MR. SALLAH
To be frank with you Mr. Sallah, I hate hurting
people's feelings for no good reason. Therefore for a
while after reading your piece on me, highlighted by
angry remarks from what you said was my distortion of
the fact you presented in the Bronx a couple of weeks
ago, I thought I should have simply written back few
statements apologizing for what I thought was mere
misunderstanding.  Anyway after a second review of
your article I came to realize that I had nothing to
apologize for after all.
In the first place, Mr. Sallah, I still don't know how
you missed it but my article was not in anyway written
to report the cause or effect of the symposium held in
the Bronx. I don't think there is a need for me to say
it but I will still go ahead and state it anyway; that
the central theme of my piece was the sixth part of
the narrative I have been writing about on the 1994
coup in The Gambia.
My presence at that meeting was of minimal
significance to what you have come to present about
your party's doctrine in the USA. Anyway I'm glad that
you mentioned Manding Darbo. He was one person who was
aware of my presence at the meeting and could
therefore bear me witness that I arrived there after
10:00 p.m. and left barely an hour later. As a result
given the fact that that was the only session of yours
I attended since your arrival, I could not have been
in that position of authority in anyway to criticize
your party's efforts to be better understood here.
When I walked into that hall that day, I found Mr.
Darbo on his feet addressing the audience
From what I understood you had, by then, already given
your keynote address. Perhaps that was the time when
you presented that comprehensive breakdown of your
party's economic strategies with regards to the
damnable economic mismanagement that has rendered The
Gambia chronically indebted and the solution you
theoretically had for it. I only read about most of
that in your piece written from an ill-conceived
judgement. Without doubt when the coalition topic was
raised you gave a protracted analysis of the important
factors to be considered against the background of
what you called a tactical instrument which was
paramount in Senegal's last presidential election.
Politically, in your discussion you certainly talked
about the coalition format of the P.S., Gibo Kah's
party and that of Niasse's all to, of course, to rub
in your point that a coalition was better ventured
into in the second and not first round of presidential
election. Economically I also heard you talking about
the disadvantage of capitalism when "11% of the labor
force in The Gambia is employed by the formal sector
comprising of the public, 'parastatals' and private
sector". To buttress your public-run enterprises you
briefly explained how a PDOI government would exploit
the fishing industry by buying fishing trawlers and
building fish-processing plants and hiring Gambians to
work there. That was all I could account for in what
you, Mr. Sallah, had said about the coalition agenda.
I will come to that later.
Anyway in that Bronx hall, after Mr. Darbo's speech,
which he delivered in English and Mandinka, it was
followed by the introduction of the executive members
of the NY movement who made the meeting possible. And
then came the question and answer time from the
audience.
 If I am not mistaken it was after one or two persons
spoke that Mr. Saul Mbenga came up with the question
of the controversial coalition. Roughly twenty minutes
later I was on my way home especially after realizing
to my great disappointment that the prospect of
opposition-party coalition for The Gambia's
presidential election, something I strongly desired,
had little chance of materializing, thanks to PDOIS'
intransigence.
So you see Mr. Sallah, you could notice that I was not
necessarily in tune with all the economic theories you
highlighted apart from the ones you mentioned in that
short period between when the coalition question was
asked and when I left the hall for home. As I said
earlier I did not hear all those grandiose economic
theories you said you discussed or argued about from
Washington to New York.
Here I would again remind you that my article was far
from a report of the Bronx meeting but the sixth part
of my series on the coup in the Gambia with the
limited mention of my experience in that hall that
day. Evidently my focal subject was the APRC loyalist
often disguised in our midst as typified by those two
elements I surely resented so much.
Anyway it certainly went beyond that when I also
decided to discuss for mainly the consumption of the
Lers what I understood to be a serious obstacle in
this issue of opposition coalition that had been a
critical subject of interest to most of them. From
what I understand, it was the dream of most of us that
the opposition parties in The Gambia will, come
October, put all their differences apart, political,
economic or philosophical and form a unified front to
get rid of Yaya Jammeh. Just like you put it in your
closing statements about the wrongs committed by Yaya
to the Gambian nation, he is definitely the worst
thing that has ever happened to our country and the
need to wipe him out should be prioritized over any
individual party's hopes or aspirations. It was
therefore our belief in the Diaspora that the
opposition parties coming together NOW would
tremendously help in this effort. Anything otherwise,
I personally feared would put the country in that
hopeless situation where we might end up with Yaya
defiantly persecuting one group of opposing forces to
the other while some others frantically search for
nonexistent answers in the prostituted constitution or
in the useless office of the chief justice. I hope you
could relate to what I am driving at.
