Mam Yusu,

Actually, Malanding Jaiteh forwarded the piece on Annan, and I followed with
my commentary which basically is taking the same view as you have expressed
here.

It seems Annan is caught in the pomp and ceremony of the UN, and beyond that,
he does not seem to urge the members to adopt an agenda that will avert the
many disasters that have become the order of the day in many countries,
especially in Africa, and especially because he is a son of Africa; who
should be well aware that the window dressing that some of our leaders put on
in certain instances is far from the real truth, our head of state being one
of them.
Yes, Annan visited Gambia after the student massacres, and when he left there
without paying heed to the many messages he received from concerned Gambians,
it became pretty clear that he  is either just another clueless follower, or
he did not think that it was a situation worth looking into in the interest
of avoiding further atrocities. This is what led me to ask the question, what
indeed is the usefulness of the U.N? Kofi Annan could not have been that
blind or deaf when he visited our country in that terrible moment, or maybe
he just managed to talked to the wrong people, instead of the ordinary folks
with whom he should have been talking if he wanted to get the real facts.

Jabou

In a message dated 9/6/00 10:52:32 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:


 To be honest, I still question the genuineness of Kofi Annan in respect to
 helping the UN define a more influential role in Africa.  I say this because
 he has failed us not only once, but several times.

 During the Rwanda conflict a top secret memo hit the man's desk in his NYC UN
 office that warned about impending disaster, a possible plan to carry out
 ethnic genocide against over 1 million Tutsis.  This message was sent to then
 Mr. Annan by the then commander of UNAMIR, the  UN peace keeping force in
 this country at the time.  At the time of the memo landing on his desk, the
 crisis was possible but still far a distant threat.

  Kofi's message back to the commander was to not fire a single shot. No vote
 to see what approach was to be taken but simply a quick reply that was
 received in minutes by the commander in the far off, crisis torn African
 country called Rwanda. Hundreds of thousands of our own brothers meanwhile
 faced an uncertain death. The UN, at the behest of our supposed African
 savior, was to adopt a hands off approach.. We all know what followed.
Simila
 rly he adopted the same approach to crises in Sierra Leone and many other
 countries.

 Additionally, the man seems to be oblivious to the plight of many African
 countries.  If recollection serves me right, he did visit our country in the
 aftermath of the student massacre.  This leads me to believe that the man is
 totally out of touch with the realities of the continent, or maybe being a
 diplomat is akin to being a hypocrite these days.

 Jabou I commend you for forwarding this piece of mail.  But, based on his
 actions, his sermons and communiques mean nothing to me because Africa has
 not benefited from this man's tenure as so Chief Puppet UN Secretary
 Generalismo.
  >>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface
----------------------------------------------------------------------------