Residents say the location of Senegalese checkpoint in Bwiam has been causing loaded trucks with merchandise to suffer exactly similar fates in the last few months. And the apathy from both the foreign, hostile soldiers claiming to be “brothers” of Gambians  as well as the Barrow government is too striking to ignore.

On June 19th 2020 around 02:00 am, this truck above heading to Mali was the latest casualty in Bwiam in Gambia’s Western Region. Senegal’s economy exceedingly depends on Gambia’s borders for the much-highly needed re-export trade. 

A topic no Gambian media seems to be interested in, we reported how The Gambia government has been neglecting this economy-builder and how the sub-region and Senegal depend on Gambia for its thorough-fare. This is one of the reasons Senegal would never want to leave Gambia, especially now that a very unpatriotic Gambian, but a keen client-king leads the country with sheer apathy to the poverty of its people.

Please see the tag on that truck for yourself and notice that it’s not Gambian. Here is a quick Wikipedia definition of re-export trade: “Re–exportation, also called entrepot trade, may occur when one member of a free trade agreement charges lower tariffs to external nations to win trade, and then re–exports the same product to another partner in the trade agreement, but tariff-free.”

The next time a Gambian complains about high cost of living  and rising consumer goods, please talk about this very subject and how countries strive to jealously guard their routes. Gambia cannot joke with such trade when the world’s economy, historically runs on it. It was trade that made the British, Spanish, and Mongolian empires rich. Today, it runs the American economy.

When done very unfairly, it breeds colonialism the same way the British later invaded and colonized Indian territories and made the East Indian company something never to forget. Currently, trade is still the fulcrum of modern economies. Only that Senegal determines what leaves and enters Gambia. And doing so, they allow only one bus a day from Gambia while Gambia runs Dakars cash registers without much returns while we wait for more trucks to overturn in Foni.