Wow! That was a powerful piece. And I do believe,
that you have indeed touched on one of the reasons why
Yahya has been able to hold on to power for so long.
For as you said, he lacks the experience, the
character, the intellect, and the expertise to even
run a stall at "Marche Serrekunda." But when people
with some of those characteristics hurriedly joined
his band wagon in 1994, and still continue to do so,
of course he continues to stay in power. For reasons
ranging from vengeance against the former PPP
government, greed, power hunger, lack of integrity,
etc, such people who should be/have been banding up
against Yahya to stand up for their country and its
people, decided to join forces with Jammeh and look
the other way when he imprisons, tortures, maims, and
kills innocent Gambians as well as squanders limited
Gambian resources. Their pursuant of personal gains
at the expense of their country's future, landed them
at the devil's table. And once Yahya has them where
he wants them, he uses the only weapon he has ever
known - brutality. He ascertains that they recognize
the brute in him. He harasses, tortures, imprisons,
and even kills any of them who opposes him in any
little way. This way, they all know what faces them
if they decide to take that route. Yahya be-littles
them, even curses them out in front of their peers.
In short, he treats them like nothing just so they
understand where the power lies. They are like
puppets or pawns of his. He uses them to attain his
agendas and then discard of them. At the beginning,
they must have thought it would be easy to manipulate
and control "this half literate idiot," not realizing
that that idiot, is like an un-controllable beast and
by climbing on to his carriage, they have more or less
signed themselves over to his mercy. And some of hem
realizing Jammeh's paranoia about so called "enemies",
rat against each other as well as against Gambians
who, unlike them, had refused to sit at the devil's
table, in order to gain favor with the Kanilai killer.
So these people, who should have formed the forte of
the opposition against Jammeh in order to ascertain
their country's future, grovel at the feet of a man
who but for a cruel twist of fate, would only have
been fit to serve them as a garden boy. But as they
grovel, thinking that they are carving a niche in the
Kanilai Kingdom, they forget an important life lesson
that the Senegalese actor Bye Elli has been known to
utter, "Ku Lehkah Supah, Dingah Taha Dewtirr."
But one thing is for sure, while Jammeh and his goons
are part of the problem, the solution can only arrive
when Gambians stand up to take their future in their
own hands. When Gambians realize that their freedom
and their future, should be important enough for them
to make sacrifices, no matter how little or how great,
to end Jammeh's reign of horror. Until that day,
until we as Gambians realize that we have to be ready
to make certain sacrifices, and until we are ready to
stand up to injustices against us, there will always
be a Jammeh to drag our country and its people through
the mud. For why should the UN, America, England,
etc, care enough to heed our calls for help, while our
own people do not even think it important enough for
them to stand up and let their voices be heard? If we
have so little regard for our country's future, why
should anyone else? As such, let those of us who
understand the importance of our standing up against
Jammeh, keep fighting and keep trying to open the eyes
of the rest. For even though it can be discouraging
when our fellow countrymen and women refuse to join
the fight, what alternative do we have? We can only
keep forging ahead, for the alternative is not an
option.
--- Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
<HR>
<html><DIV>
<P>Shortly after the freakish 1996 presidential
elections, a friend and I had a debate about Jammeh,
the so-called transition and the elections. The
debate, as was the always case in those days, ended
with the usual denouements of despair about Jammeh
taking us down the drain. Most introspective about
this anecdote was a very trite joke he ended the
debate with. It’s not the best joke around – but hey
you‘ve heard worst. Most crucially, it did say a lot
about the Gambia then and now. It goes like this: "How
come a guy - who left to his own devices - cannot even
manage a market stall with only a tin of tomato paste
to sell, manage to take us this far when he had as his
opposition some of the worldly, wily and intelligent
Gambians?" How indeed! Hardly the stereotypical joke
that splits your sides with cackles. Being the
reflective type, I reflected deeply on this; I confess
I find this deep and hardly a funny joke. This joke
just about sums the tragedy of modern Gambia: How a
moron can still hold us in ransom in this age of
reason and enlightenment. Surely, something is missing
from this narrative? If you agree that Jammeh is a dim
bulb who can’t handle a market stall with just a tin
of tomato to sell, how can he survive all these years
of lampooning and adversary from some of the smartest
and experienced Gambians? It can’t all be reduced down
to "historical inevitability" – as crude determinists
would suggest. If we accept – as Shakespeare seems to
suggest and I have learn from Isaiah Berlin’s thought
– that "human beings were not marionettes; they were
not the playthings of vast impersonal forces; their
behaviour and their mental universe might be shaped by
their class position, their race, their gender or
their cultural traditions, but as individuals they
retained the capacity for moral choice, and to that
extent they remained free of these determining
factors," then surely, we must apportion blames to
human beings who took part in the plotting of events
that have seen the Gambia lurch closer and closer to
the abyss. Herein lies our irony: You accept that
Jammeh is a dim bulb incapable of running the country
on his own, yet he has spent more than six years at
the helm of our nation’s affairs. That irony is at the
brunt of my humble pen in this piece.</P>
<P>It is quite interesting that, for now at least, we
are not only subjecting Jammeh’s actions to a
microscopic scrutiny but also his acolytes who in my
view carry a far bigger blame for the Jammeh Mess than
Jammeh himself. Indeed, it remains to be seen how far
Jammeh would have gone in his destructive plans had
renegade, unprincipled and heretic intellectuals not
collaborated with him. What on earth would have
happened to Jammeh’s Decrees had Fafa Mbye not
intervened in the nick of time to arrange Jammeh’s
agenda for him? That Jammeh owed that much to the
intervention of vindictive and renegade intellectuals
when one institutes a deep inquiry into the Jammeh
Story so far is not in doubt. From the very outset,
the reception amongst technocrats and intellectuals
towards Jammeh was at best mixed. It is true that he
didn’t have much of a problem in filling Cabinet
positions. Yet, it would be gross negligence to claim
that he was greeted with a rapturous embrace from the
intellectual community. If anyone has anything to fear
from a Jammeh regime that promises accountability,
most certainly logic suggests that it should be gov’t
bureaucrats and their allies in the private sector. In
fact Jammeh was explicit about the targets of his
accountability – what he stupidly calls the Fajara and
Banjul Mafiosi. Fajara and Banjul are the areas where
gov’t technocrats and intellectuals choose to reside
at, hence the stereotype. As it turned out, this mixed
reception was relaxed into something more or less a
benign indifference as Jammeh settled into office. It,
however, doesn’t corrode the fact that Jammeh’s
relationship with the technocrats was not always
clear-cut and bordered on something more on the
discrepancies of a paranoid fruitcake and inferiority
complex ridden rusticated-cum-urban migrant who
thought he had been held back the elites of these
areas. The Stalinist purges that were to happen in the
civil service later attests to this judgement. To sum
up, let’s just say that Jammeh’s relationship with the
technocrats was fraught with severe self-ingratiated
handicaps that bespoke of a lack of trust on both
sides. This raises another crucial question here: If
Jammeh didn’t trust the technocrats, who gave him
intellectual muscle to be able to come this far?</P>
<P>Now in his drive to make the technocrats to be
subservient him, Jawara also had his purges of the
civil service – rightly or wrongly. Thus amassing such
a huge cadre of vindictive intellectual heavies. One
of the things Jammeh was vocal of in the early days
was how Jawara’s nepotism had driven out qualified
Gambians from the civil service. He offered them an
amnesty back into civil service. But before these
could gather pace and for Jammeh to get the drift from
these exiled intellectuals, something that has the
mark of a watershed took place and the person behind
it shall be the subject of my microscopic scrutiny for
obvious reasons - he is the typical aggrieved
intellectual who did serve in the Jawara civil service
at the top level but departed under rather
unceremonious circumstances. In 1994, during the very
early days of the coup, Gabriel Roberts - formerly of
Saint Augustines’ High School’s [SAHS] English &
Literature Dept. - made the annual Gambia College
graduation ceremony speech that year. The anecdote, as
Christopher Hitchens would say, is inescapable here.
