Cherno,
I subscribe to your article in it's entirety. Jammeh has embarked on a
"Blame the Outsider" crusade merely as a smoke screen for his brutal and
inept leadership. No decent Gambian can justify what Jawara did -or did not
do in thiry years. But the daily harrasment, arrest, and torture of citizens
whose only crime is their courage to differ with the status quo is hardly
what we are looking for in the Gambia.
But, god willing, the Jammeh admn will some day answer to Gambians: for
Koro, for the Waa Juwaras, for the Shingle Nyassies and the countless list
of nameless Gambians who are being brutalized by state-sponsored thugs of
this ignorant, arrogant, and totally barbaric regime. No amount of Indemnity
Clauses will deter that. We've seen Idi Amin, Bokassa, Musa Traore, Marcos,
etc, etc. Someday that list will include Yaya Jammeh. You can bet on that!
>From: chernob jallow <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Questions for Jammeh
>Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 12:11:29 PDT
>
>Note: the article below was first published in last friday's issue of the
>Daily Observer.
>
> Questions for Jammeh
>
> by Cherno Baba Jallow
> in Detroit, USA.
>
>Participatory democracy is the natural precursor of representative
>democracy. When people freely and fairly decide who should decide for them,
>democracy has reached half circle. The other half connects, when elected
>leaders, humbled and galvanized by the trust and responsibility bestowed on
>them, and by dint of hardwork, succeed in meeting the electoral demands for
>which they were elected, or that failing, vacate the political scene.
>
>But since neither my MP from Basse nor any other representatives, have
>shown
>the parliamentary moxie and ideological acumen, to articulate my needs and
>aspirations to the Chief Executive and his government, I herewith do so,
>out
>of sheer helplessness. Leave aside my role as a chronicler and critic of
>Gambian society. I communicate my thoughts here purely as a citizen with
>voting rights and powers unsurpassed by those of the presidency.
>
>It's my fervent hope that President Yahya Jammeh understands my unbridled
>quest to ask him pertinent questions pertaining to political realities in
>The Gambia. I am an elector, and like all other electors, I have the power
>to seat and unseat public trustees, and hold them accountable for their
>actions. Thus, the President cannot escape the lenses of private and public
>scrutiny. Jammeh is accountable to the Gambian people. Or so he should be.
>
>Mr. President, it's been five years since you came to power. Recently, you
>celebrated the fifth anniversary of your coup of July 22, 1994. Presumably
>you still are in a celebratory mood; and it will be opportune to take you
>on
>a historical tour of the halcyon days of your coup.
>
>In 1994, you promised the Gambian people: "Henceforth, it will be a new era
>of freedom, accountability, transparency and probity." Well, what are the
>principles of accountability and transparency? When ministers of a deposed
>government throng before commissions of enquiry? Confess to
>misappropriation
>of funds and dereliction of duty? Is that the meaning of the twin democracy
>principles? Are you accountable and transparent to the Gambian people?
>
>Well, you promised - again: "As far as accountability is concerned, all of
>us, including myself and all members of the Council, will have to pass
>through the Commission." Have you or any of your ex-council members
>appeared
>before commissions of enquiry to divulge information pertaining to
>government corruption? Misallocation of scarce government resources?
>Soldier-beatings and killings? Human rights violations? Leadership
>wantonness?
>
>After painstaking national efforts, the Gambian people produced, and, voted
>for a new constitution in 1997. Was it right for you to dictate what went
>in
>the constitution? Why did you entrench the Indemnity Clause in the
>constitution? To protect you and your colleagues from being held
>accountable
>for your actions? Is this democracy? Are you a democrat?
>
>You detained opposition leader Lamin Waa Juwara, for 13 months without
>trial. During his incarceration, he suffered mental torture, physical
>manhandling, and, family pain and misery. He sued your government for
>wrongful detention. The suit was thrown out not because it lacked merit,
>but
>because justice could not be dispensed when the Indemnity Clause protected
>you from being held liable for your actions.
>
>When the suit was abrogated, did you jubilate? Or did the Indemnity Clause
>you created and shielded with, make you blush? Do you know the political
>theory 'absolutism?' Has it occured to you that you've given yourself and
>your security enforcement community, dangerously limitless powers? What is
>the first and foremost function of government? Is it not the protection of
>the liberty and freedom of its citizens? What recourse to justice can a
>helpless citizenry take against a government that is too powerful, too
>intrusive, too intimidatory? Is this not a recipe for societal instability?
