NCAC Director General throws light on strategic heritage sites in Gambia

As The Gambia seeks to upscale its tourism growth beyond sun and beach, the Director General of the National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC), Hassoum Ceesay, is at the forefront of projecting the country's remarkable cultural heritage sites to give them their true meaning and significance to Gambians and to humanity. In an exclusive interview at the NCAC headquarters at Pipeline, DG Ceesay spoke passionately about two of The Gambia's UNESCO World Heritage Sites — Kunta Kinteh Island and the Wassu Stone Circles — detailing their historical, social, political and economic productivity. Kunta Kinteh Island, a place of horror and terror Asked why Kunta Kinteh Island stands out among The Gambia's heritage assets, DG Ceesay began with its origin, saying: "Well, the old name is James Island. It was first inhabited by the Portuguese in the 1450s.

It became an important player in the Transatlantic Slave Trade as a departure point for slaves and slave ancestors," he said. The island, located in the middle of the River Gambia, was renamed from James Island to Kunta Kinteh Island in 2011 by former President Yahya Jammeh. The name change, Mr Ceesay explained, was to honour the hero of Alex Haley's iconic book “ Roots” , published about 50 years ago, which details the life of a young Gambian captured in Juffureh, opposite the island, in 1767. Drawing a comparative significance, the historian noted: "Now, Kunta Kinteh Island is what Goree is to Senegal or Elmina Castle is to Ghana or Bonthe Island is to Sierra Leone. It was like a crime scene in the sense that the hundreds of our ancestors who were forcibly transported to the new world in slave circles departed from this Kunta Kinteh Island. " DG Ceesay described the island's geography as part of its cruelty. "It is right in the…