Hamjatta, I like the way you broke it down to Mr. Manjang about his 'friend' Mr. Jallow. I also read Mr. Manjang's piece with the same torn emotions you evinced in your ingenuous/disingenuous dichotomy. When I read his piece I saw a man that is extremely knowledgeable in what he was saying about political ideology. Following some of his postings here, one cannot but admire the intellect and dedication of this man. The services he is providing to ordinary Gambians cannot go unnoticed. Having said that, I was sincerely hoping that the man will take the opportunity you gave him in your earlier piece and redeem himself from the fiasco he committed by declaring his loyalty to Jallow in Gambian newspapers. By his own admission, he worked very hard to put together the reply he sent you. Yet, if my memory serves me right, he used less than three sentences to deal with this Jallow thing. Frankly, that was the only thing that I was looking for on his piece. As far as the argument you guys are engaged in regarding political ideology/theology, I was hoping that everyone involved would take your and Halifa's truce offer in good faith and debate you at a neutral location some time in the future. You are all extremely smart and gifted individuals who in my humble opinion should be using your talents in discourse that is more meaningful to the masses back home. I must confess that I read through everything you send. It is just that I would prefer that the material strictly deal with ways of getting rid of the monster we have back home and his supporters. So, I respectfully encourage all participants in this debate to jump at the arrangements being made by Mr. Mboge and debate later. My own selfish motivations for saying this, is that I greatly value seeing Hamjatta disparaging Yaya and his cohorts. Coming back to Manjang and Jallow. I honestly cannot understand how people can put friend and family loyalty in front of the plight of millions of Gambians. If Manjang shows solidarity to Jallow because of their friendship, he is in effect siding with evil at the expense of the Gambian masses. Jallow is working for Yaya. If Jallow is as sincere as Manjang wants us to believe, then Jallow is not out to sabotage Yaya. He would want to perform his job to the best of his abilities, being the sincere and honest man he is. Performing his job to the best of his abilities means that Jallow will help Yaya perpetuate himself in power. If we all agree that it is not in the interest of ordinary Gambians that Yaya stays in power, then we should all refrain from helping him perpetuate himself. Manjang and Jallow cannot have their cake and eat it at the same time. If Jallow builds roads that Yaya can brag about and use that to legitimize rigged elections, then Jallow becomes part of the problem and not the solution. Remember, at Nuremburg, Hitler was not on trial. It was men like Goering that were at the dock. It was not a defense to say that 'I was just Hitler's minister for economic affairs. I did not know that the gold we were depositing in banks came from the gold teeth of gassed Holocaust victims. I was just Hitler's minister of works. All I did was build roads for tanks to cross the eastern front and go massacre millions of Russians in cold blood.' All these ministers were guilty of conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity. They were hanged for their crimes. Just like it is absurd to think that Hitler by himself caused the Holocaust, it is also absurd to think that Yaya by himself is the architect of the endless misery that is visited on our people. The man is a moron who did not even finish high school. He is also a coward of the highest order. Left to him alone, the guy cannot even run a household. So how did he manage to stay in power for this long? It is because of people like Jallow and am sorry to say, their friends and families. To me, these people are even more culpable than the moron. This logic should be clear to Primary School pupils. It is mind-boggling to think that sophisticated political activists cannot recognize these truths. If these people can for one moment look beyond their petty individual self interests and focus on the plight of the ordinary Gambian, they will realize that Yaya is evil and they will dissociate themselves from him. People like Jallow do not deserve the loyalty or respect of anyone, let alone fine gentlemen like Manjang. Disowning them is not a sign of betrayal or jealousy. Disowning them is simply saying that you do not want to be associated with evil in any shape or form. I will say at the top of my voice that I do NOT have a single friend that is a Yaya supporter, let alone a Yaya minister. The moment they start dining with the Devil, I disown them and let them and everyone know of my disapproval of their decision to deal with the Devil. I do not buy crap from those people. These people will want to convince you that what they are doing is for the Gambian masses. If they build roads or bring electricity to the country, the ordinary citizenry will benefit. That is all crap and a poor excuse to mortgage ones soul to the Devil for some petty luxuries in return. It is crap because almost all Gambians will trade those 'developments' for a 'Yaya-less' Gambia. Am sure Dumo would rather be free from captivity and live a life in Serrekunda where there are continuous power black-outs and