876 recruits of intake 29 passed out recently following 16 weeks of rigorous military training. Speaking at the colourful ceremony, held in July 22nd Square, CDS Lang Tombong Tamba expressed his gratitude to President Jammeh and his government for the support rendered to The Gambia Armed Forces. He noted that from 1994 to the present day The Gambia Armed Forces has been transformed and developed in many aspects including infrastructure and logistics. “All one needs to do to be convinced is to walk into any barracks or look at the turn out of military personnel,” he stated.

He added that another area of significant development which is not so evident is the human resources investment and capacity building of the personnel of The Gambia Armed Forces.

He revealed that The Gambia Armed Forces is conducting a special recruitment drive aimed at professionals and officer cadets.

“Officers of all ranks are training in Pakistan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, The United States of America, Taiwan, Ghana, Nigeria and the University of The Gambia where they are receiving both military and academic training. We also have among our ranks graduates from various fields and professions including barristers, doctors, engineers and pilots to name but a few,” he said.

CDS also gave a special commendation to the Turkish military advisers for the professional guidance they are providing in The Gambia.

He stated that the Gambia Armed Forces is rapidly expanding and this momentum will continue. In conclusion he thanked the families, friends and relatives of the new recruits who were passing out for the support and encouragement they provided during the training period.

Recent visits between coup leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and leaders from the African Union, League of Arab States, United Nations, and Mauritania’s major donors have prompted both protest and promises.

Soldiers arrested President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi last Wednesday after his attempt to dismiss high-ranking military from his personal guard. The president remains in detention as of Monday. Also arrested, but since released, were Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf and Moussa Fall, the government director in charge of overseeing the return of thousands of Mauritanian refugees.

Starting in 1989, tens of thousands of Mauritanians fled brutal army crackdowns and ethnic border clashes near Senegal. One of Abdallahi’s campaign promises last year was to bring home these refugees and to help them readjust to life in Mauritania after almost two decades in exile.

Abou Ba, 22-years old, says he was five years old when his ethnic Pulaar family of herders fled.

Ba resettled in Mauritania one month before the latest coup. “We are all worried. It was a military regime [Maaouya Ould Taya government] that pushed us out and now it’s another military takeover. We were promised by the president [Abdallahi] that we would be treated equally, that we are all Mauritanians.”

As a part of the reintegration process, a Mauritanian government initiative was underway to identify thousands of refugees. Ba was prepared to apply for his national identity papers. “But now, we need to wait. Again.”

Coup leader Aziz has said that the newly-formed military council will respect the continued repatriation and rights of refugees. About 4,000 of the expected 24,000 have returned.

But refugee camp leader, Amadou Samba Ba, speaking with IRIN from Dodel, Senegal, says he will not send any groups to Mauritania until there are guarantees for the refugees’ safe return.

Aziz led the 2005 coup that deposed Maaouya Ould Taya, who faces a trial launched from New York in June 2007 for alleged ethnic cleansing crimes. In recent months, ruling party in-fighting grew more rancorous after a May government reshuffling that brought to power a dozen ministers who served Ould Taya.
Abdel Nasser Ould Outhman Yessa was arrested in absentia ten years ago, when Ould Taya was still power, for his work as an activist with the Nouakchott-based anti-slavery group, SOS Exclaves. Now based in Dakar, Senegal the human rights lobbyist says while he condemns the military takeover, he understands its roots.

“In recent months, Sidi [Ould Cheikh Abdallahi] has made overtures to Islamist groups, and brokered power exchanges with Ould Taya’s previous ministers. If this coup had not happened, a return to power from Ould Taya would have been inevitable.”

Having been barred for years, Islamists were allowed to set up a political party last year under the new Abdallahi government.

Yessa says the prospect of a return of Ould Taya’s men to power has been worrisome, but so is the trend of constant coups in Mauritania. Changes of power have typically taken place through military takeovers since the country gained independence in 1960.

After the 2005 coup, a transitional military council ruled until Abdallahi’s March 2007 election to power, which monitors declared to be largely free and fair.

The most recently-formed military council led by Aziz has pledged that it will hold, in its words, transparent elections that respect the rule of law.

