Hamjatta, I just read your latest piece after sending mine. Seems again that
we were ‘thinking alike’. I have been tremendously tied up the past few days
or else I would have sent you a private to tell you that you need not come
out to point out that we have had disagreements in the past just to
eliminate the erroneous label being shoved at us. Agreeing with people is
NOT a bad thing. Those people that are accusing us also agree on one thing
at least: that we are a cabal and do not want to speak truth against each
other. Does that mean that they are a cabal too and they are only saying
what they are saying to please each other?

You are right that we have taken divergent views on certain issues openly on
G_L. Of course we do NOT agree on everything. Of course I do NOT agree with
Colly or Saul Khan on everything as well. Same goes for Ansumana Kujabi,
Ebrima Ceesay, Sanusi Owens etc. to name a few of the people I somewhat see
eye to eye with on numerous issues on G_L. We have our disagreements. The
difference with me though is that I make a conscious effort NOT to
grandstand my friends when I think that they erred. I send them private
mails or pick up the phone to discuss matters with them. I do NOT come to
G_L to try and embarrass people while at the same time pretending to be
their friends. Of course I will NOT treat my friends the way I will treat
Yaya and his cohorts. That is what some seem to be advocating when they say
that we have to be ‘fair’ and ‘honest’ with our friends. No amount of
criticism will turn me to something I am not. To show some degree of
independence will NOT motivate me to dishonestly disagree with Hamjatta in
public. When I disagree with you, I express such in a discrete and friendly
way.

There are some people I recognize as being very instrumental in this
struggle. I will NEVER seek to undermine them. I will even go to the extent
of taking certain hits from them in the interest of the struggle. But there
comes a time when one wonders whether the struggle is being helped or
hampered by these attacks. I wish that was the criterion everyone would use
before they say certain things. How does bringing down Hamjatta help the
struggle? How does bringing down Colly help the struggle? Of course this
criterion is for people that are claiming to be doing things in the interest
of the struggle. Life would have been lot easier for me had I convinced
myself that certain critics are APRC supporters. Then I can meet their
attacks with equal venom. But I know some of these people are genuinely in
the Opposition and are contributing to the struggle in a positive manner.
That knowledge will continue to prevent me from saying certain things to
them. I will NOT second-guess their motives. I know why I in this. Others
can think whatever they want. I know that I will not call someone a comrade
and then come to G_L and equate that person with Yaya.

Thanks again my brother. Continue the great job you are doing and know that
you are fighting for the voiceless and our defenseless and innocent children
that were murdered by this callous regime. Personal attacks on you about
frivolous matters such as lack of independence should not stop you from
seeing the truth and speaking out like you have been doing. I know that will
NOT stop me.
KB