As a former student at SAHS, I do remember Roberts as
a typical obscure and bookish nondescript looking
fellow - the type you come across and very likely to
ever recall meeting. In fact I used to think he was
part of the administrative staff because of his
subdued demeanour. But then I was never part of
anything that associates with intellectual exercises
and or milieu in SAHS to warrant me to know that
Roberts in those days was arguably the school’s
heaviest hitter intellectually. The first time this
occurred to me was when Roberts came to assembly to
explain to us the ceremonial procedure of the
graduation of which he was master of ceremony. In
effortless and flawless Queen’s English, Roberts
explained the procession of graduates and
all-the-what-nots graduations. In under ten minutes
[and what would normally take the average Gambian
University graduate probably an hour to explain], he
managed to even make a dim wit like me to grasp what
he was on to. Roberts’s last words were drowned in a
rapturous applause from his audience – an audience
that normally finds assembly speeches tedious and
tiring. I went away from that assembly with the
thought that this is a guy in the wrong place. Why is
such a smart guy not at the heart government or in
some fancy job in the private sector? In those days we
used to have a theory: The only smart Gambians to be
found teaching in High Schools are those who were
frustrated and driven out of the lucrative civil
service jobs by Jawara’s purges and hence an aggrieved
lot. With Roberts, our stereotypical theory was, if
anything, correct. More on that later and back to the
Gambia College graduation day speech.</P>
<P>In his Gambia College speech, Roberts laced
indignantly and very eloquently into the PPP record in
office. Indeed, Roberts merely repeated the same
charge sheet that Jammeh read when he gave reasons for
taking over the country: corruption, misuse of public
funds, nepotism, lack of progress in all spheres of
Gambian life, etc, etc. Albeit - I hasten to add that
– Roberts was far more subtle, persuasive and
sophisticated in his charges. As it happened, amongst
Roberts’s audience was a certain Lt. Yahya Jammeh,
then chairman of the AFPRC. In the event, it was
reported that after Roberts speech was delivered,
amongst those who rose to personally congratulate him
was Jammeh, who was glad that at last someone with the
calibre of an intellectual heavy, understood where he
was coming from. History will remember Roberts’s
speech as the inauguration of a cottage industry which
- to make matters simpler – we shall henceforth call
Bash-Jawara-Get-Rewarded. From there the attacks on
Jawara took a vertiginous and hypocritical twist; even
those who benefited [directly and indirectly] from
Jawara joined the blossoming industry. The more
vociferous you are, the cosier you get with the new
powers that be. Thanks to this industry, Jammeh was
effectively able to institute his witch hunting
commissions which renegades like Roberts were not only
happy to serve in but to supply with malice, smear and
plain vendettas especially against their former
colleagues in the civil service. </P>
<P>From there, Roberts – a hitherto obscure and
bookish fellow - was to be thrown into the nation’s
imagination from an influential member of the
Constitution Review Commission [CRC] to the
all-important chairmanship of the Provisional
Independent Electoral Commission [PIEC]. To his credit
[or is that a Freudian slip on his part?], Roberts
gave a very frank and revealing interview to the
<I>Daily Observer</I> shortly after his appointment to
the chairmanship of the PIEC. In that interview,
Roberts confirmed two rumours about the work of the
CRC that was then in the public realm: How Jammeh
expunged from the midst of the draft constitution the
term limit and age of the presidency. Put bluntly,
Roberts, a key member of the CRC confirmed to the
public that the 1997 constitution was subsequently
doctored to fit the ambitions of Jammeh. Here we first
detect Roberts lapse in principles; if Roberts was
principled, as he will argue, why did he go along with
a constitution that was, and according to his
testimony, doctored by an interested player that was
to take part in the general elections? Why did he add
his imprint to a process that he knew from the word go
was being stage-managed to force Jammeh on Gambians?
