Saul, another masterpiece. This was really worth waiting for. By the way, I
also had the same question about Kabir. I am glad to learn that he is doing
fine.

Saul, I understand your reluctance for being perceived as going after PDOIS.
I share the same reluctance. And I know Hamjatta does too. G_L archives is
my witness that we are always very reluctant to go after someone or some
organization we think should be an integral part of the Opposition. We
believe in a united Opposition.

As far as I am concerned, PDOIS crossed the line on this one. Like Dr. Saine
was saying, unless some PDOIS supporters come out and salvage their party,
the Opposition is better off without PDOIS. This is not about going after
PDOIS. This is about pragmatism. At this juncture, we do not need wet
blankets in our midst.

Keep up the good job you are doing and know that I take very seriously your
statement that I speak for you at times. I value your judgment and I seek
not to disappoint you and other genuine members of the Opposition when I
write on G_L. Please butt in more often.
KB



>From: saul khan <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Response to PDOIS's Reaction.
>Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 19:23:01 -0000
>
>KB,
>
>I'm still choked with stuff to do, so forgive me for butting in late. I
>share most of your sentiments regarding PDOIS' reaction to the London
>meeting. I had resolved not to criticize them on this forum, after meeting
>Mr. Sallah here last year. I've had to break that pledge a few times
>before,
>because of the way they were going after Hamjatta. Though in fairness to
>the
>PDOIS people, Hamjatta hammered them first. So, they declared open season
>on
>him. But, given the positions that PDOIS keeps taking -as opposed to any
>other party back home- relative to the murderous APRC regime, I can
>understand why Hamjatta finds it impossible to restrain himself. PDOIS'
>condescending reaction to the London meeting is a case in point.
>
>I believe PDOIS seriously erred in several ways:
>
>1. PDOIS' stand that travelling to London to “brief a British MP”
>tantamount
>to admitting impotence on the side of the Gambian opposition is baseless.
>In
>fact, it's preposterous. Anyone with basic knowledge about the Gambia knows
>that the country survives on foreign aid. That of course, comes with
>strings. So, as much as we'd like to pretend to be an "independent" nation,
>the nations whose handouts keep our tiny economy spluttering, have a lot of
>say in how our nation is governed. Sad, but the truth. The AFPRC’s
>turn-around regarding their original desire to hang on the reins of power
>for four years, was mainly due to outside pressure: “No Elections, No Aid
>money.” No secrets there. So, are so many other cosmetic improvements in
>good governance in The Gambia. Which makes me wonder why PDOIS would even
>pretend that opposition members briefing some British MPs on The Gambia is
>folly, a waste of time, or anything extra-ordinary?
>
>2.  This one is simply sad. PDOIS keeps invoking the names of former PPP
>govt. officials as a negative connotation of the London meeting. The same
>posture the Jammeh govt. has taken, one may add. However, the same govt.
>doesn’t hesitate to use, or appoint members of the last PPP govt. machine
>if
>it serves its interest: Buba Baldeh, E.K. Sarr, Aji Fatou Sallah, etc, etc.
>But from a human perspective, what do we expect from the PPP people?
>Personally, I can’t think of any better place where Sir Dawda and co ought
>to have been on that February day than at that London meeting. Let’s face
>it: These people were kicked out screaming.  They were accused and vilified
>as the most corrupt, most nepotic, and most undemocratic people ever to
>defile Gambian soil.  Some of these people like OJ (for whom I now have
>much
>respect,) were arrested and subjected to really inhumane treatment
>including
>physical torture! Think of most types of de-humanizing treatment, and
>chances are, most of the PPP people have been subjected to it. And they
>continue to be harassed and their lives threatened on a daily basis. Time
>being the great arbiter that it is, has shown their erstwhile accusers to
>be
>every bit worse than they ever were. But somehow, these vindicated people
>shouldn’t even call for the normalcy that obtained during their tenure in
>office to return. I wonder what gives PDOIS or any Gambian for that matter,
>the right to silence these people anymore. Yes, they screwed up; No, they
>shouldn’t be put in office again; But you darn straight, they’ve EARNED the
>right to be at the forefront of the fight against the fraud who illegally
>uprooted them only to out-do them in every crime sphere imaginable. I’m
>really interested in hearing why PDOIS thinks the PPP people shouldn’t be
>visible in the fight against Yaya Jammeh at this point in time. I noticed
>code words like we want change, but “change should be for the better” in
>one
>of their letters. Well, get this PDOIS: Having the last PPP govt. back will
>be a “change for the better!” Why not ask the average Modu or Kumba on the
>street?  Yaya Jammeh has simply accomplished a Herculean task, something
>really unimaginable to many of us only six years ago: He has turned the PPP
>era into “the good old days” in The Gambia! It’s a shame that PDOIS fails
>to
>get this.
>
>
>3. On a practical level, our tiny nation is at the mercy of Yaya Jammeh.
