Editor,

Please allow me space to express my concern about the unpleasant activities happening around the Youth Monument, at the Westfield Junction, Serrekunda.

I have been vigilant and observant for quite sometime now. And I feel that as good citizens, everybody has a role to play in the interest and welfare of the entire people of the nation.

The Youth Monument, I suppose, is precisely meant for rejoicing and other pleasant activities. However, this has been changed from positive to negative, since some individuals have been using the place to peddle drugs, while others indulge in prostitution and every other odd practices. These evil practices are allien to this great nation of ours. We must not allow or entertain the trend to continue. The Gambian is known to be a nation of decency.

I am calling on the police to be vigilant and end such practices. I hope that my concern will be well noted.

Abdou Colley
Pipe Line

Hon Fabakary Tombong Jatta, National Assembly Member for Serrekunda East and Majority leader of the National Assembly, has spoken of the need for African citizens to practice noble values that promote peace on the continent.

He said since the pre-colonial era, the continent has been known for practicing noble values that generated peace within its settlements adding that these practices must be brought back as it has been polluted due to factors relating to acculturation and bad behaviour.

The majority leader made these remarks during a debate on peace and security in Africa at the ninth Ordinary session of the Pan- African Parliament currently ongoing in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Addressing about 225 parliamentarians, Tombong Jatta highlighted bad human behaviour as one of the causes of suffering, injustice, crimes and other crises in Africa.

He said, “there is need for all Africans to live in harmony and unite but any time concerted efforts are used to resolve crises in a conflict zone new cases emerge”.

Hon Tombong Jatta described the cases of Sierra Leone and Liberia as successfully resolved and called on Africans to exercise peace and democracy.

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Ninth PAP Ordinary Session Underway in Johannesburg

The 9th ordinary session of the Pan- African Parliament kicked off on Monday in South Africa.

The session, which attracted about 225 parliamentarians across the African continent, will mark the beginning of the 5th year of existence of the Pan African Parliament.

 In her opening address, the president of the Pan African Parliament, Dr Gertrude Mangella, a Tanzanian, said since the last session a number of activities and missions have been carried out by the members of the bureau, parliamentarians and Staff members of the Bureau, this includes election observer missions in Kenya and Zimbabwe.

She said the election observer mission reports will be tabled for the first time for debate during the sitting. Dr Mangella added that PAP budget for 2008 amounts to 12.7 million dollars.

She highlighted that after operating for five years, between now and 2009, PAP must carry out an assessment of Article 25 of the protocol, make recommendations to the process of reviewing the protocol. The protocol made provisions that after five years of existence, the Pan African Parliament will be transform in to a legislative body.

The two-week session will dilate on the peace and security in Africa, reports on election observer missions to Kenya and Zimbabwe, food crises in Africa and reports of the Audit of the organs of the AU by a panel of eminent persons from PAP.

Reports of the permanent committees and celebration of the Ethiopian millennium will also be treated as part of the agenda.

The Pan African Parliament is its at it transformative stage from an advisory and consultative organ into a fully fledged legislative organ of the AU.

The biannual event also witnessed the swearing in of 30 new members from national parliaments.

 In another development, the Cameroonian committee in South Africa is calling for a total rejection of the amendment of the Cameroon constitution. This allows President Paul Biya to continue as president for life after being in power for 45 years.

They made this call during a peaceful demonstration held outside the gate of the Pan African Parliament Conference Hall Monday morning.

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African’s Conflicts could be Lessened- Hon El Hadj Diao Kante

Hon El Hadj Diao Kante, Chairman of the Committee on cooperation, International Peace and resolutions has said that respecting the principles of good governance, resolutions and agreements by governments of Africa will lessen African conflicts.

“African governments should operate in a democratic manner in order to achieve the objectives of the AU and the eradication of conflicts in our territory”, he pointed out.

He made these remarks during a press briefing as part of the second sitting of the ninth ordinary session of the Pan African Parliament.

Addressing Journalists, Mr. Kanteh highlighted the fact that Ethiopia is a major threat to peace in Somalia.

