Gambia-L,
Sorry for failing to keep our promise to update you earlier; time didn't
allow us.
As you already know, the Oslo Action Group held a meeting on Sunday May 14th
at The Gambian Mosque meeting room. The meeting was well attended by both
young people and some older Gambians in Oslo. There were also a few
Norwegian
sympathisers.
The opening was scheduled for 15:00 hrs., but we had to wait in accordance
with 'Gambian time' and the meeting did not get going before about 15:45.
Copies of Gambia-L postings were made available together with copies of some
issues of The Observer, Point and Independent newspapers.
This meeting, you may recall, was called at a week's notice, after a meeting
that we held the previous Sunday of May 7th.
The participants from that meeting each spoke in turn about the tragic
events of April 10th and 11th, briefing the meeting about the origin of the
idea to form Action Groups within our various communities in the Diaspora
from Gambia-L.
We explained to those present that we as Gambians owed it to our country to
make our voices heard about this brutal massacre of defenceless young
Gambian
students; that we had taken the initiative to do some thing about this
serious crime against humanity because we care about our country and we care
about our people and that we feel we have a responsibility to demand that
justice be done what is going on, that you can't stand aloof when children
are being
murdered.
We put forward the following proposals:
1) Select a working committee to co-ordinate the action
2) Organise a demonstration at a date to be decided by the meeting
3) Continue collecting donations for the fund and exploring other means of
raising more funds
4) Draft a letter to Jammeh condemning the killings and demanding that
justice be done
5) Send a petition to The Norwegian Red Cross and the Foreign Ministry
together with the signatures that we are still collecting updating
them about April 10th and 11th and about the impending local government
elections later this year and the general elections next year. The letter
would highlight Jammeh's Human Rights record and express our fears that he
is most likely to resort to foul play as he and his APRC have NO chance of
winning the impending ballots.
6) Establish and maintain links with various African organisations in Oslo
for mutual support and sharing of experiences.
After long deliberations we agreed on the following:
1) Call for a demonstration to take place on Friday, June 2nd at 13:00 hrs.
Youngs Torget in down town Oslo where most major demonstrations are held
here, was suggested as the venue for the demonstration.
We are in touch with the Oslo Police on this and expect to get clearance by
tomorrow.
2) The original core that had been working together before the meeting was
mandated to continue to function as an organising committee with the
addition of two new volunteers.
3) Draft a letter condemning the massacre and demand that justice be done.
(Whiles we were talking about how the letter was to be delivered to Jammeh,
if
we should march to and hand it over at the Gambian Consulate, some one
mentioned that the Gambian High Commissioner to the U.K., also responsible
for Scandinavia, was in fact on a visit in Oslo. Since the Gambian Consul
here is a Norwegian businessman whose contact with the Gambian community
here consists mainly of renewal of passports, and his offices are not mainly
for Gambian representation, we decided that the best thing to do would be to
hand over the letter to the high commissioner. The letter, which has already
been posted to the L, was handed over to the High Commissioner yesterday. He
promised us that he would fax it to the president as soon as he gets back to
London today).
4) To write a letter to the various embassies in Oslo to inform and
sensitise about the fragility of the political situation at home and urge
them to exert diplomatic pressure on jammeh and this syndicate.
5) To print fliers and make other necessary arrangements in connection with
the demo.
Observations:
Around the end of the meeting there was and incident between myself and
another Gambian, very active in the Gambian organisation here. Whiles one of
the committee members was stressing the need to be very alert about
political
developments in the future, I interjected to add that this was an important
point since "Jammeh is very stupid!". That just brought laughter in the
room.
However, this man who has this ethnic syndrome thing that affects most
fanatical jammeh supporters I know, was to try to use that sentence as his
excuse for not wanting to be part of "politics". Kabir as a "politician"
should be patient. The man made me a politician on the spot because I am
interested in the affairs of my country in particular and Africa at large. I
made it clear to him that I have NEVER been a member of any political party
in my whole life, and in case he didn't know the difference, MOJA was a
political movement and not a political party. That he had the same duties
towards The Gambian as myself.
As impossible as all these "Jammehists" sound, he argued that since he knows
about
football, he believes that he and others like him should stick to organising
football activities, and so on, whiles kabir and the rest who "know
politics" can carry
on with that!!! Another, suffering from this same ethnic syndrome, also
arriving near the end of the meeting was concerned that we may not be able
to draft a good enough letter to address The President of the Republic in a
proper and fitting manner!!! I have a hard time showing any tolerance
towards such people.
During all this, some body wanted to know why the Gambian Association did
not take the initiative to do what the Oslo Action Group was already doing,
if it was necessary to form another 'Gambian Organisation'. To the latter
question it was made clear that the sole purpose of the Action Group was to
condemn the massacre and to put pressure on the government for justice to be
done and seen to be done.
Some wanted to know why it had taken such a long time to call a meeting,
some still, expressed the truth that when this tragedy took place, Gambians
should have been ending all their conversations on the topic with the
question: "What are we going to do about it?"
It was made it clear that we did take contact with key members of the
Gambian Association to hear if they had any plans to organise a protest but
there
were no such plans. Thus the Action Group came into being simply because
there was a NEED for it. We made it known that Gambians all over the world
were co-coordinating their action through Gambia-L, of which some of those
present are members and where the whole idea of world-wide protests
germinated; that most of those who are active in this venture are also
due-paying members of the Gambian Association and intent to continue to be
so; that the Association was welcome to support the action if it wished, or
give a financial donation if it wishes not to get involved.
It all died down when one speaker said that what others should be doing is
to express appreciation to those who took the initiative and pledge to work
further with them instead of critisizing their efforts, to which there was
wide agreement.
During the past few days it has become clear that some Gambians who did not
know about the meeting were very disappointed that they could not attend.
Many words of encouragement have been received and a few observation
critical of kabir's reaction to the hecklers have also been received. The
committee has discussed the issue and agreed in principle on ways to deal
with such incidents in the future. We took some of the criticism seriously
because they came from people that we know are sincere.
So it was to accommodate some of the observations that we had to tone down
the language in our letter to the president of Kanilai. I guess by and
large, we can live with it because it after all, conveyed the essence of
what
we set out to say. We'll keep you updated.
Regards,
Kabir.
PS: The capture of Devil Foday Sankoh must be causing some sleepless nights
in the bunkers in Kanilai! I keep wondering why they didn't necklace him on
the spot; all the pain and suffering that this creature has caused, they are
going to spend badly needed resources to "try" him!
Jammeh Must Go! - whether he chooses to do it Siad Barry style, Sankoh or
Doe style, is up to the fool, but he must go. We deserve better!
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