Musa, 
I must say that is your organization which i have some regard for, is to survive and not die the infant death you ascribing it to, it will be based on the sober reflection of your very self and the others closely associated with it. This sober reflection means that you and your pals will critically look into your organization's position and role in our general political struggle for democratization and arrive at a realistic and honest conclusion. 
Like i said in my previous post i do not pay much credence in the tribal angle when looking at the set up at CORDEG, but the mere fact that there are people wearing such lenses and as you informed in this writing that you in fact were sensitive to it, a little attention to that reality would have save you from that. But again, for me the executive set at CORDEG does not comprise the most important aspect. What is of significant importance is the policy statement put out in the public domain as signifying your vision and mission. And as LJ stated it is the vaguest and blurriest policy statement one can ever imagine from. sometimes i wonder whether it is the acclaimed Dr. in political science who is having his hand in those reactions and policy statements i read out here in the public forums. Even a crash high school graduate like myself who is still struggling to earn an AA degree appears to know better. 
Lets continue this discussion in the spirit of working out a solution instead of submitting to despair and hopelessness. I think we have can have this discussion going because personally i am not interested in even being handed a watchman position at CORDEG or any other similar organization.

Nyang 


On Friday, March 28, 2014 11:46 AM, Musa Jeng <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
It is the tone of the opening paragraph that set the message of the write-up, and left me with bewilderment and disappointment. Let me preface by saying that I have a tremendous respect for Lamin Darboe, someone that brings lots of experience from the bench with an unquestionable sharp legal mind that a future Gambia really needs in the new dispensation of justice in the judiciary, a required building block for a viable Gambia. If one of our best hopes could reach to these conclusions, and decided that it needed to be said in order to help in our aspiration to rescue our country from divisive politics, has really left me discouraged and confused. What is really behind some of these accusations leveled by our good Magistrate? There are three issues highlighted in the write up that I would like to give my two cents: CORDEG’s claim or attempt to position itself as an entity lot more relevant than the political parties back home; secondly, that a national
 project was high jacked by one of the culturally close friends- euphemism for Wolof tribalist, and that CORDEG original intent was the creation of a group that would play a role in helping the political parties in our struggle to remove Jammeh.
>As one of the original people that held lots of conference calls to plan and execute the Raleigh conference, I am very much familiar with the contours of the thinking, discussions, arguments and ultimately the finding of a common ground that led to the creation of the Raleigh conference. It all started after the disappointment of the proposed Dakar summit, STGDP refused to give up on the idea of bringing all the players from the Gambia and all over the Diaspora to meet at a location and find a way of harmonizing our efforts in order to remove the infighting among Diaspora groups, and to close the gulf between Diaspora organizations and the political parties on the ground, in order to focus on our collective efforts to confront and hopefully the removal of the Jammeh’s tyranny. The goal was that such a summit will help us find ways to remove Jammeh, and to also start having a conversation for a post Jammeh in order to eliminate the potential power
 vacuum that we could find ourselves in. During one of mornings commuting telephone conferences, one of the things we capitalize on to deal with the terrible Atlanta traffic nightmare, Banka told me about a call he had from the previous night from one Alkali Conteh. I have known koto Alkali Conteh and have engaged in demonstrations in Wahsington DC with him and have spoken on the phone quite a few times, but that was the first time I have heard of the group GDAG. According to Banka, like us they are also interested in organizing a summit meeting in order to deal with our political situation in the Gambia. They were focus on bringing all the groups in the Diaspora and because of our experience they wanted to coordinate with us to make it happen. Even though, I was not sold on what they wanted to do, we decided to have a conference call to see how we can further deliberate on the idea. From the start of the discussion with GDAG, it was clear that what
 STGDP had in mind is not the same with the GDAG folks, and GDAG was very apprehensive with the idea of including what they kept referring the “international dimension”. They were very concerned with the financial and the logistical requirement of including political parties from the Gambia and groups outside of the Gambia. After a contentious discussion, the meeting was adjourned because they wanted to go back and talk among themselves. For STGDP, we were adamant that the only summit meeting we will be interested in is to bring all the players from the Diaspora and the political players on the ground in order to create a unified force to effectively confront Jammeh’s tyrannical rule. This new initiative was not going to be like the STGDP effort year’s earlier where organizations in the Diaspora came together to facilitate and play a supporting role to the parties on the ground, we have been there done that.
