Dr. Touray, I hope you are having a good time with your family and friends
you have not seen for a long time. Believe it or not, I understand the very
‘difficult’ situation you and people like Dr. Saine are in. You are
basically decent people with a conscience. You are also human beings that
want to look after yourselves in your dealings with the Dictatorship. This
is NOT an easy thing to do in Gambia. HOWEVER in this WAR with the
Dictatorship, one can either be for or against the defenseless masses. You
can be on the offense or on the defense, but NOT on the fence.
When you narrated your ‘pleasant surprise’ upon arrival at the airport, I
was NOT surprised that you hasten to add that you were NOT ‘an apologist for
the present government’. Just what made you think that some of us will
construe your statement as a covert endorsement of the NIA and the
Dictatorship? Does it have anything to do with the fact that irrespective of
your lame denial, you are in fact endorsing the Dictatorship?
See, BEFORE some of you left to The Gambia, many people knew about your
planned trip. Some knew through none other than Essa Sey. The mental midgets
running our country might be the dumbest Gambians on the face of the earth,
BUT they sure know how to ‘self-preserve’. The LAST thing the Dictatorship
would have done under the circumstances would be to ‘arrest’ you or Dr.
Saine as soon as you set foot in the country. Essa Sey already warned them
against that. The fact that the NIA did NOT arrest you should NOT be a
‘pleasant surprise’. They have no business arresting you in the first place.
For you people to fall for this gimmick and openly do the AFPRC/APRC/NIA PR
‘job’ for them, is grossly pathetic, to say the least.
Why am I fussing about this seemingly benign revelation from you? The
untrained eye that reads your ‘endorsement’ of the NIA would question
him/herself: ‘well Dr. Touray is a ‘staunch critic’ of the AFPRC/APRC regime
and he was NOT arrested by the NIA, maybe the other ‘critics’ like Dumo that
have been arrested did something criminal to necessitate their arrests? Just
maybe the journalists that were abducted and tortured by the NIA did
something to deserve their treatment or perhaps they were never tortured by
the NIA in the first place?’ People read your stuff and think that Waa
Juwara makes up the atrocities he has been reporting about AFPRC/APRC thugs.
People read about your ‘experience’ (or lack thereof) and think that OJ’s
passport was NOT seized or if it was seized, OJ must have done something to
deserve that.
You people are NOT stupid. You read into your statements the very things I
read into them; which is why you hasten to add that you do NOT want to be
seen as apologists for the Dictatorship. That caveat is meaningless after
the deed has already been done. It is incumbent on some of us, after reading
about your ‘experiences’ to put things in perspective and remind Gambians
that the same NIA that let you go (because of the intervention of mental
midgets like Essa Sey) are holding people like Dumo hostage. The same
Dictatorship NEVER attempted to burn down Ousainou Darboe’s house, but they
attempted to burn down Waa Juwara’s house. Did we hear Ousainou Darboe
describing as a ‘pleasant surprise’ the fact that his house was not burnt
and he is a ‘critic’ of the illegal outfit ruining our country? Darboe knows
that if he does that, he stands the chance of being accused of mocking Waa
Juwara. Ignoring the plight of Gambians that are constantly being harassed
by the NIA and APRC thugs, and reporting ‘stage-managed’ (by Essa Sey)
experiences that tacitly endorse the NIA, is a mockery to the numerous
victims of that illegal outfit. Yes! You were NOT arrested. Neither was Dr.
Saine. Nor was Kabir or Sanusi. Allow us also to point out that the
Dictatorship railroaded ‘critics like Muhammed Sillah, Emmanuel Joof, Waa
Juwara, OJ, Alagie Mbye. This is just naming people that had encounters with
the NIA that I know of within the past twelve months. I am NOT even talking
about Dumo et al that were abducted in broad daylight by the NIA and
incarcerated incommunicado for crimes that they NEVER committed. It is your
prerogative to report ‘pleasant surprises’ with the NIA. It is also our
prerogative to report UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCES our people are having with the
NIA. To people like Dumo, the NIA spells live and death situations. To those
people, talking about the NIA is NOT a matter of hiding behind benign words
to send covert messages.
Dr. Touray, I was NOT surprised that you have NOT been to the country for
this amount of years. With all due respect, people like you are prime
candidates for the LIES AFPRC/APRC sycophants want to perpetuate here on G_L
and elsewhere, if you do NOT constructively engage reliable Gambians living
in that Hell Hole. A critical person before he sees ‘developments’ in the
country and start apportioning ‘credit and commendation’ would first of all
figure out the ownership of that ‘development’. Take the TV for instance.
Commendation here, does it belong to the government that brought and
nurtured Gamtel or to the government that brought a TV station that is NOT
sustainable and shamelessly allows itself to be used a tool for the
Dictatorship? I do NOT even want to talk about the ‘roads’. No amount of
wishful thinking can get those ‘dust-bowls’ paved. Since AFPRC/APRC is
bereft of really positive things to talk about, they can be my guest and
dream about roads. They can even report that they ‘plan’ to put a Gambian in
Mars by year 2020. That is neither here nor there. The bottom-line is that
MOST of the good roads that are in that country were put there BEFORE 1994.
