July 22nd: Revolution Or Rotation Around a Fixed Axis?
The Independent (Banjul)
OPINION
July 26, 2004
Posted to the web July 26, 2004
By Ousman Manjang Bakoteh
Banjul
Across the blue of the sky there gathered clues of a cloudy storm.
And as the lords roared over the worth of either's gold, The wrath of
divine fracas wrought flames that engulfed the heavens.
So thunder tore asunder the hazy dark of the blue.
Out of the torn flesh flashed streaks of fiery lightening.
Lightening that let it dawn upon some that the times must be pregnant, Full
with the hopes of a new dawn.
And the men suddenly felt like heroes, Crusaders in hurry to bring forth
deliverance But alas when it came!
Deliverance was nowhere to be seen.
The baby had been smothered inside the womb of the mother.
And the sky fell tears.
Rainwater that was red fell in torrents.
The flow of blood soaked the hopes washing them away.
Postponed resurrection and a new race of the rats.
The lust for power over the love of flowers.
And Allah could not but smile at the folly of men Ous, Sept. 1996
It is now ten years since the peaceful overthrow of the thirty-year rule of
the PPP regime and the coming into power of the AFPRC junta and its self-
successor regime of the APRC ( in this article henceforth referred to as
the A(F)PRC). To mark the occasion, or the "revolution" as it is called in
many official quarters, the authorities are bent on treating the people to
a celebration that the country has perhaps never seen. This is not only in
terms of the degree of congestion of the planned programme schedule, the
size and calibre of the corp of invited foreign dignitaries, the volume of
public euphoria or the grandeur of official pomp, but in the worrisome
terms of the cost to the seemingly strained national coffers. That the
coffers are strained may only be mere speculation but that the authorities
in their charge appear to be desperate in efforts at increased revenue
collection is obvious, as can be seen in the recent merciless doubling of
public utility rates.
Desperate situations do indeed call for desperate measures, and from
desperate measures can be seen how desperate some situations are! And
remember, this is coming against a backdrop of major shocks in our economic
and financial systems, escalating inflation, hiking prices of all
commodities and services and more difficulties for everyone trying to make
ends meet. Concern over the alleged lavish spending on the official
celebrations is growing and so is the number of people now questioning even
the necessity of the celebrations, and by implication the very legitimacy
of the "revolution".
When did the July 22nd "revolution" started faltering? Or at what point did
the A(F)PRC missed its compass and started going astray? Or, wait a minute,
some may still insist, has it faltered at all? Is it not still on course
contrary to all speculations?
The A(F)PRC easily dislodged an elected but warily tried and tested thirty-
year old regime one early Friday July 22th 1994 in the name of
transparency, accountability and probity. It built a transitional
government, introduced various commissions of enquiries on corruption,
redrafted the country's constitution, held legislative and presidential
elections in order to succeed itself in a new civilian setting and shrug
off the pariah-like status it was assuming in the eyes of many of the
international community. When they took over power in the summer of 1994
few believed (the young soldiers themselves included) that they would last
till the end of that rainy season in October. The prestige and legitimacy
of the government they had overthrown was simply overbearing and the
challenges they had to face too many. The response of the donor community
was swift, dismissive and even hostile. A wave of hostile travel advices
turned that year's tourist season in to disaster and nearly killed the
whole industry itself. The business community became apprehensive and
uncertainty spread through communities to hold the whole nation in the
grips of great anxiety. This, even among the new regime's many supporters.
Fears of all sorts of shortages, including imminent official bankruptcy and
long delays in the payment of wages and salaries mounted among citizens
while dooms day prophets had their field day. In the middle of November
1994, amidst the clatter of gunfire, the authorities announced the
suppression of an armed uprising among some soldiers in Bakau and Yundum.
Though official versions are yet to shed more light on what actually
happened rumours had it that many lost their lives in the uprising. Some
soldiers who escaped from that episode were said to be encamping in
hideouts across the border getting ready for a counter attack.
