Folks the piece below is culled from Allafrica.com. ....................................................................... Cherno Baba Jallow Banjul, the Gambia The case against Jammeh It had come to this: In 1994, former President Sir Dawda Jawara embarked on a month-long overseas trip. His prolonged stay came at the height of mass despondency over the continued decrepitude of the political environment. Jawara had got older, and with old age and incontinent lust for power, he became detached from the miseries of the common man. Yet, mass agitation and lugubriousness ratcheted up. The clamouring for political change, albeit encompassed in reticence, reached its apogee by 1994. Gambians could no longer stomach the pain and frustration unleashed on them by a leadership averse to change. Jawara failed to acknowledge the dire need to relinquish power. More than that: he failed to take corrective measures to stamp out the pathologies inherent in the perpetuity of power and leadership: apathy, indifference, redundancy, and a corrosion of capability to summon fresh impetus and pragmatism for an amelioration of stagnation or worse, decadence. Jawara had long out-lived his usefulness to the majority of Gambians who periodically returned him to power, and who by dint of continued support, had expected him to rise to the challenges of effective leadership. Instead, Jawara, unmoved by negligence, and incapable of visionary leadership, watched as the political situation worsened. Corruption shot through the roof. He failed to take action. Government became mightier and unaccountable. Flamboyance and arrogance of power permeated the confines of government. By 1994, it had become painfully clear that Jawara had neither the leadership gumption nor the governmental capacity to resuscitate The Gambia from its acute economic and political bankruptcies. It dawned on Gambians that his total vacuity of governance, bordering on the irremediable, was pushing the country to the fringes of political implosion. Heightened optimism... The arrival of then Army Lieutenant and now President, Yahya Jammeh, in 1994 spurred Gambians to a newfound optimism for a re-invigoration of the political system. That Jammeh forced himself to power by way of a military coup, undemocratically stopping what seemed democratically unstoppable, plundering of matters of governance, bothered Gambians less in pale comparison to the hopefulness that attended his rise to power. Indeed Jammeh himself, sounding like a populist-man-of-the-people, exulted in promissory declarations that rejuvenated mass participation in the over-hauling of the political machinery. He promised to uphold accountability and transparency, two missing ingredients for leadership effectiveness, of the PPP. To prosecute past corruption, Jammeh instituted various commissions of inquiry. Judges were recruited to unearth the wanton embezzlement and recover stolen public resources from the past. Jammeh soon earned popular support not only because of his adamantine attitude to rectify the wrongs of the past, but also because of his seeming level-headedness to steer the country on a genuine path to reform. He advocated the need to put in place a two-term tenure for any future president. This resonated well with the people because the former president had over-stayed in power. Gambians could no longer afford another leader hanging onto power perpetually. And Jammeh rendered a new cachet to Gambian politics. He made his presence felt in public. Unlike his predecessor, Jammeh sought to bring himself closer to the concerns of the people. He opened new channels of communication for citizens to express their viewpoints on matters of governance. In fact, Jammeh himself had urged against praises for his regime but rather more constructive criticisms. Paradoxically, the military coup, in its early aftermath, ushered in a crescendo of civic participation of citizens. Soon there was an upsurge in the dissemination of ideas and opinions. In what is characteristic of democratic societies to harness the best thinking out of a convergence and divergence of views, The Gambia in 1994 and a year later, witnessed a cross-fertilisation of ideas for which, perhaps, there was no comparable equivalence during the days of Jawara. Partly because the political situation was dire, requiring society to summon its wit and wisdom for collective survival, but partly also because Jammeh had suddenly represented what seemed a complete divorce from the leadership lethargy and unaccountability of yester years. Which must be Jammeh's only tangible achievement. His emergence on the political scene in 1994 had succeeded if temporarily, in spawning mass awareness of past neglect and the need for the institutionalisation of meaningful changes to inject vitality in a corrupt and malfunctioning political system. But this is an achievement no longer defensible given the hopelessness of current-day Gambian political realities. ...And betrayal of trust The growing despondency of Gambians by 1994 had left them yearning in hushed anticipation for a redeemer. In fact, their predicament, a