After a bunch of thugs STOLE power from a democratically elected government,
it is obvious that they would be the ones responsible for implementing some
of the projects that were conceived by the former regime. Ten-year-olds
could have implemented these projects. To list these as ‘major achievements’
of this shameless regime, just goes to show us what we are dealing with. We
are dealing with a bunch of inept morons that CANNOT take the country
forward.
Allow me Dr. Touray to also disagree with your following observation about
the country: ‘it’s on the move, and very encouragingly, in what I [Dr.
Touray] think is the right direction.” Emphasis mine. Either you want to
misinform your readership or you are reading the situation totally wrong.
Our people are getting POORER by the day and you are saying that things are
moving in the ‘right direction’? I beg your pardon. Don’t be fooled by
changing a few dollars and getting a bag-full of dalasis. That might be a
sign of ‘good things’ to you with the dollars. BUT think about the
unemployed Gambian whose cost for a bag of rice has just gone up. We still
have a lot of ISSUES outstanding with this illegal government. You witnessed
the ‘elections’ that chanced in the country. Does it look like a Democracy
to you? You think our ‘democratic credentials’ are pointing to the ‘right
direction’? You think the courts are serving people like Dumo and the
victims of the Massacre of April 10 and 11, 2000? I do NOT even have time to
talk about our farmers, the teachers, the civil servants held under hostage
and the average Gambian that CANNOT afford three square meals a day, like
they used to. You CANNOT possibly be saying that the Gambian population that
has grown POORER under AFPRC/APRC is ‘moving in the right direction’. You
must have been fed a lot of LIES about what chanced before 1994. For your
information, before 1994, Gambians were living lot better than now. This is
NOT me talking. This is Famara Jatta talking. In this day and age, Gambians
NOT suffering from Ales should have expected the government to do lot better
than the democratically elected government it stole power from. Whichever
way you slice it, this government (on its own admission) is taking us
BACKWARDS. They say people are POORER under them. Why would anyone want to
read into that statement of the government that Gambians are ‘moving in the
right direction’? Is becoming POORER the right direction for Gambians? I do
NOT think so.
Finally Dr. Touray, I saw your ‘appeal’ to certain ‘Diasporans’ to return
and help in the development of the country. I think you genuinely mean this.
But this again betrays some naivete in your part. If you really think that
one does not have to play ball with the APRC Dictatorship in order to make a
‘meaningful development’ in the country, then I have a bridge to sell you.
No person in this world can come to the Gambia and make a meaningful
contribution without ‘endorsing’ the indefensible positions of the
AFPRC/APRC. As I started above, in this WAR, one CANNOT be neutral. If the
AFPRC/APRC massacres innocent children and you stay mute, you are
‘endorsing’ their position. If Yaya STEALS the proceeds of a ‘Crude Oil
Grant’ given to the country and you stay mute, you are ‘endorsing’ their
position. You would undoubtedly be labeled an AFPRC/APRC apologist if you
stay mute about these vices, but are eager to ‘give credit to or commend’
the government for ‘projects’ they CANNOT even claim ownership of.
This is what the government ‘FORCES’ people to be if they want to
‘contribute meaningfully to the development of the country’. The government
wants you to ignore their vices and exaggerate their ‘achievements’. To me,
this translates to being in ‘cahoots’ with the Dictatorship. Any Gambian
that partakes in this despicable behavior is an APRC apologist in my book.
Yes! Not every Gambian that is contributing to society partakes in this
despicable behavior of ignoring the vices and exaggerating the achievements.
The point is, those Gambians are NOT ‘ALLOWED’ by this illegal government to
contribute to the development of the country in a meaningful manner. It
would be nice for accomplished scientists like Yusupha Jow to return and
contribute in the country instead of having mental midgets at Gamtel that do
NOT know A from B. But is it realistic to think that Jow would be ‘allowed’
to contribute to the development of Gamtel if the man has a conscience and
genuinely criticizes the government for heinous crimes like the massacre of
defenseless children? Of course we all know the answer. Let us say that Jow
wanted to go to the country and NOT work for Gamtel or other government
institution. It would be a piece of cake to this illegal government to ruin
the man in a heartbeat because they believe he is ‘unpatriotic’. To the
morons, one is ‘unpatriotic’ if one criticizes them for stealing money from
us and killing our children. You (Dr. Touray) must know about what happened
to Alimenta in the country. This company used to bring over $20 million in
the country to buy the farmers’ groundnuts cash down. No worthless
promissory notes. When Baabaa Jobe wanted some dubious Libyans to take their
place, the company was sent parking. This erratic move later costs our
taxpayers $12 million in EU grants and continues to cost our farmers to this
day. And mind you, Alimenta was NOT even ‘criticizing’ this government as
any decent Gambian should criticize them for holding the Gambian people
hostage. Just like you (Dr. Touray) are entitled to read the situation in a
particular light and ‘encourage’ certain ‘Diasporans’ to park and go to the
Hell Hole, I would tell those people that they do NOT have to be in Gambia
to contribute to the development of that country. Matter of fact, being in
Gambia reduces ones chances for meaningful contribution. Nowadays when
people go to the country, they jettison their principles in the Diaspora and
go to the country and run after crumbs from the Dictatorship. Flipping
burgers in the Diaspora and earning enough to feed your family at home and
having the ‘luxury’ to be a HUMAN BEING that can say that murder of
defenseless children is wrong and that murderers should NOT lead us, is
BETTER than going to Gambia and kissing up to the Dictatorship in order to
make ends meet.
KB
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