So Mr. Sallah, I hope you now got it clear that I was
not trying to reduce all that you had said "to a
defense of a state-controlled economic system. Nor was
I showing my little respect for fact and objectivity.
By referring to those two elements against the
background of your statement that seemed to anger you
so much might be inappropriate on my side, but
certainly it did not mean that I had "little taste for
facts and much taste for fiction". I think you were
unnecessarily hard on me my friend.
It is pitiful that your party spent over D20, 000.00
for the long travel to the USA just for you to go back
with only $500.00. And too bad still that some
Washingtonians robbed you of more money by taking your
party's paraphernalia without giving you a dime. If
they really knew that the items were for your party's
fund raising but chose to ignore that, then I think
you have the right to call it a foul. But if they were
not informed by anyone then the blame should be
redirected to a different target. Anyway I don't know
why me. By the way, was it that those who invited you
to come gave you the impression that substantial
amount of money was awaiting  you to receive after all
that huge expense to come to the US? I could have
never known.
Anyhow Mr. Sallah let's move on. When I read your
piece on me, I was surprised by the degree of
sincerity you said guided your line of argument on the
subject.  "I spoke with sincerity and fairness", you
emphatically stated.  Then down the line after you
said you argued about the critical issues surrounding
the possibility of a coalition in the first round of
voting you wrote: "I did not want the discussion to
degenerate into argument. I therefore posed the
question as to what formulae Darbo had in mind for the
selection of the presidential candidate". Did that
really mean that you were not necessarily interested
in that question or its answer but only made to divert
the trend of discussion to avoid argument, as you put
it? If so then the level of our honest appreciation of
the situation must have been ludicrous.
Then you further wrote: "At that point any competent
observer would be able to read from Darbo's words that
when he was talking about an "electable" candidate he
did not have any formulae in mind for the coalition to
select its candidate".
I may be an incompetent observer but as far as I could
observe, Mr. Darbo's reaction showed me that the
selection of a presidential candidate should not be
the main obstacle to the coalition and could be worked
out after an agreement was struck in principle. After
all I don't think Mr. Saul Mbenga who asked the
original question or any of those who were listening
for answers expected you or Mr. Darbo to be fully
prepared for all the answers especially on that very
sensitive question.
Anyway up to the time I left the hall neither you nor
Mr. Darbo presented any formula for selecting the
candidate. I was however surprised to read what you
wrote here: "For example, PDOIS's presidential
candidate would easily accept being a president for
one year to restore all the constitutional provisions
that are reasonable and justifiable in a democratic
society.  Strengthening the IEC, open up the media and
then call for another presidential election after
creating the constitutional machinery for that to take
place in a year after assuming office. In that case
the people would have made an undiluted choice. Such
formulae are bases for coalition. We can go on and on.
Other parties may also come up with their own
formulae."
Now Mr. Sallah, it seemed that you were really talking
here. Although your statement tend to refer to what a
PDOIS presidential candidate would do after
immediately assuming office, my instincts, after
evaluating your last sentences here made me conclude
that this is exactly the fundamental terms and
conditions your party would want to settle for in a
coalition bid.
I did not however stay at the Bronx hall to the end of
the meeting but since you thought Mr. Darbo was
unprepared for a coalition formula while you were, I
hope by all that sincerity and honesty you had
claimed, you did present your conditions as you had
done in your article. If not, why? After all that
might have triggered Mr. Darbo into airing out his
views too. But to categorically think that Mr. Darbo
had had no formula in mind that day for the coalition
to select a candidate is absolutely baffling. Anyway
looking at the reason you said was the purpose of
asking for formulae for a coalition, the real issue
was not honestly being discussed. You said you were
merely trying to avoid things degenerating into an
argument. I did not know that the seemingly good
rapport between the two of you was that tense.
