Brufut 'Diaspora' Protest to Jammeh The Independent (Banjul) DOCUMENT July 19, 2002 Posted to the web July 19, 2002 By Pk Jarju Banjul The standoff between the villagers of Brufut and Taf Construction Company over land has excited overseas attention from the Brufut 'diaspora' who are protesting to Jammeh over what they called the injustice of usurping land, which ancestrally belongs to them, but which was being put at the disposal of self-serving entrepreneurs. Brufutians in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and North America have protested to the President, calling on him to intervene by ordering a halt to Taf Construction Company projects in the social interest and political stability of the village. >We reproduce below their protest. We the people of Brufut in the United Kingdom, Western Europe and North America are compelled to bring to your attention the land problems between our people back home, TAF Construction and your Government. During your Presidential campaign in Brufut, you promised our People that the land belongs to them, which we appreciated and thought that you would stick to for the interest of peace and stability in our community. Your Excellency, we are disheartened with the current news we received regarding the land issue. TAF at the moment announced over the local media that it would in collaboration with the Department of Physical Planning and Housing to carry out a demolition exercise over an area in Brufut that they said is supposed to be a state land. What is state land and who is the state anyway? With the greatest respect, Your Excellency the state is no more, no less than the people of this country. In this case it is our people in Brufut who own the land. Our people in Brufut have lost part of their land to the Brusubi Housing Development Project, Department of Parks and Wild Life. And after endless promises made, Brusubi has brought neither electricity nor water not to mention telephones to Brufut. The planned demolition exercise is merely an attempt to clear the ground for the benefit and interest of "TAF construction". Our people have rejected TAF's Proposal and offer of compensation. Your Excellency, it seems the present policies of your Government on the matter would rather defend the corporate interest of TAF than care about the thousands of landless youths and the poor in Brufut. If this so-called state land is allocated to TAF, then you have to know that it is done without the consent of our people and without disclosing the true facts on the ground to you and your cabinet. The Department of State for Local Government and Lands ignored or pretended that there were no developments on the ground affecting the area. Why should our people in Brufut not be allowed to build and live on the land that our forefathers have ploughed and tendered for centuries? If this land in Brufut is allocated to TAF, our youths in Brufut will have no land to build and live on whilst our people will not be able to afford the proposed High Class residential houses of TAF. Your Excellency this will lead to affluence in the midst of poverty in Brufut. The Policy of conceding our entire coastline to foreigners in the name of the Tourism Development Area (TDA) has lost credibility although Tourism is good for development but are Gambians not good enough to live on the best parts of their own land? Ordinary Gambians should have the option of being able to live near the beach and so should the people of Brufut. Your Excellency the land administration in our country is in disarray because our so-called officials are self-serving. After the debacle of "Sinchu Yahi" the Department of State for Local Government and Lands is still determined to give more land to TAF Construction. TAF's project in New Yundum is at the expense of ordinary landowners some of whom still remain uncompensated. We the people of Brufut do not want the proposed high-class residential homes for we are happy with our mud houses that we have been living on for centuries. On purely economic point, why should the government subsidize a private individual in the person of TAF Construction for the so-called development project? Should TAF not buy rather than be "allocated" the land he wants for his projects? No matter how TAF's Projects are dressed up; it remains purely a money-making enterprise from an entrepreneur and as such TAF Should be buying the lands he needs at market prices either from individual owners or from the state. Your Excellency, it seems to us that rich and powerful people in the country only have to point out the sites (land) they want and it is allocated to them whilst Ordinary Gambians have to wait for years for state layouts and even then, only persons with influential friends are allocated plots. Your Excellency, in the interest of social and political stability in Brufut, we the Brufut community in the diaspora respectfully urge your Government to order a stop to the propose project in order to bring sanity. Respectfully, Signed on behalf of the Brufut community in the diaspora: - Abdou Karim Sanneh, Manchester UK Dave Manneh, Southampton UK Kutubo Manneh, Saudi Arabia Ismaila Bojang, Atlanta USA There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see, yet small enough to solve. -Mike- Levitt- _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. 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 To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~