Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn't Vote APRC
I. Since July 1994 to this day, the Gambian peoples - save the exception of a
few selected crooks - have continued to be at the brunt of an economic
meltdown the AFPRC and its mutation, the APRC, has helped wrought on the
Gambia and the Gambian peoples. As a result, Gambians are getting poorer and
poorer whilst the criminal syndicate that "runs" the country continue to
illegally amass wealth at the expense of the Gambian poor, especially the
poor farmers of the provinces.
II. The APRC's presidential candidate is not only an oaf but also an
unlettered moron. The low-life is intellectually defunct and can never be
expected to make wise decisions vis-à-vis carrying out the daily intellectual
rigour required of a statesman; especially, such decision making require one
to be optimally lettered to be able to decipher the basic meaning of complex
documents and agendas.
III. The Human Rights record of the APRC regime is the stuff of legend. The
regime has and continues to seize the basic and inviolable civil liberties of
ordinary Gambians. The regime perversely believes that it giveth and taketh;
so that inviolable Human Rights like the right to belong to a political of
one's choice is up for grabs by the State.
IV. Because of this perverse understanding of basic and inviolable civil
liberties, the APRC regime has from a year ago illegally and
unconstitutionally incarcerated numerous Gambians like Dumo Sarho on
spurrious charges that to this very day it cannot convince reasonable
Gambians of the validity of such charges. Instead, based on the evidence of
the paranoid fruitcakes of the NIA and the regime's own paranoia, Gambians
like Dumo continues to languish behind bars.
V. The brutal and continued harassment of journalists and private media
practitioners like Mr George Christensen - who was nearly torched alive when
APRC sponsored arsonists attacked his radio station wilfully attempting to
destroy it and with it, everything that man has worked to help his society
through the medium of his radio station - continues unabated. Added to this
bleak vignette of brutal repression of journalists, is how the regime - in
blatant disregard of international norms - deported a Sierra Leonean
journalist back to his home land where he had earlier fled from the
persecution of Valentine Strasser's crackpot AFRC.
VI. Since July 1994 to this day, the AFPRC and it's mutation, the APRC, has
carried out numerous extra-judicial killings of innocent Gambians like Koro
Ceesay, Corporal Dumbuya, Basirou Barrow, Dot Faal, etc., etc. Extra-judicial
killings that to this day have left numerous Gambians widows, fatherless, the
loss of loved ones and friends. Extra-judicial killings that, needless to
say, will never be investigated by this regime.
VII. These extra-judicial killings reached a heinous and nauseating peak in
April 2000 when some 15 students, a Red Cross volunteer and a child as young
as three were brutally murdered by security forces on the orders of the APRC
regime. To this very day, none has been indicted, rebuked or disciplined for
these heinous crimes against the Gambian peoples. Some of those who were at
the brunt of the brutalities of the security forces continue to languish in
dilapidated hospital wards without adequate medical care. Their trauma has
become that of their families and friends as they brave it silently and alone
with these young souls tragic and silent trauma.
VIII. The APRC's presidential candidate is an internationally proscribed
criminal - well, technically speaking. Since one of his criminal partners has
been proscribed by a special UN investigation body on the illicit and blood
diamond trade that sustains the animalistic insurgency of Foday Sankoh and
the RUF of Sierra Leone, the APRC regime has gone into a denial and rebuttal
overdrive. What was a proscription meant for a lone criminal, the regime took
as an international conspiracy against the Gambia government. I submit that
the reason why the regime reacted in such an imbecilic and frenetic fashion
has got to with the fact their presidential candidate is in cahoots with the
proscribed individual and he enjoys the complete confidence of the APRC
gov't. And so it stands to reason that the APRC's presidential candidate is -
technically speaking - an internationally proscribed criminal.
IX. Since the AFPRC came to power illegally in 1994, the Gambia's
international standing continues to plummet as the nation-state, once noted
for her respectable, realist and pacifist foreign policy, is now an
international pariah. The regime continues to embrace and abet with
insurgency movements like the MFDC of Southern Senegal, pariah states and
known supporters of guerrilla movements that continue to tear the social
fabric of African societies, like Gadaffi of Libya. The APRC regimes
continues with this deplorable and misguided foreign policy and as a result,
the Gambia's neighbours - notably neighbouring Senegal - continue to view her
with suspicion and heightening both diplomatic froideur and tension in that
sub-region.
X. The AFPRC and its mutation, the APRC, has never been a believer of liberal
democracy. Since its illegal usurpation of power from the democratically
elected government of Dawda Jawara, it has bastardised all the basic tenets
of multi-party and liberal democracy. Even its own toilet paper constitution
- which it tailored to suit its illegal ambitions - has not been spared this
bastardisation: from the rolling back of the frontiers of an independent and
impartial judiciary to complete disregard for good governance, the regime has
and continues to despoil all the basic tenets of democracy it continues to
parrot but will never believe in.
Clearly, and going by the AFPRC/APRC record in office, a vote for the APRC in
October is a vote for more tyranny, misery and the death of Gambian decency.
Above all, a vote for the APRC in October, is a vote against both the Gambian
and Sengambian families. If you believe in a Gambia of liberal decency,
tolerance, progress and the Rule Of Law, clearly the APRC is not the party
for you to vote for in October. There is a genuine and credible alternative
to all that the AFPRC and its mutation, the APRC, has done and stands for
since it illegally usurped power from a democratically elected government in
1994. There is an Opposition Alliance that is a credible and genuine
alternative to the APRC. You are most definitely better off voting for this
Opposition Alliance than, say, the APRC, its closet appendages and allies -
come October 18th 2001.
Hamjatta Kanteh
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