Echo Editorial: I CRY
FREEDOM
By egsankara 12 hours 31 minutes ago
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By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor–in-Chief

There is an after dinner narrative that was famous during the bi-polar
struggle when the United States and the defunct Soviet Union were in the height of the struggle for ideological dominance. The narrative goes
thus: there lived two dogs; one in Holland and the other in Poland. Each
Christmas, the Hollander   would go to Poland and bark fiercely
but the Polish dog never paid attention. After doing this for successive
Christmas dinners, the Polish dog became abrasive and decided to speak its
mind. “My friend, we do not have enough meat to share with you. So you might as
well go home and stop this silly barking” said the apparently irritated Polish
dog. The Hollander responded calmly. "Yes my good friend that you do
not have enough meat is understood. My people in Holland have abundance of
meat. I am not barking for food but for the freedom deficit, I am barking for
democracy and human rights that are almost always absent here. I bark every
Christmas to help you enjoy the bounties of, and inherent good in
freedom."

 That was then, in the height of the cold war, but as a student of
contemporary history and politics, the invocation above is more fitting to
Africa and The Gambia than ever before. Like the Hollander dog that protested
the excesses of the communist establishment in neighboring Poland, we too have
to stand steadfast to expose the freedom deficit in Yahya Jammeh’s Gambia: the
killings, the disappearances, the abductions and the torture chambers in the
hands of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

The hiring and firing of civil servants and ministers almost at fever
pitch, is an eloquent testimony to a nation at the precipice of disaster. The
new trend that after they are fired all officials have to visit Mile Two; that
infamous penitentiary is to say the least, sickening. If any thing, this new
phenomenon in Gambia’s body politics reveals that Yahya Jammeh’s long predicted
paranoia have methestasized and our dear nation and its people need us abroad
to speak up loud for the world to recognize their sorry state of affairs.

I had e-mail the other day that requested that I call a certain phone
number. Lo and behold when I called, the person was an APRC insider who was
among other things a National Assembly Member (NAM). Prior to this
solicitation, a writer from Raleigh, NC had intimated that “the overtures have
begun. That very soon I will be another Omar Faye, Manlafi Jarju, Dr. Amadou S.
Janneh etc.” He concluded by way of admonishing me “not to be an idiot” but to
heed to the dictates of the situation. After an hour long phone conversation, I
think I have convinced the subtle diplomat that I am not in the United States
out of frustration nor do I want to return only to be a Minister or Permanent
Secretary. Among other things, I have expressed my desire to one-day witness
the trial of Yahya Jammeh and his cronies before a competent tribunal. I also
told my good brother that “bygones cannot be bygones” when the killers of Deyda
Hydara and the over dozen schoolchildren on April 10-11, 2000, walk the streets
of Banjul scot-free. I reminded him of the attempted assassination of lawyer
Ousman Sillah, the death of Finance Minister Ousman Koro Ceesay and the
execution of Lt. Almamo Manneh and Dumbuya among numerous other extra-judicial
executions. I finally told him quite bluntly “call me a dog if ever I take a
job from your government.” According to my good conversationalist, The Echo
could have served the country better if it were migrated to Banjul. That it
could be an avenue to broaden the creative potential of the Gambian youth who
are thirsty for knowledge etc, etc. I said that that was not tenable because
Yahya Jammeh has no regards for human rights that what led to Deyda Hydara’s
death couldn’t spare The Echo and its staff. In a nutshell, it will not,
cannot, can never be and must never happen; Period!!! We will be civil and
leave it at that for now.

Back to brass tasks, I want to make it abundantly clear that I have no
personal animosity against Yahya Jammeh because prior to the July 1994 coup, he
was an unknown political quantity with no gravitas whatsoever. My qualms with
him began soon after he started his wholesale plan to emasculate the entire
press corps and threaten to send his peers six feet deep. For the past twelve
years Gambians have seen so much blood and wickedness that one wonders if this
is the Smiling Coast that one was born in. I remember with great nostalgia the
latitude of freedom that the Jawara government accorded all and sundry. I
remember for instance, the critical reports that Peter Gomez and I made on
Radio Gambia during our Saturday Magazine program Weekend Spectrum. I
remember for instance, my report that led to the closure of the Brikama
Abattoir. But Yahya Jammeh is no Sir Dawda Jawara and Sir Dawda likewise.
Whatever his troubles with the Gambian people were to endorse his overthrow by
the brutal dictator masqueraded in a savior’s regalia; Sir Dawda is an angel; a
political rara avis compared to Jammeh. Yahya Jammeh believes in the
divine rights of kings and takes The Gambia as Africa’s newest found fiefdom.

Yahya Jammeh may be a reincarnation of the megalomaniac French king,
Louis Philip who was so drunk with power that he concluded thus: “Le’tat
se moi” (the state is mine). To Yahya Jammeh, The Gambia is he and he is
The Gambia such that he cannot just cater to dissent. He hires and fires as he
deems fit and owes no one an explanation. He also has the right to muzzle the
press and kill or send to jail any citizen as he deems fit. Whereas in a
Constitutional democracy all are equal before the law, in Yahya Jammeh’s
kakistocracy some are more equal than the others. Like the ancient Greek philosopher Anacharsis Jammeh thinks that
laws are like cobwebs: strong enough to detain only the weak, and too weak to
hold the strong. He determines equality before the law and sanctions the
law as he deems fit. Those who think otherwise are not patriotic and deserve
Mile Two (Africa’s Hell on Earth) or death like Deyda Hydara who fittingly
captured this legal nonsense thus “Thought Tribunal.” Deyda’s praxis
of a Thought Tribunal is further galvanized by the synthesis of bad
laws promulgated on a daily basis by a spineless National Assembly. Some of its
membership cannot clearly explain the difference between a Bill and
an Act, a legislature and a political party let alone
understand the complex dynamics of such an important chamber. This is so
important a place that Alexander Hamilton one of the founders of the modern day
United States once told a visiting foreign dignitary who was amazed at the
noise in Congress that “Sir, there, the people govern.” I
look forward with hopeful anticipation to the day when our people, all of them,
would say with overwhelming thoroughness and conviction that “there, the people
govern.” For now though, “there, “Yahya Jammeh dictates” This brings us
back to our role as journalists. Metaphoricallly speaking, we are to society
what lubricants are to mechanical devices. Good and responsible reporting
protects society from corrosion, over heat and rust. This is why Yahya Jammeh
hates us because The Gambia under this iron–fisted tyrant has seen what was
never conceivable in this once oasis of democracy, human rights and rule of
law. This is why we should keep up the momentum and cry freedom like the old
dog from Holland. Therefore, until the day when we go to the National Assembly
convinced that “there, the people govern” I cry freedom.
      
      
Editor's Note: This editorial was originally posted on Tuesday, November
28, 2006 12:17 PM by egsankara. In view of recent developments in The Gambia,
we pulled it from our Echo archives for our readers to refresh their memories.

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