the roads are impassable. You cannot quantify freedom. All these 'intellectual' prostitutes are fake. They should just have the decency to come out and say that they are following the Devil for selfish motives or keep their mouths shut. It is insulting and sickening for them to come and tell us that they are doing us a favor by working for Yaya. Would you still be loyal to Jallow if you, Manjang, were abducted instead of Dumo? Every decent Gambians should put their feet in the shoes of these victims. That is how you measure the brutality of this regime. You do not check to see whether they impact you personally. You will be surprised to know that Yaya never did a single thing to me personally. Not a single thing was seized from me. I was not jailed for a single day. But I hate the vermin with a passion because of what he has done to The Gambia and continues to do to the Gambians. That should be the focus. Not our personal experiences. What would you say to someone that wants to overlook all the havoc Yaya has done because Yaya is his friend? Would you not be offended if that person comes to G_L and say that Yaya was a sincere and honest person? And that person goes further to say that it was justified for Yaya to order the shooting of innocent children in order to protect Gamtel installations. This Jallow guy is a fake. I would not paint all Moja activists with the same brush, but I cannot understand how you could not detect this opportunist in your midst. I visited Sweden in 1987 around the same time the Gambian 'Local' downtown was being shut down by the authorities. During that visit, I also saw tapes showing Moja activists on Swedish TV narrating the sufferings they underwent in the aftermath of the 1981 coup. I empathized with them and agreed that they were really railroaded by a callous regime at the time. One would have thought that people like that would know better than associating themselves with a regime that is far more brutal than the one that victimized them in the '80s. The only thing decent Gambians can offer people like Jallow is, advise for them to wake up from their slumber and resign from their diabolic posts before they stain their hands with more blood of innocent Gambians. When they resign and repent, we will forgive them and welcome them to the struggle. How can anyone separate Yaya from the people that work with him and say that Yaya is evil but his supporters are fine? That is illogical. It sounds as dumb as when people used to say that Jawara is OK but his ministers were bad. That is ridiculous. If you are a good person, you do not associate yourself with evil people and help them perpetrate their evil deeds. People that continue to grease this rotten engine should not be tolerated. Where does Jallow stand on the abduction of his comrade? Where does Jallow stand on the UDP ambush? Where does he stand on massacre of our children on April 10 and 11? That should be the benchmark and not whether Jallow still make personal phone calls to former comrades. If Jallow is sticking with Yaya in order to feed his family and be driven in an official vehicle and enjoy other petty luxuries, let him have the decency to come out and say so. We will just identify him as a person that believes that selling oneself for money is justifiable; i.e. there is nothing wrong in prostitution. That is all. Tolerating these people sends them a wrong message. No, it is not all right that these vermin help perpetuate Yaya and massacre our children just to be able to feed their own families. I would rather leave a cozy job in Gambia and come to the U.S. with my whole family and flip burgers than help perpetuate Yaya. The reason I would confidently do that, is my strong sense of justice and recognition that the jobs we would be leaving are not that cozy after all. Yaya can fire Jallow tomorrow if Yaya wants to. So why mortgage your soul to the Devil for such an unsecured job? On the other hand, people that detected the Devil from day one and said they do not want to have anything to do with him are now laughing at the opportunists that stayed on. There would be more laughter soon. Yeah, those people started off flipping burgers in the U.S. But you know what? They took their trial in good faith and persevered in their belief in good over evil. Guess what now? They are doing extremely well now and they still refuse to worship the Devil. That is what God fearing people do. They do not just jump at the first (usually easier and satanic) option and then hope and pray that the people they trampled on in their selfish pursuits will forgive them. Forgiveness comes after repentance. Not the other way round. KB >From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list ><[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Reply To Mr Ousman Manjang >Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 21:49:50 -0700 > >Dear Mr Manjang, > >To be brutally honest with you, i found your last mail to be both >disingenuous and ingenuous. Disingenuous, with Sarjo Jallow's shameful >complicity in the making of the evil in the Gambia, you chose to absolve >him despite the preponderance of evidence that he is in this together with >Jammeh and his thugs. Ingenuous, because unlike many professing Pan African >Marxists, you chose to be frank and admitted that Marxism at any rate, in >Africa was a bumbling mis-adventure. In this