President Jammeh's recent donation spree should not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the behavior of African ruling parties during pre-election periods. His apparent magnanimity and sudden outburst of selfless zeal to give out to the needy and fund social programmes out of his own pocket will catch the Gambian electorate napping. Tens of thousands of dalasis here, tractors and sport material there will clog the memory of the traditionally docile Gambian voter into believing, as they did under ex-President Jawara's government, that this is the be all and end all of their woes. Who is President Jammeh fooling? The blood of the massacred students has barely dried up on the tarmac of Kanifing highway when he decides to give 10,000 dalasis of his own money to Gambian students. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! The little souls of the students are crying out for justice when their brothers are already taking 'bloody money' from the hands of their alleged killer. I am no soothsayer, but from all indications President Jammeh seems poised for another victory. Why, all he needs to do is dish out more money, demonize one or two of his cronies for some of his failures and mistakes, and make glittering promises to the communities who are always eager to line up the streets and 'strew flowers in his way'. The defections from some of the opposition parties and the huge welcome he allegedly got during his meet-the-people (his version of Jawara's meet-the-farmers)tour betray the reality of a society whose children have been killed, arbitrarily arrested and detained with impunity. Probably, the worst thing that happened to Gambian society is the 30 years of lies and tomfoolery under the former PPP government. It is unbelievable that the president and his executive arm take liberties to abuse power, misuse state resources, and flout the courts, yet recently he was running around the country castigating communities which had failed to vote for him during the last elections. It is time that the Gambian people resist against this 'mansa' mentality of yore. Hamadi. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------