Surely, a more principled and sophisticated person
would refuse to be part of such a conspiracy. But as
we shall see later, adherence to principles is too
much to ask of an intellectual renegade like
Roberts.</P>
<P>Other lapses in Roberts principles included
declaring a freak referendum as the verdict of the
people inspite of the abnormal circumstances it was
conducted under; the AFPRC and their well-wishers
campaigned for the constitution whilst those opposed
to it were all but muzzled. During the freakish
presidential elections, Jammeh’s unilateral actions
like banning the opposition from the public media and
sending his troops after opposition supporters to beat
them into bloodied pulps, not to mention the
administrative hiccups all which warranted action from
Roberts’ office went unpunished. Yet, Roberts didn’t
hesitate to declare Jammeh as the winner of the
elections. Curiously enough, immediately after the
general elections of 1997, Roberts begged to be
excused from the chairmanship of the PIEC; mumbling
the excuse that he wanted to have time off to
concentrate on a book about power in Africa he wants
to write. But Roberts excuse raised more questions
than it answered. Since Roberts’ excuses for his
abrupt departure hardly satisfied anyone, I propose
that the Roberts of 1997 was a guilt-ridden man who
had suddenly come to his senses and realised what he
had helped wrought on the Gambian people. That was not
the end of the story for Roberts. The lure of the
lucre and trappings of his former influential public
role was irresistible; after the PIEC he was to be
appointed to another obnoxious Jammeh witch hunting
commission which he gladly served. All the more
suggestive of his criminality in the making of the
Jammeh Mess. But then Roberts is an unprincipled
heretic and as Shakespeare warned of heretics in his
<I>The Winter’s Tale</I>, "it is the heretic that
makes the fire, Not she which burns in ‘t". Which
should partly explain why I read in Ebrima’s mails and
elsewhere that Roberts has made a comeback as the
chairman of the discredited IEC. Here I must pause and
appropriately question why an obscure and bookish
fellow like Roberts came to play such an important
role in the murky world of Jammeh? I’m no journalist
but I have certain ethics that I religiously adhere to
before publishing anything bearing my imprint: I
always check on my facts and I do my damnedest to be
fair to my subject. As it happened, I did checked on
Roberts and my findings are hardly surprising. From
three independent and reliable sources, I was able to
gather that in the 1970s, Roberts was the Director of
Education but made a mess of the job. Indeed, there
was a time when Jawara visited one school, where to
his consternation, he [Jawara] found some classrooms
barely had any furniture. This, inspite of enough
budgetary allocation for the Directorate of Education?
Administrative wise, he was sluggish, inept and – oh!
Dear, this doesn’t look any good repeating – a
complete waste of that Department’s time and
resources. So Jawara – surprise, surprise – had the
courage and did the decent thing by getting rid of
him. Roberts left with the usual grievances that now
best explains why he would dine and sup with the
Devil. So it turns that Roberts’ actions were premised
on a bitter past with the PPP. The proverbial
aggrieved renegade African intellectual whose
conscience is dictated by unfinished vendettas. So
Roberts sold his soul to the Devil. If Roberts’ attack
on Jawara was principled and not vengeful, then
surely, he should be repentant now of his role in the
Jammeh Mess. He should in fact go on the record and
damn Jammeh as more evil than Jawara. All the things
he had laced indignantly and eloquently into the PPP
record are now parts of every day existence in the
Gambia. But where is Roberts to make an another
watershed speech on Jammeh’s unprecedented devilry? He
is at the HQs of the IEC part of another conspiracy to
hand over another election to Jammeh. In a Gambia
where 15 innocent school children were wasted by a
barbaric regime? A Gambia that has seen unprecedented
levels of political thuggery; endemic levels of
corruption; state terror on law abiding citizens;
prisoners of conscience languishing behind bars? Yet,
not a word of condemnation from Roberts? Instead we
read he has offered to whore his intellect to the
Devil again? And people still seriously studying in
universities how White peoples are still keeping
Africa down? </P>
<P>Most importantly, Roberts’ comeback as the chairman
of the IEC after his surreptitious departure provokes
more questions than it answers. One myth we are no
longer with is the myth that the IEC is an
"independent" arbiter of elections and referenda in
the Gambia. If anything, recent events have reduced
that perception into the rubbish bin of - what Keynes
aptly calls as - "barbarous relics". I have always
predicted that the IEC will in the very end fall prey
to Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong will go
wrong. From its very inception, the IEC was not
predicated on the principles of independent election
arbitration. Let’s look at the evidence. The Chairman
of the IEC and his fellow commissioners are literally
appointed by the president and dismissable by him. The
budgetary allocation of the commission and the
commissioners’ remunerations and perks are determined
largely by the largesse of the president; the
president holds the purse strings of the commission.
