Mr. Darbo

That was a hard look.

Asking hard questions is always good for any cause. I do recognize some
frown on questioning but that's needed especially after 20 years of failed
approaches and strategies.

Glad we're all not 'DEAD FISH' - carried by tides/flow.

Keep it up.

Burama



On Thursday, March 27, 2014, Lamin Darbo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> CORDEG's Utterly Blurred Vision
>
> Its leadership is almost entirely Diaspora-based, with some absent from
> The Gambia for two, maybe three decades. Under Professor Jammeh's
> Constitution, none of those leaders are qualified to contest any public
> elections slated for 2016/17. Outside the cyber political world, the
> organisation and its leadership are unknown, and crucially, to all but
> probably a negligible fraction of the home-based electorate. With no money
> on the table, it nevertheless pretends to the title of "... home to Gambian
> opposition political parties and Civil Society organisations at home and in
> Gambia's various Diasporas". Without so much as a passing justification, it
> seeks to wholly diminish the established and singularly significant
> home-based political opposition by proposing to commingle its influence in
> an egalitarian commune populated by purported civil society entities
> peopled, in the overwhelming number of cases, by a handful of individuals.
> Even more egregiously, what should have been a national project was
> hijacked and placed in the exclusive control of three very close social and
> cultural friends.
>
> Welcome to the make-believe world of The Committee for the Restoration of
> Democracy in The Gambia (CORDEG). As if to compound the illogical and
> unsupportable claim it is "... home to Gambian opposition political parties
> and Civil Society organisations at home and in Gambia's various Diasporas"
> it asserts that "CORDEG recognises the autonomy of its *constituent
> members as equal partners* in the struggle to democratise The Gambia".
> Whoever its "constituent members" maybe as of March 2014, it is
> unreasonableness personified to contend that CORDEG itself has the clout to
> demand "equal partner" status with political parties whose followership
> number in the hundreds of thousands!
>
> As the latest organisational progeny of the Gambian Conference on
> Democracy and Good Governance, Raleigh, North Carolina, 17-19 May 2013,
> CORDEG was originally projected as a facilitating mechanism for party-based
> opposition unity in Gambia's fight for national democratisation. At least
> that was a plausible understanding of its primary objective based on the
> marketing literature put out by conference organisers. In the subsequent
> Raleigh Accord, some reference to the G6 was maintained but the role of
> home-based political parties was progressively diluted to a point all
> specific reference to their very central significance to a project that
> must be fought and won inside Gambia's geographic contours was dropped from
> the just-published CORDEG "vision" statement.
>
> Without question, there is a yawning gap in CORDEG's incomprehensible
> reasoning. As an "independent, non-profit transnational democratic umbrella
> organisation that is committed to peaceful, non-violent democratic change
> in The Gambia", it stands to reason that CORDEG can effect change in The
> Gambia only through the electoral process. With no political base where it
> matters - in The Gambia - and deficient in critical aspects of the
> political process such as funding, it is hard to appreciate the locus of
> the leverage CORDEG assigns itself as the "... home to Gambian opposition
> political parties and Civil Society organisations at home and in Gambia's
> various Diasporas". The established political parties have no reason to
> subsume themselves in an unknown entity that purports to control them and
> their clear influence. Herein CORDEG's disconnect with reality as far as
> Gambia's political terrain.
>
> Or maybe there is no disconnect, but what calculations are driving
> CORDEG's so far opaque strategy are too opportunistic to openly communicate
> without triggering great public disquiet. It is an open secret that Gambian
> public life under the Professor is unsettled enough to collapse either of
> its overwhelming weight *vis-a-vis* its utterly weak foundation, or with
> a little push from some hostile quarter. Should that happened in a chaotic
> manner on the stretch to 2016, it would completely alter the dynamics of
> play in the country's political topography. Like any of the endless array
> of Diaspora-based organisations, CORDEG would likely want a seat at the
> table of inevitable reconciliation around a transitional national unity
> government. There are various other scenarios present in a seismic national
> event that ruptures the current status quo and elements within CORDEG may
> want to hedge bets just in case. On the formation of the National
> Resistance of The Gambia, Yero Jallow of *Gainako Online Newspaper*profoundly reflects: "Isit by coincidence all these groups are emerging or do the fortune tellers
> of the land revealed a secret that some of us are not aware yet? I just
> find things very interesting nowadays. It is as if people are clearly
> seeing Jammeh's demise".
>
> If CORDEG's focus is sincerely on a peaceful change of government, the key
> question is why it treats the established political parties as though they
> are in the same league as some of the Diaspora's less than ten-people
> organisations. Can it be that CORDEG harbours the ambition of morphing into
> a political party and under that calculus may consider it unwise to get too
> cosy with any of the current crop of home-based political parties. If that
> is the case, CORDEG ought to dispense with all pretense and consolidate on
> that independent and legally permissible basis. Or is it intending to
> travel the fictional route of sponsoring an independent presidential
> candidate outside the explicit blessing of the established parties, or some
> of them at least. Whatever its real intentions, CORDEG can achieve nothing
> meaningful without expressly recognising the stranglehold of the
> established home-based political parties on the electorate that must decide
> the outcome of any election. Even more crucially, it must embrace Gambia's
> true diversity in its critical decision-making organ.
>
> We can all admire the personal achievements of some CORDEG members but
> that unquestioned reverence must never extend to matters touching on
> critical issues of Gambian public life. By all means celebrate the
> friendships and other relationships but do not require us to endorse
> pronouncements grounded in mere assertions, and visions that fell far short
> of what it takes to bring personal and national political salvation to The
