Folks, Bambalaye Jallow has asked me to forward the below message to the L
as he has been somehow unsubscribed.




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 tomorrow.

Abdoulie A. Jallow
(BambaLaye)


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