The timing of any election and or referenda are
invariably influenced by the president – whose consent
the IEC has to seek before elections are held. What
difference, if any, does one detect here between what
used to be the case during the Jawara days when the
Permanent Secretary Local Gov’t is responsible for
elections? The creaky foundations were always going to
give in to its inherent contradictions. Yet, I always
read elsewhere cock and bull stories about the
"independence" of the IEC. Some "independence"!</P>
<P>As things stand in the present quandary, there is
no easy exit strategy for anyone. Jammeh has triggered
off what might be the beginning of a long
constitutional crisis and in extension chaos. The idea
that going to court to seek the reinstatement of
Johnson can bring some degree of normalcy in the
over-polluted body politic is not only fantasy
thinking but worse, reeks of absurdity. Jammeh has
shown he will defy the courts when it suits his plans
and he does literally control them anyway. Let us
suppose we have a scenario where a judge is brave
enough to tell Johnson that his dismissal is illegal,
what then? What is the opposition going to do? Force
Johnson’s reinstatement? Or if that becomes impossible
set up their own IEC? Where is the clear-cut strategy
here? It all leads to the same route – agitation.
Whichever way you look at things, there will be a
trade-off all of us can do without. But the
alternatives are more disastrous. Letting Jammeh bully
us into another freak elections with supine
acquiescence on our part is the other alternative to
agitation. </P>
<P>It seems to me that either members of the
opposition are in self-denial or they are simply
procrastinating on the inevitable. But as Galbraith
once warned Liberals, "a wrong decision isn’t forever;
it can always be reversed. The losses from a delayed
decision are forever; they can never be retrieved".
The opposition ought to remember that delaying on
taking on Jammeh headlong will not only be self
defeatist and stultifying morally but equally it makes
the struggle more arduous and Herculean to neutralise
the enemy.</P>
<P>When a polity which in principle constitutes of
sovereign peoples is hijacked by lawless bandits, all
manners of moderation are thwarted and their rights
are seized, then the best exit strategy that comes to
mind is for political representatives to seek an
emergency audience with that sovereign people. Indeed,
as David Marquand, Principal of Mansfield College, has
once written, "when institutions are in disarray, when
norms point in different directions, when the old
constitution has become a messy jumble of bits and
pieces, the simplest way to cut through the resulting
contradictions is to appeal directly to the sovereign
people". I agree. There is no better way to settle our
present quandary.</P>
<P>If the re-appointment of an unprincipled renegade
like Roberts to the chairmanship of the IEC doesn't
tell people the shape of things to come, I wonder what
will?</P>
<P>Hamjatta - Kanteh </P>
<P></P>
<P></P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P></P><I></I>
<P></P></DIV><br clear=all><hr>Get Your Private, Free
E-mail from MSN Hotmail at <a
href="http://www.hotmail.com">http://www.hotmail.com</a>.<br></p></html>
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