He said the African Union is facing problems to cover 8,000 troops in Somalia. Instead they are able to gather only 2,000 troops who are currently on a peace mission in Somalia. He added that in fact the Union is currently faced with financial problems to sustain these troops.

Commenting on the major crises in Africa, he said conflicts, nutrition and human rights are other emerging problems on the continent.

The Guinean Parliamentarian was quick to add that among the crises in Africa, Cote d’Ivoire is the most favorable situation and is in a position to organise elections.

He said a draft resolution, including the list of the major causes of conflict in Africa, is already being prepared by his committee and the recommendations will be sent by PAP to the next summit of heads of states.

He called on every one to be on board in trying to resolve Africa’s crises.

 Hon. Conteh added that, “PAP is a consultative organ but when the transformation into a legislative body has been done, it can pass laws which will be applicable by member states.

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Major Concerns Raised by Parliamentarians on Crises in Africa

Parliamentarians at the 9th ordinary session of the Pan African Parliament have raised major concerns relating to the issues affecting peace and prosperity in Africa.

One of the Parliamentarians who talked tough on Africans crises was Hon. Eugene Kpakka from Liberia. In his remarks he said Africa has lost the key to peace and prosperity. And in order to solve the crises faced by the continent, it required African’s intervention.

He said, “African problems require African solutions. And taking Africa’s problems to different areas for resolution will yield nothing”. He noted that the solution to Africa’s problems is in Africa and that the Pan African Parliament should take note of that in finding solutions to Africa’s crises.

He said one of the leading problems faced by Africa is power struggles. He said African leader’s failure to hand over power at the end of the term is a major problem. He called on the need for African leaders to come forward and work for the best interest of the Africa

Honourable Mary Mugyengy of Uganda, in her deliberation, said conflict eradication should be the number one agenda of the Pan- African Parliament and this could be done by clearly stipulating guided rules for member states by the Pan – African Parliament.

Also speaking was Ethiopia ’s Hon Anab Abdulkadir. He said Somalia has been bleeding for 19 years and is yet to find a solution to their crises. He said it is the responsibility of the Arab league and other organisations to save Somalia.

“Africa has no shortage of resources to solve the crises in Africa. I am urging the Pan African Parliament to include Somalia ’s case as part of their agenda”’ he said.

Other members who spoke included Honorable Farah Ismale Hussein, Honorable Edward Ndawula Kaweesi and Angelo Beda.

As part of their contribution to education, the Trust Bank Gambia ltd. last Thursday awarded the certificates and D5,000 to ten outstanding students each from the various junior schools in the greater Banjul area. The event was held at the Corinthia Atlantic Hotel in Banjul.

The trust contribution to the education sector was boosted last year following the launch of a new package for school going children.

In his welcoming remarks, Mr. Dodou Nyang, Manager of Marketing and Sales at the Trust Bank, asserted that his bank is really proud of the outstanding students who made the excellent performance in their Gambia Basic Education Certificate Examination class of 2007. He said the President is very concerned with the issue of good education and health and the Trust Bank is among the stakeholders to strengthen the areas.

 Mr. Nyang pointed out that Trust Bank is a special bank which intends to do business with people from all walks of life. He said the awardees should maintain their standards by continuing to show good performances in the various exams. He added that this is really proud time for their parents. “We, the Trust Bank, are passionately committed to the promotion of quality education as a prerequisite to national development.

Mr. Nyang therefore urged the awardees to keep the Trust bank flag flying higher and higher.

In delivering his keynote address Mr. Oreme Joiner, General Manager of Banking Operation, said that the occasion marked another important day in the history of the bank, as the Excellence in the Millennium Awards recognises students for their record performances in exams.

 He said his bank also wants to recognise the invaluable role played by the principal and teachers, as well as the parents and the guardians, for providing the much-needed support to these students. He said his bank’s commitment to the partnership with government under the leadership of the president to fulfill their role in supporting the government in the health, education and sports sectors. He added that Trust Bank continues to make their annual donations to the schools at speech and prize giving days and university of The Gambia convocation ceremonies. 