Pure capitalism and pure socialism! This is another
issue you seemed to have blown out of proportion Mr.
Sallah making it sound as if I did not know what I was
talking about. When I used the word pure here I meant
it to only emphasize my point, like you did when you
talked about undiluted choices. Anyway I know that
socialism or capitalism could not be pure or impure
equally as choices could not be diluted or undiluted.
However when in the middle of the coalition discussion
you mentioned that your party believed in socialism
while the other parties did not and even branded Mr.
Hamat Bah as a self-proclaimed capitalist with Mr.
Darbo also standing firm in the economic policy of his
party, I felt the ultimate crash in my hopes for a
coalition. My mention of the incompartibility of the
two rival systems was a derivative from what the
originators of socialist philosophy had taught mankind
about it since at the beginning. Marx, Angel, Lenin,
Mao, Kim IL Sung, Kwame Nkrumah, from the founding
fathers to the active propagators of the obsolete
philosophy, these men for ages had confidently
promoted the belief that man as a social and economic
being was in the process of evolving for the
ultimately great economic system. It was stated in
Dialectical Materialism that man's first settlement
after the roaming clan, naturally adopted the economic
system of communalism. And after a while, that system
evolved into feudalism which eventually gave way to
capitalism. And capitalism by their standards was
defined as the last stage of the old developmental
pattern, which would come to an end, not by evolution
this time but by revolution. One of the most popular
but highly erroneous concepts of the true believers
was that capitalism was going be the master of its own
destruction when its time to disintegrate had arrived.
It was said that as a result of its economic growth
pattern, the rich would continue to be richer while
the poor got poorer until a revolution by the masses
forced the few privileged ones at the top to come down
and be replaced by the dictatorship of the
proletariat. Of course the reality of the existence of
a viable middle class as part of the capitalist class
equation that would maintain the system at where it
was estimated to collapse never occurred in the minds
of those so-called great thinkers. However their
utopian economic emancipation was defined as a
wonderful society where everybody would be equal,
everyone employed, each working according to his
ability and earning according to his needs. Yet
individual difference or ability was not given much
weight.
I believe that George Owel's satirical novel, Animal
Farm showed us all the shortcomings, contradictions,
and above all the imminent failure of such an
unnatural system.
 It was a system meant to function under a
state-controlled economy with no tolerance for
anything capitalistic. Certainly the system has been
dying since the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991,
the first country to implement it after the Russian
Revolution of 1917 and hopelessly tried to perfect it
for decades. Nevertheless, there are still few
die-hard believers who would not give it up, perhaps
because of old chronic habits.
Therefore when Mr. Sallah stated that his party was
socialistic in principle which should be put under
consideration in the coalition issue and further
specified on Mr. Hamat Bah's capitalistic views, I did
not know that he had in mind another socialism
different from the originally prescribed order. That
was why I said that with Mr. Dardo and Mr. Hamat Bah
echoing similar sentiments in the economic system of
capitalism, they would not be able to mix with PDOIS
for those obvious reasons.
Now to my surprise again, Mr. Sallah has come up to
tell me that their socialism, which we are yet to
experience its practicability, is something else. And
he seemed to confidently think that it could solve
Gambia's economic problems just like that. Did we not
witness how nature or God interfered with the master
plan of the North Koreans, one of the most organized
socialist countries before.?
So Mr. Sallah you could see that I was not bringing
any new concepts when I mentioned pure socialism and
pure capitalism not mixing, but I also did not know
that the obsolete socialism once propagated by the
Marxists could come in another form and still being
called socialism. I would love to see that text of
yours you talked about with Saja Taal. Perhaps that
would enlighten me about the socialism you are talking
about.
Anyway how could you say that Mr. Darbo's economic
program was in conflict with what he said the other
day about subsidizing the female farmers in their
gardening projects?  I don't think capitalism forbids
state-funded projects especially when it comes to
subsidizing the ordinary farmer's efforts.
However regardless of all the denial in your spoken
and written words, at the end of the day I seriously
think that you are the very one who is anti-coalition
but don't want to admit it up front.
