The maintenance of civil order and social democracy cum tranquility is in
the hands of the masses. The people of Gambia. It has been there for so
long. It was never anywhere else. We, as a people, are becoming naïve and
lazy to believe that anything important can safely be entrusted to
criminals and thugs through elections, or any other process that resembles
democracy.
Self-defense against individual criminals – or criminals sanctioned by the
APRC – can no more be delegated to some body else like the judges in those
courts than eating can, or sleeping, or any other natural function. These
stories of abductions and torture warn us that delegated responsibility
becomes power and that power becomes inevitably abused. If civil order and
social democracy are to be restored in the Gambia, the emphasis must be on
finding a definite way towards enforcing the basic human rights as
entrenched in the constitution – on the constitutional enforcement. We must
take that power out of the hands that are abusing it and break it down. We
must break the power down into units so small it cannot be called power,
but simply “responsibility” – as it rightly should be, which unlike power,
comes not from the barrel of a gun, but from the mind and heart of the
human behind that gun.
A refusal to see the obvious, a failure to question the doubtful, if
sufficiently gross may provide evidence leading to an inference of
collaboration and gross abuse of power so as to impose responsibility for
abuse suffered by those who rely on the laws. In other words, heedlessness
and reckless disregard of consequences may take the place of deliberate
intentions. We must not fall for it. Let us do the best we can to avert a
human tragedy that is taking its toll in bits and pieces, here and there,
today and possibly tomorrow.

Abdoulie A. Jallow
(BambaLaye)

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