Halifa,
I have noticed your attempts to play the 'insider journalist' by claiming
to have all the vital info leading to the creation of the National
Consultative Committee. Like the new evidence on Koro's death, you wouldn't
reveal it until according to you "at the appropriate time" whenever or
whatever that would be. I have always known that when it comes to this
transition you are what in Western media circles they call 'insider
journalist.' It is not the first time you have displayed it. Remember when
Waa Juwara provoked you into telling us how you had secret behind the scenes
meetings with the erstwhile AFPRC? Your reason for the discretion then: you
didn't want to muddy the political waters then. Interesting isn't? Talk of
transparency. Unfortunately, unlike you, I'm not an 'insider journalist' so I
cannot give names of persons and States which applied pressure on the AFPRC
on the time table issue. So if you are gonna supply it, do it then my good
friend. Don't procrastinate because of my ignorance.
Clearly a tug of war of the might-have-beens of the transition would not
help us in moving forward. I have posited here merely for analogous purposes
only to buffer my position that we could have rejected the draft constitution
and gone back to drawing board just as we did with the time table issue. this
went superbly well enough without a/any coup d'etat, violence,
procrastination and huge financial input; for the time table was reduced from
4yrs to 2 yrs. but you begged to differed on the grounds of political
expediency. You wrote: "my contention, you continue to evade, is as follows:
if external and internal pressure could have led to the established of the
'ideal' constitution within the shortest period of time, then why have that
pressure not been brought to bear since 1997 to eradicate the flaws which, to
you, should have led to the rejection of the of the constitution?" Unlike
you, I'm not obsessed with some rigid time frame within which we could come
up with the 'ideal' constitution. My options are open. If it means a delay of
a year: so be it. The delay is worth it. Besides who could not argue that
virtually the authoritarian streak of pre 1997 elections that was expressly
manifested in the executive is prevalent today after we are supposedly under
the hyped aggrandised theme of "democratic space" that makes you so excited.
Yes, MP's make noise about, the press reports it and the people express their
anxieties albeit hesitantly but the 1997 constitution has not stopped the
executive from pouring contempt on/holding in contempt the other branches of
the state; the executive still reigns supreme like it did in the past. So why
are you obsessed with what you call "within shortest period of time"? Is it
because political expediency and historical immediacy has coloured your
judgement to the point of you accepting the unacceptable? No time is not my
problem. My problem is getting the right constitution. If it means a delay of
say a year, so be it. It is easy to shrug this off as another charlatan
nostrum but it had every chance of bearing fruition then. I have noticed
streaks of determinism in your interpretation/analysis of the transition. I
don't wish to sound pedantic, but lets save smugs of fatalism or else you
would start looking like a high sounding Pangloss turned upside.
You have asked why external and internal forces pressure have "not been
brought to bear" to revamp the 1997 constitution. As Saul contended in his
last posting why in the name of sanity would external pressures/forces care
when we carelessly failed to act upon the AFPRC's vulnerability and mount
campaigns to revisit the flawed constitution? If we were complacent enough to
let it pass why would outsiders come and baby-sit us? In any case what
strategic importance does the Gambia have in a post-Cold era to warrant
outside help as such when we didn't make enough noise to justify any such
action? Any effort by outside forces would have to be initiated and aided by
local pressures and categorised under the designation of Diplomatic
Magnanimity instead of the protection of selfish foreign interests. For the
Gambia holds no material or strategic importance that would warrant outsiders
to risk lives and resources for a problem that is internal. Clearly the
ground was for fertile for him(Jammeh) to carry out his scheme when he
neutered all potential rivals and critics and with you not critical and not
thinking anything wrong with him being both player and referee, he allowed
you to operate. You went on to proselytise the 1997 constitution unhindered
comparatively, without any ground for alternative view points to be
published, vocal and overheard as yours. The 'no' case was clearly taken up
initially by the ragtag fraternity of the July 22nd. Mov't because, as you
failed to realise as, a disinformation strategy by the AFPRC to confuse the
Gambian populace about the real intent of the referendum. Some were saying
then that it was a vote to legitimise Jammeh (a view prevalent amongst the
Tobacco Road area of Banjul North July 22nd. Mov't), some were claiming that
it was the white people/West which has hatched this plot to bring back the
ancien regime of Jawara by insisting/holding on this referendum. The long and
short of it was that the AFPRC has managed to muddy the political terrain
with so much disinformation, vacillation and confusion that the average voter
didn't know what it was all about. Now I'm beginning to get it why despite
your intellectual profundity you couldn't see through the AFPRC's scam,
schemes and disinformation and how they spoofed into being part of the
inflated, exaggerated and aggrandised theme "democratic space" that was about
to be created. Which in reality is a vacuous meaningless rhetorical
imperative you gobbled up, hook, sink and line.
