Gambia - Senegal Border Impasse: First Round of Negotiations Held Amidst Blame and Finger Pointing

A Gambian government delegation led by the foreign minister - Neneh MacDouall Gaye visited Dakar on Sunday 15th May 2016, to discuss formalities of re-opening the borders between the two countries which has been closed for the last three  months. It is no secret that relations between the two sisterly nations have been strained for a while now with the two governments having a lot of differences and appearing to harbour a lot of mistrusts for each other.

Presidents Jammeh of The Gambia (l), Conde of Guinea Conakry (c) and Sall of Senegal (r). Source: gambiamonitor

Hopes were high when it was announced some two weeks ago that, plans were on the offing to negotiate the opening of the borders. But people’s optimism were quickly dashed when the meeting in Dakar failed to produced any real meaningful outcome after several hours of deliberations. President Alpha Conde of Guinea Conakry orchestrated the mediations by initially trying to invite his Senegalese and Gambian counterparts to meet in Conakry. However, his invitation was declined by the Senegalese President - Macky Sall who was reported as saying; “it is The Gambia that triggered the hostilities by deciding to close its border, so if Banjul wants to negotiate, they can come to Dakar and we would give them the chance to deliberate.”

Meanwhile, The Gambian leader - President Yahya Jammeh made a stern statement while hosting his Guinean counterpart on a day's visit to The Gambia saying; “I have no intention of going to settle the issue of the border because our border is opened." He went further to say among other things that; "they closed the border and I will not negotiate with someone that closed the border." I wonder what President Conde who earlier thanked his host for his leadership in accepting to send a delegation to Senegal, would make of such a statement! On a softer tone though, the Gambian president declared, he was going on with the negotiations for the sake of President Conde and for the sake of Islam and all the Muslims.

So there you go! the difference between the two countries, or shall I say, the two presidents couldn't be more obvious - even though the people of the two countries are culturally inseparable. It is so sad to see that in an era where the need for closer integration is ever so important, the most interconnected, interrelated and of course indivisible of any two countries in the globe continuously try to distance themselves from each other. When there are even calls for lesser connected countries like Ghana and Ivory Coast to form a dream nation dubbed Ghanivoire, Senegal and the Gambia blatantly refused to see the benefits and importance of closer integration - only to the detriment of their citizenry.