Gambia-L,

It would be recalled that Lower River Division used to be a very strong hold
for the
defunct PPP, a party that ruled The Gambia for about 30 years. However, since
taking over power by force, people of this area have continuously and
consistently condemned and rejected Yaya and his AFPRC/APRC policies. The
electorate of Jarra West constituency, which includes Mansakonko, chose to
elect Kemeseng Jammeh of the UDP against Baba Jobe, the APR candidate in the
1996 parliamentary elections. The same Baba Joe was the Chairman of the
defunct July 22 Movement, a group of illiterates and bandits that almost out
powered or replaced all law enforcement agencies in the country. Regardless
of all the circumstances that surrounded Baba and his thugs, people of Jarra
could never be intimidated.

Moreover, people of Si-Kunda, the home village of Kemeseng, refused to answer
to or pay their taxes to the APRC's hand-picked Alkalo at the expense of
serving a jail term. They were later on acquitted by an Appeal's court. A
lesson that is however learned here is a constitutional violation by the
APRC. This violation is also evident in the chieftaincy of the same electoral
district, where Yaya chose to nominate instead of going through a
constitutional recommended electoral process. However, people of this area
are never bored with their defiance.

Very recently, as has just being reported by Ebrima Ceesay, they stood by
their children against any police arrests or intimidation for exercising
their constitutional rights by taking up the streets for what they considered
as a slow pace in dispensing justice in the cases of Ebrima Barry and Binta.

So there are lessons that Gambians can learn from the people of LRD:
consistent resistance to Yaya and the APRC policies; vote against all APRC
candidates in the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government elections;
mass mobilization and civil disobedience.

Power To The People!

S. S. Saykhan

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