Folks, I attended the Advocacy network for Africa (ADNA's) monthly meeting in Wash DC on Tuesday. I distributed copies of Katim Touray's article "Another African tragedy in the making" to provide the meeting with a background on the Gambian situation.(I did modify the Jammeh/APRC won the elections parts by putting them in quotes. Otherwise, except for formatting, everything was passed on intact.) I've been in touch with Katim about the editing. There were about forty people present at the meeting, mainly representatives of various US agencies and NGOs: World Relief, Africa Trade & Policy, TransAfrica, Amnesty Intl, and many other church groups I can't remember. And I learnt that the ADNA infact has 200 orgs affiliated with it around the US. But, even more impressive is the seriousness of the group regarding making a difference in US policy towards Africa. It's a far cry from the usual patronizing view of Africa here. The main focus of the meeting was to agree on the contents and format of two letters regarding Nigeria specifically, and West Africa in general. The first is to provide an overview of the Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone situations, and how further complications there will affect the US. The intended audience for this document is Presidential and Hill staffers. And there is a second and shorter letter that would be more precise in identifying priority areas for the President's attention. This effort is in antipation of Pres. Clinton's visit to Nigeria in three weeks. The meeting has agreed to impress upon him the importance of certain issues, and why he needs to highlight them on his trip. The letters will be sent to Clinton this week, and each member of Congress (both houses) will be hand-delivered copies the same time that the president gets his. I gave the group a five minute overview of the Gambian situation, and how it all ties in with what is going on in Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Thankfully, the guy from Amnesty Intl, who was a co-facilitator of the meeting, is very familiar with the situation, and he added some valuable points. While, we're not guaranteed a mention in Clinton's letter, our situation is now on the radar screen of this group. Hopefully, we'll make the agenda in the next meetings. I'll push for that, and see how far we get. But overall, this was one African meeting I don't regret attending. Even the "wonderful" DC traffic, and chronic parking situation didn't dampen my spirits. I look forward to attending coming meetings. Will keep y'all informed. Saul. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface ----------------------------------------------------------------------------