Brothers Jassey-Conteh, Mo Baldeh, Joe, Buharry, and All,

One would have thought that even with Halifa, OJ, and Hamat Bah locked
away, what NADD needed to do first was to deliver on Hon. Halifa
Sallah's promise to impeach President Jammeh should he fail to apologise
for his gross conjectures about the opposition's conspiracy to fan the
flames of conflict with Senegal. This, of course should have followed a
vehement denunciation of the police authorities for publicly coating
Hon. Sallah, NADD coordinator, as a de facto fugitive. The state's
disinformation tactic aimed tacitly to humiliate Halifa's person, was
not simply desperately risible. It was repulsive and symptomatic of a
government that has jettisoned all moral bearings in its ruthless
exercise of power.

NADD's failure to act on this initial committment left it without the
necessary momentum to forge ahead with subsequent mass action during the
weeks following the incaceration of the three leaders.
Happily, we all should hope that the current order of things ought to
bring definitive closure to that nightmare. Yet realistically, in a
state where the rule of law has been under siege by those who are
mandated to enforce it, hope itself becomes ephemeral. Hoping for a
permanent truce between the adversarial political camps may be wishful
thinking. What then should NADD do??

Before venturing any opinion on that, allow me to lay bare our weighty
dilemma. Thanks partly to globalisation there are fairly sizeable
commuinities of us (i.e Gambians and their friends) across the world
gradually growing in intellectual, economic, and political influence in
our country of origin. It is only natural that in time we shall
particiapte ever more actively in the political life of our country, and
so make demands for degrees of representation consummate with the
collective influence we are able to wield. This influence so far, is
most dramatically expressed economically. Without the remittances and
investments from diasporan Gambians, scores of thousands of families
will suffer untold misereis; many businesses will collapse throwing
thousands into unemployment in  an environment bereft of social safety
nets. Government's (tax) revenue base will shrink further as local
consumption plummets.  In the long run price hikes will force even the
godliest into the streets  perhaps peacefully but angrily demanding for
bread and jobs. [In the late eighites, in the wake of the IMF's first
wave of Structural Adjustment Programmes, there were food riots in many
African countries. President Jawara, introduced it in Gambia, but not
even a mouse openly squeaked about hunger!. I am inclined to think
though, that the geography of hunger then and now are quite different].
In short, brothers and sisters, we can create hell for the Jammeh
regime, but at the cost of untold suffering of our people.
 Added to that is the fact that most of us are sincerely or otherwise
aligned with the opposition, which is a damn good thing given the
circumstances. Placing demands on the opposition in view of our
political and economic clout is not as tricky as it sounds. Not to speak
up our minds about what we think is a tragic case of self-censure. We
know there are people who will as swiftly caution us for inciting mass
action from the cosy and plastic interiors of our European condos,
thousands of kilometres away from the eye of the storm. True, it will
sound morally decrepit to suggest action that may cause death or
imprisonment. But we would also be welcome members of the African
fraternity of coconut heads if we fail to tell ourselves that PROTEST
must be used as a legitimate weapon in the struggle against tyranny. In
the same vein, we must also uphold the view that as long as we remian
sincere, the ethical foundations of criticism must remain robust even if
we are not able to offer reasonable alternatives. Criticism and
self-criticism are organisational instruments that must be welcome at
all times. Better still if alternative courses of action can be offered.
Solidarity within the oppositon must be strong enough to withstand
introspection from within.

By all means, Sidia Jatta's reasons for not holding a demonstration are
defensive and defeatist. A massive peaceful demonstration needed to be
organised on behalf of the detained trio for various reasons.
Firstly, it should have been held to actively inform the regime that
people have a rigth to protest and to challenge the regime to make sure
there are "No Bullets And Soldiers In Our Streets". Of course, President
Jammeh may be a severe case of schizophrenia and so may order shooting
peaceful demonstratorsis six months away from the AU summit he has
worked so hard to host.  In that case he may be Sani Abacha's redeemer.
Secondly, a demonstration is perhaps the most effective method for
public sensitisation. Imaginative slogans and songs often loudly say
what most people think but are afraid to speak about. Capturing the
public's imagination turns out to be more powerful than its deepest fears.
In the third instance, a demonstration would have provided NADD the
opportunity to wrest the political initiative from Jammeh's incontinent
hands, and stop reacting to his violent paroxysm of unstatemanly natter.
NADD must as of now take control of the political agenda and lay out a
counter offensive toward the elections: rallies in chosen
constituencies, public awareness campaigns on NADD's transitional
agenda, workshops, seminars. It must put the APRC on the defensive by
challenging it about its dismal record: unsolved murders, political
assasinations, weeding out the green(!) boys, the continuous assault on
the press and other media and journalists in particular. There are
legions of issues: power supply, water, corruption, the presidential
jet(!), infrastructure decay in the country-side, arbitrary dismissals,
etc.

Last year while most of us celebrated the orange revolution in Ukraine
that brought Victor Yushchenko to power, I lamented that Gambia was an
entierly different ball game. That reality has never been clearer than
now. NADD's natural allies in the struggle for democratic rights and the
reinstatement of the rule of law, Gambian workers and students seem
completely oblivious of the tragedy being outplayed under their nose. To
attend a university whose campuses are one of the worst equipped in the
world while the president of our nation of just a million and half (with
no oil) acquires a private jet and pretend that as absolutely normal is
simply a historical aberration. That Gambian workers, professionals,
civil servants and students should observe in solemn acquiescence the
gradual escalation of repressive measures and abuse of rights and
arbitrary dismissals without summoning the courage to organise
autonomously against such humiliation vitiates the very history of
student and worker militancy and protest of former decades. There is no
point in wishing that we were as demonstration prone as South Koreans.
But to wait till election day in order to vote out a regime that is
monthly busy killing and jailing us, and refraining from publicly but
peacefully exhibiting our anger at this indignity, is to have no use for
all the intelligence and knowledge inside the world!

As we endear NADD to act, those of us in the diaspora must help raise
resources for the project of flushing the APRC from State House. Added
to that, there is a moral obligation to recognise and respect ordinary
people's legitimate sources of fear; and here we are dealing with a
regime under whose watch Gambians have been killed and maimed without a
"peanut being cracked"! While avoiding every tendency to classification
into a "we" and "them" category, all of us as citizens must claim with
one voice that these heavy layers of fear need to be systematically
peeled away from the public subconscious. It can be done by scoring
small victories one at a time, gradually persuading the fearful, that a
bigger victory is possible if our numbers grow. One such small victory
was the defeat of the APRC at local elections in August. NADD should
build on the momentum produced by that victory by organising a peaceful
protest in reaction to the illegal arrest of Hamat Bah, Omar Jallow
(OJ), and Halifa Sallah.

Finally, I hope NADD will strategise promptly and mobilise and
reinvigorate its organisational structures so as to be able to
effectively activate the membership and supporters.

Many thanks to you all,
Momodou S Sidibeh

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