GAMBIANS   UNITED   TO    SECURE   THE    COALITION
BOX 56436 WASHINGTON, DC.  20011                       



February 15, 2005
 

His Excellency
Mr. Kofi Annan
Secretary General United  Nations
UN Plaza, 405 E. 42 St.
New York, New York. 10017
 
Dear Sir:
 
We hereby express our collective wishes of a happy and prosperous new year  
to you and your staff with the hope that all your efforts to bring normalcy in  
the “troubled spots” in the world become a reality. To us who  love Africa 
and freedom, 2005 will be a decisive year in the future of  Gambia.  
 
In April 2004, in commemoration of the 4th anniversary of the students’  
massacre by the Gambian armed and security forces, we wrote to you expressing  our 
despair with increasing uncertainty for our peaceful existence in the  
Gambia. We hope the content of that letter was brought to your attention so that  
you can intervene and help us in aborting the gestation of the horrible end the  
Jammeh regime is heading towards.
 
Sir, we are writing to you again at a more alarming state of mind because  
matters have gotten worse and the terror, brutality and intimidation of the  
Jammeh regime is steadily on the increase. “Drive-by shooting”  Has become the 
choice of assassination of Gambians who oppose the regime’s  draconian decrees 
and Jammeh’s abominable abuse of “power.” The most recent case  in point is 
the heinous assassination of the prominent journalist, Deyda  Hydara on 
December 16, 2004. Following the premeditated murder of Mr.  Hydara, as usual, the 
regime made some irate vows to bring the murderer(s) to  justice and even made 
overtures of praises to his prominence as a journalist  only to sign into law 
the repressive “media bill” which will  erase the memory of Deyda  Hydara, 
abrogate “press  freedom” and speech. 
 
A similar case in point of a “drive-by shooting happened on  December 26, 
2003, when Mr. Ousman Sillah, a prominent Gambian lawyer was shot  twice in the 
head near his residence but miraculously survived with permanent  kidney damage 
and facial deformities requiring constructive surgeries.  We are still 
waiting for the investigation on the assassination attempt on Mr.  Sillah.
 
We know better than to believe that the regime will investigate this  
horrible act of the murder of Mr. Hydara, one of the most harmless and peaceful  
Gambians. We can cite several instances of criminal atrocities that are still  
UN-investigated let alone bringing the perpetrators to “justice.” In their first 
 two years following their “lift on to the saddles of power,”  all the 
criminal atrocities committed by the regime were justified on the  grounds of: 
consolidating the rule of terror typical of military  coups. Subsequent to being “
civilianized” and the  massive rigging of the 1996 presidential elections, all 
the criminal atrocities  committed against Gambians were promised to be 
investigated and to this date no  reports has been made public or private. 
 
On January 17, 2005, an event of historic significance took place at the  
Atlantic Hotel in Banjul, where a coalition of all the “opposition  parties” - 
better known as the “alternative”- signed a  Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) 
under the leadership of  National Alliance for Democracy and Development 
(NADD) to  select a flag bearer to contest the upcoming presidential elections in 
2006. As  expected, Jammeh saw this honorable act as a challenge to his “
president  for life” aspirations and made repeated threats that none of  the “
opposition leaders” will be around by the 2006 presidential  elections. In 
addition to these threats, Jammeh said “I  sacrificed my life to get to this 
position, whoever wants my post will have to  sacrifice his life.” We take these 
threats against our leaders  seriously based on what happened during the 1996 
presidential elections, the  recent murder of Mr. Hydara and the assassination 
attempt on Mr. Sillah
 
It was under the brutal period of the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling  
Council (AFPRC) and its later civilian regime, Alliance for Patriotic  
Reconciliation Council (APRC) that Gambians witnessed the worst ten years in our  recent 
history. The vast majority of Gambians are fed-up with the daily threats  of “
heads will roll” and “six feet deep”,  hence the pressure on the “opposition 
parties” to form a  coalition to relief Gambians of this nightmare.

Since the signing  of the MOU by the coalition, the regime has embarked on a 
spate of arrests and  indefinite detentions of civilians, armed and security 
forces personnel without  any due process of law. In fact the only law in the 
Gambia is the “law  according to Jammeh” which is “guilty until proven  
innocent” as oppose to “innocent until proven guilty”;  a blatant reversal of the 
dictum of justice. In our view, Jammeh is preparing  the grounds to foul-up the 
process to the elections so as to provoke incidents  and there by justify any 
repressive actions in the name of “national  security.”
 
Unlike Sierra Leone, Liberia and Rwanda, we are raising the alarm  on the 
warning signs of the horrible end of a state operating on greed and  tyranny. We 
are hoping that someone is listening and paying attention to bring  about an 
end to this impending horror in the Gambia.
 
Mr. Secretary, we are going on record again as did other oppressed  countries 
and people in the past to exhaust every possible source for redress of  the 
violations of our human rights by the Jammeh regime. We harbor no illusions  
about what the past ten years has done to our existence.
 
We have been very disappointed with alarming suspicion of the  recent actions 
of the African Union according the Jammeh regime the privilege of  hosting 
the upcoming AU summit in 2006, the same year for the presidential  elections. 
We see it as an attempt to authenticate the regime with total  disregard for 
the human rights violations against the Gambian people. This is  the most 
inappropriate time to hold such an event in the Gambia.
 
Finally, we hope you will give our concerns and worries a critical  
consideration and take action before matters become regrettable. We also hope  that you 
or your designated representative will be able to meet with our  delegation 
for a brief discussion. We await your kind and considerate  reply.
 
Yours respectfully,
 

The Undersigned:
Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in The Gambia[NY]
Gambian Diasporan for National Alliance for Democracy and  Development[USA]
Gambians for Change
Gambians United to Secure the Coalition 
 

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