consequence of bad leadership, had compelled them to mull the archaic prayers of a bygone era:"Oh God, send us a good king." Unfortunately, God doesn't always send good kings. And that has become a rude awakening for Gambians in seven years of Jammeh's leadership. It is undeniable, contrary only to the hopelessly unenlightened, that Jammeh has proved no better than Jawara. In fact he is worse. He is a wrecker not a builder. Ascending to power at a time of tremendous national frustration, and riding on a crest-wave of heightened optimism in 1994, Jammeh promised to be accountable and transparent. But seven years later, his promises have been more cavalier than real; he is more unaccountable than Jawara ever was. To insulate himself and his colleagues from any accountability for any infringement committed in the past, Jammeh shoved into the new constitution an indemnity act. In April of 2000, paramilitary troops, in Bokassa-style, fired upon demonstrating students, killing scores of them, arresting others. Yet, the government has failed to administer justice for the victims. It rejected the findings of an inquiry that some security forces were responsible and should be brought to justice. Jammeh used his party's numerical superiority in the National Assembly to thwart efforts to investigate a dubious crude oil deal with the late Nigerian dictator Sanni Abacha. Jammeh also has not cleared his name in a swelter of allegations that he has siphoned millions of dollars to bank accounts in Switzerland. The bill to investigate the president has long died in the Assembly, still leaving a populace wondering what is the involvement of their president in this secret deal. A leader who cares about legitimacy would be interested to submit to public scrutiny. But Jammeh also reneged on his promise to institute presidential term-limits. When the final draft of the constitution was promulgated, Gambians were shocked to realize that there were no presidential term-limits, even though the majority of them had consented to the idea of term-limit presidencies. This was by no means, a sabotage of Gambian public opinion, and a troubling zest on the part of Jammeh to stay in power as long as he continues to take advantage of a helplessly uninformed citizenry. His predecessor stayed in power for close to three decades; is Jammeh hoping to repeat the same feat? Today, press freedom is hard to come by in The Gambia. The paucity of freedom enjoyed by the press has not come about because the government has encouraged it to happen but because of the dogged struggle of the press to remain free and independent in the face of constant onslaught by the APRC government. Ironically, the authoritarianism of our times has given an immense fillip to the vibrancy of the press and the outspokenness of opinions, which in fairness to Jammeh's time, was largely absent during the days of Jawara. But personally and on principle, Jammeh has not been a supporter of press freedom. He is averse to dissent. Numerous journalists have been in and out of detention; foreign journalists have been hounded out numerous times. Even as they remain strong-willed, journalists in The Gambia continue to face the explicit and tacit wrath of government. Injurious Politics Return to democratic, civilian rule has translated only in cosmetic institutional not attitudinal changes. Jammeh remains ever a soldier, never a democrat. The tender mercies of civilianism have failed, in large measure, to pacify the tendentiousness of his militaristic tendencies. Democracy is anathema to him. Elections have returned to The Gambia; illiberal democracy, too. The human rights situation is still appalling. Continued detention without recourse to speedy justice still remains the order of the day. It should provoke a wonder why Jammeh apparently cannot be persuaded of the harm of his assaults on democratic traditions. A clause in the constitution has been overturned to give him the power to appoint chiefs; the local population can no longer elect their own traditional rulers. Jammeh is also vowing to dismantle the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). Military decrees still ban all former government ministers from holding political office. The politics of outrage and bitterness plagues the political system. The opposition is harassed. Government supporters, shielded against the process of judicial justice, take the law into their own hands, threatening and bullying opposition figures. In some cases, kidnapping and long detention without trial, have been used to silence opponents or critics of the government. And in return, the opposition has taken to vituperation to ward off government attacks. In the process, Gambians have found it hard to submit themselves to a sobering enlightenment on the real issues, which lie smothered under topsy-turvy politics. It is hard to fathom how in seven years of APRC rule that The Gambia still cannot come to grips with the decorum of political behaviour of those seeking to lead. And it is also unthinkable how true Jammeh can institutionalise democracy when he thrives on the politics of