When lawmakers are lawbreakers



By Baba Galleh Jallow



I write in full support of the piece by Baboucarr Ceesay entitled “We are
not common criminals” published on *Maafanta* on Tuesday, September 25,
2012. It is a tragic fact of the current Gambian situation that those who
are supposed to make and enforce the law are those that specialize in
breaking the law. It is no surprise that Ceesay and Saidykhan repeatedly
hear the word “order” from the police because all they do is obey orders
from the only above in The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh. No, these two men are no
common criminals. The common criminals are those that would arrest and
punish them for attempting to express their God-given right as citizens of
The Gambia, their constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of
expression. A great thinker once said something to the effect that a right
is not the right to enjoy a right. A right is the right to enjoy that which
a right is a right to. If Gambians do not enjoy the right to freedom of
expression, then that right might as well be physically expunged from our
constitution.



It is no wonder that under the Jammeh tyranny, law abiding citizens who
attempt to do the right thing are victimized for their pains. Not very long
ago, when Femi Peters and the UDP insisted on enjoying their
constitutionally guaranteed right to assemble freely and express their
legitimate opinions, Mr. Peters was grabbed by Jammeh’s criminal state and
locked up on spurious charges. It was not important that Mr. Peters and the
UDP had made several requests to the police for a permit to hold their
rally and been repeatedly refused by the police simply because Jammeh said
no. The number of times over the past eighteen years when innocent Gambians
have been criminalized by the Jammeh despotism are too many to count. For
merely saying how they feel about their government and the activities that
affect their lives and the lives of their unborn children, innocent
Gambians are grabbed on the orders of the head of state and thrown into
mosquito infested cells, often killed, often made to disappear from the
face of the earth, often deprived of their legitimate and hard-earned
possessions and property.



Yahya Jammeh has reduced the laws of our country into his personal toys.
When a particular law in our books serves his purpose, he is quick to grab
and shove it in our faces. But when a law stands counter to his supreme
contempt for justice and the truth, that law is trampled upon with supreme
contempt. Ours is now a country in which the wishes of the head of state –
however evil, however unjust, however contrary to all norms of civilized
behavior – are upheld simply because he is the head of state. The
callousness of Jammeh’s political practice simply beats the imagination. He
now stands shoulder to shoulder with – even taller in his political
savagery than – Idi Amin Dada, that uncouth buffoon of legendary
proportions, the last king of crocodiles!



There seems to be some truth in the theory that in seeking the Gambian
presidency Yahya Jammeh had sold his soul to the devil. There seems to be
truth in the theory that having sold his soul to the devil and knowing that
he is hell bound, Yahya Jammeh does not care what he does to enjoy his
mortal power for as long as he possibly can. But the longest day will come
to an end. And sometimes the end is much closer than we mere mortals
imagine. Tyranny, says a wise philosopher, is a high place from which there
is no easy descent. This saying is not merely the words of a wise mind
thrown about as solace to the hapless victims of tyranny. It is a law of
nature that nothing can ever break. A tyrant is a tyrant, is a tyrant, is a
tyrant and must necessarily suffer the fate of all tyrants in the history
of humankind – an ignoble and ugly end. Those who think that they can
callously bully innocent creatures of whatever species simply because they
hold the power to do so will one day learn that the power they hold has
suddenly abandoned them and find themselves at the mercy of forces much
larger and much stronger and much more severe in their retributive
capacities than they ever dreamt possible.



Obviously, by having these two innocent and law abiding citizens arrested
and charged with such serious crimes as sedition and conspiracy to commit
felony, Yahya Jammeh is saying to Gambians that the mere thought of staging
a demonstration against anything he does will be brutally suppressed. A
person engaged in a conspiracy to commit felony does not seek permission to
do so from the police. How could a person be guilty of sedition if they
have not yet uttered a single word of their intended expression? Just how
could Ceesay and Saidykhan incite anyone to violence when they have not yet
held their planned demonstration? Does the mere idea of holding a
demonstration have the power to incite violence? Where is the violence that
they have incited?



Of course, Yahya Jammeh is too dim to realize that if you discourage people
from doing things they want to do the right way, they will do the things
they want to do anyway. Obviously, any Gambian who hears the story of these
two innocent journalists and who plans on staging a demonstration in the
future will not go seek permission from the police. They will just go ahead
and do it. That is why more often than not, tyrants fall through the
eruption of spontaneous demonstrations and protests that take them
completely by surprise. In their severely jaundiced imaginations, tyrants
think that every one could be taught a lesson, that everyone could be made
an example of. Happily, this is not supported by the historical evidence.
The day will come when too many people will want to express their opinions
at one and the same time; and they will not seek permission from the police
to do so. And when that day comes, it will be payback time for those who
criminalize the innocent. It would have been be too late for regrets.



To our dear brothers Ceesay and Saidykhan we say: stay strong and stay
focused. For as Baboucarr reminds us all, “no one can exorcise the truth.”
The truth knocked down will rise again and when it rises, it will shine so
bright as to blind the very lives of those who would not see it shine. May
the All Mighty God of Truth throw His Divine Weight behind all who are
victims of tyranny and injustice in our dear country. Amen.


¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