>Of course, in his write up my good friend indicated that the original intent for the Raleigh conference was to create a group that will have a supporting role, which in his argument that some people up to no good with a sinister agenda changed it to suite their grand strategy. Let me be absolutely clear, the Raleigh conference was never about playing second fiddle to the opposition parties back home; in fact the meeting organizers did not want it to be about the political party’s differences or to even bring back the NADD debacle. But, there was unanimity that the political parties are an important group to be included in the meeting, and of course the reality is that there is no way that we can launch a peaceful removal of Jammeh without having all the opposition parties as partners, especially in the event to pursue the electoral route. The bottom line was that there is a need to build a grand alliance and that starts with having all the players
 under one tent. I really disagree with my good friend that CORDEG has a grand agenda of positioning itself to overshadow the role of the political parties on the ground, especially when the reality that a peaceful and electoral change in the Gambia starts and end with the political parties.
>Now, to the last point that CORDEG Executive was high jacked by culturally close friends, brings us to the most irresponsible and odious statement that I still cannot fathom would ever come from the good Magistrate. I have always held the belief that the Gambia is somehow different from other African countries plagued with tribalism, yes, we have sometimes the exploitation of tribal sensitivities to either get ahead but not to the extent of what we have seen in other countries. But, after first reading the so called formation of the CORDEG executive group without regard to diversity from KAIRO News,  I convinced myself that this must have been driven by an enthusiastic journalist interested in sensationalism to introduce their new paper, but now after reading this write up from Lamin Darboe for the second time, it is very clear that our collective hope for a new Gambia not saddle with tribal issues is more of a fantasy and we are all poise for a rude
 awakening. Is this whole pronouncement of democracy, rule of law and good governance, just a cover for something else? I remember in the early days just before the Raleigh conference, I had a discussion with Alkali Conteh as to the selection of a Steering committee that will continue the work of post Raleigh. I suggested to him that what I am about to say might not be very democratic, but knowing all the different groups in the Diaspora and the parties back home – maybe there is a need to try and manage the democratic process. This will give us an opportunity to come with a committee that is balanced, culturally diverse, regionally accommodating if we are ever going to be able to build this big tent. My Koto warned me that we should focus on the democratic process, and we cannot be seen as managing the process. Now, a democratic process was put in place, the people who voted were culturally, regionally and very much group diverse. An executive was
 chosen out of that process, now how that is in line with the allegation that some Wolof tribalist high jacked the process and Mandikas were left holding the bag – I refused to nuance what my good friend really said.
>My good friend has already warned us that time will take care of his concerns, and here I do agree with him that CORDEG will not survive because the very members are not interested in its survival. The people who are suppose to be fighting for the survival of CORDEG has become cheerleaders, furnishing the very cannon fodder that will finally kill CORDEG. A friend always reminds me, of course a sympathizer of the APRC, you guys think that Jammeh is bad but you have no idea some of the folks you guys see as partners…hmmn should I put credence to such a warning? God help us
>Musa Jeng                                                                                                                                    
>
>
>________________________________
> 
>From: "Lamin Darbo" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:10:52 AM
>Subject: [G_L] CORDEG's very blurred vision
>
>
>
>CORDEG’s Utterly Blurred Vision
>
>
>Its leadership is almost entirely Diaspora-based, with some absent from The Gambia for two, maybe three decades. Under Professor Jammeh’s Constitution, none of those leaders are qualified to contest any public elections slated for 2016/17. Outside the cyber political world, the organisation and its leadership are unknown, and crucially, to all but probably a negligible fraction of the home-based electorate. With no money on the table, it nevertheless pretends to the title of “... home to Gambian opposition political parties and Civil Society organisations at home and in Gambia’s various Diasporas”. Without so much as a passing justification, it seeks to wholly diminish the established and singularly significant home-based political opposition by proposing to commingle its influence in an egalitarian commune populated by purported civil society entities peopled, in the overwhelming number of cases, by a handful of individuals. Even more
 egregiously, what should have been a national project was hijacked and placed in the exclusive control of three very close social and cultural friends.
>
>
>Welcome to the make-believe world of The Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in The Gambia (CORDEG). As if to compound the illogical and unsupportable claim it is “... home to Gambian opposition political parties and Civil Society organisations at home and in Gambia’s various Diasporas” it asserts that “CORDEG recognises the autonomy of its constituent members as equal partners in the struggle to democratise The Gambia”. Whoever its “constituent members” maybe as of March 2014, it is unreasonableness personified to contend that CORDEG itself has the clout to demand “equal partner” status with political parties whose followership number in the hundreds of thousands!