But these declarations have not stemmed denunciations from the African Union (AU), which has suspended Mauritania’s membership in the AU; the United States, which cut off more than US $20 million in non-humanitarian aid last week; or the United Nations and European Union, whose representatives have publicly condemned the prospect of a one-sided illegitimate election.

IRIN

Straddling Arab and sub-Saharan Africa, the desert nation of Mauritania has had two changes of government in three months, ending in a military coup earlier this week. Ex-presidential guard leaders have formed a military council, which they say has assumed power.

President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi remains in detention as of Friday, and a military blackout of state media continues.

Soldiers detained the president on Wednesday, only hours after he tried to dismiss his top four personal military guards.

Members of the League of Arab States and the African Union are scheduled to meet with coup leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz on Friday. The United Nations, among others, have asked for Abdallahi’s immediate release.

The United States announced on Thursday it will cut off more than US $15 million in non-humanitarian aid, while the European Union has said the coup threatens its recently-approved more than US $200 million in assistance, pledged over the next five years.

Mauritania’s three million inhabitants are concentrated in the capital, Nouakchott, and in villages and nomadic tent communities scattered throughout the desert.

Despite significant mineral deposits that form more than half of the country’s exports, and recent small-scale oil operations, employed Mauritanians, on average, earned about two dollars a day in 2006, according to the World Bank.

Mauritania ranked 137 out of 177 in the United Nation’s latest ranking of living conditions around the world, which measures life span, access to education and spending power.

Political feuding

This week’s military coup came after a May government reshuffle that appointed new government ministers, many of whom had served under the iron-fisted Maaouya Ould Taya during his 21-year rule; a July no-confidence vote against the two-month old government, which then resigned; an ensuing threat by the president to dissolve the National Assembly if the no-confidence vote was upheld, and the resignation of 48 ruling party deputies earlier this week.

Coup leader Aziz had also led the 2005 coup that deposed Ould Taya, accused of ordering violent crackdowns against his opponents.

Mauritania’s 2007 election that brought Abdallahi to power was widely praised as a democratic page turner that ended more than two decades of brutal authoritarian rule, and two years of transitional military rule.

Election observer Limam Mohamed Cheikh says the military was instrumental in electing Abdallahi and most of the lawmakers. Cheikh says the military has, until the president’s attempt to dismiss its top leaders on Wednesday, exercised unchallenged control of Mauritanian politics.

Pressures and protest mount

Dissident ruling coalition party members from the National Party for the Defense of Democracy recently tried to organise a parliament session to create a commission to investigate the country's response to the rising cost of living.

Like many of its arid desert neighbours, Mauritania faces rising food and fuel prices, and shrinking cultivable land due to drought and flooding, and harmful farming techniques.

According to the U.S-based famine monitoring group, FEWSNET, in recent good-harvest years, Mauritania still imported about 70% of its food.
Flooding last year displaced thousands, wiped out crops and killed livestock. In addition, rising global food and fuel prices led the U.N. World Food Program to predict last March a year of record hunger across Mauritania.

After only seven months in power, Abdallahi’s government—the first to come to power in free and fair elections since independence in 1960— faced food riots last November.

The prime minister’s office issued a statement accusing the opposition of orchestrating riots in the south.

One month later in January, the first wave of refugees started returning to Mauritania.

Tens of thousands of mostly black Mauritanians fled border fighting, and a brutal army crackdown in 1989, most settling in tent communities in Senegalese border towns, and in Mali.

Abdallahi’s government has promised to strengthen health and education services to absorb the more than 30,000 expected to return. Approximately 4,000 have returned, thus far.

Security

Tourism has dropped off after a string of recent alleged terrorist attacks, which included last December’s murder of four tourists and an attack earlier this year on a nightclub near the Israeli embassy.

Mauritania is one of only three Arab states to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.

Critics have recently become more outspoken about how President Abdallahi has handled these attacks.

Citing security concerns, authorities cancelled the annual Lisbon-Dakar race car rally last January, which the director of Mauritania’s tourism industry, Cissé Mint Cheikh Ould Beide, estimates cost the country almost US $5 million in lost revenue.