>For
>all practical purposes, the Opposition and the parliament in the Gambia of
>today are merely symbolic. Yaya Jammeh not only sets the rule; he IS the
>rule and the law! The man simply does what he wants.  Damn any of his
>opponents. And because of our relative geo-political and economic
>insignificance, Yaya Jammeh will kill a lot more of our people before the
>outside world notice anything -unless we raise the alarm early! The PDOIS
>statement envisaged a scenario where Sheriff Dibba would have attempted to
>register as a candidate in the forth-coming bye-elections; then to
>challenge
>his ban in court if refused registration, etc, etc. This sounds like a joke
>to me. To test constitutionality, or the rule of law in the Gambia, PDOIS
>doesn't need an old timer like Sheriff Dibba as a test case. How about
>suing
>the govt. for the murder of the little kids killed last April? That is a
>bigger crime (committed by this govt.) than banning any politician. And
>even
>as I write this, the Yaya Jammeh govt. still has a "shoot to kill" policy
>at
>unmarked borders like the Giboro village border crossing. How about suing
>for the families of the two people who were killed in cold-blood recently?
>Or if these subjects are “volatile” or “confrontational,” how about suing
>Yaya Jammeh for defying the wish of the Gambian majority to have TERM
>LIMITS
>entrenched in our constitution as clearly stipulated in the National
>Consultative Committee report?
>
>We all know exactly what will happen if anyone tries to seek redress for
>the
>victims in any of the incidents cited, or the subversion of the people’s
>wish in the NCC report. Like I pointed out to Mr. Sallah before, what we
>have in the Gambia, is a “simulation of democracy.” If one wants to be
>fancy, it could be called “legalized authoritarianism.” Legalized, because
>of a staged election that was meant to be rigged from the word “go.” But,
>in
>any case, the Gambia’s democratic credential is a sham, a big public lie.
>No
>honest observer of the Gambian scene can miss such an obvious fact. Which
>is
>why, one has to wonder why smart folks like the PDOIS people keep throwing
>out amazingly naive ideas about this rogue govt.  It is in the govt.’s
>interest to keep the outside world in the dark about the true nature of the
>Jammeh regime. PDOIS is the only party that readily helps the govt. in
>that.
>And one has to ask: “what is in it for PDOIS?”
>
>Also, I can't help but add to the protests about the PDOIS line on Jawara.
>Frankly, I thought the party was over Jawara. But as the line “…Jawara is
>lucky to have Hamat Bah and not a PDOIS rep…” clearly reveals, they still
>have their daggers out for the Old Pa. When it comes to Jawara, PDOIS never
>passes up an opportunity to attack, and denigrate the man. Yet, the same
>PDOIS will declare that they're against "the politics of personal insults"
>when it comes to Yaya Jammeh. I remember fully well PDOIS’ maiden days. I
>was a senior in High School, and one of my past times was to visit the
>PDOIS
>HQ at Bunding, a block from the mosque. I also clearly remember the theme
>of
>PDOIS’ first round of symposia: “The Senegambia Confederation.” Those who
>think PDOIS is a party of dour, or lifeless characters, should find a tape
>cassette of PDOIS’ symposium on the Senegambia Confederation. Their sense
>of
>humor was palpable, and very infective. The way they lampooned the PPP
>people, was simply hilarious.  And they got their message through to the
>masses. Makes one think of the Wollof proverb of  “shooing away one’s
>chicken, while saying what one intends to say.” Simply put, if one cared to
>see the silliness and petty hypocrisy of the PPP people in the ‘80s
>exposed,
>one needs not go any further than a PDOIS symposium. That was MY PDOIS. It
>was the party I fell for. The one we have now is unrecognizable to me.
>Because, if one had paid millions to invent a bumbling buffoon of a
>political opponent, one simply couldn’t have come up with a better product
>than Yaya Jammeh. To any of his opponents who dare examine the man’s
>character, Yaya Jammeh is god-sent. Simple! What do you call: a
>thirty-something year old, who publicly humiliates himself by wearing
>clothes meant for septuagenarians; Or if that’s not enough, he carries a
>staff laden with “magical” juju reminiscent of the Mansa (kings) of the
>ancient Mali empire? Or carries a chaplet in his left hand when three-year
>olds in Quranic school know better? Or goes on TV to brag about how wealthy
>he is –when 90% of the population is undergoing disguised starvation? Just
>to cite a few of Yaya Jammeh’s colorful achievements. Yet, the new PDOIS
>openly keeps away from such subjects, because they’re not interested in the
>“politics of personal insults.” ‘You ain’t fooling me’ PDOIS, as they say
>around here.