>
>
>As the latest organisational progeny of the Gambian Conference on Democracy and Good Governance, Raleigh, North Carolina, 17-19 May 2013, CORDEG was originally projected as a facilitating mechanism for party-based opposition unity in Gambia’s fight for national democratisation. At least that was a plausible understanding of its primary objective based on the marketing literature put out by conference organisers. In the subsequent Raleigh Accord, some reference to the G6 was maintained but the role of home-based political parties was progressively diluted to a point all specific reference to their very central significance to a project that must be fought and won inside Gambia’s geographic contours was dropped from the just-published CORDEG “vision” statement.
>
>
>Without question, there is a yawning gap in CORDEG’s incomprehensible reasoning. As an “independent, non-profit transnational democratic umbrella organisation that is committed to peaceful, non-violent democratic change in The Gambia”, it stands to reason that CORDEG can effect change in The Gambia only through the electoral process. With no political base where it matters – in The Gambia – and deficient in critical aspects of the political process such as funding, it is hard to appreciate the locus of the leverage CORDEG assigns itself as the “... home to Gambian opposition political parties and Civil Society organisations at home and in Gambia’s various Diasporas”. The established political parties have no reason to subsume themselves in an unknown entity that purports to control them and their clear influence. Herein CORDEG’s disconnect with reality as far as Gambia’s political terrain.
>
>
>Or maybe there is no disconnect, but what calculations are driving CORDEG’s so far opaque strategy are too opportunistic to openly communicate without triggering great public disquiet. It is an open secret that Gambian public life under the Professor is unsettled enough to collapse either of its overwhelming weight vis-a-vis its utterly weak foundation, or with a little push from some hostile quarter. Should that happened in a chaotic manner on the stretch to 2016, it would completely alter the dynamics of play in the country’s political topography. Like any of the endless array of Diaspora-based organisations, CORDEG would likely want a seat at the table of inevitable reconciliation around a transitional national unity government. There are various other scenarios present in a seismic national event that ruptures the current status quo and elements within CORDEG may want to hedge bets just in case. On the formation of the National Resistance of The
 Gambia, Yero Jallow of Gainako Online Newspaper profoundly reflects: “Isit by coincidence all these groups are emerging or do the fortune tellers of the land revealed a secret that some of us are not aware yet? I just find things very interesting nowadays. It is as if people are clearly seeing Jammeh's demise”.
>
>
>If CORDEG’s focus is sincerely on a peaceful change of government, the key question is why it treats the established political parties as though they are in the same league as some of the Diaspora’s less than ten-people organisations. Can it be that CORDEG harbours the ambition of morphing into a political party and under that calculus may consider it unwise to get too cosy with any of the current crop of home-based political parties. If that is the case, CORDEG ought to dispense with all pretense and consolidate on that independent and legally permissible basis. Or is it intending to travel the fictional route of sponsoring an independent presidential candidate outside the explicit blessing of the established parties, or some of them at least. Whatever its real intentions, CORDEG can achieve nothing meaningful without expressly recognising the stranglehold of the established home-based political parties on the electorate that must decide the
 outcome of any election. Even more crucially, it must embrace Gambia’s true diversity in its critical decision-making organ. 
>
>
>We can all admire the personal achievements of some CORDEG members but that unquestioned reverence must never extend to matters touching on critical issues of Gambian public life. By all means celebrate the friendships and other relationships but do not require us to endorse pronouncements grounded in mere assertions, and visions that fell far short of what it takes to bring personal and national political salvation to The Gambia. What CORDEG placed on the table is not a national vision. It is a vision for personalities and a quite marginal group when what is needed is a selfless commitment to the creation of a national tent large enough to accommodate all colours of opinion but realistic enough to cede leadership to the more compelling players inhabiting the storm centre of Gambian public life. 
>
>
>In light of its comparative strength and appeal, CORDEG is best advised to pitch its tent in the domain most suited to its objective character, advocacy that has as its central element the facilitation of opposition party consolidation where it matters, inside Gambia. If, like others, CORDEG projects itself as an entity committed to forceful change in Gambian public life, this rejoinder would not be necessary as it would then be operating under different justifications and rules, and more crucially, on its exclusive resources to realise its objective. In the political world, it denotes unreasonableness of the highest order to seek to either proactively control or diminish the significance of entities without whose willing cooperation and resources there is absolutely no chance of achieving ones desired objective. As CORDEG advanced no reasonable explanation to its boldest assertion of not conceding any supremacy to political parties with supporters in
 the hundreds of thousands, its true intentions may at best be regarded as mired in opaqueness. To recognise no distinction between established political parties on the ground, and few-person entities like the myriad of so-called civil society organisations in the distant Diaspora, is the very epitomisation of fantasy. 