He therefore congratulated hardworking students, teachers and parents for these awards and hoped that it will give an added impetus to them in their pursuit of academic excellence.

In her opening remarks the Secretary of State for Basic and Secondary Education, Honourable Fatou Lamin Faye, said the prestigious event has become a calendar event. Secy. Faye asserted human rights based development and demographic trends, the recognition of the key role of education is growing in countries around the world, with The Gambia being no exception.

She pointed out that educational outcomes also extend beyond individuals and national income. She said Education is a force that develops well-rounded and engaged citizens, and builds more cohesive and participatory societies. She said higher rates of basic education completion and recognition of the positive gains to be realised  from progressing to and completing secondary and tertiary-level  programs are important.

The occasion was graced by staff of Trust Bank, parents, guardians, teachers and principals.

The awardees are Yasin Nyang SOS Junior Secondary school, Mam Tutu Panneh  S D A Junior Secondary School, Momodou Musa Bah Gambia Methodist Academy, Ebrima Njie Gambia Methodist Academy, Deborah Akigbogon Gambia Methodist Academy , Njowene Gray Joshson Gambia Methodist Academy,  Mary Ellen Mendy Ndow Junior Secondary School and Ahmad Savage Gambia Methodist Academy.  

A crackdown by police against Senegalese citizens who gathered in the capital Dakar on 30 March to protest the high cost of living was “brutal”, say human rights groups.

"The interior ministry or at least the police force believe that maintaining order means stepping up repression," Leonard Vincent, Africa director of the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders, told IRIN.

Police used tear gas and batons to disperse a demonstration organised by the national consumers' union to protest recent hikes in the prices of rice, oil and soap.

Authorities in Dakar said the demonstration had not been authorised. At least 24 people were arrested and many are still being detained, according to the Agence France Press.

The Dakar-based African human rights coalition RADDHO (Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme) said in a statement on 30 March that it firmly condemns "unspeakable" acts by security forces which "violate" people's rights.

It likened alleged beatings with electric prods to "torture" and called for an investigation into "all acts of violence and poor treatment suffered by demonstrators".

Those police responsible should be arrested and punished, according to the RADDO statement.

Security forces also allegedly brutalised journalists and confiscated cameramen’s video. "Erasing pictures of clashes and preventing them from being shown on TV is not an effective way of keeping order," Reporters Without Borders said in a 31 March statement.

People across West Africa, and elsewhere in the world, have taken to the streets to protest price hikes in fuel, staple foods and other basic necessities.[LINK]

Opposition political leader Abdoulaye Bathily recently told reporters that rising poverty and a disregard for human rights has made Senegal "a bomb that could explode at any moment."

The government spokesman Bacar Dia said shortly before the riots that the high cost of living was a global phenomenon and accused opposition political parties of urging youths to break the law by taking to the streets in an illegal march.

Dia could not be reached for comment on the latest charges of brutality by the police.

It is good that President Jammeh has raised the issue of discipline in our schools. We hope that his point that discipline would henceforth be “the determining factor for sponsorship” would help bring about discipline in many of our schools.

We do not support teachers who adopt the sledgehammer approach in dealing with erring students. But then again, we do not support students who take pleasure in infuriating their teachers by knowingly doing the wrong thing all the time. It looks as if students now see their teachers as the butt of all sorts of jokes, with some even going so far as to molest them, sometimes physically. If our students cannot respect their teachers, there is little guarantee that they will grow up to be law-abiding citizens.

It seems to be getting worse nowadays with all the rights students apparently now enjoy. When they fail to do their assignments, they have the right not to be questioned by a teacher. When they fail to tuck in their shirts, they have the right not to be reprimanded by a teacher. When they perpetually come late to school, they have the right not to be questioned by a teacher. When they cheat in examinations they have the right not to be questioned by a teacher.

When we condone all sorts of nonsense from our students in the name of this right or that right, we run the risk of having an undisciplined workforce in the future. Right from their formative years, we have to instill in them the value of hard work and respect for authority without being servile. We have to have them tell apart the values that lead to true success and those which lead to damnation. We have to teach them that not doing their assignments on time is a bad habit that they must break if they want to make any headway in life.

