Brother Omar,

  Perhaps I misread your quoting Bailo: "...Bailo pointed out the valid 
point of the failure of political independence and it makes me wonder 
whether this mass exodus of African migrants is not a form of reverse 
colonisation; the coloniser being colonised by its former subjects..."

  All the same, you are right in that Africa's post independence leadership 
has a lot to answer for in our search for the sources of abysmal economic 
and political performance especially since the early 80s.  But I can at once 
tell you that it is nothing near a case of the coloniser being colonised. 
When Spain, last year granted amnesty to over 700 thousand illegal migrants, 
amongst them "villages" of Gambians and Senegalese, its economy boomed 
almost immediately. They provided a cheap source of skilled and unskilled 
labour, generating huge growth in that country's construction industry 
(especially) and its agricultural sector. The migrants not ony became a 
welcome addition to Spain's consumer population, pressuring firms for higher 
productivity in services and goods. Tney became a huge source of tax revenue 
for the Spanish state as well.

  Joseph Stiglizt's "Globalisation and Its Discontents" is recommended (I 
think)reading for students of banking and other courses related to economics 
at the university of the Gambia. (I sent a copy of it to a friend of mine 
three years ago). Stiglitz not only detailed the forces behind IMF's market 
fundamentalism, but his own experience in Africa is weaved expertly into the 
vortex of globalisation as a predatory phenomenon for some developing 
countries. I recall Stiglitz's exposure of a ludicrous case of a U.S bank, 
with the backing of the IMF, insisting that the governement of Ethiopia pay 
up a loan more slowly and not before obtaining "permission" from the IMF to 
do so. This insistence was pushed even though it made more economic sense 
for the Ethiopians to repay the loan quickly, but also because as a 
sovereign nation, Ethiopia needed no permission from any institution in 
determining the rate it chose to pay a loan.

  An investigation into Senegal's relations with global financial 
institutions, its relations with donors, bilateral trade/fishing relations 
with the EU, and Maitre Wade's own economic policies may help us all in 
locating solutions to continuing misery in Africa.

  Many thanks,
  sidibeh

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