Less than two weeks after the 2007 democratically-elected government took office, the country had its largest drug bust to date. Police found more than US $100 million worth of cocaine 1 May abandoned at an airport in the port town of Nouadhibou.

Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya, Mauritania’s police representative of the Lyons-based international crime fighting organization, INTERPOL, was arrested as a part of the investigation.

West Africa’s U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime has said that drug money can easily infiltrate corridors of power in West Africa, with its poorly paid security forces, lack of equipment to patrol long borders, and weak justice systems.

IRIN

His Excellency President Alhagie Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh yesterday presided over the celebrations marking the 14th anniversary of the July 22nd military take-over of power in The Gambia. The theme for the celebration this year is “Independence and National Pride.”

In a characteristically lengthy speech delivered on the occasion, President Jammeh expressed his belief that despite all the struggle against the forces of colonialism, the notion of Africa’s independence is a mistaken one because, in his view, up to now even at the African Union level, African leaders have to depend on the G8 to finance their programmes. “That is why some time ago, I told you that I would never buy a knee pad to depend on NEPAD to develop my country. I will work it out on my own with the help of the Almighty Allah,” he said.

President Jammeh hastened to clarify that he is not against any progressive African institution but pointed out that he will hate any institution that is out to strengthen and glorify the spirit of begging. “All the time we Africans have to keep on begging in order to survive and that is why nobody will respect us. If we the African leaders respected ourselves, all the nonsense that are going on today would have stopped,” he opined.

According to him, one can only gain the respect of others if one is truly independent, which confers self-confidence, pride and self-respect. “There is no way you can be proud and be dependent. Pride and independence go together and they cannot be separated. How can a country be independent and proud if it is dependent on the benevolence of others?” he queried, adding that Africa’s ability to look inwards and depend on itself and the Almighty Allah for its sustenance and development is of unquestionable importance in the present world order. “I don’t make speeches just for the mere fact of making public statements. I tell you what we need to do to avert catastrophe tomorrow.

“As long as one is not able to feed him or herself, he or she can never be proud of him or herself and can never be independent. If you cannot be independent, nobody would ever respect you,” he added.

In the view of the Gambian leader, what The Gambia and Africa in general need today is self-respect, independence, food self-sufficiency, mutual support in the march forward to regain the lost glory of Africa.

Reflecting on the said African glory, he contended that before the coming of the colonialists, Africa was the richest continent and the most advanced in terms of development, noting that if Africa was a backward continent without resources, Europeans would not have stayed there for 400 years. “It is Africa’s wealth, blood and tears that have created the West and is still creating the West. But today how many people care about the welfare of Africans? They pay lip service. That is the reality. I am not against anybody.

“How can we be proud when instead of worshipping God, you worship your fellow human beings. Up to today, Africa is the richest continent in terms of mineral resources. What are we doing about our resources? We allow them still to come and rob us as the case was in The Gambia when Carnegie Minerals told us that they were taking sand when they were taking titanium, iron ore and others,” he asserted.

Jammeh however added that he would not blame the masses of Africa but instead blame the leaders of Africa whom he said could have protected their resources and their people if they respected themselves, adding that Africa would not have been synonymous with poverty, disease, AIDS and other things.

Meanwhile President Jammeh’s variegated address did not spare the recent indictment of the President of the Republic of Sudan, Omar Hassan El-Bashir, by the International Criminal Court. The president underlined his indignation with the decision, questioning its judiciousness in the face of what he calls the failure to apply the same standards to the people behind the invasion of Iraq.  “The International Criminal Court indicted the President of Sudan Omar El-Bashir and issued an arrest warrant for a sitting African President and we know the war criminals in the West. Those who invaded Iraq are all war criminals. They butchered innocent citizens and they killed and today not even a single international institution is condemning them for what is happening. Can there be a war crime against humanity than what is happening in Iraq? Today you have seven million Iraqis who are homeless. Why is it that the International Criminal Court (ICC) only deals with African Presidents. Am not supporting African Presidents that are brutalising their countries but does it have to be the West that will judge us? Can’t the African Union judge African heads of state at the court? They were talking about Mugabe and for the first time in the history of the United Nations, an internal matter has gone to the UN Security Council. If we are talking about today, what happens in Iraq today is genocide. Today in Iraq with all their democracy, the oil pipelines are more secure than the women and children in the streets of Baghdad. What type of Democracy is that?”