>
>One can genuinely question Sir Dawda’s democratic credentials, because it
>was indeed spotty at times. But, overall, it’s totally dishonest for PDOIS
>to be still sticking to their professed stance that “there’s no difference
>between the PPP and the APRC.” At the height of PPP rule, Halifa Sallah
>personally confronted Sir Dawda at a Serrekunda polling station to point
>out
>to him that he was violating election rules by trying to unduly influence
>the election by his presence on Election Day 1987. According to first hand
>reports, the man concurred with Mr. Sallah’s observation, just turned
>around, and left without any incident. I missed that encounter by less than
>five minutes -literally. I remember the day like it was this morning. Some
>of OJ’s people were so livid, it wasn’t funny. I stood and listened to many
>of those people saying of Halifa Sallah things like: “he should be glad
>that
>this is Jawara. Anywhere else, he won’t see the sun again”… “This man
>thinks
>he’s the most educated Gambian…” “’key hamutt Bo-pam’ (the man is
>arrogant,”) etc, etc. I have no doubt in mind that Halifa Sallah or no
>other
>PDOIS stalwart will EVER try any such thing with Yaya Jammeh. And we all
>know why. In fact, Halifa Sallah is on record here as saying basically
>that,
>PDOIS wants to keep doing their thing without provoking anything that would
>cause Yaya Jammeh to lock them up, or “banish” them somewhere. So, here we
>have a situation where PDOIS itself basically admits that the political
>environment is more adverse today than what obtains under the PPP, yet the
>party keeps clinging to the spurious claim that the PPP is no better than
>the Jammeh regime. There’s something truly dishonest about that. One would
>be remiss for failing to accord Mr. Sallah and PDOIS what is truly theirs.
>Equally, fairness dictates that we give Jawara and the PPP people what is
>rightfully theirs. I can’t resist invoking St. Thomas Aquinas’ wise lines
>on
>justice again: “To treat equals unequally, or unequals equally is an
>injustice.” Yaya Jammeh is simply no Sir Dawda Jawara. So, to keep equating
>the two in terms of their rule, is an injustice to Sir Dawda, and
>increasingly an insult to anyone who lived under PPP rule! A group of inept
>and mainly incompetent people, they were. Common criminals, they were not!
>I have no doubt that history will be more kind to them than the APRC. Or at
>the very least, PDOIS ought to stop the pretense that they’re not engaged
>in
>a personal vendetta, when they jump at every opportunity to ridicule the
>PPP
>people, but keep finding excuses not to play Jammeh the same card, or even
>worse rationalizing some of the evil that the Jammeh govt. does by telling
>us that the APRC inherited such and such from the PPP. If Yaya Jammeh will
>kill one for something that Sir Dawda gracefully accedes to, how on earth
>can these two people’s regimes be the same?
>
>Be as it is, the Gambian majority is fairing far worse under Yaya than it
>did under Jawara whether in terms of civic rights, or economics. This is an
>open secret. We know what Jawara did, or failed to do. And we also know
>that
>what Yaya Jammeh is doing to us is worse than anything we’ve ever seen
>under
>Jawara. It is the duty of our “wanna be” leaders to expose and stand firmly
>and unequivocally against the criminal syndicate that the Yaya Jammeh govt.
>is. If PDOIS cannot stand with the rest of the opposition against the APRC,
>the least the party ought to do is keep its silence. PDOIS’ unfortunate
>statement on the London meeting has done nothing but muddled the waters,
>and
>sent the wrong message to this criminal govt. that they’re faced with a
>divided opposition. It is partly due to a similar myopic position that
>PDOIS’ took in 1996 in the form of “there’s nothing wrong with Yaya Jammeh
>turning the AFPRC into a political party and running for president” that
>clearly encouraged Yaya Jammeh to change his clothes and self-succeed. That
>statement conveniently ignored qualifiers like the need for a level playing
>field (which was IMPOSSIBLE to have with Yaya Jammeh as AFPRC Chairman and
>APRC Presidential candidate) in the pursuit of true democracy. Thus the
>mess
>we’re in now. We don’t need another such blunder, no matter what PDOIS
>calls
>it! If PDOIS is to ever become an alternative candidate for power in the
>Gambia, the party will have to strive to appeal to a broader demographic
>group than the current narrow strata that is dominated by people with blind
>zealot proclivities. For which the rest of us are thankful. (The fewer of
>us
>that follow PDOIS this way, the better for our nation.) PDOIS’ unnecessary
>and sanctimonious intransigence is simply too much for an increasing number
>of EDUCATED Gambians. If the party can pull itself out of this tinderbox of
>their own making, there may yet be a lifeline. Otherwise, PDOIS as a
>serious
>contender of public office in The Gambia, is all but dead! Call me an
>arrogant prophet of doom, or what have you, but I’m willing to bet anyone
>that on its present path, PDOIS will actually win FEWER votes in the next
>election than it did in 1996! People are sick and tired of PDOIS playing
>footsie with Yaya Jammeh!
>
>Sorry, I have to break my vow not to go off on PDOIS on this forum again,
>but PDOIS seems to miss the fact that the rest of the Gambia is simply
>tired
>of the criminality of this APRC regime. Six years of multiple page letters
>haven’t done the trick. As it is, even a re-incarnated PPP is preferable to
>the time bomb we have right now. So why help the Jammeh govt. cover up a
>public lie that is clearly propelling our country into very dangerous
>territory?
>
>Good day.
>
>Saul.
>
>
>
>>Barrow, I join Hamjatta and commend you for your stance and honesty. I
>>renew my appeal and encourage other PDOIS supporters to view our
>>statements
>>in
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
>Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
>You may also send subscription requests to
>[log in to unmask]
>if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your
>full name and e-mail address.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------