Meanwhile, the clamour for a return to civilian rule was growing and
becoming all the more insurmountable, especially from members of the donor
and other international communities. The young soldiers were finally forced
to yield to the demand for not only a declaration of intent to returning
the country to elected civilian rule but also for providing a reasonable
time-frame for that return. In what many saw then as a face-saving
exercise, the junta convened a somewhat cosmetic consultation campaign that
recommended a transition time limit of two years. Deciding whether to
accept or reject such a recommendation seemed to have plunged the junta
into fatal factionalism and two members got dismissed, arrested and
detained in February of 1995. Though it looked like a classic case of a
revolution eating its own children, the feeling of mass apprehension seemed
to have subsided a little as there was a general feeling that the two
expelled members represented the wilder and more unruly elements of the
ruling clique. This incidentally or opportunistically coincided with the
official announcement of the timetable for the return to civilian
democratic rule.
But already by that time, in response to its growing isolation and the
perceived threat from diverse restorationist forces, the junta had already
started the formation of an informal mass network of civilians the main
core of whom were a motley crowd of disgruntled elements, aggrieved
individuals, political hustlers, and quite a number of genuinely patriotic
citizens. Their main clamour then, however, was against the holding of any
elections, especially those held to appease powerful and meddling foreign
powers. Tellingly enough, this sentiment conformed quite neatly with the
official political theories of the authorities in Tripoli, then the main
sponsors of the Gambian "revolution". Though some of the scores of decrees
introduced by the junta specifically banned political parties and suspended
all political activities, the July 22nd Movement, as one of the longer
lasting civilian appendage-organisations was called, went on a feverish
spree of what could only be called political activity without any
hindrance.
By the summer of 1995 it was becoming clearer day by day that the AFPRC
junta had plans of succeeding itself come what may. Once it had its mind
set on this the junta then embarked upon one of the most concerted
development efforts that the country has ever seen. Contrary to what often
happens elsewhere to national economies in the aftermath of military
interventions, the Gambian situation was quiet favourable and the macro-
economic environment surprisingly conducive. For the first, there never
came any major or sustained shortages of goods and services, contrary to
popular fear. Salaries were not only paid in time but at times even a
little earlier. To everyone's utter surprise the dalasi remained stable and
price hikes, when they happened, came in fairly tolerable magnitudes. So
inspite of the near collapse of the tourist and agricultural sectors and
the steep decline in the re-export trade plus of course the withdrawal of
traditional donor support, the economy remained fairly stable all
throughout the later half of the 1990s. The departed PPP government had
gone leaving behind financial reserves that could cover up to five months
of import. Also, the ousted former regime's international prestige as a
haven of human rights and stability had won it a substantial number of
donor support and many projects were lying about waiting to be implemented
by an administration that was firmly wriggled in bureaucratic red tape.
Furthermore, remittances from the swelling number of overseas Gambians were
helping to keep the dalasi afloating still rather robustly. The A(F)PRC
regime unleashed a construction and reconstruction spree of the country's
infrastructure that perhaps had never been seen in the country since the
construction of Bathurst(now Banjul) by Colonel Denton between 1812 and
1816. Scores of school buildings were erected in places where no one had
dreamt of them just few years earlier. Dozens of clinics, health and
community centres, markets, car parks, solar-driven public wells, feeder
and major roads suddenly sprung out from the grounds of the most remote
areas of the country as if by magic. The number of hospitals, flush and
modern looking, doubled and doubled again within a relatively short period
of time. Hundreds of foreign medical doctors were flown in and distributed
to areas so remote that people there might never have seen any life doctor
before. A national television network, even as a concept previously unknown
to many Gambians, suddenly appeared, beaming out of the screens of many
households. On top of these the A(F)PRC successor regimes successfully
launched the establishment of a national university, a progamme whose
feasibility and viability had been long studied and debated only to be
discarded by the ancien regime. A new terminal building sprung up at the
Banjul International Airport to give the place a face-lift that has become
an envy of the sub-region. In the wake of this spate of public works and
construction activities followed a construction boom in the private sector.
New innovative policies and regulations gave taxicabs uniformed colours and
stringent security measures spilled over elsewhere to arrest the escalating
rates of crime and burglary. The civil service was rattled out of its age-
old slumber to become more delivery-oriented and citizens were able to get
their passports, birth certificates, lease and other documents in matters
of weeks instead of months.