>From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: THE BIGGER PICTURE (Ebou Colley)
>Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 09:42:20 EDT
>
>This is utter garbage and i strongly urge Colly to completely ignore this
>gentleman. It is becoming an article of faith amongst some that Gambia-L
>provides them with an outlet to settle past personal grudges with certain
>individuals. The charges this gentleman filed against Colly are not only
>risible but along the same wave-lenght of this deplorable trend of personal
>vendettas Gambia-L is becoming accustomed. For instance, the gentleman
>queried:
>
>"When I first took issue with you, my central point of emphasis was
>two-fold
>- one, the way and manner in which you went about mystifying the so-called
>"impregnable" fortress of State House where your biggest demon still hides;
>and secondly the brutality that the captured "mercenaries" were subjected
>to
>by having their hands handcuffed together at their backs, and the signs of
>merciless torture that was so naked on their bodies. Of course, you tried,
>as much as you could, to portray me as an insensible hardcore saddist who
>was not prepared to take cognisance of the brutal mutilation of those young
>and innocent soldiers.
>
>Sam, people in positions of authority, like you were, must never see
>themselves as ordinary people. Your words are not also ordinary and
>meaningless. You must understand that your every word carries weight and
>authority to the ordinary mind, and can invoke passive influence,
>especially
>if they are not enlightening words. This was the crux of my argument."
>
>This is nonsense. If i recall properly, chief on the gentleman's previous
>charge sheet was that: Colly, by virtue of his uncompromising statement
>that
>State House security being impregnable, is culpable for the illicit
>activities carried out against the Farafenni Attackers. I suppose the
>torture
>these people underwent is part of the charge sheet??!! Where is the _ACTUAL
>EVIDENCE_ that indicts Colly for such heinous crimes? The gentleman
>provides
>none. The best he could come up with is guilt-by-association innuendoes and
>self-righteous moralising. I have said before that i've watched the video
>the
>gentleman tendered as part of his arsenal of evidence. The worst that could
>have been said of Colly then was his stringent warning that the sovereignty
>of the Gambian State will not be left untended to or compromised by attacks
>from unsavoury bandits hell-bent on an anarchy along the lines of Sierra
>Leone and Liberia. Is this not the reason why we have an Army in the first
>place? To defend the soveriegnty of the Gambian State? Was Colly not then
>an
>employee of the State? There is world of difference between working for the
>State and carrying out your duties as a State employee - as Colly was - and
>being loyal to the gov't of the day. Going by the gentleman's yardstick,
>each
>and every State employee is part and parcel of the "nurturing" of the
>Jammeh
>Mess. Has he cautiously paused to consider the logical implications of his
>sweeping assertions? I implore people to do the decent thing to think
>through
>their garbage before cluttering our mail boxes with the filth.
>
>Nothing makes the gentleman more ridiculous where he plays a literary
>sleight
>of hand  when he declared how he still holds Colly in "high esteem" - says
>Colly is still his much admired "koto" - but didn't flinch from labelling
>him
>a "tyrant"! Hold a "tyrant" in "high esteem"???!!! Silly stuff. Never mind
>the euphemism and the latent hypocrisy inherent here. The intent and
>purpose
>of the gentleman is laid bare in this graphic illustration of the contempt
>in
>which he holds Colly:
>
>"That you
>Samsudeen Sarr, who have been educated from the tax money of the people;
>you
>who have enjoyed all privileges as army commander by virtue of the tax
>money
>of the ordinary Gambian person can stand in this public forum and abuse the
>ordinary Gambian person so ruthlessly is beyond comprehension. These are
>the
>paternalistic tendencies that you have always displayed. You have no
>respect
>for decency and humility. You are just what you are - a tyrant; and as
>always with tyrants, they are  brave when they are victors, but cowards
>when
>they are vanquished.  You are the type who, after being born poor, grew up
>to hate poverty and anybody who is poor. You are the type of military
>saddists who will not hesitate to order the army to raze to the ground the
>slumps of the ghetto people in the name of development."
>
>I need not go any further to prove the real intentions of this gentleman;
>i.e. to assault the integrity of Colly. Its an abject shame these days that
>when you ride in town to point out these things, a self-styled group of
>Ethical Commissioners on this forum wax indignant on an imagined "cabal" of
>interest who tend to side with only one particular point of view. More's
>the
>shame that our Ethical Commissioners are not as honourable in what they are
>proseltising as they pretend to be. Their records speak for themselves.
>Speaking for myself, i'm not only open-minded, but i'm fiercely
>independent-minded. I have not only broken ranks with friends and family
>during the Jawara era but went to support a party my dear father unkindly
>calls "the party of the atheists" - he meant the PDOIS. Equally, the
>positions i've staked out on Gambia-L are based on solid principles and a
>genuine drive for what my conscience dictates to me as the right thing. I
>do
>not defend simply because something has got to be defended. I defend only
>because it is defensible. I will never defend the indefensible. The two
>individuals i tend to ally with most of the time on this List are Brothers
>Saul Khan and KB; and with each of these two, i've had my public
>disagreements. The archives of Gambia-L are there for all to check the
>relevant threads. I will never hesitate to condemn what in my mind appears
>as
>injustice.
>
>  I will just end this by reiterating my earlier position that anyone who
>was
>a public figure or held public office - elective or non-elective - is a
>fair
>game in our quest for justice for all Gambians. This includes every public
>figure from Jawara to Jammeh. What is, however, unacceptable is to bring
>unsubstantiated charges against individuals and labelling them either as
>"tyrants" or "worst monsters". Even if i don't share the same convictions
>of
>those unfairly labelled with such unsavoury epithets, i shan't hesitate to
>defend them from such unfair assaults on their integrity.
>
>Mean time i will patiently await our self-righteous Ethical Commissioners'
>condemnations - direct or indirect.
>
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
>Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
>You may also send subscription requests to
>[log in to unmask]
>if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your
>full name and e-mail address.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------