Hi folks,
A few suggestions about the meeting with Ambassador McDonald:
1. Please meet before the meeting. I suggest you meet for 30 or so minutes before
your meeting with Amb. McDonald. This will not only enable you get to know each
other, it will also enable you thrash out any details about the agenda, and what you
want to talk about at the meeting. It will also be a good time to finalize details
about who's to say what, and when.
2. Please select a rapporteur. Have someone be responsible for taking notes during
the meeting. The person will also be responsible for writing up a brief report on
the meeting, and send it to Gambia-L.
3. Please offer to help. I suggest you offer Amb. McDonald to help him in any way
possible to enable him discharge his duties well. Furthermore, I would also add that
you can mention that there are many Gambians and Gambian organizations that will be
willing to help him build mutually-beneficial relationships between The Gambia, and
the US. In short, I suggest that the meeting not turn out to be a one-way street in
which we are only asking for help, and not offering any of our own in return.
4. Please meet after the meeting. I suggest that you again spend 30 or so minutes
immediately after the meeting to talk about how it went. This can be held in a
restuarant, home, or wherever. The important thing is to talk about it while it is
still fresh in your minds.
5. Please write him a "Thank you" letter. I suggest that you write a "Thank you"
letter to Amb. McDonald for taking time to sit with you, receive a petition from us,
and listen to you express our concerns about the situation in The Gambia. Such a
gesture would not only be proper, it would also help, in the future, to make it
easier for us to get an audience at the State Dept.
6. With regards the visa thing, I suggest you also ask him to help The Gambia sign
the E-Visa treaty with the US. In case you haven't heard, the E visa category is of
two types, E-1 (trader) and E-2 (investor). They both are aimed at facilitating
trade with, and investment in the US, and for this reason, countries have to sign
trade treaties with the US for their citizens to be eligible for the visas. You can
find more info about the visas at MyCounsel.com:
http://www.mycounsel.com/content/immigration/workvisas/treaty/
and the State Dept.:
http://travel.state.gov/visa;treatytraders.html
Notice in the list of treaty countries at the MyCounsel Web site, that even though
countries like the two Congos, Liberia, and Senegal are signatories, The Gambia is
not. Neither is Nigeria for that matter, with all the oil they trade with the US!
Given that the visas are administered by the State Dept., I suggest you ask Amb.
McDonald to kindly help the Gambia government navigate the proceedures for ratifying
the treaties. Signing such a treaty will help a lot of Gambians who would like to
travel back and forth to the US to buy and sell goods. Now, please realize that even
though this might create a possibility for President Jammeh (or whoever wins the next
elections) to brag out it, you should remember that in the end many Gambians will
benefit from it. Besides, you can always take credit for having raised it with Amb.
McDonald.
That's about it for this one!
Katim
---- Original Message -----
From: Maila Touray <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 11:31 AM
Subject: [Fwd: URGENT: Meeting With Ambassador McDonald]
> I this is a good format by which we can center our discussions. I have a
> couple of observations and they are as follows:
>
> 1) I think we also ought to discuss visa access to Gambians, with longer
> shelve life like other countries - [5-year, instead of 6-month visas]
>
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