vents that occured within the ranks of the oposition in the Gambia during
the past few days brought both hope trepidation to many who follow such
events. First, moments of hope with news of impeding alliance and later
trepidation and disappointment that the alliance that emerged was not
total.Lamentably, the opposition on the ground is short of sufficient
passion for a total alliance to fight a dcadent regime in the forthcoming
election. Now a few comments on some interesting comments made on these
events.

First, I am not sure that it is not correct to say that a leader was hastily
selected. Before the Monday meeting there were a series of consultations
involving Hassan Musa, Dibba and the PPP representatives. Further, Camara
did circulate a memo to all parties on the alliance proposal. This suggests
to me that no party was left out. In fact, it has been said that the meeting
was postponed to allow Bah of the NRP to return from his overseas mission.


Looking at Dibba's remarks at his press conference,  I cannot see any reason
why the NCP should have worked out of the meeting. Even where the udp and
ppp had decided to confer privately, there is nothing wrong with that. This
is negotiation and anybody who has been involved in negotiation knows that
parties to a negotiation do confer in the course of bargaining or
discussions; infact it is not unusual for one side to ask for adjournment
while they consider new elements that may emerge. That has nothing to do
with beig secretive. Any party to a negotiations comes with an identity and
a set of interests and leaves with less than he began with. This requires
maturity and a genuine commitment to the goals of what is being negotiated.
In this particular case, both the required level of maturity and the
commitment to task at hand had not been fully demonstrated.   What is
crucial here is a strong passion for unity, a passion that is much stronger
that the passion for individual interest. We know that the desire for unity
is dictated by the even greater desire - to rescue the country from grip of
a dictatorship that will continue to bring misery and degeneration in our
country. We must therefore forget about past glories and agonies of
individual parities .

Undoubtedly,  Dibba's credentials are impressive: a founding member of PPP
which led us independence, a former holder of various key cabinet portfolios
  and  a former leader of the main opposition party.As a politician; Dibba
is charismatic and has stelar public speaking abilities. Yet his deafening
silence during the past 7 years has raised many questions about his
leadership credentials. Although he has explained that the reason for his
silence was meant to avoid instability, there are many Gambians who would
not buy that. If he was convinced of the illegitimacy of the yaya regime,
which replaced a democratically elected government he should have at least
spoken his mind. I don't see how speaking out like, OJ did, would have led
to instability.

The bottom line is: anybody who is interested in unity as a legitimate
weapon of fighting the dictatorship should subordinate all other
considerations and join the alliance. If this does not happen, then it would
not be inaccurate to assume that these leaders have not had enough of the
dictatorship that yaya jammeh brought onto a "virgin" country of innocent
and decent people.

Dampha, I do understand your position against reconvening a meeting. But, I
think as we move forward, let's keep our options open. As the saying goes,
no situation (particularly in politics) is permanent.I think if all the
opposition parties can develop the right amount of alliance passion, the
present distance among them could be bridged.

Jabou, I am glad you are holding unto your apology until all the parties
speak out In fact I don't think you owe anybody an apology for expressing
you views based on your assessment of what was happening. If they turn
around and treat this situation as an emergency requiring bold decisions
that subordinated individual philosophies and idiosyncrasies for the
interest of the country, they could then be congratulated, without apologies
for views expressed on previous manifestations.

What we are faced with is an historic opportunity for good to prevail over
evil. If we fail, history will not exonerate our current opposition leaders.

AT



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