mail, i should like to deal >with both strands of thought for i think they deserve our attention and >indeed, there is a corollary which fittingly should help explain something >of what you aptly called in your mail as the "African Condition". > >Either you were engaging Gambia-L in semantic sophistry or relativist games >but your declaration of "trust and confidence in SOS Sarjo Jallow's >sincerity and personal integrity" is very disingenuous. By this >declaration, you are tacitly sanctioning his continued participation in a >regime that has defied all human benevolence in its acts of repression >against the Gambian people. This is a regime that in broad day-light shot >at point blank with live ammunition, school children and a kid as young as >three in defiance of all perceptions of civility. A regime notorious for >its murders, abductions and terrorising of innocent civilians since the >first day it usurped power from the Gambian people. Without any signs of >remorse after the brutalities of April 10 and 11, it is still repressing, >terrorising and threatening Gambians with "six feet deep". A gov't that >engages in day-light robbery of our State coffers, money laundering other >vices you would have best left with the New York Mafiosi. Yet, in the face >of these incriminating evidences, your friend Sarjo still serves [without >resigning] as the official mouth piece of such a gov't, peddling endless >lies and supplying intellectual muscle to a nonsense crack-pot like Jammeh >and you still wheeze with all honesty that Sarjo is "sincere" and still >having "personal integrity"? I suppose relativism has suddenly dented the >meanings of "sincerity" and "integrity". Some "integrity" and "sincerity". >You want people with "personal integrity" and "sincerity", go have a quiet >word with Pa Sallah Jagne who upon realising how crack-pot Jammeh is, >placed his pen down and called it quits. If Sarjo Jallow or another >intellectual prostitute in the Jammeh gov't want us to believe their >"sincerity" and "personal integrity", they should have all thrown their >pens in Jammeh's face after April 10 and 11. Yet they have stuck with him >through thick and thin supplying intellectual muscle to the most brutal >crack-pot regime in Africa. Yet, you of all people wish us to believe you >are sincere with your declaration that Jallow still has "sincerity " and >"personal integrity"? This, after your comrade Dumo Sarho had been abducted >and still locked up for conniving in an imaginary putsch against the State? >Her poor forlorn wife running up and down the country trying to seek his >release but to no avail? Were these what you MOJA-G people were opposing >during the Jawara days? Is this your interpretation of social justice and >liberty? One would be excused for extrapolating here that MOJA-G was just >against the establishment then because it wasn't favourable to their >selfish interests and when they had their opportunity didn't hesitate to >join a more repressive regime than Jawara's. > >Frankly, one would have thought that an unrepentant, immoral, illegal, >brutal and crack-pot Fascist regime like the APRC which has literally >engaged in all that MOJA-G claimed it abhorrs: From daylight robbery of >gov't coffers to the murder, maiming and terrorising of innocent Gambians; >would have spurred MOJA-G to join the fray and condemn this gov't as a >tyranny. Where is MOJA-G activism in the wake of all these barbarity and >when a colleague is illegally incarcerated as a prisoner of conscience? >Yet, we have you, Mr. Ousman Manjang, a former Spokesman for MOJA-G, making >soft and low risk criticisms of this barbaric regime. Calling a comrade of >yours who is another intellectual prostitute to this regime as "sincere" >and having "personal integrity" is an insult to the suffering Gambian >people. Put bluntly, Sarjo Jallow is another intellectual prostitute and >have sold his soul to the devil of Kaninlai. Put bluntly, MOJA-G is part of >the establishment. An establishment unrivalled in the annals of Gambian >history as barbaric, repressive and totalitarian. > >I want to believe you are honest and do share our sense of justice. If you >are still for liberty and social justice, then you owe it to yourself, the >Gambian people and humanity in general to disavow your endorsement of Sarjo >Jallow and join the fray against the tyrannous evil that Jammeh really is. >Or you can still maintain your disingenuous stance of fence-sitting and >drool about Sarjo's imagined "sincerity" and "personal integrity". The >choice ultimately will be yours. It will be a choice us in the opposition >will respect. The point has to be made though that by endorsing Jallow's >"personal integrity" and "sincerity", you are by extension endorsing the >repressive, brutal and crack-pot gov't he whores his intellect to. I will >repeat to you that we have reached a point in the struggle where no-one can >have it both ways. Either you are with Jammeh or you are against him and >join in the war Gambians have declared against him. Just as you have the >absolute imperative of deeming see fit where you belong, so do we have >every right of interpreting such choice. And do please excuse my bluntness. >I feel i need to take this off my chest. ________________________________________________________________________ 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------