Listen to your self here again: "Reflecting on the
NRP-UDP Kiang coalition…do we conclude that the APRC
is popular or do we conclude that there is a need for
a third force that would be able to earn the
confidence of the people to up root the APRC"?
As far as I am concerned, the Kiang scenario does not
demand a third force as such to up root the APRC.
Instead the Kiang situation was the learning
experience for the opposition parties to be prepared
to face the APRC with all the resources and ideas they
could muster together to get rid of Yaya in the first
round. Yaya should never be allowed to win the first
round, come rain come storm.
In conclusion Mr. Sallah read what you wrote here
again: "Those who sincerely want change in The Gambia
should encourage the party of your choice to do its
best and not undermine others who are doing their
best. This is the code of conduct that all those who
want change should adopt".
I don't know how you equated our ability to read and
comprehend written words but Mr. Sallah, it is glaring
that coalition is the last thing you want to go for if
ever you would want to.
But please can you do me one favor? Can you please add
limitation of term of office for the presidency in
your host of formulae for the top seat? If I have the
opportunity to communicate to Mr. Darbo and Mr. Bah I
will ask for the same favor. It is my conviction that
transparency and accountability is still the key to
good governance; and this could only be obtained when
presidents understand in their heads that they will be
going at a known time the very day they assumed
office, preferably in a period of two terms of five
years only. Let's say ten years maximum!
If the president is genuinely accountable to the
people who elected him, everything about checks and
balances will automatically fall in its proper place.
I am not going to say bye, because I know your
endurance to go toe to toe for the final knockout; but
hey, I think I can suspend my weekly series on the
coup and engage you all the way to the last round.
So hope to hear from you soon, body.
Greetings!

Ebou Colly.


--- foroyaa <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I  travelled thousands of kilometres and we spent
> over D20, 000 dalasis just
> to ensure that all doubts about PDOIS is cleared . I
> hope you will have the
> sincerity to acknowledge what happened right in
> front of everyone's eye.
> I have just been reading your comments on the
> symposium held at the Gambian
> Hall in Bronx - New York. I am still finding it
> difficult to digest the
> motivation for presenting the issue as you did. You
> are entitled to your
> opinion. All we need from you is objectivity in the
> presentation of the
> facts. On this  score you have erred.
> The fact that you can reduce all I have said to the
> defence of a " state
> controlled economic system'' shows that you have
> little respect for facts
> and objectivity. Furthermore, the fact that you try
> to project the impact I
> had made through the reaction of two people whom you
> hold in utter contempt
> shows that you have little taste  for facts and
> much taste for fiction.
> It is such tragicomical presentation of PDOIS' role
> which has kept people
> misinformed for so long.  Fortunately, the dust is
> beginning to settle. What
> was most heartening to me is that ten people
> expressed their desire to be
> PDOIS members after the presentation in Bronx. Some
> of them walked to
> deliver notes to me right  before every body's eyes
> while the discussion
> proceeded. Manding Darboe who is the UDP Secretary
> came to embrace me even
> though we had exchanges on the very subject of
> economic policy that you
> uneloquently reduced to a discourse about pure
> socialism and pure
> capitalism. The black  and white discourse exists
> only in your brain.I did
> not raise any myopic ideological dialogue. You are
> not in touch with PDOIS.
> We wrote a whole pamphlet in our polemics with Saja
> Taal dealing with state
> control of economic systems. If you want a copy we
> will mail it to you. I
> proceeded from facts when it came to PDOIS' economic
> programme. I have said
> in Washington and I repeated it in New York that
> there was no private sector
> or public led growth in the Gambia. I found it
> ironical that people living
> in highly indebted poor countries would claim that
> capitalism has triumphed
> in their country. I struggled throughout to move
> away from dogma and
> substantiated my position with irrefutable facts.
