Monday, October 19 2009

The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting begins in Port-of-Spain on November 27 and continues for three days.

Fifty-one heads or their representatives will assemble at The Hyatt for the talks.

Two countries have been suspended — the Fiji Islands which was suspended from membership on September 21, 2009 and Nauru, which is in arrears.

We continue today with a daily feature on the Commonwealth and will feature the Heads of these States who are expected in Port-of-Spain in November.



The current President of Gambia, 44, who belongs to the Jola tribe, is Alhaji Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh. He also has the title of the Commander In Chief of The Armed Forces, Secretary of State For Defence and the Chief Custodian of the Constitution of The Gambia. The Office of the President is the Highest Executive Office in The Gambia which means he has responsibility over other government departments.

He received his early education at Kanilai Primary School, Saint Edwards Primary School in Bwiam, and Gambia High School in Banjul. In 1983 he passed the General Certificate of Education (GCE 0’ Level) with Credits in Geography, English, French, Biology and Physics. Also obtained passes in Chemistry and Oral English.

The following year President Jammeh joined what was then the Gambia National Gendarmerie in 1984 and later moved to The Gambia National Army and was commissioned in 1989. He attended the Military Police Officers Basic Course (MPOBC) at For McClellan, Alabama, in the United States of America and in 1994 obtained a Diploma in Military science.

He has received many honours in his career.

On May 15, 2008, Jammeh announced that his government would introduce legislation that would set rules against homosexuals that would be “stricter than those in Iran,” and that he would “cut off the head” of any gay or lesbian person discovered in the country. News reports indicated his government intended to have all homosexuals in the country killed. In the speech given in Tallinding, Jammeh gave a “final ultimatum” to any gays or lesbians in the Gambia to leave the country.

In January 2007, Jammeh claimed he could cure HIV/AIDS and asthma with natural herbs. Some patients are said to have improved through his treatment, but he has also been criticised for promoting unscientific treatment that could have dangerous results. The full text of his speech seems to suggest that the “cure” may in fact be addressing intestinal parasites (“With regards to HIV/Aids, they should be kept at a place that has adequate toilets facilities because they can be going to toilet every five minutes.”)

Fadzai Gwaradzimba, the country representative of the United Nations Development Programme in The Gambia, was told to leave the country after she expressed doubts about the claims and said the remedy might encourage risky behaviour.

In August 2007, Jammeh claimed to have developed a single dose herbal infusion that could treat high blood pressure.

In some ways, he was part of a new breed of African leadership in the 1990s, publicly rejecting the corruption of the past and beginning to bring the infrastructures of modern life to the country he ruled. In other respects, he brought to mind the strongmen who had ruled much of Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. With colourful language, he issued threats of violence against his political opponents, and his administration spent foreign aid dollars constructing a giant replica of Paris’s Arc de Triomphe in the Gambian capital of Banjul. Yahya Jammeh, not yet 30 years old when he took control over the tiny West African nation of Gambia in a military coup, incurred the displeasure of Western governments with his seizure of power, and with the methods he used to maintain it. However, even his critics conceded that he had wide popular support.

Gambia is one of the poorest countries in the world, a Connecticut-sized strip of land straddling the lower reaches of the Gambia River as it flows into the Atlantic Ocean on Africa’s west coast.

For many years Gambia was one of Africa’s few functioning democracies, with a generally independent press and a respect for basic civil liberties.

The coup marked a turning away from democracy in Gambia, and international condemnation was strong. However, Jammeh promised “a coup with a difference,” according to a Facts on File account of the regime’s early days. He pledged an early return to civilian rule and a commitment to follow through on projects to alleviate some of Gambia’s most pressing material needs. Although he himself had only a high school education, Jammeh spoke of plans to build the country’s first university.

The plans for democratic elections were eventually pushed back. Jammeh, quoted in the Economist, darkly warned that “If we don’t want elections in the next 1,000 years, there will be no elections. We will make sure that those who want elections will go six feet deep, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.” For a time, Jammeh seemed inclined to defy world opinion. Gambia suffered a cutoff in American and European aid, and tourism fell sharply. Tourism had been a major component of Gambia’s economy, thanks to the role the region played in Alex Haley’s epic of his African American ancestry, Roots.

A wide variety of ethnic groups live in The Gambia with a minimum of intertribal friction, each preserving its own language and traditions. The Mandinka tribe is the largest, followed by the Fula, Wolof, Jola, and Sarahule. Approximately 3,500 non-Africans live in The Gambia, including Europeans and families of Lebanese origin.

Muslims constitute more than 90 percent of the population. Christians of different denominations account for most of the remainder. Gambians officially observe the holidays of both religions and practice religious tolerance.

More than 63 percent of Gambians live in rural villages (1993 census), although more and more young people come to the capital in search of work and education. Provisional figures from the 2003 census show that the gap between the urban and rural populations is narrowing as more areas are declared urban. While urban migration, development projects, and modernisation are bringing more Gambians into contact with Western habits and values, the traditional emphasis on the extended family, as well as indigenous forms of dress and celebration, remain integral parts of everyday life.

As many as three million slaves may have been taken from the region during the three centuries that the transatlantic slave trade operated. It is not known how many slaves were taken by Arab traders prior to and simultaneous with the transatlantic slave trade. Most of those taken were sold to Europeans by other Africans; some were prisoners of intertribal wars; some were sold because of unpaid debts, while others were kidnapped. Slaves were initially sent to Europe to work as servants until the market for labour expanded in the West Indies and North America in the 18th century. In 1807, slave trading was abolished throughout the British Empire, and the British tried unsuccessfully to end the slave traffic in The Gambia. They established the military post of Bathurst (now Banjul) in 1816. In the ensuing years, Banjul was at times under the jurisdiction of the British governor general in Sierra Leone. In 1888, The Gambia became a separate colonial entity.

An 1889 agreement with France established the present boundaries, and The Gambia became a British Crown Colony, divided for administrative purposes into the colony (city of Banjul and the surrounding area) and the protectorate (remainder of the territory). The Gambia received its own executive and legislative councils in 1901 and gradually progressed toward self-government. A 1906 ordinance abolished slavery.