Ebrima,
       thank you for always your readiness to lead the
struggle against this corrupt and undemocratic
Jammeh's regime.

It is clear that you have dedicated yourself to the
struggle of the Gambia people against Jammeh's
dictatorship.

Once again keep it up and time will tell.
--------------------------------------------------

Mr.Gomez jr.,
I cannot end without thanking you for first coming up
with the idea of Gambians meeting the new American to
the Gambia.

The solidarity is commended every where.Thanks,

Saihou



--- Ebrima Ceesay <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Gambia-L:
>
> Below you will find an open letter I have addressed
> to Ambassador Jackson,
> the new USA representative in The Gambia. By the
> way, whoever disagrees with
> my views/account can feel free to write his or her
> letter and then send it
> to the Ambassador.
>
> Ebrima Ceesay
> Birmingham, UK.
>
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
> Dear Ambassador Jackson,
>
> I am a Gambian who is currently living in the United
> Kingdom.
>
> This letter is written on my behalf, and also on
> behalf of many Gambians
> throughout the world and in The Gambia whose
> greatest wish is to see their
> country return to multi-party politics and
> functioning democracy.  Democracy
> itself is a contested concept, but in the
> post-Colonial period from 1965 to
> 1994, The Gambia, if a minimalist definition of
> democracy is used, had stood
> as a beacon for the rest of the continent in terms
> of political stability
> and "democratic ideals".
>
> Following the military take over of The Gambia in
> 1994, we have witnessed
> seven years of economic, social, judicial,
> legislative and political decline
> to the extent that the current situation in The
> Gambia is both grievous and
> precarious.
>
> Indeed, it is at a critically acute stage.
> Repression, poverty, tyranny,
> mismanagement of public money, arbitrary arrest and
> kidnapping and killing
> of opponents are the hallmarks of Yahya Jammeh and
> the APRC’s regime.
>
> The US State Department Country Reports for The
> Gambia from 1994 onwards,
> give a very clear indication of the deteriorating
> condition of the country.
> Reports from Amnesty International and other Human
> Rights groups throughout
> the world, testify to the debasement of The Gambia
> and its citizenry under
> the APRC and Jammeh.
>
> There have been countless decrees promulgated by
> Jammeh which enable the
> security forces (in particular the National
> Intelligence Agency – NIA) to
> tap telephone lines, fax lines, e mails and internet
> services; to arrest
> without warrant; to detain without trial; to muzzle
> the independent media;
> to interfere with the independence of the Judiciary.
>
> There is supposedly a new Constitution in place to
> guarantee the rights of
> Gambian citizens in their own land, but government
> is still by a number of
> Decrees which contradict the provisions of the
> Constitution.
>
> Under Jammeh, we now know that around 124 Gambians
> have been murdered.  On
> November 11th 1994, in an alleged counter coup
> attempt, almost 40 soldiers
> were killed on Jammeh’s orders because he believed
> them to be his enemies.
> Civilians are being killed:  on April 10/11th 2000,
> fourteen young people
> (the youngest a child of 3 years) were gunned down
> in cold-blood for
> demonstrating peacefully in support of a fellow
> student who had been
> tortured and killed.
>
> By virtue of his despotic and brutal rule, Jammeh
> has directly or indirectly
> sent into exile a conservative estimate of 5,000
> Gambians.  The situation is
> now so desperate that many overseas Gambian students
> and citizens refuse to
> return home to The Gambia on completion of their
> study or work programmes.
>
> Jammeh has arbitrarily sacked or prematurely retired
> almost 100 senior Civil
> Servants, specifically because they do not toe his
> line.
>
> Right now, Lt Lalo Jaiteh, Ebrima Yarboe, Momodou
> Dumo Saho, Lt Omar Darboe,
> Momodou Marenah, Ebrima Barrow and others, have been
> detained and held
> incommunicado for months, in total violation of the
> Constitution.  Even when
> the Courts ruled that they should be granted bail,
> Jammeh refused to comply,
> and initially he even went so far as to say these
> people were in fact not in
> detention!
>
> The independent media (of which I was once a
> representative as an Editor of
> the Gambia Daily Observer) has been a particular
> target of Jammeh and the
> APRC since 1994. Journalists have been arrested,
> detained without just
> reason, taken to court, harassed and persecuted.
> The Government for two
> whole years closed down Citizen FM Radio Station for
> no reason.
>
> Recently, Radio One FM offices were attacked in an
> arson attack orchestrated
> by the APRC, and its proprietor George Christensen
> suffered burns.  Over 60
> non-Gambians, mainly West African, (all of whom were
> involved in some way in
> the fields of journalism, teaching, health services
> or the judiciary) have
> been summarily deported from The Gambia.  Kenneth
> Best, one of West Africa’s
> most respected journalists, was deported to his war
> torn home country of
> Liberia.
>
> In one of the worst violations of human rights, in
> October 1995, Jammeh
> handed over a Sierra Leonean journalist, Cherno
> Ojuku Ceesay, to the
> military government in Sierra Leone:  this man had
> fled his country to seek
> sanctuary in The Gambia because the military in
> Sierra Leone wanted him.
> Knowing that Ceesay would face execution if returned
> to Sierra Leone, Jammeh
> did not hesitate to deport him to Sierra Leone.
> Thanks to the intervention
> of the international community and international
> media pressure, Cherno
> escaped execution but he was incarcerated for a long
> time following his
> deportation from The Gambia.
>
> Jammeh acts without regard for the Law:  he has
> interfered with the
> independent judiciary.  Recently, he sacked two
> magistrates and the Master
> of the Supreme Court, warranting the Chief Justice
> to resign in protest.  He
> also sacked Bishop Johnson, the Chairman of the
> Independent Electoral
> Commission, even though constitutionally he was not
> empowered to do this.
> This week, he has been quoted as saying that he will
> disband the Independent
> Electoral Commission following the forthcoming
> Presidential elections.
>
> Jammeh and the APRC masquerade under a guise of
> democratic governance:  the
> truth of the matter is diametrically opposite.  The
> Gambia is in the hands
> of a brutal and unprincipled tyrant, a man who has
> brought his country into
> disrepute throughout the world, and particularly in
> the eyes of the United
> Nations.
>
> Jammeh and his cohort in the APRC are implicated in
> the blood diamond trade
> out of Sierra Leone:  they are deemed to be allowing
> The Gambia to be a
> central clearing house for illegal drugs trafficking
> on a massive scale:
> they are involved in widespread internal corruption
> (for instance the Crude
> Oil scandal) and foreign policy blunders (not least
> the interfering in the
> domestic affairs of neighbouring Senegal by offering
> aid and abettance to
> insurrectionists in the Casamance region.)
>
> Wherever there is injustice or illegality on the
> African
=== message truncated ===


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