Speaking in an exclusive interview, with this reporter at her Brikama residence,
Mrs. Juwara said Isatou Njie-Saidy has betrayed the women's cause in The
Gambia.After all the talk about gender equality and the rights of a girl-child,
not any of the so-called women's leaders has raised a voice since a 13-year-old
girl was allegedly raped by a paramilitary police officer, she noted.How could
the vice president and all those women in the Cabinet stand aside when Gambian
womanhood was being treated dishonourably, she wondered.The women's leadership
in The Gambia is hypocritical and self-centred, Mrs Juwara declared.She further
wondered how the Vice President, as a mother, could say and subscribe to the
statement that the shooting on April 10 was from within the demonstrators. The
Vice President and other women leaders in the country are the very people that
pay lip service to equality of women, and pretend to defend the rights of women
and the child in very high sounding words in seminars, workshops and
international fora, she said.True leadership, according to Mrs Juwara, should
not be earned through appointments, but must be achieved through, among other
thing sacrifice in the service of one's beliefs for the good of the
community.She named former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Madeleine
Albright of the US, Indira Gandhi of India, among others, as examples of women
who have demonstrated quality leadership as women with vision and a commitment
to truth and justice.The case of the 13-year-old girl is a big challenge to the
Women's Bureau and the National Women's Council, Mrs Juwara noted, adding that
women have played important roles in the liberation of their countries.The
Women's Bureau and the Council should be scrapped, as they have shown they do
not deserve a butut of public funds, she said.Mrs. Juwara finally declared that
vice president Isatou Njie-Saidy's statement during the recent students'
demonstration defies all common sense,and that the only option is for her to
resign, and retire into disgrace.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
