Even before Decree 89 was ‘repealed’, ex-PPP stalwarts like Buba Baldeh,
Nafa Saho and Fatoumatta Jahumpa and the various ‘Yai’ compins’, were
card-carrying members of APRC.  Ex-PPP  ‘bankrollers’ like Saihou Ceesay
also declared allegiance to APRC.  Ceesay single-handedly used PPP patronage
to bring down a commercial bank in the country.  In my opinion the biggest
financial scandal in the country prior to advent of the AFPRC.  Apart from
the above PPP turncoats, there were the Managing Directors that were branded
as corrupt (by the AFPRC junta).  Initially the Dictatorship stripped these
people of their assets and hoisted them before kangaroo courts in order to
justify the illegal usurpation of power on July 22, 1994.  Of course some of
us all along knew that the AFPRC junta had no justification for their
criminal actions.  These were a bunch of bandits that did not even
understand how the government worked.  They were in no position to detect
the corruption they were accusing some people of.  They saw some houses and
assumed that people must be corrupt or else they cannot afford those houses.
  That was the whole rationale (‘Fajara Syndrome’) for the coup.

After they entered the corridors of ‘power’, they began to realize what was
going on in the country.  Some of the mental midgets still do not get it.
But people like Yaya and Yankuba Touray got it.  It did not take them one
week to learn about how to steal money from the people.  The first thing the
illegal junta did was to solicit the help of the Strasser thugs in Sierra
Leone to teach them how to steal.  They started inviting Swiss bankers into
the country to open personal bank accounts for them.  They started
transporting millions of dollars in suit-cases to exotic bank accounts.
Sabally paid off his father’s loan even before he received his first salary
as a junta member.  These people went in there to loot our coffers and lead
flamboyant life-styles.  When word got to the rank and file in the army and
people started protesting, those people were rounded up in November 1994 and
slaughtered in cold-blood.

We all along knew there was no justification for this coup.  The Gambian
people went to the polls in 1992 and gave a mandate to the PPP, with a
landslide victory.  Yaya and his cohorts disrespected that mandate, citing
some bogus reasons for the need to overthrow a democratically elected
government.  Well, now it is clear to everyone that is not blind, that we
changed for the worst in 1994.  We in effect replaced a bunch of thieves
with another bunch of thieves; just worse than the earlier ones.  We
replaced one bunch of unprincipled leaders with another bunch of
unprincipled leaders; just that the latter ones are more callous than the
former.

At the end of the day, the good people that happened to have been PPP
supporters prior to 1994, remained good.  The opportunistic PPP supporters
prior to 1994, remained the opportunists they were all through their lives.
They joined AFPRC/APRC at the slightest opportunity.  If Jawara were to
seize his ‘opportunity’ too and join the APRC, he would be partaking in the
worse ‘jamfa’ that has visited our country.  He would have dishonored the
hundreds of Gambians that lost their lives and livelihoods as a direct
result of the 1994 coup.  Yes! No one was killed on July 22, 1994.  But,
many were slaughtered in cold-blood on November 11, 1994.  Many were
massacred in cold-blood on April 10 and 11, 2000.  Jawara and Yaya must be
out of their minds if they think that by kissing and making up, that takes
care of these heinous actions.  What Yaya and his people did is lot larger
than just depriving Jawara of his presidency and sending them in exile.
This is not about Jawara and Yaya.  Jawara has a beef with Yaya because he
(Jawara) ran for elections and people elected him.  The beef is really
between Yaya and the people that elected Jawara in 1992.  The beef really is
between Yaya and the families of the people that lost their lives because a
bunch of thugs woke up on July 22, 1994 and thought that they knew what was
best for The Gambia and overthrew a democratically elected government.  The
beef is with Gambians that bought into the lies of these thugs and genuinely
thought that these people were coming in to eradicate ‘corruption’.  This is
NOT about Jawara and his cohorts.

If Jawara and the opportunists that surround him take the bait, they, like
SM Dibba would just be showing Gambians that they are nothing but a bunch of
unprincipled impotents.  They would have been emasculated by the same thugs
that stole power from them.  To add insult to injury, the thugs are making
it sound as if they are doing them a favor by ‘allowing’ them to lead some
sorry life in Gambia.  This is simply incomprehensible.  How low some people
will want to stoop is mind-boggling to me.

But, I say to the genuine Opposition, if Jawara goes home and, like SM
Dibba, he too joins the APRC, things can only get worse for the newly-weds.
Yaya kissing and making up with Jawara does NOT mean that the AFPRC/APRC
atrocities are erased or that Jawara will be such a good influence on Yaya
that the Dictatorship in the country will cease.  Jawara is NOT the
custodian of the grief the AFPRC/APRC brought to our country.  It is NOT for
Jawara to ‘forgive and forget’ on our behalf.  This man is prepared to walk
away from people that lay their lives to defend him.  He would NOT be
representing us if he joins the APRC.  He has nothing to offer APRC on our
behalf.  If on the other hand he goes to the country and does not join the
APRC (which I doubt, because the man is already distancing himself from his
Party) would he stay mute when APRC continue to lie about his record?  If
Yaya and Yankuba Touray stand up and say that PPP did not do a thing in The
Gambia during their thirty years tenure or that Jawara was a mass murderer
for inviting the Senegalese in the country in 1981, what is Jawara going to
say or do?  This is bound to happen because we all know that the only
AFPRC/APRC agenda is an anti-PPP agenda.  These people need PPP to try and
legitimize themselves.  They cannot rely on their dismal record of murder,
mayhem and corruption.  Is Jawara going to stand up for the truth?  Or would
he dishonor the people that died defending him and stay mute because he
wants to live at his house in Fajara and have his children inherit his
properties when he dies?

If Jawara comes to Gambia and join the APRC, the Opposition should be
merciless on the man.  Like SM Dibba, he might want people to believe that
he is doing it for the people.  We should NOT buy that crap.  They are in
this for themselves and their immediate families.  These people do NOT give
a darn if some trigger-happy thugs massacre our children in broad daylight.
If they join APRC we should treat them exactly the same way we would treat
any APRC stalwart.  They all betrayed the Gambian masses.
KB


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