Hamjatta,

This is a good summary of our situation. The part about Halifa claiming
credit for averting a Siera-Leone/Rwanda type of situation only makes me
laugh. Why? Only feeble-minded people can fall for puff like that. It's
exactly the type of excuse that the PPP used to campaign (especially in the
country-side) in the olden days: Don't you hear about the wars going on all
over Africa? Look at the peace we have in the Gambia. Can you imagine what
would happen if Jawara were to leave? You should thank Allah that we have
someone so committed to peace etc, etc.

And as you've rightly pointed out, Halifa has never produced an iota of
evidence to buttress his claim that the Gambia was anywhere near a
Siera-Leone or Rwanda. So, the only reason for such claims is to raise his
stock among the feeble-minded, who swallow such stories w/o analyzing the
situation. What was going on in the country was that, the ruling military
junta was bent on perpetuating itself at all costs, and the population was
getting fed-up with being mal-treated etc. But at no point has there been a
concerted effort on the civilian side to challenge the junta tit-for-tat.
Unless Halifa means to say that he has averted a coup attempt/war between
factions in the army. Otherwise, the whole claim is another hollow victory
being claimed by PDOIS. I never took the claim seriously any way. You're
right on the money about the deviation tactics as well. Any one with sound
mind can see through it.

I'll await your reply to his piece on Korro etc.

Good day!

Saul.

>From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Halifamania
>Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 02:44:10 EST
>
>Cherno,
>     This is the first time someone came to side with us wholly in our
>exercise with Halifa without resorting to what we shall all now call Knee
>Jerk Halifaism: That Halifa is incapable of wrong, is capable of no
>mistake,
>above scrutiny and reproach. And because of his selfless sacrifice we who
>have benefited from this should shut it because we are being ungrateful to
>him. What a banquet of cobblers!! What a hooey!!
>     As Saul and I are beginning to expose, not so everything of Halifa's
>role
>during the transition was flattering and much of it misplaced enthusiasm
>for
>historical immediacy; that of a political order which they can robustly say
>they influenced rather than The People INFLUENCED and serving their
>interest.
>Snooty elitism: a charge I have levied against Halifa and intellectuals on
>the Left. Read through Halifa's postings and see the discernible brag
>through
>and through about them being the winners of the transition for the people.
>In
>a posting to Saul, he wrote with stuffy reverence that:"I will tell you
>what
>we helped to consolidate and that is why Gambia is not what Sierra Leone is
>today. That is what we helped to consolidate and which hypocrites do not
>want
>to acknowledge" Phwoarrrrrrr!!!! Typical Halifa repartee during debates on
>the transition. Why Halifa likes to juxtapose The Gambia with rotten cases
>like Sierra Leone and Rwanda beats me. He has instilled and injected this
>piffling argument everywhere that he had been questioned about the
>transition. What an inconsequential hooey!!!!! Where was/is the evidence
>then
>that we are degenerating into that Hobbesean state of fear: where life is
>short, brutish and chaotic? Where is/was the evidence that Gambians were
>arming with machetes/guns to degenerate into a Rwandan type situation?
>     As the debate is beginning to unravel a lot that Halifa labels
>"prestigious" information, evidence of Halifa's fidgety, nervy and
>comically
>croaky answers is glaringly illuminated. The debate has been digressed on
>his
>part by flooding us voluminous tomes of his political diary about a period
>no
>one disputes with deviationist tactics like having to things in
>chronological
>order how things evolved. An This has made his answers to take longer to
>reach us and developed a cliched hiatus in corresponding our concerns To be
>fair to him, though this is a turn off to other members, no one should
>dictate his tactics to tackle us to him. As Saul pointed to him clearly,
>there was the need for him to be Representationally Faithful; this is not
>to
>dilute or blunten his arguments and premises but to focus on what is in
>dispute and what is not.
>       Let me reiterate here again my concerns and I believe that of
>Saul's:
>that of Halifa's misplaced enthusiasm on that fundamentally flawed
>constitution and trajectorily skewered transition, the folly of holding
>that
>Koro's death is an "unfortunate accident" and his intransigent pomposity
>towards the intellectual pessimism rooted in realism that others have shown
>towards the transition.
>     I hope Halifa keeps his eye on this and not irrelevant and
>indisputable
>stuff that so far has been forthcoming from his end. But then again it is
>his
>prerogative on how he proceeds to answer our concerns.
>     I salute you all.
>Cordially,
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>
>hkanteh
>
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