fear and when public consciousness is disconnected from reality. The Gambian political scene is mired in atrophy. On the one hand, it is a multitude of politicians bereft of leadership fibre; on the other, it is a helpless citizenry, forced to remain ignorant and unenlightened about matters of governance. Seven years of APRC rule have only aggravated not ameliorated, this anomaly. Disaster, economic disaster The economic situation in seven years of APRC governance has only worsened. Abject poverty, until 1994, cushioned by a modicum of economic growth under Jawara, is hitting harder at the majority of Gambians. In a 1999 ILO study, the Secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs Famara Jatta revealed that the number of Gambians subsisting below the poverty line had increased to 69% in 1998. This reveals a decline in the living standards of the majority of Gambians. Their purchasing power has fallen by the wayside, whilst the prices of basic needs have galloped, and public taxation continues to drain their scant incomes. In the 2000 budget, fuel prices per litre jumped from D7.75 to D8.95. In the following year, it jumped further to D9.75. In 1993, the Dalasi was pegged at D9.129 to the US dollar. In 1996, it took a slight climb to D9.875. But five years since, the dollar now exchanges for over D16.00. This represents a steady devaluation of the Gambian currency. The most immediate consequence has been skyrocketing prices of imports; and by all accounts, a devalued Dalasi ought to have brought much needed foreign exchange in terms of cheaper exports. But The Gambia's major export-crop peanuts, has not done well over the years partly because of falling terms of trade and also because of marketing bottlenecks inside The Gambia. Credit buying in The Gambia continues to force tons of groundnuts to cross the border into neighbouring Senegal. With a huge devaluation of the CFA Franc since 1994, making Senegalese goods more competitive and with an official Senegalese position to limit or eliminate re-export trade across the borders, The Gambia's export base has been hurt tremendously. With more imports, especially foodstuff, and lesser exports, The Gambia continues to endure crushing trade deficits. In 1999, the trade deficit stood at a whopping D2.4 billion. In 2000 SoS Jatta revealed that the value of Gambian indebtedness had increased from 390 million dollars in 1992 to a staggering 566 million dollars in 2000. Almost half of the national budget is being disbursed for debt servicing. With a country heavily dependent on imports not only for domestic consumption but also as a fount of revenue, the government's BIVAC programme, a pre-shipment inspection policy to bar "sub-standard" goods from importation, had rippling effects on the economy. The volume of imports plummeted. And government revenue derived from customs duties, a much-sought-after source of revenue for a troubled Gambian economy, receded. Caught between crushing trade deficits and enormous debts, the Gambian economy and by extension, the people have witnessed an economic disaster un-cushioned by wasteful government spending on cars, military hardware and superfluous salaries and allowances. While the people scamper after basic necessities, the leadership exhilarates in unearned luxury. The APRC government does not have a sound strategy to steer The Gambia out of its bottomless pit of economic morass. Heavy dependence on foreign aid and loans, and ill-intentioned expansionary fiscal policies, have only pummelled the livelihoods of the ordinary people. Jammeh as a boondoggler Jammeh's supporters point to a string of projects as evidence of his good leadership. Much to Jammeh's credit, a new airport has been built. Gambians now claim a national TV of their own. Hospitals have sprouted in various parts of the country. An arch stands erect in the city of Banjul. These are the yardsticks by which Jammeh's leadership have been measured. In truth, these projects represent wasteful spending by Jammeh, contributing little to national development. The July 22nd Arch built at the whopping cost of D10 million only for personal glorification does nothing to assuage the economic misery of the people. Hospitals are only good if they have medicines and doctors to cater for the public. A national television is only good if it reports objectively on societal realities, gives voice to opposing views, celebrates success and dissects failure. The Gambia television station is more of a government rather than public, institution. The July 22nd 'revolution' has simply come to represent grandiosity, of spending, of wishful thinking, of a chunk of policies that have held at bay, Gambian yearnings and aspirations for a society enlivened by political nutritiousness and economic vitality. Time was, in 1994, when Jammeh raked in national euphoria. He epitomised ebullient leadership, thought to be a harbinger of momentous changes, but today, the July 22nd 1994 military coup has become a poisoned chalice. Its seventh anniversary should be seen in that light. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------