Mr. Jassey-Conteh, please allow me to quote a couple of paragraphs from Mr. Malik Kah's response calling for restraint and sensible engagement before commenting on your piece. In Mr. Kah’s post, he wrote: "We must reconcile to the fact that Jammeh has been duly elected and this was accepted in good faith by all the opposition parties as well as the eminent observers. To dwell on his legitimacy or question the judgment of the people is a complete waste of time. What we must endeavor to do as opposition at this point in time is to take Jammeh to task by exposing the flaws and weaknesses of the policy programmes of the APRC, as well as its human rights record, this way we could play a fundamental role in shaping the destiny of our country. For Jammeh cannot afford to ignore serious minded people who have earned and commanded respect in the Diaspora, in fact his actions and judgment will always be mindful of what our reaction will be, this must be despite whatever the pretence". In my honest opinion these two paragraphs, on their own, speak volumes about what a responsible opposition is. People have to be honest with themselves and ask whether some of the tactics used on this forum really do work. In my honest opinion some of the rhetoric is making more harm to the cause of the honest opposition members in the Diaspora than good. I know this because of the response you get from some of the people living out here, when mention to them some names. Some would shrug and say ‘well so and so has to say that to continue to qualify for asylum’. On the other hand, some who may be in a position to influence policy changes will not even want to hear what some of you say. I, personally, have come to know and respect quite a few of you based on private exchanges that I have had with them. These people come across to me as well educated and respectable people, who have achieved a lot for themselves and are in a very good position to contribute positively to the development of this country. This, in my opinion, is what should guide those who oppose the government. Ranting and raving will not bring about some of the changes that we all want to see in this country. You will not be taken seriously if all you have to offer are insults and questioning the legitimacy of the government of the day and instigating its demise. The government will only take some of your criticisms seriously if it believes that they are done in good faith and out of genuine concern for the good of the country. Coming back to Jassey-Conteh’s piece, I asked myself how many of you in the Diaspora can really identify themselves with our problems. How many can genuinely claim to know of what goes on here than I do. Fact of the matter is that while some of you really care for the country, others are opposed to the government for nothing other than lost opportunity. It is high time that some of you in the Diaspora start visiting often enough to see for yourselves what is happening to enable you make decisions that will be meaningful both to yourselves and the country. I have in the past posted information about some means of acquiring property through verifiable means that will not lead to family problems as sometimes happen. One way I suggested was through schemes such as Taf contruction’s housing scheme and also through the social security and housing finance corporation. This way, you are sure of getting what you want. As for the brain drain, Gambia needs all the lawyers, engineers, Doctors, politicians etc, etc. We cannot and should not allow the country to be run by mediocre people while comfortably sitting in Europe or America and criticizing their every move. The civil service will not implement government policies efficiently if they are not very conversant with all the issues about those policies. It is high time that Gambians undertake their own consultancies rather than relying on foreign experts who know very little about what the impact of those policies would be on our people. These foreign consultants have absolutely no idea of our complex relations and how these relations can impact on the success or otherwise of development projects. I remember some 5 or 6 years ago when we had some interesting encounter with some overseas consultants who came on behalf of a major funding agency to assess some project proposals for the development of rural communications. That revenue from those projects were not only coming from our rural folks but also from some living in the urban areas and the Diaspora, because many originally came from the rural areas, was something they really found hard to believe. This local knowledge, foreign consultants don’t have. But how can you convince these consultants that their model may not be the best for us if you don’t have highly trained people to convince them otherwise? I also remember around 1989/90 when Gamtel switching engineers, where I was then, made representation with management to review some bilateral technical assistance programme that Gamtel had with Alcatel. At the time many of us felt that rather adding value to our development some of these “experts” where actually using us to develop themselves. At the time we felt so strongly about their presence that we refused to corporate with and even went to the extent of humiliating them by pretending that the repair of certain faults were beyond us and only solving them when it became very clear that they could not solve those problems. But Gamtel may be an exception in that Mr. B.K Njie had realized, from the inception of Gamtel, that the future of company could only be assured by having a well-trained workforce. He went about it by implementing a training policy that has so far resulted in the training, to degree or master’s level, of not less that 250 staff. An added bonus of that policy is that these are young people who have risen through the ranks. It is not like bringing new graduates from outside of the company and putting them in charge. This has resulted in all staff respecting the hierarchy we have. You may find a few disgruntled people, but these are not that many. To conclude, I hope people in the Diaspora will seriously consider what you have written and see it as a challenge. I also hope that government would review its policy of hiring and firing to encourage those in the Diaspora to risk taking up jobs in the government or setting up businesses. Have a good day, Gassa. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>> To view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>