My Good Friend Halifa,
Welcome back after such a long period. I hope you had a very successful
tour. Perhaps you will share the highlights with members in due course.
Having said that and without further ado, I shall address your last posting,
which to say the least, has left me excited.
Save for your moralising and bluffing puffery, insinuations of deceits on
my part, charges evasion of your contentions raised earlier and dusting of
what you claimed was dust-clean from an earlier sweeping you made: the
questions you raised and allegations you made duly deserve my attention.
First and foremost, where did you read me calling anyone 'cronies' of
whatever/whoever as you alleged in your posting? Could you refer me to
relevant material. It should help us all if you put this allegation within
the context in which you refer it to me.
Secondly, contrary to your claims, I never said Waa Juwara alleged that
you were having secret rendezvous' with the erstwhile AFPRC. Infact what I
said then was that Juwara's provocatory remarks during an interview with the
Daily Observer's Sheriff Bojang soon after he [Juwara] was released, spurred
you to write a lengthy rebuttal in the Daily Observer. In that rebuttal, you
claimed amongst others that you did meet [if my memory serves me right] with
the late Capt. Sadibou Haidara, then the AFPRC's spokesman, to discuss the
transition and the way forward. You said then that the reason why you never
revealed this was because you didn't want to "muddy" the political waters as
it were then. What I wrote then exactly was: "Remember when Waa Juwara
PROVOKED YOU INTO TELLING US how you had secret behind the scenes meetings
with the erstwhile AFPRC? Your reason for the discretion then: you didn't
want to muddy the political waters then." This was posted on the 16th. of
January, 2000 entitled Re: Reply To Hamjatta.
On the Indemnity Clause, if you had read all the postings I have sent
since you've been away, you would have observed that I did remark to Jabou
Joh in a posting entitled Clarifications To Jabou, that the next time I write
about Halifa, I would be debunking his misconceptions of the Indemnity
Provisions. Far from it, I'm not running away from your challenge. It is my
duty and in the name of fair play to illustrate why I said the Indemnity
Provision has made impotent amongst others the Coroners Act. I have
complained to you earlier, I believe ever since we embarked on this, that
material limits would hinder progress on my part since I do not have in my
person some relevant materials that would be essential to make my arguments
look empirical and not just hooha or idle chatter. In lieu of the
aforementioned, when you brought/quoted a section of the Indemnity
Provisions, which on the face of it seemed to look rather whittled compared
to the claims I make of the sweeping nature of the Indemnity Clause, I
decided to contact someone back home to get the whole Indemnity Provisions;
for I believe there is an overrider which overrides the section you quoted in
your posting. Had I received that I would have dealt with that ages ago. If
you could supply all the relevant sections on the Indemnity Clause at no
further trouble or cost to you, I shall be glad for it and proceed duly to
state why I think the Indemnity Clause does make the Coroners Act amongst
others impotent in the pursuit of justice for crimes committed during the
transition. If, on the other hand, you could not supply the relevant
Provisions, then you will have to maintain patience until it becomes
available. I hope you understand.
Also you took time, to make a passing jibe at my straw poll that I
conducted about the PDOIS even insinuating the insincerity of the exercise.
Frankly, I'm more flattered than offended by your sarcastic insinuations. For
it seemed you did take seriously my claims that PDOIS is losing support in
it's traditional heartland: the post independence generation. All i will say
is this: i sampled at random 21 adults who are eligible to vote in an
election ages ranging between 18 to 35 with three questions, namely:
1. Who did you vote for or who would you have voted for if you were eligible
during the 1992 elections?
2. Is PDOIS the same party it was before 1994?
3. Why do you think/say it has changed?
I'm not a professional pollster [psephologist] nor a very good enthusiast for
it. Forget my amateurishness. I carried that straw poll merely to indicate
how as I proffered to Jabou, that we were not part of a lunatic periphery.
That the views I express are virtually mainstream. As for the names and
addresses, don't even think about it. It is against the ethics of
confidentiality to reveal names and addresses of individuals randomly sampled
in a poll. Believe me, if I were to solicit their consent in distributing
their names to others, it would be in sharp breach of the trust that in the
first place made them to talk to me. Disregard this straw poll at your own
disadvantage. I hope that quenches your thirst. If not I'm sorry, but I will
not breach the trust of others to satisfy you.
In conclusion, as I always tell you, I find you a very exciting man
intellectually and I took [still do] inspirations from you. This is not to
flatter you. Flattery is something for the fainthearted and vainglorious. I
hardly ever flatter. I say it the way I feel it need be said. Your last
posting was tinged and laced with venom, threats, vindictiveness and bluffs.
Not that it worries me. No far from it, I just bring it to your attention so
that you could pour heart out without resulting to any of the aforementioned.
I look forward to your clean sweeping of the stables you claimed I had
dusted in your absence. As Jeffrey Archer would say, Clean Sweep Ignatius,
Clean Sweep. Clean Sweep Halifa, Clean Sweep the Aegean Stables.
Anticipating your usual kind responses.
Hamjatta Kanteh.
hkanteh
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