> Gambia. What CORDEG placed on the table is not a national vision. It is a
> vision for personalities and a quite marginal group when what is needed is
> a selfless commitment to the creation of a national tent large enough to
> accommodate all colours of opinion but realistic enough to cede leadership
> to the more compelling players inhabiting the storm centre of Gambian
> public life.
>
> In light of its comparative strength and appeal, CORDEG is best advised to
> pitch its tent in the domain most suited to its objective character,
> advocacy that has as its central element the facilitation of opposition
> party consolidation where it matters, inside Gambia. If, like others,
> CORDEG projects itself as an entity committed to forceful change in Gambian
> public life, this rejoinder would not be necessary as it would then be
> operating under different justifications and rules, and more crucially, on
> its exclusive resources to realise its objective. In the political world,
> it denotes unreasonableness of the highest order to seek to either
> proactively control or diminish the significance of entities without whose
> willing cooperation and resources there is absolutely no chance of
> achieving ones desired objective. As CORDEG advanced no reasonable
> explanation to its boldest assertion of not conceding any supremacy to
> political parties with supporters in the hundreds of thousands, its true
> intentions may at best be regarded as mired in opaqueness. To recognise no
> distinction between established political parties on the ground, and
> few-person entities like the myriad of so-called civil society
> organisations in the distant Diaspora, is the very epitomisation of
> fantasy.
>
> This apparently characteristic opaqueness on critical questions is
> threatening to be the albatross around CORDEG's neck. In the run-up to
> Raleigh, the conveners of the conference were marketed as STGDP, based in
> Atlanta, and GDAG, based in the host city. After Raleigh, DUGA-DC was
> retrospectively included among the conveners. No explanation was ever
> advanced. Even more crucially, when CORDEG's leadership team was unveiled,
> GDAG, the other principal to Raleigh, came out utterly empty handed in the
> executive and sub-executive line up. Again, no explanation whatsoever even
> though this turn of events is potentially the most fatal development going
> to CORDEG's very questionable credibility. In case any is tempted to
> advance the democratic process as having spoken on the leadership issue, I
> strongly suggest that a fair and visionary group would exercise heightened
> and appropriate sensitivity in the overall circumstances it was confronted
> with as far selecting its top echelon team. To its regrettable peril,
> CORDEG blatantly ignored common sense!
>
> For example, CORDEG purportedly 'elected' three socially and culturally
> connected individuals in the persons of Dr Abdoulaye Saine (Chair), Ms
> Sigga M Jagne (Vice-chair), and Abdulai Jobe (Secretary General), and *probably
> *imposed them on the group as the untouchable Executive Committee (EC).
> Were the participants in its so-called executive elections on prior notice
> that "the EC is CORDEG's top-tier administrative group, responsible for
> overall policy, strategy and implementation of CORDEG's programs and
> projects, with the Secretary General (SG) serving as the hub for CORDEG's
> specialiased Committees/Directorates". These three very close friends are
> "also responsible for Foreign Affairs/International Diplomacy, strategic
> partnerships and overall management of CORDEG". Or were the
> responsibilities attached to the positions after the elections? If the
> latter, the overall process does not pass the smell test!
>
> Stated unequivocally, Dr Abdoulaye Saine, Ms Sigga M Jagne, and Abdulai
> Jobe comprise CORDEG's equivalent of the UN Security Council with power to
> veto anything they don't like. The public deserves clarification on whether
> the so-called "vision" statement predates the elections, or whether the
> "vision" statement was crafted after the elections. I cannot accept that
> some of the independently minded individuals I encountered in this
> struggle, and who participated in CORDEG's so-called elections, would have
> voted for such a perverse arrangement had they known they were endorsing a
> dictatorship of three social and cultural chums in the sense that the
> "Steering Committee", and the "Specialised Committees/Directorates" are
> utterly redundant in the area of crucial management decision making. In
> light of the above, I emphatically reject the claim in the so-called
> "vision" statement that CORDEG "enjoys wide mandate and legitimacy, as the
> recognised representative and voice of the Gambian opposition the
> world-over".
>
> Notwithstanding the claim of "home to Gambian opposition political
> parties and Civil Society organisations at home and in Gambia's various
> Diasporas", we know there are other Diaspora groups with competing
> priorities and some are calling for even CORDEG to join them. The claim and
> the reality therefore diverged. Indeed CORDEG continues to ignore the fact
> that not all political parties were present in Raleigh, and some prominent
> participants are now leading groups with quite a militant approach to
> ending public lawlessness in The Gambia. CORDEG's very deficient "vision"
> statement can only make it impossible for those outside this
> architecturally flawed "umbrella" to want to peep in, much less join its
> cover. Although there appears to be many unanswered questions around
> CORDEG's intentions, or at least the intentions of those steering the
> entity in the unlit pathways of potential deception, what is explicit in
> its own "vision" statement is alarming enough to scare me away.
>
> Those who contend for the proposition that unity is the highest value we
> should aspire to in our fight against atrocious public lawlessness in
> Gambian public life are counselled to embrace the more admirable philosophy
> of objective reason and fairness as the highest foundational values of any
> viable national space. As currently constituted, CORDEG's "vision", and top
> leadership team, lacks both reason and fairness! CORDEG will therefore
> struggle for traction. Don't take my word for it. I am more than content to
> leave the verdict in the hands of that great arbiter of human affairs -
> time.
>
> And in case any is tempted to brand legitimate queries on seminal national
> issues as a distraction, I suggest some inner self-conversation around the
> fundamental question of what you have done/are doing for the vital struggle
> for a democratic Gambia that the person supposedly causing a distraction
> has no done. In the event of a struggle for an affirmative answer, that
> inner conversation should constitute co
>

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