Senegal Bars a Singer
December 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Senegal has barred the reggae star Tiken Jah Fakoly from entering the country after he criticized President Abdoulaye Wade, Agence France-Presse reported. The singer, who is from the Ivory Coast, criticized Mr. Wade during a news conference and afterward at a concert on Wednesday, urging the president to leave office for the good of his country. Senegal’s interior ministry said Thursday evening that Mr. Fakoly was “persona non grata in Senegal” for his “insolent and discourteous” remarks and would be barred from entering the country. The singer had been in Senegal for the International Hip-Hop Awards in Dakar. The independent Senegalese newspaper Sud Quotidien said he was a “victim of state xenophobia.” Last month the Senegalese government faced protests that were seen as the country’s most violent since the late 1980s.
Reggae star Fakoly tells Senegal’s Wade “leave power”
December 13, 2007 | Leave a Comment
By Daniel Flynn
DAKAR (Reuters) – African reggae star Tiken Jah Fakoly, famed for his bitter criticism of the continent’s corrupt leaders, has turned his attention to Senegalese leader Abdoulaye Wade, calling on him bluntly to “leave power”.
Fakoly, one of Africa’s best-loved muscians and a campaigner for peace in his native Ivory Coast, added his voice to rights groups who have accused the octogenarian Wade of being increasingly authoritarian.
Political posturing aimed at positioning his son to succeed him, the detention without trial of critical journalists and the diminishing power of parliament have all tarnished Senegal’s once-bright democratic credentials, Wade’s critics say.
“Mr President, if you love Senegal, leave power!” Fakoly said during a concert in the capital Dakar late on Wednesday, to rapturous cheers and applause from hundreds of Senegalese, before singing his anthem for corrupt politicians “Quittes le pouvoir” — “Leave Power”.
Wade, a long-time opposition leader elected in 2000, easily won re-election in February but has since angered many ordinary Senegalese by focusing on preparations for an Islamic conference next year, while ignoring pressing social problems.
The worst riots in decades erupted in Dakar last month when Wade ordered the removal of thousands of street sellers from the downtown area to ease traffic congestion. He has sheltered his son Karim, who is managing the infrastructure projects for the Islamic conference, from testifying before parliament.
“If you don’t want your son to be questioned by parliamentarians, you should not have involved him in running the country,” said Fakoly, dressed in a long white robe emblazened with maps of Africa.
Despite Senegal’s relatively small economy and population, Wade has tried to compete with South African President Thabo Mbeki for leadership on African issues.
Last month Wade launched an impassioned defence of President Robert Mugabe during a trip to Harare aimed at defusing Western criticism of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
More than 140 African immigrants feared dead: officials
December 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment
ANKARA (AFP) — At least 51 people would be immigrants drowned off the Turkish coast in one of three incidents that left at least 90 other Africans trying to get to Europe missing, officials said Monday.
As many as 85 people may have been aboard a 15-metre (45-foot) boat that capsized on Saturday in the Aegean Sea off the western Turkish town of Seferihisar, near Izmir, the Turkish coastguard said in a statement.
"We have so far found 51 bodies, among them two women," said Orhan Sefik Guldibi, the top administrative official in Seferihisar, who put the number on board at between 60 and 70.
Footage broadcast on the NTV news channel showed at least 15 bodies laid out on the shore in black bags.
Only six people, among them two Palestinians, were know to have survived the accident, Guldibi told AFP, adding that they had been hospitalized with shock.
The nationalities of the migrants were not immediately clear, but Guldibi said the majority were believed to be Palestinians, Somalis and Iraqis.
In a separate incident, some 40 Africans died in the Atlantic off Senegal as they were trying to reach the Spanish Canary Islands, police quoted survivors as saying.
They were aboard a boat that set off at the end of November from Diogue Island in southern Senegal with 130 people aboard. Only 90 were left when it ran aground north of Dakar on Saturday.
Police spokesman Colonel Alioune Ndiaye told AFP that survivors had spoken of 40 people who "died at sea and were thrown overboard" during the voyage.
"During seven days we did not eat or drink. Everyday people died. They were dying one after the other," said survivor Aliou, a Gambian.
In a third incident, at least 50 people were missing after another immigrant boat, also heading for the Canaries, sank.
Officials in the town of Dakhla, on the Western Sahara coast, said the boat had set out from Mauritania and sank on Saturday 28 nautical miles offshore.
Alerted by a Moroccan fishing boat, the Moroccan navy rescued six survivors, the officials said, adding that the search was continuing for more.
In October, an Italian-based monitoring group said nearly 1,100 migrants had lost their lives trying to reach the European Union so far this year. The group put the death toll since 1988 at 10,335.
A European Union border agency patrolling west African coasts since last year alongside several west African countries, has managed in 2007 to cut by more than 60 percent the number of migrants arriving in the Canaries.
"Many people died on the boat but I will go again," says Cheikh, a survivor of the boat that arrived in Senegal.
"African men are ready to die to go to Europe. We need money, there’s no money in Africa," said the 17 year-old Gambian, dressed in T-shirt of US rapper 50 Cent.
Greek authorities meanwhile said Monday they had arrested 113 migrants, all male and all claiming to be Afghans, on the south-eastern Aegean island of Pserimos near the Turkish coast.
The 113 came ashore at dawn after abandoning their Turkish-flagged 12-metre wooden vessel and after escaping from two Greek patrol boats, authorities said.