Among the guests who graced the occasion were the Prime Ministers of the Republic of Guinea Conakry and Senegal. Secretaries of State and members of the Diplomatic Community were also in attendance.

The 14th anniversary of the July 22nd revolution was marked yesterday by a military march parade with school children and voluntary organisations. Thousands of people attended the ceremony at the Arch 22 in Banjul. Today, Wednesday July 23rd will see the official opening of the Green Industries July 22nd Business Park at the airport and also the inauguration of the biometric visa system at the Banjul International Airport. Today will also see the laying of the foundation stone at the Charles Jow Senior Secondary School and the inauguration of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Secretariat on AU Boulevard.

Tomorrow, Thursday July 24th will see the official opening of the Bureau of Statistics in Kanifing, the opening of the new Supreme Islamic Council Complex at Kanifing and a graduation ceremony at Taku Leggaye Skills Centre in Bundung.

This coming Friday, July 25th will witness the laying of the foundation stone at the Sparan Mangrove Beach Club and the inauguration of MJ Finance building at Gorgui Ousman Njie Street, 2 William Street in Banjul. There will also be a special brand launch of the International Bank for Commerce at the Sheraton Hotel.

Saturday July 26th will see the opening of a First International Bank in Kanilai. 

From 7 to 11 July 2008, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) are running a training course in Kigali for legal advisers in international humanitarian law within the RDF and other State structures involved in the national application or implementation of humanitarian law.

The main bodies concerned are the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior and the national police force.

The aim of the course, which is the first of its kind to be organized by the ICRC in Rwanda, is to strengthen the capacities of the authorities and the RDF and to establish within them a permanent body of people who are qualified and able to assume the role of legal adviser in humanitarian law. The ceremony was hosted jointly by the military chief of staff and the head of the ICRC delegation in Rwanda, Tobias Epprecht.

In his inaugural speech, Tobias Epprecht said, “I hope that this training course will help to make the principles of humanitarian law an integral part of all aspects of military operations, and particularly of training and support measures for officers involved in planning and conducting actual operations.”

Pursuant to Article 82 of Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, legal advisers in humanitarian law have two main tasks – to advise military commanders on the correct application of humanitarian law and to give them guidance on teaching the rules set forth in those legal instruments to the armed forces under their command.

The training course is being taught by ICRC and RDF experts and is part of a long-term ICRC commitment to provide support for the Rwandan authorities in the process of adhering to the treaties of international humanitarian law. It is intended to strengthen their capacities to implement those instruments.

International Committee of the Red Cross  

The soldiers in the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) will be the first men to benefit from a government policy to use male circumcision as a tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS, according to senior health officials.

Early in 2008, the Rwandan Ministry of Health declared its intention to include circumcision – scientifically proven to reduce a man's risk of contracting the virus from an infected sexual partner by as much as 60 percent – in its HIV prevention programmes. The voluntary circumcision programme is expected to start in August.

"We will use the military as role models for the rest of the population – they are adult enough to give consent, and if young men see that soldiers are willing to suffer the pain of circumcision, they will also get the courage to do it," said Dr Agnes Binagwaho, executive secretary of Rwanda's national AIDS commission (CNLS).

"After the military we will concentrate on students and, finally, on the general population; eventually we hope to move on to circumcising new-born babies, as long as research proves that it is advantageous and cost-effective to do so."

Unlike many other cultures in the region, Rwandan men and boys are not circumcised as a rite of passage, so it is unclear exactly how many men are circumcised but the number is presumed to be low. Research is underway to determine the percentage of men eligible for circumcision.

Rwanda's Centre for Infectious Disease Control and Prevention, known as TRAC PLUS, is to conduct a 'knowledge, attitude and practice' survey in the army to determine the level of awareness-raising needed, followed by a similar survey among the general population ahead of national rollout of the programme in 2009.

