Of callousness, mourning and uncertainty Old habits die hard. Equally, some excesses of government are simply unstoppable. Even irremediable. They remain still in the calmness of time and circumstances, but resurface with even more disastrous consequences, each time those in leadership demonstrate capability of insanity and wantonness towards societal concerns and agitations. Senseless killings are a part of the amalgam of everything devilish that the military coup of July 22, 1994, has come to represent. Which is why scant or no astonishment, should greet the recent macabre deaths of demonstrating Gambian schoolchildren. Or may be one should raise eyebrows after all. Time was, not long ago, when extra-judicial killings in The Gambia were mainly restricted within the army barracks, where torture and summary executions awaited real or imagined, coupists. Not anymore. Now, the contagious effects of soldier-killings in the barracks have spilt over into the greater society, leaving everybody, including schoolchildren, prone to the egregious conduct of government and its constituencies. The last thing the Gambian people could ever have fathomed, was the onslaught of a phalanx of trigger-happy paramilitary forces on unarmed schoolchildren, leaving scores dead and maimed. The killings, shocking and brutal as they were, reflect a familiar trait of a coarse political environment, unstoppable in its churning of unspeakable miseries against the Gambian people. But that has become the tossed salad of Jammehism. If there is any unique characteristic of President Yahya Jammeh's despotism, is its unremitting capacity to generate unprecendented monstrosities, and as a consequence, simmering mass hysteria. And dissonance. If Jammeh's arrival on the political scene in 1994, heightened Gambian optimism, he has now equally or even more, sullied that optimism, supplanting it with national pessimism and hopelessness, cascading into every facet of Gambain society. Under Jammeh, The Gambia has reeled, times without number, under brutalities that defied public imagination and sanity. Just four months into power, tens of officers of the GNA perished in an ogre of summary executions. Their remains have still not been found. Gambians mourned. A minister, Ousman Koro Ceesay, went missing, never to be seen again. He was allegedly kidnapped and driven in his official car to a distant bush, killed and burnt inside his car. No amount of words can describe the national pain and shock that attended the gruesome death of Koro on that day. Gambians mourned again. Dr. Momodou Njie narrowly escaped death at the hands of armed "kidnappers" on Denton Bridge. In typical gangster-style, his car was trailed and blocked on the bridge; his attackers stabbed him multiple times. Lamin Waa Juwara survived many attempted kidnappings. Other people, too. Gambians wondered whatever happened to normal sanity and decency. As recently as three months ago, Gambians mourned yet again. Two alleged coupists died, one succumbed to a hail of bullets after a column of gun-toting soldiers pursued him, like a wolf does its quarry, to the Banjul Albert Market, snuffing out his life in the most inhumane manner. Civility and restraint are two of the numerous missing ingredients for responsible leadership in The Gambia today. Which explains the recent tragic fracas between the students and the paramilitary forces. It is within the ambits of the law to demonstrate and express misgivings about societal realities. It is, however, tyrannical and dangerous to put a stopper to legitimate agitations propelled by simmering discontentment. Worse, spray bullets on unarmed, innocent schoolchildren, killing them with impunity. The demonstrating students had the right to vent their dissent;they were reading into history - of the APRC's litany of human rights abuses, its contempt for the rule of law and its dilly-dallying on investigations into legitimate public concerns. What has happened to the investigation into the mysterious death of Ousman Koro Ceesay? Questions multiply. Has justice been dispensed for the Guinean immigrant Amadou Jallow, who was bayoneted to death by soldiers? Has the soldier who killed the youngman resting on the beaches been arraigned yet? Did Baba Jobe, who allegedly pulled a gun at two airport security officers, face the law? Why have Shyngle Nyassi's abductors not been brought to book? Do you recall the tortures unleashed on the UDP militants? Has the government investigated these crimes? Mariama Sey recently complained of abuse at the hands of soldiers. Is she ever going to have her offenders found, let alone prosecuted? Why is the APRC government reluctant to investigate into The Gambia's "missing millions" and the recent dubious crude oil deal? Failure, reluctance actually, on the part of the APRC government to mount investigations into its abuses and dispense justice to the public, was a poignant reminder to the students that waiting for justice from the APRC was like waiting for Godot. It will never arrive or if it does, rather belatedly. Like a burning candle in the wind, confidence in the APRC government is sagging fast. Thus, the student demonstration is simply a by-product of the betrayal of trust and responsibility on the part of the APRC, to create a just society thriving on good leadership and true democracy. Yet, in more style than substance, the Office of the President,incapable of remorse and accountability, has blamed GAMSU for the recent carnage. What fatuous nonesense. It is only a person with a kinky addiction for self-flagellation, who will blame the students, victims of rampaging, trigger-happy paramilitary troops, who pulled triggers with impunity. The students demonstrated because of legitimate reasons. And it turned violent because coercive measures were used to suppress the agitations of the students. He who tries to squeeze the safety-valve inherits an explosion. Blame should go to Jammeh's leadership,the epitome of bad governance and incendiary politics, aggravating rather than lessening, the coarsening of political consciousness and behaviour. In a stage-managed publicity-gimmickry, shamelessly called an interview, with GRTS' Neneh Mcdonell, after the recent alleged coup plot, the president is at his best: temperamental, repellent, more loquacious than profound. Jolting between swings of moods,his eyes half-closed, face, an unimpressive sight of fuming rage, and basking in an aura of self-perpetuating invincibility, Jammeh warns Gambians that "heads will roll." There will be no mercy, he stresses. And he tells his countrymen that he is still the "same Yahya Jammeh," has not changed a bit. Translation: the tender mercies of the civilian presidency have failed to pacify Jammeh's repulsive militaristic tendencies. With a presidential vocabulary bereft of sanity and couched in threats and extremities, little wonder then paramilitary forces can now shoot and kill even schoolchildren. The absolutism emanating from the State House is giving impetus to unchecked political insanity in the country. Condign punishment for the killers and compensatory justice for the victims, should not only be obtainable through judicial intervention, but also by a complete overhaul of the political system, making it democratic rather than tyrannical. But that is more imaginary than realistic. Given Jammeh's intransigence and his leadership's propensity for bestiality, meaningful political changes will continue to elude the national collective. The Gambia is on a knife-edge. Cherno Baba Jallow Detroit, MI ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------