Alhagie Ceesay in courtroom with lawyer

Alhagie Ceesay who was tortured by NIA here with lawyer

The Working Group of the United Nations Office of the Human Rights Commissioner determination that Alhagie Abdoulie Ceesay, the 25-year old radio journalist, is being "arbitrarily detained" by the dictatorship in The Gambia is based on the fact that he's being denied his inherent right to freedom of expression and association.  He has been in detention for 8 months without bail for an offence that is bailable.

In addition to being considered to be an arbitrary detainee, the United Nations agency is also requesting the regime of Yaya Jammeh to "accord him an enforceable right to compensation."

The allegation that Alhagie Ceesay was tortured by the notorious NIA has been referred to the Special Rapporteur on Torture for further investigations and appropriate measures.

FREE ALHAGIE ABDOULIE CEESAY    

Jammeh envoys fail to secure Macky Sall's cooperation; borders remain closed

Gambia - Senegal border closure 

The Gambian dictator fielded two successive missions to Senegal in the past week and a half.  The first was led by Pap Demba Jobe, the Special Representative of the Mourid sect in The Gambia and the other by Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy. Both missions failed.  It appears that Senegal is in no mood to receive Jammeh's envoys much less negotiate with Jammeh.  

According to our sources, the Pap Demba Jobe’s mission visited Touba, Tivavon and Kaolack to solicit the support of the religious leaders of the Mourids, Tedianis and Niassen sects to plead with the Senegalese president Macky Sall on behalf of Jammeh.  

Reports have it that the mission failed to achieve its primary object of getting the religious leaders to intervene in the current stalemate that has led to the borders between the two countries being closed.

The failure of Pap Demba Jobe’s mission led Jammeh to dispatch his Vice President, Isatou Njie-Saidy last Wednesday and returned yesterday (Friday) without seeing any senior official of Macky Sall’s government.

Two successive failed missions underscore the nature of the latest border stand-off, triggered by the unilateral decision of the Gambian dictator’s that saw a 1,000% tariff increase on Senegalese  trucks using the TransGambia highway that traverses Gambia into the southern part of Senegal. 

The frequent use of unilateral tariff increases by Jammeh without prior consultation or notification of his neighbors is finally being seen by the authorities in Dakar as a cudgel that is used at will that threatens the economic security of Senegal.

In this regard, Senegal has now decided to remove all taxes on gas oil to help reduce the cost for Senegalese trucks having to bypass Gambian territory by transporting goods around it via Tambacounda. This facility will be available for the next two years should the borders be closed for that long.  This decision suggests that Senegal is getting ready to hunker down for the long-haul. 

“These borders” according to a senior government official, “will remain shut for a very long time. He (Jammeh) has tested our patience for a very long time.”  

Meanwhile, Gambia’s National Electricity Company, NAWEC, has informed Jammeh that it will soon run out of fuel which normally comes from or via Senegal.  If the borders aren’t open for any extended period of time, Gambia will be plunged into darkness unless enough foreign exchange – already in short supply – is scrapped to order an emergency consignment in the open market.  Either way, Jammeh has managed to place himself and his country between a rock and a hard place.

We will continue to monitor developments. 

Alhagie Ceesay is "arbitrarily detained"says UN Agency, demands immediate release and compensation

Alhagie Abdoulie Ceesay

There has been an important development in the Alhagie Abdoulie Ceesay's case, the radio journalist and Managing Director of Teranga Radio FM.

The United Nations Working Group of The Office of the High Commissioner has reached the following opinion regarding the case of Alhagie Ceesay: that his "deprivation of liberty  is arbitrary" and as such the Government of The Gambia is being requested "to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation of Mr. Ceesay."

Justice Simeon Abi

The Working Group considers the "immediate release" of Mr. Ceesay as "adequate remedy" and "to accord him an enforceable right to compensation and to ensure that freedom of opinion and expression is better protected."

On the allegation of torture at the hands of the notorious NIA, the Working Group 'referred the matter to the Special Rapporteur on Torture for further investigations and appropriate measures."

S.K.Barkum, Public Prosecutor

These developments in the case of Alhagie Ceesay should serve as adequate notice to Gambia's Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mama Fatima Singhateh, Director of Public Prosecution, S.K.Barkum and Banjul High Court Judge Simeon Abi that this case, together with your professional conduct, is being monitored by us as well as the international community.

We demand that Alhagie Ceesay be set free and compensated in accordance with the conclusion of the Working Group of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations.

Border closure: Gambia’s sovereignty is not the issue, Jammeh is the issue.

Sidi Sanneh 

Yaya Jammeh poses a greater threat to Gambia’s sovereignty than Senegal ever could.  The Gambia has coexisted with its neighbor since Independence, and at no time during the 50-odd years of coexistence was its sovereignty threatened, including the 1981 Kukoi Samba Sanyang’s coup that saw Senegalese troops marched into the country under legal cover of a common defense pack to restore Sir Dawda Jawara to the presidency.

Senegal’s 1981 intervention, grounded in international law and backed by a bilateral Agreement, resulted in a short-lived Senegambia Confederation from which Senegal withdrew from voluntarily, peacefully and without fanfare.  If the handling of the dissolution of the Confederation is not enough evidence that Senegal is not a threat to Gambia’s sovereignty, we do not know what is.

We must appreciate a truism is Senegambian relations that the two countries are captives of their own geography and history – two factors that are inextricably linked to and also greatly influence the respective foreign and economic policies of The Gambia and Senegal.  These two countries are unique in that sense compared to a few countries in the world.

