JAMMEH CLAIMS PRESS FREEDOM
             
    
             "There were not many newspapers when I took over and now there are many newspapers in The Gambia.  The Gambian press is more free now than ever before.  The articles they write about me now, they could not write before. I am saying this  because I was a member of the security service then and I know ...," said President Jammeh in response to this reporter's question on freedom of the media in The Gambia.
             
             
               
  
             President Jammeh was speaking at the press briefing held at the Freedom Forum in Wilson Boulevard, Virginia on Wednesday, September 29.Still on the media, he said Alieu Badara Sowe of this newspaper was not jailed but called in for questioning at the NIA headquarters because he wrote an untrue story about him which was a threat to national security.  

            When asked why this reporter was denied access to the press briefing by Jammeh's security personnel, saying she was a threat to security, he said the security personnel should answer that question as he did not consider her as a threat to national security. 

            President Yahya Jammeh lashed out at BBC's West Africa correspondent Mr Kwame saying that their handling of news items in the continent "creates suspicion in the African continent, and it doesn't help conflict resolution in Africa."   In response to Kwame's question on his opinion on the Sierra Leone war, Jammeh said the war in Sierra Leone is pathetic and embarrassing. 

              "These wars don't fall from European skies.  It is instigated within the African continent," he said.  Jammeh blamed Africa's under development on corruption, tribalism, marginalisation and nepotism.  "When you push people to the wall, they are bound to backlash back on you," Jammeh said.  He cited the Jawara government as an example, gripping on to power for 30 years and not a single agenda on socio economic development. 

            Sandra Maccgaw, director of the International Studies program in North Western High School, Maryland, who was at the time of the coup working in The Gambia with Operation Cross Roads for Africa, asked Jammeh what reforms he has made since his takeover and what he is doing for the youths so that they will not think of staging another coup.  Jammeh boasted of a new university where 80 percent of the student body is sponsored by the government depending on merit.  He said education is now more accessible and cheaper. 

            He said there are now more than 250 doctors and specialists from different parts of the world in The Gambia."Major villages and health centres all have doctors now.  We are also building first class roads so that pregnant women will not trek on donkey carts for delivery,"  he said. He boasted of the Gambian Rice which he said is now competing against Asian Basmalti and Uncle Ben's in local and regional markets. 

            Musa Jawara, a Gambian protestor residing in DC asked Jammeh to clarify the issue on the denial of passports to the UDP's Yaya Jallow, Lamin Juwara and Shyngle Nyassi.  Jammeh said passports are not automatically given.  "It is not logical to prevent them from travelling, when their leader Ousainou Darboe is travelling everywhere," he concluded. 

            On Koro's death, he said ministers die everywhere in accidents.  Because a minister died in an accident doesn't mean that the government killed him.  He argued with the reporter that Koro is a personal friend and he appointed him as minister.  "I relieve you of your post if I don't need your services, I do not kill you,"  he said. "Even the rebels who attacked the soldiers at Farafenni have been taken to court as a rule of law not killed, because I believe in the rule of law." 

            Jammeh thanked the US government and said "I was a friend of the US and will always remain a friend of the US."On arrival at the airport yesterday, President Jammeh told reporters that the protest by Gambians in Washington DC on his presence in US was stage-managed by the "Basadi, Kebba Jawara and Sir Dawda Jawara families including some members of Ousainou Darbo's family." 

            Jammeh argued that the protest did not in any way affect his mission or personality as out of the more than 1,500 Gambians resident in Washington DC, only 17 were out to protest against his visit.The President added that the protestors, one of whom was masked had promised to take to the streets on each day of his stay in US but "as time went on, they were sent away by harsh weather and hunger." 

            A cultural panorama with performances by Pencha B, Born Africans, Masla Bi  and an American rap group, Sons of light received Jammeh and delegation at the July 22 Square..