Of callousness, mourning and uncertainty
Old habits die hard. Equally, some excesses of government are simply
unstoppable. Even irremediable. They remain still in the calmness of time
and circumstances, but resurface with even more disastrous consequences,
each time those in leadership demonstrate capability of insanity and
wantonness towards societal concerns and agitations. Senseless killings are
a part of the amalgam of everything devilish that the military coup of July
22, 1994, has come to represent.
Which is why scant or no astonishment, should greet the recent macabre
deaths of demonstrating Gambian schoolchildren. Or may be one should raise
eyebrows after all. Time was, not long ago, when extra-judicial killings in
The Gambia were mainly restricted within the army barracks, where torture
and summary executions awaited real or imagined, coupists. Not anymore. Now,
the contagious effects of soldier-killings in the barracks have spilt over
into the greater society, leaving everybody, including schoolchildren, prone
to the egregious conduct of government and its constituencies. The last
thing the Gambian people could ever have fathomed, was the onslaught of a
phalanx of trigger-happy paramilitary forces on unarmed schoolchildren,
leaving scores dead and maimed.
The killings, shocking and brutal as they were, reflect a familiar trait of
a coarse political environment, unstoppable in its churning of unspeakable
miseries against the Gambian people. But that has become the tossed salad of
Jammehism. If there is any unique characteristic of President Yahya Jammeh's
despotism, is its unremitting capacity to generate unprecendented
monstrosities, and as a consequence, simmering mass hysteria. And
dissonance.
If Jammeh's arrival on the political scene in 1994, heightened Gambian
optimism, he has now equally or even more, sullied that optimism,
supplanting it with national pessimism and hopelessness, cascading into
every facet of Gambain society. Under Jammeh, The Gambia has reeled, times
without number, under brutalities that defied public imagination and sanity.
Just four months into power, tens of officers of the GNA perished in an ogre
of summary executions. Their remains have still not been found. Gambians
mourned.
A minister, Ousman Koro Ceesay, went missing, never to be seen again. He was
allegedly kidnapped and driven in his official car to a distant bush, killed
and burnt inside his car. No amount of words can describe the national pain
and shock that attended the gruesome death of Koro on that day. Gambians
mourned again.
Dr. Momodou Njie narrowly escaped death at the hands of armed "kidnappers"
on Denton Bridge. In typical gangster-style, his car was trailed and blocked
on the bridge; his attackers stabbed him multiple times. Lamin Waa Juwara
survived many attempted kidnappings. Other people, too. Gambians wondered
whatever happened to normal sanity and decency.
As recently as three months ago, Gambians mourned yet again. Two alleged
coupists died, one succumbed to a hail of bullets after a column of
gun-toting soldiers pursued him, like a wolf does its quarry, to the Banjul
Albert Market, snuffing out his life in the most inhumane manner. Civility
and restraint are two of the numerous missing ingredients for responsible
leadership in The Gambia today.
Which explains the recent tragic fracas between the students and the
paramilitary forces. It is within the ambits of the law to demonstrate and
express misgivings about societal realities. It is, however, tyrannical and
dangerous to put a stopper to legitimate agitations propelled by simmering
discontentment. Worse, spray bullets on unarmed, innocent schoolchildren,
killing them with impunity. The demonstrating students had the right to vent
their dissent;they were reading into history - of the APRC's litany of human
rights abuses, its contempt for the rule of law and its dilly-dallying on
investigations into legitimate public concerns. What has happened to the
investigation into the mysterious death of Ousman Koro Ceesay?
Questions multiply. Has justice been dispensed for the Guinean immigrant
Amadou Jallow, who was bayoneted to death by soldiers? Has the soldier who
killed the youngman resting on the beaches been arraigned yet? Did Baba
Jobe, who allegedly pulled a gun at two airport security officers, face the
law? Why have Shyngle Nyassi's abductors not been brought to book? Do you
recall the tortures unleashed on the UDP militants? Has the government
investigated these crimes? Mariama Sey recently complained of abuse at the
hands of soldiers. Is she ever going to have her offenders found, let alone
prosecuted? Why is the APRC government reluctant to investigate into The
Gambia's "missing millions" and the recent dubious crude oil deal?
Failure, reluctance actually, on the part of the APRC government to mount
investigations into its abuses and dispense justice to the public, was a
poignant reminder to the students that waiting for justice from the APRC was
like waiting for Godot. It will never arrive or if it does, rather
belatedly. Like a burning candle in the wind, confidence in the APRC
government is sagging fast. Thus, the student demonstration is simply a
by-product of the betrayal of trust and responsibility on the part of the
APRC, to create a just society
thriving on good leadership and true democracy.
Yet, in more style than substance, the Office of the President,incapable of
remorse and accountability, has blamed GAMSU
for the recent carnage. What fatuous nonesense. It is only a person with a
kinky addiction for self-flagellation, who will blame the students, victims
of rampaging, trigger-happy paramilitary troops, who pulled triggers with
impunity. The students demonstrated because of legitimate reasons. And it
turned violent because coercive measures were used to suppress the
agitations of the students. He who tries to squeeze the safety-valve
inherits an explosion.
Blame should go to Jammeh's leadership,the epitome of bad governance and
incendiary politics, aggravating rather than lessening, the coarsening of
political consciousness and behaviour. In a stage-managed
publicity-gimmickry, shamelessly called an interview, with GRTS' Neneh
Mcdonell, after the recent alleged coup plot, the president is at his best:
temperamental, repellent, more loquacious than profound. Jolting between
swings of moods,his eyes half-closed, face, an unimpressive sight of fuming
rage, and basking in an aura of self-perpetuating invincibility, Jammeh
warns Gambians that "heads will roll." There will be no mercy, he stresses.
And he tells his countrymen that he is still the "same Yahya Jammeh," has
not changed a bit. Translation: the tender mercies of the civilian
presidency have failed to pacify Jammeh's repulsive militaristic tendencies.
With a presidential vocabulary bereft of sanity and couched in threats and
extremities, little wonder then paramilitary forces can now shoot and kill
even schoolchildren. The absolutism emanating from the State House is giving
impetus to unchecked political insanity in the country.
Condign punishment for the killers and compensatory justice for the victims,
should not only be obtainable through judicial intervention, but also by a
complete overhaul of the political system, making it democratic rather than
tyrannical. But that is more imaginary than realistic. Given Jammeh's
intransigence and his leadership's propensity for bestiality, meaningful
political changes will continue to elude the national collective.
The Gambia is on a knife-edge.
Cherno Baba Jallow
Detroit, MI
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