Ginny,
 
I am sure you know the proverbial "just enough rope to hang  themselves"
 
Look what a great job the masterminds of the hacking and intimidation  
campaign did to complete the job of putting our government on the World map  as a 
champion of injustice, abuse of human rights and muzzling, intimidating,  
killing and threatening journalists and the citizenry alike, topped off  by an award 
wining demonstration of bad manners.  Now isn't that what  every good 
leadership can ever wish for? They surely deserve some of those  medals that Jammeh 
was handing out not too long ago, don't you think?
 
 
Jabou Joh
 
In a message dated 6/19/2006 5:59:02 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Hello, all, I was browsing Google news today, going through  the
articles related to The Gambia.  There were a whole bunch of  articles
dealing with The Gambia's removal from the Millennium  Project.  There
was also an article about a Congressman who was  concerned about the
situation in The Gambia, namely, the killing of Deyda  Hydara, and
oddly enough, there was also an article detailing a press  release
about the secret service visiting The Gambia.


Now, at the moment, I don't have time to read all of  these
articles, but I plan to read them once I get home.  But one  thing
which struck me as interesting, is how concerned the rest of the  world
seems to be about The Gambia.  what I find interesting is  the
intimidation meted out to myself, and possibly other non-Gambians,  to
"stop maligning the good name of The Gambia".


And what I want to say is "Huh?"  Does this mean that  venerable
news organizations such as Reuters, Voice of America, among  others,
should also "stop maligning Gambia's good name"?

Besides, reporting on something is not in and of  itself
"maligning".  Reporting on something doesn't just automatically  give a
country a bad name.  Conversely, not reporting on something  doesn't
mean that it is not happening.


It's  easy to try to intimidate small online establishments like
the Freedom  Newspaper, and to intimidate private individuals into
becoming  silent.


But what of the established news  sources?  Will they be told to
"shut up or else"?  I'd venture to  say not, because like bullies
almost always do, they pick on the most  defenseless person that they
can find.  They're not going to pick on  someone who can actually
challenge them and actually do something about  their bullying tactics.



But if someone does  stand up to someone like Yahya Jammeh, what
happens to them?  They are  silenced in some way, either by murder,
intimidation or, maybe hacking,  possibly?


But what seems to upset Jammeh and  their supporters are the
people they can't touch, like Reuters, or VOA, or  other outspoken
groups who oppose his misrule and ruining of The  Gambia.


To put it simply,  those of us who  speak out with a loud voice
against the tyranny, brutality and utter  foolishness that is Yahya
Jammeh did not create this mess.  And  shutting up about it is not
going to make it go away.


Jammeh has done and continues to do more to ruin The Gambia  and
"its good name", than little old me could possibly do in a  lifetime!
Look at the millions of dollars he's spending on the AU summit,  money
that could have been spend on health-care, repairing the roads,  or,
maybe possibly paying the farmers for their  groundnuts?



But it seems that some want to  equate supporting Jammeh with
supporting The Gambia, and the two are, for  the most part, mutually
exclusive.  You can support Jammeh without  supporting The Gambia, and
you can support The Gambia and its people  without supporting Jammeh,
and I guess, you could simultaneously support  The Gambia while
supporting Jammeh, though given the current circumstances,  I do not
see how this is possible.


The thing  is, most dictators think they will rule forever, didn't
the Third Reich  think that they were going to rule for 1,000 years?
And it's funny how  history repeats itself because Jammeh just recently
made a comment that he  planned to rule for 30 years!


The fact is,  Jammeh is making a mess of The Gambia and he is
doing this for all the  world to see.  He thought that he could shut
down the Independent,  murder Deyda Hydara, detain journalists, even,
supposedly?, well, let's  just say that people claiming to support
Jammeh have hacked into an online  newspaper, in an attempt to silence
people who would make the deeds of him  and his government known to the
whole world.


But you know what,  it's not working!  And all one needs to do  is
go to Google and click on News and then type in Gambia, in the  search
box, click on "Search News", and watch what  happens?


I even tried typing in "nderry", and  got 49 articles, at last
count, related to the "Pa Nderry Mbai" hacking  situation, and that was
just on that one event alone.  So rather than  hurting Pa Nderry as the
supposed hackers had hoped, they've just made him  a sort of, I don't
know, not a martyr of course, but well, they've made him  larger than
he may have been otherwise.


Not  only this, every time Jammeh detains a journalist, or closes
down a  newspaper or radio station, you can go to Google and find press
releases  from organizations such as CPJ, RSF, and you can find such
releases  published on blogs and other online media.  So rather than
silencing  the press and attempting to hide the truth from the rest of
the world,  Jammeh's attempts to muzzle the press are, instead, having
the opposite  affect.  Now, rather than less people knowing about
something, more  peple now know about The Gambia and its deplorable
situation than they  might have known, had Jammeh just let the press
operate as they should have  been allowed to operate all along.  Or
maybe not, I don't know.   Maybe the press still would have been
stifled, but the more Jammeh tries to  suppress the truth, the more it
comes out.


Anyway, just some thoughts.  Oh, and one more thing, someone  said
osmething about the "revered Robert Mugabe", and all I gotta say  to
that is, and all sarcasm is intended, look what a wonderful job  he's
doing with Zimbabwe!  Taking that country from a top economic  producer
to a country on the brink of, if not already, of economic  collapse.
But don't get me started on that!  Robert Mugabe  revered?  Only in the
land of dictators and  theves.







-- 
Visit my blog at:   http://quickgm28.blogs.com/ginnys_thoughts_and_thing/

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