Fortunately, Sir Dawda Jawara and successive Senegalese presidents from Senghore to Sall understood the need to maintain the delicate relationship through regular diplomatic consultations, a diplomatic necessity that has been absent to a large degree during Jammeh’s 22 years of dictatorship.  This, in our view, is the cause of the deterioration in relations – both diplomatic and economic – between Gambia and Senegal.

Border closure compounds Gunjur's plight

Dried-up garden well

Last August, the British Ambassador to The Gambia organized a town hall meeting in Gunjur to discuss, among other things, the development issues and challenges facing the town and its surroundings.  He informed the gathering that The Gambia stands to lose out on a substantial amount of development aid from the European Union because of its poor human rights record. Development assistance in the region of € 150 million is being held in escrow to be unblocked only after the regime of Yaya Jammeh addresses the human rights outlined in the EU's 17-point demands.  Gunjur and surrounding towns are being adversely affected by the government's

recalcitrant behavior towards the EU and other development partners, You can read the blog post here.

The town of Gunjur, as well as the rest of the Gambia, is being adversely affected in an equally challenging way by Jammeh's unilateral decision to increase the tariff on trucks using the SeneGambia highway.  The decision  contravenes all trade protocols he's signed with it's regional partner ECOWAS and bilaterally with Senegal resulting in the two-week old border closure.

In Gunjur, as in many towns and villages in the Kombos, horticulture, fruit tree orchards and cassava have, to a large degree, replaced groundnut cultivation with the vegetable produce sold to area hotels and oranges and other fruits sold to Senegalese middlemen who transport it back to Senegal.  This year, the cassava crop has been blighted by mosaic virus depriving Gunjur farmers with much needed income which will push many further below the poverty line.  

Blighted cassava plants

The border closures have left the orange fruits rotting because the Senegalese trucks used in hauling them are stuck at the borders. The horticultural activities of the town have also fallen victim, not to the border closure but to sand mining (which you can read here) that has grown uncontrollably and in the process devastating the environment as well as the livelihood of the townspeople, especially women who normally are engaged in gardening.

Orange orchard  

Since Kartong youth demonstrated against the environmental devastation caused by sand mining, Yaya Jammeh has decided to move to Gunjur to add to the plight of the people of Gunjur.  We have learned that Sheriff Arjay Jammeh, the village chief, bought a truck and has joined Jammeh's crew in sand mining that can only bring further hardship to an already distressed community, both environmentally and from an economic development standpoint.  Chief Sheriff Arjay Janneh should know better.

Chaos at the border: Photo editorial

The indiscriminate and unilateral use of tariff hike with such frequency by Yaya Jammeh, the idiosyncratic Gambian dictator has obviously irked the Senegalese authorities who have signaled their disgust at the 1,000% increase in the tariff for trucks using the SeneGambia highway that traverses The Gambia.

If statements by Alasane Ndoye, former Secretary General of the powerful Senegalese Transport Union and other officials are anything to go by, Yaya Jammeh must brace himself for a very long and extended period when the borders will remain closed.  The Gambian economy is beginning to show signs of  distress with a precipitous drop in revenue collection.

Shops, stalls, fruit farmers and vendors on the Gambian side of the border have closed or lack customers since the closure.  Jammeh must explain to them the reason for the closure and what his regime is doing to address a situation that he created.
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Blame Jammeh for the border closures

 For two weeks running, a local newspaper affiliated with one of the opposition parties in the Gambia called FOROYAA has been reporting on the border closing between Senegal and The Gambia and how it is adversely affecting not only the economies of the two countries but also their trade and diplomatic relations.

The editorial stance of the paper from the unset of the border closures has been the use of, what we consider to be, false equivalencies by blaming both Senegal and The Gambia for the crisis to appear fair and balanced.

The paper didn’t stop its search for another boogieman which it found in the Senegalo-Gambian Secretariat.  The paper questioned the Secretariat’s utility or raison d’etre for not playing an active role in resolving the crisis.  The question is three decades late when the organization was active and relevant because President Senghore (and Diouf, to some extent) and Sir Dawda Jawara wanted the Secretariat to play a meaningful role by according it a high diplomatic profile which it lacks today.   In fact, many citizens of the two countries are unaware of its existence.  

The first step in an conflict resolution is to identify by defining the problem.  In this case, it was triggered by a unilateral decision by the Gambian dictator to increase by 1,000% the tariff paid by trucks using the TransGambia highway to cross into and from the southern Senegal region of Casamance.

The unilateral decision contravenes every protocol that the two countries have signed – be it bilateral, regional and international.  Although ECOWAS protocol calls for the free movement of goods and people, bilateral agreement between the two countries further calls for “prior consultations with and notification of” the other party before any tariff increase.   Approval of the other party is not required but consultation and notification are.   Jammeh did neither.  And this is what FOROYAA fail to mention in its reporting.

Jammeh caused the problem and it is Jammeh, in this instance, who must take full responsibility  for the mess and not Senegal or the Senegalo-Gambian Secretariat that exists only in name with little power to intervene.   To absolve him (or even the appearance of absolving him) of blame by acting as if the problem emanated from or was caused by both countries is only going to prolong and add to the suffering of ordinary Gambians and Senegalese alike resulting from restricting commerce.

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Postscript :  As we go to press, we've learned through reliable sources that the Gambian dictator has dispatched a delegation headed by the Imam Ratib of Banjul, Alh. Cherno Kah, to Touba, Senegal, to seek the intervention of the spiritual leader of the Mourid sect in the crisis by appealing to the Senegalese authorities to open the borders.   We will be following developments.