>
>
>This apparently characteristic opaqueness on critical questions is threatening to be the albatross around CORDEG’s neck. In the run-up to Raleigh, the conveners of the conference were marketed as STGDP, based in Atlanta, and GDAG, based in the host city. After Raleigh, DUGA-DC was retrospectively included among the conveners. No explanation was ever advanced. Even more crucially, when CORDEG’s leadership team was unveiled, GDAG, the other principal to Raleigh, came out utterly empty handed in the executive and sub-executive line up. Again, no explanation whatsoever even though this turn of events is potentially the most fatal development going to CORDEG’s very questionable credibility. In case any is tempted to advance the democratic process as having spoken on the leadership issue, I strongly suggest that a fair and visionary group would exercise heightened and appropriate sensitivity in the overall circumstances it was confronted with as far
 selecting its top echelon team. To its regrettable peril, CORDEG blatantly ignored common sense!
>
>
>For example, CORDEG purportedly ‘elected’ three socially and culturally connected individuals in the persons of Dr Abdoulaye Saine (Chair), Ms Sigga M Jagne (Vice-chair), and Abdulai Jobe (Secretary General), and probably imposed them on the group as the untouchable Executive Committee (EC). Were the participants in its so-called executive elections on prior notice that “the EC is CORDEG’s top-tier administrative group, responsible for overall policy, strategy and implementation of CORDEG’s programs and projects, with the Secretary General (SG) serving as the hub for CORDEG’s specialiased Committees/Directorates”. These three very close friends are “also responsible for Foreign Affairs/International Diplomacy, strategic partnerships and overall management of CORDEG”. Or were the responsibilities attached to the positions after the elections? If the latter, the overall process does not pass the smell test!
>
>
>Stated unequivocally, Dr Abdoulaye Saine, Ms Sigga M Jagne, and Abdulai Jobe comprise CORDEG’s equivalent of the UN Security Council with power to veto anything they don’t like. The public deserves clarification on whether the so-called “vision” statement predates the elections, or whether the “vision” statement was crafted after the elections. I cannot accept that some of the independently minded individuals I encountered in this struggle, and who participated in CORDEG’s so-called elections, would have voted for such a perverse arrangement had they known they were endorsing a dictatorship of three social and cultural chums in the sense that the “Steering Committee”, and the “Specialised Committees/Directorates” are utterly redundant in the area of crucial management decision making. In light of the above, I emphatically reject the claim in the so-called “vision” statement that CORDEG “enjoys wide mandate and legitimacy, as
 the recognised representative and voice of the Gambian opposition the world-over”.
>
>
>Notwithstanding the claim of “home to Gambian opposition political parties and Civil Society organisations at home and in Gambia’s various Diasporas”, we know there are other Diaspora groups with competing priorities and some are calling for even CORDEG to join them. The claim and the reality therefore diverged. Indeed CORDEG continues to ignore the fact that not all political parties were present in Raleigh, and some prominent participants are now leading groups with quite a militant approach to ending public lawlessness in The Gambia. CORDEG’s very deficient “vision” statement can only make it impossible for those outside this architecturally flawed “umbrella” to want to peep in, much less join its cover. Although there appears to be many unanswered questions around CORDEG’s intentions, or at least the intentions of those steering the entity in the unlit pathways of potential deception, what is explicit in its own “vision”
 statement is alarming enough to scare me away.
>
>
>Those who contend for the proposition that unity is the highest value we should aspire to in our fight against atrocious public lawlessness in Gambian public life are counselled to embrace the more admirable philosophy of objective reason and fairness as the highest foundational values of any viable national space. As currently constituted, CORDEG’s “vision”, and top leadership team, lacks both reason and fairness! CORDEG will therefore struggle for traction. Don’t take my word for it. I am more than content to leave the verdict in the hands of that great arbiter of human affairs – time. 
> 
>And in case any is tempted to brand legitimate queries on seminal national issues as a distraction, I suggest some inner self-conversation around the fundamental question of what you have done/are doing for the vital struggle for a democratic Gambia that the person supposedly causing a distraction has no done. In the event of a struggle for an affirmative answer, that inner conversation should constitute cogent instruction that more self reflection may be required. And in the event of an irresistible temptation to don a mask and hurl abuse, ask if you are any better than the faceless criminals wreaking havoc under colour of public authority on defenceless fellow citizens in The Gambia 
>
>
>Needless to say, I shall not be supporting CORDEG as currently constituted and projected!
> 
> 
>
>
>Lamin J Darbo¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html 
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