>
>And you told Gambians, yet again: "Criticise us anytime we go wrong, we
>don't want your praises." But was your promise to respect the existence of
>a
>free press realistic? Are you allergic to dissent? Do you know in five
>years, you've have caused more destruction to the Gambian press than Jawara
>ever did in three decades? When was the last time you spoke to the Gambian
>press? What's your understanding of the role of a free press in society?
>
>In five years of your leadership, rampant human rights violations and other
>government excesses, continued unabated. Recently, government thugs
>abducted
>opposition activist Shyngle Nyassi. He spent a month in NIA captivity,
>without being charged with any crime. Nyassi's case was peculiarly
>unprecedented, but attempted kidnappings were common in your five-year
>rule.
>Worse, your late finance minister Ousman Koro Ceesay, died mysteriously
>after seeing you off at the airport.
>
>Are you still investigating his death? Is your government responsible for
>his gruesome death? Does it strike you that Koro's death under dubious
>circumstances, represents one of the darkest moments of your rule? Are you
>complacent that the furore that greeted Koro's death now exists on the
>fringes of our nation's imagination? Is it clear to you that someday,
>circumstances surrounding his death will be known? Have you compensated his
>family for the terrible loss of their son while in the service of the
>State?
>
>Your government must be congratulated on recovering the $3m that former
>AFPRC spokesman, ex-Captain Ebou Jallow had wanted to pilfer from a secret
>bank account in Switzerland. But did Jallow deposit $21.7m in accounts in
>Switzerland under your name? What has happened to the $30m that Taiwan
>loaned to The Gambia, which went into a special development account in a
>New
>York bank? Is it true that you've multi-million dollars stashed in a Swiss
>bank? Why are you so reticent about Gambia's "missing millions?"
>
>Oftentimes, you like to vent spleen on Western democracy. It has now become
>part of your presidential vocabulary to lecture and hector Gambians on the
>need for "African Democracy." By your reckoning, Western democracy is alien
>to Africa, and you keep harping that we had better return to homegrown
>democracy that Africa knew in the past.
>
>Precisely, what's democracy? Better still, what is homegrown about
>democracy? Do you subscribe to the philosophical argument that Man is
>either
>free or not free? Is democracy not in the vanguard of liberalism and
>dignity
>of man's existence? Are Africans not in need of liberality and
>constitutionality? Do you know in the days of Africa yore, our elders would
>gather under the tree and debate issues about the community until a
>consensus was reached? What's more democracy than that? Are you a
>consensual
>politician? How consensual is your National Assembly?
>
>Using soap-box oratory, bereft of congruity and diplomatic sensitivity, you
>have now taken to chastising the West for their social ills, and
>inequalities on the world scene. Does that make you more presidential? Are
>you an international revolutionary thinker? Do you want to be regarded in
>the likes of Sankara, Nkrumah, Lumumba? Is it knowledge to you that those
>leaders had vocabularies well suited to their political times? Do you know
>the cold war, colonialism, neo-colonialism? When will you and other African
>leaders stop blaming the West for all our woes? When will you embark on the
>process of nation-building for your people?
>
>Political scientist Max Weber argued that public figures are not judged by
>their actions, but by the consequences of their actions. Your overthrow of
>a
>corrupt and decrepit rule was indeed a bold action. However, you shouldn't
>be judged by your successful, "bloodless" coup, but rather by the
>consequences of your coup.
>
>In five years of APRC rule, The Gambia now has a television station, a
>university, and many more schools. Good Job. But I should be wary of
>showering you with too much praise on a raft of leviathan projects, whose
>cushioning effects on our society's abject povert and economic decadence,
>are rather miniscule.
>
>By the way, are these projects including the July 22nd Arch, your great
>accomplishments? Were their commissioning justified by economics? What are
>your other achievements in five years of APRC rule? Do you know there is
>more unemployment now than before you came to power? While luxuriating in
>your plush office, have you noticed the economic hopelessness that now
>afflicts Gambians? Do you blame western countries for this? Are you reliant
>on donor loans and grants to kick-start Gambian socio-economic development?
>How good are your micro and macro economic policies?
>
>Weren't Gambians freer then than they are today? Weren't they safer then to
>express their political feelings without dreading being eavesdropped upon
>and detained by an intrusive, swashbuckling security agency? Aren't you
>more
>unaccountable than Jawara ever was?
>Do you agree that the promises you made in the early days of the coup now
>exist on the edges of your leadership's political consciousness? Is it your
>opinion that you've failed the Gambian people? Can you do better than this?
>
>Think about that.
>
>
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