To foster discipline in our schools, we suggest that each school should draw up a code of conduct that should be given to every student on admission. And the penalty for breaking any of the laws of the school should be spelt out in the code. Besides, a school administration should ensure that “discipline is maintained to the letter in schools under their control”. In this way, it is the school that will be setting the tone of discipline in the school, and not students. This does not mean that students cannot make suggestions to the effective administration of a school through a constituted student representative council.The point is that there should be well-laid out rules and regulations for students to abide by.

We want discipline to prevail in our schools.

While Zimbabwe’s opposition on Sunday claimed a landslide victory, no official results from the 29 March polls have been released by the electoral commission, cranking up the tension surrounding the vote count.

Christian Alliance, a grouping of pro-democracy church organisations, said the “deep silence” from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) was causing undue alarm.

“To avoid any further distress, and in order to calm all the citizens, we urgently appeal to ZEC and other relevant authorities to immediately release all results that are now available. Any further delay could lead to unpredictable and undesirable behaviour by the citizens as they continue to rely on unofficial results,” Bishop Levy Kadenge, the Christian Alliance convenor, told IRIN.

Those unofficial results put the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai well ahead in urban areas - as was expected. But the party has also reportedly done remarkably well in the countryside, the traditional stronghold of President Robert Mugabe. Several cabinet ministers and leading members of the ruling ZANU-PF party may have lost their seats, which set off celebrations in the capital, Harare.

"We are not in any doubt. We are heading for a landslide victory, we have won many seats … throughout the country,” a senior MDC official commented.

The MDC’s count was based on the results posted outside each voting centre on Sunday morning. But they are yet to be endorsed by the ZEC, which wants to scrutinise the returns from each constituency at its “Command Centre”, set up at the Harare Conference Centre. “I’m as anxious as you are to know the outcome of the election,” ZEC chairman George Chiweshe told journalists.

The opposition alleges that the delay in releasing the results is evidence that electoral fraud is underway. "They have the figures, everyone saw the figures. They were shocked into immobility by what they saw. They are now trying to cook the figures,” claimed a political analyst, who asked not to be named.

ZEC, whose chair and six members are appointed by Mugabe, has been widely criticized by the opposition and civil society for alleged partiality and lack of capacity to run the three elections – local, parliamentary and presidencial - held on Saturday. Former freedom fighter Mugabe, 84, has led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.

Free and fair
ZEC chief elections officer, Lovemore Sekeramayi, went on national television and radio to warn the opposition against releasing voting figures. “Those results are not official. The official results will be announced to the nation by the commission and we urge the nation to bear with us while we complete the process of collation and verification."

Meanwhile, the head of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) observer mission, Jose Marcos Barrica, said despite concerns over media bias and pro-Mugabe remarks by the military top brass, the elections were a “credible expression of the will of the people”.

Voting on Saturday was peaceful with thousands of voters camping outside polling stations from 4 a.m – three hours before doors opened. Tendai McNab had come equipped with a folding chair. "When I last voted in 2000, I spent more than 10 hours in the queue, but this time I am prepared. I will just patiently while reading a book."

A heavily pregnant Tendai Munyoro, waiting outside the polling station at David Livingstone School in Harare, said she wanted to cast her ballot for the good of her children. "I declared to myself that no matter what condition I would be in, I would cast my vote."

South Africa-based political activist Nixon Nyikadzino said thousands of Zimbabweans, who had migrated across the border to escape the country’s long-running economic and political crisis, had trooped back home to cast their vote. "Over the last months, discussions in South Africa have been about arranging transport to come back and vote … Huge numbers have also come back from countries within the region such as Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique and Namibia."

The Banjul Magistrates’ Court, presided over by Magistrate Kayode, yesterday adjourned the case of the alleged MFDC rebels to the 16thApril 2008 for judgement.

