Dampha, I concur with you totally. This whole "challenge" stuff is very Buharry, and absolute cobblers (to borrow from the great Hamjatta.) I'm surprise he hasn't gone into his rainbow family background this time. Any time someone takes on an ugly Gambian reality, this man has to put on this ridiculous patriotism show. Somehow, some of us are people with "agendas" who are bent on tearing the Gambia apart, and him and his likes are the true patriots who are keeping us together. Nothing could be further from the truth! None of us asking the opposition to stand up and fight back are any less patriotic than Buharry and co. But, if people like him are the best the Gambia has to rely on, then God help that nation, because this guy has a problem dealing with ugly reality. No one on this list "advocating violence" has ever committed any such thing. It's the govt. in power back home that is doing so. And just for the record, unless I've missed something, no one has said anything about the UDP forming a "vigilante" group. What I said is for the UDP to train some of their cadres as a security contingent, and that these people will keep vigilance anywhere their party leaders/members congregate. I was thinking along the lines of the Nation of Islam. Louis Farrakhan is alive today not because thousands of assassins don't attempt to kill him every year, but because of the dedication of his UNARMED security contingent who keep vigilance at ALL times and ALL places where Farrakhan goes. There have actually been cases where the Fruit Of Islam (the NOI security) have confronted and disarmed potential assassins! So, there is a real-life example of what I'm exhorting the UDP people to do here. There is a world of difference between that and forming a "vigilante" group. If I meant to say the UDP should form a vigilante group, or even an army, I'll say exactly that, because unlike people like Buharry who use semantics, I say exactly what I mean, irrespective of how unpopular that opinion may be. But, somehow it's "irresponsible" to tell these law-abiding gentlemen to defend their god-given rights. What does the Great Buharry suggest instead? Rely on "pressure" because it's bearing fruits! The reality on the ground however is different. The senior echelon of both the army and police are openly antagonistic to the UDP people. Gambians don't come any gentler than Ousainou Darbo, Amadu Sanneh, or Yaya Jallow among others. Imagine these gentlemen turning in to the police a group of thugs who had just made a serious attempt on their lives, but instead of the criminals being booked, the victims are the ones dumped in jail. What a travesty of justice! So, who will protect these people when the police clearly have no intention of doing so? Why should they obey any law that is criminal in the first place? Because as far as I am concern, ANY law that treats equals unequally renders itself null and void. To drive home my point, if a law allows Musa Njie, private citizen, and APRC supporter to carry a pistol, but the same law bans Yusu Jobe, private citizen, and NRP supporter to do the same, am saying Yusu Jobe and people like him have no obligation -moral or otherwise- to obey that law. For any type of law, statute or ordinance to have legitimacy, it has to treat all subjects equally. If it doesn't do that, then any responsible citizen would be foolhardy to obey such a law. What we have in The Gambia is a big joke, cause the jailers are the real criminals. If one cannot count on the regular law-enforcement officials to protect one, then one has a god-given right to do what one must to save one's life. That is my advice to all the opposition groups. And talking about not wanting a war, this Buharry better wake up and smell the coffee, because we may not be Liberia, or Sierra-Leone, but there is an un-declared war going on in The Gambia. When a cabinet minister is butchered in cold blood, and the govt. refuses to launch an independent inquiry, a war is on; when people who have served in the public service for over thirty years are fired on the spot for no reason, a war is on; when it's govt. policy to fire anyone who is "suspected" of being an opposition sympathizer, a war is on; when people who have never had a problem feeding their families for decades are all of a sudden forced by circumstances to beg for a living because of govt. policy, a war is on; when otherwise very decent and religious people are forced to turn a blind eye on their daughters' prostitution because their entire family relies on such illicit income to survive, a war is on; when totally unqualified/incompetent people are promoted to senior positions over more qualified candidates because of their creed, or where they hail from, a war is on; when a woman gets beaten in public for merely TRYING to pass through the "wrong" gate, and nothing comes out of it, a war is on; when a Head of State dishes out public money to whoever he likes as a "personal gift," a war is on; when very decent gentlemen are thrown in jail when punks are allowed to walk in and taunt/insult them, a war is on; and just to make it short, when a Head of State orders the mowing down of little kids for standing up and saying "enough to all the madness going on in our country," a war is on! So, you better wake up Buharry. Every single value that we cherish as Gambians is being destroyed by these savages. And it's "irresponsible" telling Gambians to say "enough is enough." Why don't you Buharry tell us how you hope to keep the peace in a country that has so much obvious injustice. I'd love to hear you explain how one can sustain any type of peace based on blatant lies like we have in Gambia. So, you tell us Mr. Cool-headed, No-Agenda, No. 1 patriot, Responsible man. You tell us. The Apartheid army was stronger than the army of the rest of Africa combined, but that did not stop Mandela and his people from taking it on. Just because I'm dog-tired after a hectic weekend, I'll cut this here, but this whole challenge shows how naïve, and idealistic this Buharry guy is. And he's clearly seeing himself in others by assuming that if a real war breaks out, most/all of us will be in Europe/America while our parents/people's hands are being chopped off. I hope Buharry will stick to speaking for himself next time. He Buharry will stay, but not all of us will. It just goes to show how non-monolithic we are as Gambians, because this Buharry types might as well come from a totally different planet as far as I'm concern. Saul. >Buharry, are you really serious when you ask us to come to Gambia_L ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------