stiffer judicial legislative weapon will be. While the freezing of Marcos' assets might have dissuaded some dictators from stashing their fortunes in Swiss banks, other stolen treasure chests may not necessarily leave but could be channeled into other tax- evading niches.
spm/tjf AFP AFP
AFPviaNewsEDGE
KEYWORDS: Swiss-Mali-banks Copyright (c) 1997 Agence France-Presse Received by NewsEDGE/LAN: 25/04/97 17:33
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Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 10:51:30 +2000 From: mmjeng@image.dk To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Diouf And Jammeh On Free Movement Message-ID: <199704260851.JAA14017@ns.image.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable
Diouf, Jammeh Sign Accords On Free Movement
Apr. 25, 1997
Moses Draku PANA Correspondent
DAKAR, Senegal (PANA) - Senegal and the Gambia Thursday in Dakar signed several accords on the free movement of people and goods across their common borders.
The agreements were signed at the end of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's working visit to the senegalese capital which lasted a few hours.
The accords approved mechanisms geared to facilitate transactions and the movement of goods and services.
Host president Abdou Diouf and Jammeh also agreed to harmonize road tariffs paid by Gambian and Senegalese haulers.
The measure is expected to impact positively on inter-state tourism and trade.
Officials in Dakar said Gambian and Senegalese experts would meet to consolidate the agreements.
On security at their common border, periodical meetings will be held at ministerial level, in conformity with the one of the conventions signed by the two parties on Thursday.
The two countries also decided to pool resources in tackling any outbreak of epidemics.
Jammeh told newsmen before his departure Thursday afternoon that he was satisfied with the state of cooperation between the two neighbours.
He said lingering problems on the movement of goods and services between the two countries had been resolved.
Greetings. Matarr M. Jeng.
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Copyright =A9 1997 The Panafrican News Agency. All Rights Reserved.
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Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 15:09:59 +0200 From: "Bahary Dukuray" <bdukuray@login.eunet.no> To: "GAMBIA" <gambia-l@u.washington.edu> Message-ID: <199704261306.PAA11147@login.eunet.no> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hello guys. Please can someone send to me Bala SK. Saho E-Mail Adress. I want ask him about The Road to my village.
MY. E-Mail: bdukuraylogin.eunet.no
B.Dukuray
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Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 13:29:54 -0400 (EDT) From: ABALM@aol.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: New Member Message-ID: <970426132953_-499131887@emout09.mail.aol.com>
Hello everybody !
I would like to subscribe a new member, his name is Saihou Drammeh and his e-mail address is Sdramm@nsccx.sccd.ctc.edu.
thanks Abba
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Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 20:27:40 +0200 From: momodou.camara@post3.tele.dk (Camara, Momodou) To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: New member Message-ID: <19970426193151.AAA10252@LOCALNAME>
Gambia-l, Saihou Drammeh has been added to the list. Welcome to the Gambia-l Saihou, please send an introduction of yourself to gambia-l@u.washington.edu
Regards Momodou Camara
******************************************************* http://home3.inet.tele.dk/mcamara
**"Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible"***
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Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 21:45:43 +0300 From: BASS KOLLEH DRAMMEH <KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: New Member Message-ID: <318119D7.4917@QATAR.NET.QA> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
ABALM@aol.com wrote: > > Hello everybody ! > > I would like to subscribe a new member, his name is Saihou Drammeh and his > e-mail address is Sdramm@nsccx.sccd.ctc.edu. > > thanks > Abba
ABBA!! COULD YOU KINDLY CHECK OUT FOR ME IF THIS SAIHOU DRAMMEH IS MY YOUNGER BROTHER OR SOMEBODY ELSE.IF IT IS HIM,PLEASE BE KIND ENOUGH TO GIVE HIM MY FOLLOWING EMAIL:(KOLLS567@QATAR.NET.QA)
AND THANKS VERY MUCH IN ADVANCE .......
REGARDS BASSSSSS!! -- SZDDˆð'3Af¨
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Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 18:01:59 -0400 (EDT) From: ABDOU <at137@columbia.edu> To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: New Member (Forwarding) Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95L.970426180125.7500B-100000@ciao.cc.columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
From: Darkstar <darkstar@is.com.na> Reply-To: darkstar@is.com.na X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: subscribe to gambia-l Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hello: I would like to subscribe to Gambia-l. I now live in Namibia but before Namibia I lived in The Gambia for three years. I have many friends there and want to keep in touch with whats going on in The Gambia. Also, a Gambian is a memeber of our family - she lives here and takes care of my son. She needs to keep track of whats going on also. Please let me know if this is OK...... Thanks, Gary R. Cohen email: darkstar@is.com.na
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Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 21:50:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunjur@aol.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: POLYGAMMY Message-ID: <970426215011_-31474551@emout14.mail.aol.com>
Ancha, The issue of polygamy in Islam is an interesting one. In the Qu'ran, it is stated that a man can marry more than one wife provided that he can treat them exactly the same in every way.That leads to the question as to whether this is actually possible. Can a man, or anyone for that matter, love and treat two people exactly the same? Also, women in the society who have lost their husbands are supposed to be taken care of by the men , even to the extent of marrying them. It says in the Qu'ran that they can marry up to four women. Of course, like almost anything else, some people take advantage of this, marrying far more wives than they can afford to take care of, not to mention the additional children as well. At least in the Gambia, this results in intensifying the poverty that many people are already subject to. However, the Qu'ran is very explicit about being good to ones wife in every way, including feeding and clothing them well and treating them as your partner in the marriage relationship. Given the limited resources of many of the men in Gambia e.g, and the emotional distress that having many wives brings for the women in these relationships, l do not think they are interpreting this directive in the way it was meant. The conditions laid down for it cannot be fulfilled by many who engage in polygamy.Perhaps in this, is a lesson from Allah.
Jabou
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Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 21:52:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunjur@aol.com To: gambia-l@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: POLYGAMMY Message-ID: <970426215237_-266332149@emout07.mail.aol.com>
Ancha, That reply is from me, Jabou. I accidentally pusheda button and it got sent before l could sign it. Jabou.
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