During yesterday’s proceedings, all the nine accused persons took their time to narrate their side of the story in defence of the allegation preferred against them by the Gambian authorities. In their defence, the nine accused persons said that the charges preferred against them do not hold water, adding that regarding the charge of terrorism, the MFDC rebel movement had never done anything to disturb the peace of The Gambia.

They also stated that all the items tendered in court as pieces of evidence against them do not disclose any offence against them.

According to them the MFDC mission was for the Casamance and the Senegalese government, adding that they had nothing to do with The Gambia. They argued that there is no evidence before the court to substantiate the allegation of spying. The MFDC movement, they said, is fighting against the Senegalese government for the independence of Casamance.

It would be recalled that the nine alleged MFDC rebels from the Southern Senegalese region of Casamance have been standing trial in The Gambia on eight counts believed to be contrary to the Laws of The Gambia. The particulars of the first four counts run as follow:

Count 1- The accused persons between 2004 and 2006 while in diverse places in The Gambia conspired to carry out acts of terrorism against a neighbouring state, to wit Senegal, in a manner prejudicial to the public security and national defence of The Gambia and thereby committed an offence.

Count 2- The accused persons, between 2004 and 2006 in diverse places in The Gambia, collected photographs or documents of a confidential nature concerning a security installation of The Gambia which may be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy and thereby committed an offence.

Count 3- The accused persons between 2004 and 2006 received military equipment from Sam Kambai knowing or having reason to believe that it was feloniously obtained, thereby committing an offence.

Count 4- The accused persons, between 2004 and 2006, not being Gambian citizens, falsely acquired Gambian National Identity Cards and thereby committed an offence.

Other charges are trafficking of firearms, illegal entry into The Gambia, illegal possession of a birth certificate and illegal possession of a Gambian passport.

A medical charity has expressed concerns that people wounded during clashes between the police and supporters of a politico-religious sect in the Bas-Congo province in southwest Democratic Republic of Congo are not receiving any medical help.

"This is an emergency situation," said Philippe Havet, Médicins San Frontières (MSF) Coordinator in Bas-Congo, in a 21 March report. "There are wounded - by bullet or bladed weapons – requiring emergency medical treatment. For MSF, all wounded should be treated, whatever their political or religious affiliations.”

He said MSF's mobile medical teams had seen empty villages with razed homes and that some of the wounded were forced to flee health centres.

Scores of people have been killed since the 28 February clashes between police and followers of Bundu Dia Kongo, which is contesting state authority.

MSF-Belgium has deployed two teams in the areas of Kibunzi and Tshela, north of Matadi, the main town in Bas-Congo, where many supporters of Bundu Dia Kongo are found.

MSF said some of the victims of violence were hit by stray bullets when they fled.

The agency's report said its mobile teams had counted 30 wounded in the 15 health facilities visited over two days. The teams distributed medical supplies to the health centres. Three patients requiring amputation had to be referred to the hospital in Matadi.

"It's difficult to give an overall figure for the number of victims because a lot of them are still out of reach,” Havet said. "Most of the wounded are members of the Bundu Dia Kongo group, who don't go to health facilities through fear of being found by the forces of law and order. Others have nothing to do with the clashes and have fled the violence to hide in the bush. Yet some of them are seriously wounded and their health must be in really poor shape. They need urgent treatment."

People were reluctant to seek treatment in the hospital in Matadi because of the presence of police guarding injured prisoners, Havet said.

President Joseph Kabila and other senior government officials travelled to Matadi on 20 March to review the situation in Bas-Congo with local authorities and NGOs.

"The province is calm now. The President will discuss issues relating to this situation with provincial officials," said the head of state's spokesman Kudura Kasongo.

The police have during the past two weeks intensified their operation against followers of Bundu Dia Kongo forcing many of them to go into hiding.

The sect counts among its objectives the emancipation of traditional African or Congolese culture and demands the restoration of the former Kingdom of the Congo.

Its followers have set up tribunals to try citizens they believe have broken the law, sentence them and beat them if found guilty. They have also set up a kind of police force called ‘Makesa’, who are armed with whips and consider themselves part of the national police. Occasionally they lower the national flag to hoist their own.