Reflect. If anyone can yield courage from a sense of despair and hopelessness, it is Mathew and Galleh.

Haruna.

The Femi Peter’s Conviction: The Gambian Constitution on Trial; Again. 
By Mathew K Jallow, Associate Editor



The judge’s gavel landed softy on a rickety and raggedy dirty-brown court-room table that looked like it never had a coat of varnish. And, the soft-impact thud was barely audible at the far end of the packed and equally dilapidated courtroom house. But, the reverberation was heard around the world. Femi Peters was going to prison. Get over it. And with that, another milestone was reached. This was one more nail in that proverbial coffin of our liberty. But, don’t anyone act dumb-struck or surprised. For, we saw this coming. It is déjà vous all over again. Harsh as Mr. Femi Peter’s sentencing is; it was symbolic, yet symptomatic of the continuing erosion of our civil liberties. Femi Peters, a lesser known political figure to the outside world, though perhaps the one, who more than anyone else, has kept the U.D.P visible and relevant for all these years, was the safer bet for a regime fearful of the international outcry and political fallout that the trial and incarceration of U.D.P party leader Ousainaou Darboe will engender. For once, Jammeh did not go for the jocular; choosing to land a soft blow; instead. Yet, this did not diminish the profanity of the court’s act; nor did it blindside us to the unconstitutionality of the Kangaroo court ruling that in effect is curtailing the political speech of Femi Peters and U.D.P. The illegality of the sentencing aside, the imbalance in the right to freedom of assembly between Jammeh’s thug party and the opposition is glaring. The Gambian Constitution Chapter 4, Section 25, sub-section 1 d, states: Every Person shall have the right to: freedom to assemble and demonstrate peaceably and without arms. The unlawful assembly charge, for which Mr. Peters was convicted, has consistently been applied in an unjust manner, and his trial and conviction highlights this injustice. Readers will recall that barely four weeks ago, a gang of APRC stalwarts headed by Yankuba Colley, roamed the country for three weeks, in the name of their criminal outfit; the APRC; telling lies, misinforming people, implicitly threatening rural country folks, and making promises they knew they could never fulfill for the farmers. Besides, APRC campaign officials from Yankuba Touray to Antouman Saho over the years regularly travelled around the country in an effort to propagandize for Yahya Jammeh’s criminal APRC political party. Did these APRC griots need or obtain permits from the police to hold not one, but dozens of political meetings? I don’t think so. So what makes Yahya Jammeh think he has the darn right to deny U.D.P. or any other political organ the right to assemble? I don’t get it.


The trial and conviction of Femi Peters underscores the difficult environment under which the opposition is operating. Yahya Jammeh has determined to apply pressure on his political opponents so as to render their parties ineffective in the run up to the elections in 2011. Once again, we as a country are faced with this new challenge of how to deal with this novel attempt to limit freedom of assembly contrary to the guaranteed protections enshrined in our Constitution. The Peter’s trial and conviction presented a unique opportunity for us to stand up and organize a nationwide civil disobedience led by the combined power of the political establishment and civil society organizations. But, this momentous opportunity has slipped through our fingers once again, primarily because politicians back home cannot get their acts together for the common good, while some of their proxies abroad are manifesting false bravado tinged with tribal overtures that no one gives a f…k to. Absent the overthrow of Yahya Jammeh by the military, Jammeh will again carry the majority of the third of the eligible voters who will get out and vote in the coming elections in 2011. Any expectations to the contrary has consistently been negated by the evidence; the continued inability of the opposition to coalesce around a single candidate to run against Jammeh; not to mention the influences of centuries old tribal conflicts, which continue to make the triangulated Fula, Mandinka and Wollof axis unable to get over their dreamy past and shoot for what is relevant and important at this moment in time; a common destiny for all of Gambia’s tribes. Today Mr. Peters is being sacrificed for all of us, and the least we can do, is to make this sacrifice worthy of our country. We need to find a way to move forward; not remain stuck in the same mud where we have remained frozen for the past fifteen years; through the assassinations of Koro, and of Deida, of the broad daylight execution of Dumbuya, of the massacre of fifteen innocent high school students, of the execution of Daba Marenah and Co., of the witch hunting and torture of mostly innocent elderly Gambians, the mass arrests and trials of journalists in 2009, and of course, the ongoing mass arrests and trials of our military and security officers. And whether Femi Peters will see the inside of a prison cell or not, one thing is clear, Yahya Jammeh has launched a new attack on our civil liberties; this time on the freedom of association. Just the other day, someone, somewhere on the blogosphere asked a pertinent question. Who or what was on trial; Femi Peters or our Constitution? The answer is resoundingly clear. It was our Constitution that was on trial; again. And to borrow from Fatou Jaw-Manneh; what are we going to do about it? I of course know the answer. Nothing!
posted @ Sunday, April 04, 2010 2:24 PM by egsankara 





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