THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PDOIS SUPPORT GROUP Drawing lessons from Halifa Sallah's speeches in Washington D.C and New York that as member of the PDOIS leadership that; the Gambian people must not surrender their sovereign rights to determine the affairs of their country to a small group they called politicians as if it is the birth right of a few to lead the country but must accept that they have a voice and power to dictate where their country is to head to; that keeping the people ignorant has enabled a few people at the helm to subject them to inducement and intimidation in order to seize their birth right to determine how their country is governed; that economically the Gambia is sinking and what is seen as development in the Gambia is a by product of heavy borrowing amounting to 1800 million dalasis between 1994 to date; that with an inherited debt burden of 3000 million dalasis, Gambia now has to settle 4.8 billion dalasis worth of loans; that the state employs less than 15,000 employees while the private sector employs approximately 20,000 in a situation where the 132,000 children in our primary schools in 1996 would be seeking employment within the next ten years; that democracy must be more than mere voting every five years to retain or change faces; that it should be a tool of empowering the people to gauge the programmes of political parties and make informed choices; that PDOIS aims to provide a new kind of leadership to the Gambian people; that its concept of democracy is that the people must both be enlightened and empowered to select committees at the village and ward levels to take part in monitoring the development projects at that level as well as safeguard the rights of the residents; that the income of representatives must be proportional to the income of other professionals in the public service and should be required to put the national interest before their personal interest; that constitutions and electoral laws and other instrument of governance or representation should be made known to the people so that political leadership will not be mystified. That PDOIS aims to promote awareness for each Gambian to refuse to be any ones tool to get to power; that it strive to eradicate politics base on ethnicity, religious bigotry, gender chauvanism and any other form of sectionalism; that it hopes for the emergence of a Gambian who is conscious of ones worth and the importance of being a part of a nation, Africa and progressive humanity; that in the economic sphere PDOIS calls for the management of public finance and public corporations in such a way that they facilitate the growth of productive base of the national economy; that foreign investment will compliment and not be a substitute for self reliant initiatives, that all economic actors and actresses would be encourage to corporate to enhance production and greater welfare and security; that loans and aid will be a supplement to self reliant initiatives rather than a basis of indebtedness and conditionality; that PDOIS calls for a government which can earn the respect of the African and international community because of enlarging the awareness of the Gambian people and ensuring their complete control of the Gambia through various forms of peoples participation schemes that could serve as an example of a country where leaders are humble servants of a people; that PDOIS calls for a government where the leaders would prefer to resign when they are confronted with conditionalities that will not serve the interest of the people; We the people who are convince of these opinions have decided to established a PDOIS SUPPORT GROUP with the following objectives; To ensure; 1. That we give the widest dessemination of all information produced by PDOIS so that the disinformation regarding PDOIS policies , positions and programmes would be eliminated. 2. That Gambians in the US are informed of all developments in the country irrespective of party affiliation or political opinion or otherwise so that they can make informed choices. 3. That resources are mobilised to support the Nursery schools, Adult literacy programmes, Civic education initiatives, Disaster relief projects and other activities designed to strive or enlighten the people to be free from ignorance. 4. That Gambians take part in struggling for standards of governance to be established irrespective of party affiliation so that we can always act in common to combat human right abuses and other and other abuse of authority. 5. That the Gambians abroad can come together to influence the independent electoral commission to implement the powers given to it by section 141 of the Election decree to facilitate the participation of Gambians abroad as voters in presidential elections. The group has the following contact addresses at the moment to facilitate coordination of activities pending its further restructuring by those who will become members. Contacts: Pa Samba Jow Mbye Ceesay (763)531 8216 (614) 818 9474 [log in to unmask] ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------