> Allow me to sum up our
> position. I stated categorically that 11 percent of
> the labour force in the
> Gambia is employed by the formal sector comprising
> the public, parastatals
> and small private sector. This means that central
> government,, parastatals
> or public co-operations and private enterprises
> employ less that 50, 000
> Gambians. I made it abundantly clear that the
> commercial banks could not
> recover 17% of their loan portfolio in 1999 because
> of bad debts; that they
> experienced excess liquidity of 392 million. I added
> that interest rates
> have to be high in order to pay depositors; that
> this discourages borrowing
> for the private sector. I emphasised that
> agriculture employs 57% of the
> labour force; that 42% of our import constitutes
> food products which can be
> produced by the agricultural sector. I emphasised
> that this would amount to
> over 1 billion dalasis since imports stood at 2.6
> billion dalasis in 1999. I
> indicated that crude tools, lack of fertilisers,
> cold stororage facilities
> and marketing undermine their earning capacity; that
> only a co-operative
> economy can save the farmers; that PDOIS is
> committed to bringing the
> vegetable and fruit gardeners together into small
> producers and marketing
> co-operatives to ensure food self sufficiency and
> income generation for the
> informal sector. Lastly, I made it clear that the
> public sector depends
> entirely on taxation especially import duties.  That
> because of debts 417
> million  dalasis out of a budget of 1.5 billion
> dalasis is being spent on
> debt serving. I argued that last year we spent 42
> million on defence. This
> year it will be about 44 million. I mentioned that
> if 174 million is spent
> on education, 94 million on health I asked where
> the public sector will get
> more money to improve services and infrastructure. I
> argued that if the debt
> service charges increase there must be more taxation
> on the poor . I argued
> that this is why the public sector must also be
> productive to generate
> income from services other than taxation. I made it
> abundantly clear that
> what our concrete economic realities demand us to
> have a productive public,
> informal and private sector.
> I therefore do not know what brought pure socialism
> and capitalism in your
> presentation  except to nurse old prejudices and
> misconceptions regarding
> PDOIS' programme.
> I must further ask: What has coalition got to do
> with purity of capitalism
> or socialism? Even when the world was at the peak of
> its cold war years, the
> commintern forces and the nationalists in China
> formed a united front
> against Japanese colonialism. It is differences,
> which give birth to
> coalition. Similarities give birth to mergers. The
> position you are trying
> to attribute to PDOIS on coalition is quite
> inaccurate. It gives the
> impression that we are rigid and are in fact opposed
> to any form of
> coalition.
> Let us go back to the facts. When the issue of
> coalition was raised, I spoke
> with sincerity and frankness. Darboe did indicate
> that a coalition would be
> acceptable to him. I indicated that coalitions are
> tactical instruments and
> no political party can dismiss them; that coalitions
> are means to achieve an
> end and not  ends in themselves. I drew lessons from
> Senegal where PS voters
> who ordinarily would not have voted for Wadda were
> first drawn to support a
> splinter party from PS led by Niasse while another
> group supported Djibo
> Kah during the first round. I explained that the
> coalition between Niasse
> and PDS enabled them to win in the second round. I
> emphasised that political
> parties in the Gambia should study the voting
> patterns of the people in
> order to see whether it is not best to consider a
> coalition to be more ideal
> during the second round of voting. I could have
> drawn lessons to buttress my
> points but did not to avoid casting doubts on the
> viability of a coalition.
> Allow me to quote facts to buttress my points. If
> you consider the Kiang
> East bye- elections, one would notice that despite a
> coalition between NRP
> and UDP, the UDP vote dropped from 1412 votes in
> 1997 elections to 991 votes
> during the bye elections in 2001. How are we to
> interpret such results? Do
> we conclude that APRC is popular or do we conclude
> that there is need for a
> third force that would be able to earn the
> confidence of the people to up
> root the APRC. How is this to be assessed? To us,
> all these observations
> lend credibility to the argument that there is
> nothing wrong with the
> Gambian people being given  broad choices or
> political options in the first
> round so as to know where their support lie.
> In short, some people may wish to vote for the APRC
> if PDOIS, UDP or NRP is
> the only option, but would vote for one of the
> parties if they have multiple
> options. Furthermore, I indicated that where
> coalitions can be further
> forged is in connection with National Assembly
> election. I indicated that
> opposition parties could ensure that where one party
> puts a strong
> candidate, the other parties would give way. It is
> interesting that you
> ignored this completely in your reporting of the
> facts. I hope those who
> review the cassettes/tapes will concentrate on what
> Darboe really said. His
> reaction however, could be summed up in few words.
> He felt that there can be
>
=== message truncated ===


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