Gassama, can’t you see that you are being played like a yo-yo? I knew if I added to George’s comment that you were ‘running away’ from me, you will decide to exhibit some bravado and respond to my mail directly. You are so predictable, it is not even funny. I was going to ignore your gibberish till tomorrow, but decided to respond upon seeing Musa Jeng’s inquiry. I don’t want this to be between you and Mr. Nyang. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that people in the Diaspora depend on you for TRUTHFUL news about the country. You are the laughing stock of ‘Diasporans’ I know. When those people want news about the country, they call their folks that are NOT in denial. You must be out of your mind to think that people take your garbage that seriously. I will grant you that there are some lazy folks in the Diaspora that never ask their folks pertinent question or digest information properly. I will also grant you that there are a few in the Diaspora that would even go to Gambia and join folks like you and wallow in DENIAL and see things that are NOT there and ignore blatant facts. BUT let me inform you that that is a VERY minute proportion of ‘Diasporans’. Those ‘Diasporans’ you can bamboozle by your LIES. The majority of the ‘Diasporans’ read your garbage, have a laugh, and move on to their demanding jobs in order to feed their families back home and in the Diaspora. In your sick mind you might think that you are rendering a service to ‘Diasporans’; let me tell you that it is ONLY the lazy folks and so forth I listed above that swallow your garbage. The rest call up to find out whether indeed there is a Westfield/MandinaBa Road. They do NOT swallow such wishful thinking simply because Gassama says so. So, make no mistake, at best, your garbage only serves as some comical rattling from a professed sycophant. To address your second point: that you ‘run away’ from me is obvious to everyone including your very self. But that is NOT important. I am glad that you continue to entertain us and continue to give me an opportunity to ‘whup’ you and not be seen as a bully following you BEHIND other people’s postings. Your next paragraph is pure gibberish and I do NOT even want to waste my time to respond to it. If Famara Jatta (the Finance Minister) stands up and say that Gambians are getting POORER; we read in newspapers that children do NOT have desks and chairs in their classrooms; we also read in the newspapers that children are dying from minor injuries because hospitals are NOT equipped with medicine and ambulances – the list goes on. Now, if people SEE these self-evident TRUTHS about the country, you think those people NOT in denial will take seriously ludicrous comments from you Gassama that: “the country is making giant strides in its quest to develop”. Those ‘strides’ exist in your hallucinations after a long day at work (spent in front of your computer reading G_L) and after you spent some time with your ‘friends’ at your ‘favorite hide-out’. Your difficulty is that you are an empty barrel. You are CLUELESS about almost everything you write here. I am sure you have always been this way. Now you are unfortunate that you met up with me that is going to debunk every LIE you tell here that is of significance to me. This brings me to your nonsense about the Tourism Sector. I am glad I opened your eyes to the goofiness in your comment about ‘planes without passengers’. But here we go again with you running away from your own words after you have been unmasked. Now you are saying that I made you say that. Just how did I do that? When I said what I said about schools and hospitals in the country, I was reporting NEWS from LOCAL newspapers. You want to tell me that the newspapers are reporting lies about the country? If you want to tell a goofy story, go right ahead, but don’t say that I made you say something stupid. Regarding Yusupha’s suggestions, I hear your whimpers about not wanting to hear about human rights and law and order. I know you do NOT want to hear that. Remember! You are in DENIAL. That is the problem you, mental midgets and sycophants, have. You do NOT want to hear or tackle difficult problems. Here’s some food for thought. Who wants to vacation in a country where there is no respect for human rights and law and order is thrown out of the window? You think tourists will want to come to a country where rape cases are NOT prosecuted properly and when APRC thugs murder people, they go scot-free? Instead of tackling those problems, you prefer to be in DENIAL and LIE to the Gambian people and blame taxi-drivers for not taking showers. You people are just pathetic. I did NOT read anything into what Mr. Nyang said. My comment was about what YOU (Gassama) did about what Mr. Nyang said. You showed how uncouth you were when faced with a simple rectification from a man that was more knowledgeable than you were. That is the crux of my comment. Needless to say, you went totally off and tried to put words in my mouth just to try and score points for your illegal government. BUT your problem again is that there is NOTHING ‘positive’ for you to report without EXAGGERATING. You tell a blatant LIE when you said that: “the tourism sector is doing far better than before”. Are you well? Here we go again with your hallucinations. Famara Jatta (the Finance Minister), unlike an ‘engineer’ that does NOT know the difference between digital and analog, is the authority in this field; unless of course you want to tell us that APRC has given you the mandate to overrule Jatta. You are just shameless. In his 2002 Budget Speech, here’s what Jatta said about the Tourist Sector: “One of our key industries, tourism, has in the past two years undergone some difficulties in two of our source markets (Germany and Holland). The effect of these was an 18% drop in tourist arrivals for the Year 2000.” Mind you, this is in addition to the 50% reported in the aftermath of illegal 1994 coup. And Gassama (spokesman without portfolio) hallucinates and tells us that this sector is doing better than it has done before? This man should be institutionalized. But Jatta (Finance Minister) did not stop there in cataloging the sorry state of this sector. Jatta also said that: “Provisional estimates show that for the year just ended [2001, we received a total of 75,650 air charter tourists representing a DROP of only 4% from year 2000.” Emphasis mine. What we have here are the dismal figures of 2000 being surpassed in their ugliness by the worsening figures of 2001. The morons are going BACKWARDS. But, you have Gassama telling us the exact OPPOSITE of what Famara Jatta is telling us; NOT what Dampha is telling us. No! Remember, it is APRC ‘authority’ in these matters that is talking. What Gassama is peddling here are ‘new’ ideas to be implemented to augment the industry is PURE rubbish. These things like the training of the ‘Batk’ women and the ‘bumsters’ have ALREADY been done and there is NO improvement in the sector. The key to the improvement is the difficult ideas people like Yusupha Jow talked about. Forming toothless organizations and conducting study after study is neither here nor there. The hard problems need to be tackled. KB >From: Jungle Sunrise <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list ><[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: The reality in The Gambia today. >Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 11:44:36 +0000 > _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.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 To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~