The Independent (Banjul)
June 11, 2001
Posted to the web June 11, 2001
UDP Instigated April Student Riots?
In his usual tirades against the UDP during his recent meeting with the council of elders from the Western Division, President Jammeh just out of the blue accused the UDP of instigating the April 2000 student riots. This is quite interesting, particularly in view of the fact that the commission of inquiry set up by President Jammeh himself never came to such a conclusion in their report. One would therefore wonder how he was able to know about UDP's involvement in the April riots, or is it merely "to give the dog a bad name and hang it"?
It is therefore worth asking why he would not order the arrest of those UDP instigators when he had promised the whole nation that no stone would be left unturned to get to the truth of the matter. It is however beginning to look like the usual African phenomenon when embattled regimes would never accept any fault but they would instead always blame the opposition for any little thing that went wrong.
The facts that led to the April student riots are quite obvious to anyone who cared for the truth. The students had some genuine grievances, which they wanted addressed by the authorities, and as usual, everyone was dragging their feet and no one was ready to take action. When the students got fed up and wanted to use peaceful means to show their impatience, the authorities, in their usual arrogance used the security forces to stop the peaceful march, which eventually got out of hand. It is therefore quite obvious that the students had genuine grievances that they wanted addressed and therefore, they needed no instigation from anyone to react the way they did.
There is no doubt that if the authorities had not used force to try and stop the demonstration, there may not have been any violence. However, instead of the authorities accepting what was obviously their own fault, they wanted a convenient scapegoat to heap it on, and there is no better candidate than the UDP, which has become the whipping horse of President Jammeh and his wailers.
With this new accusation against the UDP, I wonder where that now leaves the healing process, which has been the singsong of the Secretary of State for Youth and Sports and chairman of the government spokespersons committee Sarjo Jallow. Certainly, continuing to trade accusations about who was responsible for what would definitely not help in moving the healing process forward. Therefore, I hope Mr. Jallow would not also hesitate to remind his boss that such unsubstantiated allegations are only going to take the process backwards.
Imam Karamo Touray While everyone had expected the council of elders from the Western Division to be among the first to call on President Jammeh to pledge their allegiance to him, many people were however surprised by the presence of Imam Karamo Touray in that purely political gathering. Considering what he had gone through in the hands of the authorities and the maturity and resilience he had shown throughout that period, everyone had expected him to be above such political gimmickry.
Of course as a venerable religious leader, everyone expected him to forgive and forget what had happened to him, apparently instigated by some of the very people in that delegation, but certainly no one had expected him to get involved in a purely political delegation going to nominate a presidential candidate.
While it is understandable that Imam Touray would be grateful to President Jammeh for facilitating his reinstatement as Imam of Brikama, but he should not fail to realize that President Jammeh did it not out of his benevolence but as a result of the extreme pressure from the people, both within and outside The Gambia, and the overwhelming sympathy and support that Imam Touray and his colleagues received from everyone. Therefore, it would have been expected that Imam Touray would reciprocate the overwhelming sympathy and support he received from the people of Brikama and beyond to maintain his political neutrality and dignity rather than allow himself to be coerced into joining a political grouping like the council of elders.
It should be quite obvious to Imam Touray that without the pressure from the people, President Jammeh and his wailers would have never called for his re instatement as Imam of Brikama. Therefore, it would no doubt come as a big surprise and disappointment to many of his fans to see him frequently attend political functions with the same people who orchestrated his harassment and humiliation.
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