I have never been up-closed to His Excellency, and this Atlanta trip was
looked forward to as an opportunity to hear IT from the man himself.

President Jawara looks extremely well, still carries that personality of a
great man, and his ability to articulate his message is very impressive
indeed. At the end of the meeting, I made it clear to the organizers of my
disappointment of a lost opportunity. A man of President Jawara's calibre,
resourcefulness, experience, and one of the best resources that can be
essential to our search for solutions could have been better utilized.
Instead the whole meeting became a PPP political rally, a feel good therapy,
and ofcourse a nostalgia to the heydays of the Jawara era. Speakers were
selected, all ardent supporter of the Pa (understanably so), but the rhetoric
only reminded me of PPP rallies at Jarra, or Janjanbureng. The message lacked
substance, not very careful with the facts and extremely partisan. Oh yea, it
would not be a PPP rally without a Jaliba and a Kora to take us back to the
tunes that reminded us an era gone by. It was nice and it was an effective
therapy for the Pa, and I was infact happy for him.
The Pa's main message was an echo of the rattlings of the previous Speakers.
His central message revolved around these issues:
A. Most of the APRC projects were infact in the pipeline, and the foundation
was already in place.
B. He said it is preposterous to even suggest that his government has never
built schools."We have built several primary schools and most of the high
schools were public funded"

C. He talked about the successes of Parastatals, and how the Jammeh
government raided their reserves and made them ineffective.
D. He was very critical of Jammeh's so-called projects, and even made fun of
how most of these projects have become refuge for stray dogs and goats.
E. He proposed the need for civil disobedience by the civil servants as an
option to challeng Jammeh's government.
F. To looked into the possibility in organizing demostration, for instance at
the Carter human rights center. He emphasized the importance of such moves,
especially with large gatherings of Gambians inorder to attract the media

Conclusion:
It was sad that questions were not allowed, and this is where I got
disappointed, and echoed my sentiments to the organizers. I argued that It
was ironical that the champion of democracy, and his arguemant at the meeting
to the importance of civil liberties was shield from any critical questions,
or the raising of relevant issues to our development. Their explaination was
that the Pa's last visit to Atlanta was met with unruly individuals that
treated the elder statesman with so much dis-respect that they were not going
to see that happen to the Pa again.
Personally, I felt that his message lacked any critical probing, especially
after been out of office for so long, I was expecting a  much more critical
analysis of the situation, and not to see him pursuing politics of his
handlers. A politics of retribution, politics of getting even, and even to
suggest that Jammeh's failures exonerated him from all allegations came
across vey hollow to me. I found him to be very descent, smart, articulate,
and I feel his pain, but it was also very clear that the Pa has  still not
got the message.
I would also like to convey to the Pa, that whatever Jammeh does, whether
trample over democracy, send our economy on a tailspin; the Pa's legacy would
always be his legacy and would be judge on its own merit. And that even a
second chance would be disastrous because no matter how you slice it, Gambia
would be the ultimate looser

Musa jeng

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