"The survey will ask questions like whether or not they know what circumcision is, whether they can name its advantages or disadvantages, whether they will continue to use condoms following circumcision, and so on. After that, CNLS will be responsible for information, education and communicating the message of circumcision to the public," said Elévanie Nyankesha, HIV prevention coordinator of TRAC PLUS.

"Our national public awareness campaign is due to start in July [2008] and will make it clear that circumcision cannot replace any of our existing prevention strategies – education, abstinence, faithfulness to a single sexual partner and correct and consistent use of condoms," Binagwaho told IRIN/PlusNews.

"People must be made aware that although circumcision is beneficial, there is still a 40 percent risk of HIV transmission, so they must know that it must be used in conjunction with another HIV prevention method, such as condom use," she said.
HIV prevalence in the RDF is estimated at between two and three percent - slightly lower than the national average of three percent. Intense prevention activities have been carried out since the mid-1990s, and barracks and military hospitals are plastered with billboards and posters urging soldiers to use condoms and be tested for HIV.

"We recently interviewed 70 men at one of the army's VCT [voluntary counselling and testing] centres and, surprisingly, it turned out that 55 of them had already been circumcised either for hygiene reasons, to prevent other diseases or because they believed it would improve their sexual performance," said Dr Charles Murego, director of medical services in the Ministry of Defence.

The circumcision campaign is to be rolled out gradually over a long period, because the 35,000-strong RDF could not afford to have hundreds of men incapacitated at the same time: "We will circumcise, say, 50 soldiers per week – it would be too dangerous to carry out mass circumcision in the army."

The RDF will also encourage former rebels undergoing disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration to undergo circumcision as they prepare to re-enter civilian society.

"We need to train medical staff – doctors, nurses and clinical officers – at our military hospitals, get the necessary equipment and then start the procedures," Murego told IRIN/PlusNews. The RDF has three military hospitals around the country.

Rwanda has more than nine million people, but only one doctor for every 50,000 people and one nurse for every 3,900 people, so increasing the number of medical staff able to perform the procedure is vital to the success of the programme. Nyankesha said doctors who had recently received training in Zambia would start training local practitioners at district level.

The circumcision programme will be funded by, among others, WHO and the UN Children's Fund, and carried out according to United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.

PlusNews  http://www.plusnews.org

Speaking in an exclusive interview with reporters at his office yesterday, Dr Chang thanked the government and people of The Gambia for the support and hospitality accorded to him during his term. He also thanked the Gambian leader President Jammeh for his personal support and for improving the lives of Gambian people. “I enjoyed working in this country for three years now,” he said.

The outgoing Taiwanese Ambassador catalogued the various major projects undertaken by his government during his tenure.

Among these, he recalled is the construction of two senior secondary schools namely those of Siffoe and Mayork, science and technology academy in Kanilai, a conference centre, and a recording studio also in Kanilai and the awarding of many scholarships for undergraduate MA and Ph.D programmes.

He also revealed that funds for construction of feeder roads, renovation of military barracks, installation of streets lights are available while the support of over $US 700, 000 to the President’s Empowerment of Girls Education Program (PEGEP) is an yearly pledge. He mentioned the support to University of The Gambia, funds vehicles and 221 motorbikes for the police.

On agriculture, he cited the success registered by Taiwan’s Technical Mission in the country.

On health he revealed that they have provided funds for polio vaccination, Avian flu campaign, meningitis and the supply of CT scanners and Hemodialisis machines for RVTH. He said that they also helped in the area of humanitarian crisis like disasters and flooding.

Dr Chang expressed the hope that his successor, Mr Rechard Shih, would continue from where he left off and do even more good work.

Latest developments come against the backdrop of a March 2008 general election in Taiwan, in which the opposition emerged victorious. This led to the downfall of President Chen Shu Bian.

Dr Chang, who leaves the country on May 1st 2008, declared his intention to retire after having done, in his view, a lot for his country.

Please read our subsequent editions in which we will bring you the full details of the interview.