Peace restored between The Gambia and Guinea - UN envoy

UN special peace envoy Victor Gbeho said on Saturday that he had been sent back to West Africa to express UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s satisfaction with the response by the presidents of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, and Guinea-Bissau, Kumba Yala, to his calls for them to resolve their differences amicably.

Relations between the two states had deteriorated earlier this year. In June, Yala had issued a public statement in the capital Bissau threatening to "crush the Gambia in two minutes" if it did not stop supporting alleged Bissau-Guinean coup plotters based there. After more threats from Bissau and counter-threats from Banjul, Annan sent Gbeho to try to defuse the tension. Annan also had a meeting with the two leaders at the last Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in South Africa.

In the wake of the peace efforts, three Bissau-Guinean citizens were extradited from The Gambia to Bissau. Displaying the three men on TV, Guinean authorities said the extraditions proved Yala’s claims that there really had been a network of coup plotters in The Gambia.

However, according to Gbeho, who flew to Guinea-Bissau on Sunday after talks on Saturday with Jammeh, “the situation now is that the presidents of The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau have resolved their differences once and for all and their two countries and peoples can expect to enjoy the peace and harmony that have always existed between them".