Many observers have expressed their misgivings about these developmental
efforts, decrying the lack of an underlying coherent and strategic
thinking, the absence of accountability and transparency in implementation
and even dismissed them as "white elephant projects", but the reputation,
or should I say the impression, of being a development oriented party,
solidly backed by visible evidence, ample enough in steel and concrete,
helped a lot in securing the A(F)PRC a formidable mass support-base in
winning major elections; all the anomalies of the elections withstanding.
This flock of supporters added to the unrepentant enemies of the ancien
regime, plus those who jumped into the bandwagon by way of the politics of
affinity, to become the solid mass base of the A(F)PRC.
But solid mass base, electoral victories and the shroud of legitimacy did
not seem to have soared the self-confidence of the new leaders sufficiently
enough. The leaders continued to feel the need for using the muscle of the
July 22nd Movement as an informal instrument of coercion, intimidation and
thuggery against all opposition, real or imagined, until 1999 when it was
quietly phased out. But what the authorities then failed to realise was
that the July 22nd Movement was not only an instrument of coercion but also
a source of internal destabilisation. It, for instance, fought tooth and
nail against the parliamentary APRC party from its inception and sought to
downplay its significance all throughout. It created a parallel power
structure that vied with official and other channels of governance over
power, influence and authority. It polluted the governance environment with
the mist of illegality and planted the seed of parallel governance within
the A(F)PRC structures. With the July 22nd Movement along its side, the A(F)
PRC regimes appeared to have taken the practice of terror and
intimidation, "hoohatal" and "opincall" as a legitimate method of exercise
of power.
No wonder therefore that the issue of governance continues to be the most
contentious facet of the A(F)PRC balance-sheet. The history of the long
rule by decrees; the unending examples of highhandedness of the security
forces; the repeated amendments of the constitution for most questionable
reasons; and the telling example of the confiscation of GGC properties all
go to highlight the typical A(F)PRC thinking as far as governance is
concerned. Before, in the old days of the Field Forces the unofficial motto
use to be: Education nor matta, if you get your certificate put am na your
pocket. But I guess now it is: Democracy nor matta if you get your
constitution put am na your pocket.
And since good governance looks like the father of official respect for
human rights and civil liberties and since as father as son, the saying
goes, the A(F)PRC record on these domain has left lot to be desired.
What was it, for instance, that actually happened in November 1994? What
have the authorities done so far in investigating and publishing their
findings surrounding the death of the late Finance Minister Ousman Koro
Ceesay? Why were there no official inquests into the death of Almamo Manneh
and corporal Dumbuya. Who ordered the shooting of the student mob in April
11th and 12th 2000? What has happened with the investigations into the
shooting of Mr. Ousman Sillah and the arson attack against the Independent
newspaper?
So a look at the A(F)PRC balance sheet easily evokes references to the much
debated issue of the inter-relationship between poverty and freedom; bread
on the one hand, and fresh air on the other, between rice and rights.
Though this may appear quite theoretical, it is very relevant if one bears
in mind that for many, if not most Gambian voters, material gain, for self
or for community, far outweighs issues of human rights, civil liberties or
any other concern. This is why votes can be bought and sold wholesale in
The Gambia. A realization that still runs deep in A(F)PRC thinking. Party
officials still complain openly in televised mass rallies of voters who
betrayed them even after monies have been doled out, roads repaired or
schools built. They get stunned when faced with such cases. They simply
cannot understand how Gambian voters can choose any other party than the
one that has given them so much "development" in so little time. So when
and wherever they wish and can, the party officials can threaten or block
access to public resources for particular voters. This attitude forms the
core of the alleged arrogance that turns off many from the A(F)PRC style of
rule.
Convinced that they, putting their lives on the line, "saved" Gambians from
the woes of the previous regime, and after having done so much for the
development of the country, should be beyond any criticism or rebuke is the
core to the so much talked about A(F)PRC arrogance and intolerance. The
knowledge that there is a permanent and loyal support base of at least 20%
of the registered voters only serves to entrench that arrogance.
So when did the "revolution" started faltering? Has it faltered? In my
opinion the "revolution" did not falter because there was no revolution to
speak of in the first place.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Copyright © 2004 The Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by
AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
