Bambalaye, you are right on the money and everyman/woman has a inalienable
right to self defense.  Thus, if these thugs come to administer their
thuggry in any neighborhood, then it should not only be the business of his
family alone to run these thugs down but all well meaning persons in the
neighborhood.  The courts are not going to do a darn thing about it.  This
abuse persists because we are too consumed with the self to the point that a
whole compound of twenty or more individuals would stand and watch 3 to 5
thugs come and yank one of their members without just cause, beat them to a
pulp and disappear with them without a flinch from their relatives,
neighbors, and friends alike.  Gambians know who these thugs are but they
chose to look the other way.  You do not have to be educated to know that
wrong is wrong.  If these thugs get a beating of their life once, twice,
etc., this abuse would stop over night.  But as long as we have this "Not My
Problem" attitude, then we are going to see a continuation of this thuggry.
These thugs have a mandate from the top and anyone who thinks that Jammeh is
ignorant of these events in really delusional.  This is an extension of the
"Machine" and all tyrants worth their salt would have one - Rwalins, Doe,
Amin, Habre, Mobutu, etc.  These thugs are what keeps the "Fear Factor"
alive and they do not need a special event to remind the public that they
are around and watching.  But characteristic of our attitude, Gambians want
a "sacrificial Lamb" before they can act, just like what happened in 1981,
with the Kukoi, rampage.   That event showed what some of our people are
capable of.  These thugs were dormant because the environment was not
conducive for them prior to Jammeh and the tone from the top was not
supportive of them.  However, we saw tid bits with the then CID and Police
thugs.  Remember that outfit, with Lie Joof (Mooti), Nickola Kujabi (Mooti
Saharr), Tex Khan and others.  What we call the NIA today is nothing but the
new and improved CID with a tyrant's blessing.  What Dumo is going through
with the NIA is the same thing he and countless others experienced with the
CID.  Growing up, I cannot count the number of times Dumo was arrested for
extended periods, with no just cause by the above listed individuals and
their colleagues.  Now, they do not arrest you with bogus warrants, but
would kidnap you to some dingy place some where until their bestiality is
satisfied and just let you loose at any street corner of their choice and
Gambians just go on their business.

Fear killed many a persons before their death.  Our people need to stop
complaining and start defending themselves.  No one wants violence, but if
violence is the only way we can defend ourselves from these thugs, then that
we must do and it is a universal human law.  Folks need to stand up for
their fellow countryman/woman if the courts and law enforcers would not do
their jobs, for the life you save my be your very own, the next time around.
  Keep the faith.

Chi Jaama

Joe Sambou

>From: BambaLaye <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: The Thuggry Continues
>Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 22:33:22 -0500
>
>Joe,
>
>It is unfortunate that we continue to see and hear these forces of crude
>thuggery at work. I have said it before that the maintenance of civil order
>and social democracy cum tranquility is in the hands of the masses. The
>people of Gambia. It has been there since the advent of the constitution of
>the republic. It was never anywhere else. We are bordering onto naivety and
>laziness by believing that anything remotely affecting our individual
>rights can be safely entrusted to criminals and thugs through any process
>that resembles the rule of law.
>Self-defense against individual criminals – or criminals sanctioned by the
>APRC – can no more be delegated to some body else, like the judges in those
>courts than eating can, or sleeping, or any other natural function. These
>stories of disruptions of legally certified gatherings, abductions and
>torture should warn us that delegated responsibility becomes power and that
>power becomes inevitably abused when in the wrong hands. If civil order and
>social democracy are to be upheld in the Gambia, the emphasis must be on
>finding a definite and absolute way towards enforcing the basic human
>rights as entrenched in the constitution – the constitutional enforcement.
>We must find a way to take that power out of the hands that are abusing it
>and break it down. We must break the power down into units so small that it
>cannot be called power, but simply “responsibility”, which unlike power,
>comes not from the barrel of a gun, but from the mind and heart of the
>human behind that gun.
>A refusal to see the obvious, a failure to question the doubtful, if
>grossly evident, may provide proof leading to an inference of collaboration
>and gross abuse of power so as to impose responsibility for abuse suffered
>by those who rely on the laws. In other words, heedlessness and reckless
>disregard of consequences may take the place of deliberate intentions. We
>must be weary of such. We must stand up to do the best we can to revert
>this cycle of abuse. It is clearly taking its toll in bits and pieces, here
>and there, today and perhaps tomorrow.
>
>(BambaLaye)
>Abdoulie A. Jallow
>==============================================
>"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
>-Martin Luther King Jr.
>
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