I don't know how you came to deduce most of the analysis you proffered
here when you said: "realising that the 'yes' vote was gaining hand the upper
hand, the AFPRC leadership decided to make comments which gave the impression
that they were in support, but cannot be said to have really campaigned
decisively for a 'yes' vote." I hope you were not in Mars when the AFPRC were
busy claiming victory and drinking to their victory in the referendum. If the
AFPRC were vehemently against this document as you portray them to be then in
sanity's name why did they go to great such lengths to create such sweeping
provisions like the Indemnity Clause to cover their backs? Why campaign 'no'
when your interests were secured with the Term Limitation and Age Of The
Presidency Clauses expunged and most of the monarchical proclivities still
extant? It was the ideal constitution for Jammeh then. Any way if he were to
lose the referendum because he preferred a 'no' vote he didn't have to worry.
Would he? After all he was player and referee at the same time. Halifa the
subterfuges and scams of the 1996 presidential race would have sufficed for
him to get what he wanted. Wouldn't that?
Finally I return to your much aggrandised theme, the "democratic space"
that you say you have created. In your posting you seem to insinuate that Dr.
Saine's letter wouldn't have been published in the past, that MP's were not
vocal in the past, courts were not independent enough of prison
systems/bosses. Arguably, under Jawara we had a freer press and more
independent Judiciary? Isn't your rankles for Jawara's treatment of getting
the better of and clouding your judgement? Where is your sense of fairness?
Halifa give unto Caesar what belongeth to Caesar; give unto Jawara his dues.
You are beginning to sound biased and unobjective. It seems again this
vacuous aggrandised theme "democratic space" has got you excited to the point
of you forgetting the recent past. You wrote: "the Law Reform Commission has
written to political parties, National Assembly members and so on and so
forth to request a proposal for a review of the constitution." I thought you
had learnt your lesson not to put faith in such purposeless and vacuous
exercises where the overall winner would always be Jammeh/APRC. It seems you
don't get it. The flaws inherent in such a fundamentally flawed constitution
are in the supreme interests of the ruling clique. They wouldn't exchange it
for anything. Even if you recommend the most honourable proposals they would
go unheeded as was the case in constitutional review exercise of the
transition. Please don't let your name be soiled further by these scams for
you would only be taken for a roller coaster ride.
Further you wrote: "the Independent Electoral Commission has decided to
review constituency boundaries and has recommended the reduction of the five
Foni constituencies into two, expunge Janjanburey constituency and adhere to
the principle of equal representation for equal number of inhabitants as
prescribed by the constitution." Alas so far you have failed to tell members
how toothless this so-called Independent Electoral Commission [IEC] really
is. On it's own the IEC can hardly implement anything. It is toothless and
semi-autonomous, relying heavily on the largesse of the executive. Has it
occurred to you that they will have to need the executive to implement these
changes? What if these are not favourable to the executive as they clearly
are not (you have listed here the expunging 4 of the ruling parties seats;
three of them safe seats, Fonis whilst Janjanburey a marginal seat)? It goes
without saying that these changes have not gone very well within the ranks of
the APRC as they were openly calling for defiance of the changes. And what of
the sway the executive still holds over the IEC? The president still elects
it's members without vetting/approval from the legislative or interested
parties. What is the difference between that and that of Jawara's scheme
where we had Perm Sec of Local Gov't (appointed by Jawara) who conducts
elections? Is it just not the same where the player acts as referee only in
the case of Jammeh it is more subtle and things on the surface appears to
looks independent but in reality reeks the stench of Jawara's past.
Halifa give us something better to account for your sacrifice of
principles when you plunged headlong into this vacuous aggrandised
"democratic space" that you purportedly created out of that political
expediency and historical immediacy exercise you keep calling gobbledegook's
like "coping strategy" and "transitional phase," "democratic space" et al. As
my compatriot Saul intimated to you, the more "phantoms you throw at us, the
quicker they will be razed to the ground." To borrow a line from you:
deception is no longer possible in this age of information.
I await your usual kind response.
Hamjatta Kanteh
hkanteh
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