Abdou, I am with you and so do most Gambians in the opposition.  This is one 
last chance to save the Gambia from crowning Yaya an Emperor in the next 
five years.  Recently, we saw a development where the courts are no longer 
necessary, replaced by collusion between the state and religious order.  The 
rubberstamp gave Yaya powers to dissolve them.  We know about detentions 
without trial.  Colanut offering has replaced court hearing, among many 
other draconian decrees and many more to grace us.  Gambians, we have a 
choice to make.  Sit and do nothing or pretend that we are not aware of the 
seriousness of the situation, and we live with a monarchy, there after.  
Alternatively, you support the opposition, financially and voting for them 
and we stem the tide on this disastrous slide to the abyss.

However, the leadership in the opposition must step up to the plate and quit 
the nonsense that some embark on.  That can happen if Gambians quit 
following shortsightedness and mediocrity.  Whether it comes from NADD, UDP, 
NRP, or GPDP, all of us must look to the Gambian interest and straighten 
those leaders that do not seem to know what time it is.  Why do we have to 
remind the opposition of the dire situation in the Assembly?  Where were 
they when the rubberstamp have been handing one amendment after another to 
Yaya and his criminal mind?  So, why do they think they can continue to make 
silly predictions that we all know are ill informed?  Those that are vocal 
supporters of the opposition, why are you quiet?  Why are you not telling 
your leaders that they are in the wrong to think they can fight against the 
opposition and win more seats in the Assembly?  Are you in agreement that a 
tactical alliance is irrelevant?  Your silence indicates that you are still 
loyal to the personality of sectional interests, which is against our 
collective interests.  Where is your independence when you cannot tell those 
whom you support that they are wrong in their assumptions, when you know 
know they are clearly off target?  And so, the challenge is to all of us 
that care to see a Gambia different and better than the one Yaya has in 
store for us.

If we fail to act, then you can continue to complain until the cows come 
home and you shall be forever be ignored to live in your creation.  Yaya 
turns our country into a terror pit, we live with it, as we have been doing 
and complaining endlessly.  For those Gambians that are at home, if you 
think Yaya's tyranny on Gambians is an opportunity for you to run somewhere 
in the West as a refugee, then think again.  Am sure you noticed the West 
closing their doors and even been returning drifting rafts back to the high 
sees to die off.  The world is getting tired of helping refugees and there 
are a dime a dozen each day.  Those countries that help enable dictatorships 
by their citizens must live with that dictatorship even if that means living 
in hell.  What ever reason Gambians lend a hand to Yaya to terrorize them, 
buys Gambians zilch in terms of complain and if Gambians think some 
invincible hand will rescue them, they better think again.  You sit there 
and think you are sending those on the outside a message, then you have it 
coming to you.  You let the crooks hoodwink you to thinking this is a 
contest between those on the ground and the outside, you will find that you 
are wrestling with your own self.  This is not rocket science and none needs 
formal education to see what the Gambia has turned into.  You also do not 
need to master economics to know that you are hungry, or can't feed your 
kids, or pay for their schooling, or heal them when they are sick.  Gambians 
know their condition and cannot claim ignorance.

After the feasts and euphoria of the past couple of weeks at the expense of 
our coffers and in the name of celebrating Jammeh's victory, are Gambians 
better off?  During the Tobaski, did Yaya the Great buy their Sheep?  Why 
were Gambians complaining of hardship or bugging those on the outside for 
everything under the sun?  You feasted off the crumbs that the gate keepers 
dropped for you, why is that not sustaining you?  And so, Gambians are 
fooling none but themselves.  Equally those in the opposition that think 
they have a score to settle against others in the opposition are fooling 
themselves to think that will make them relevant.  Far from it.  The more 
they try to do that the more they look more ridiculous.  Enough of the poor 
excuses.

Chi Jaama

Joe


>From: ABDOUKARIM SANNEH <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list              
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Why the need for tactical alliance?
>Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 15:12:01 +0000
>
>Why the need for tactical alliance?
>
>   New Year message for Gambian opposition parties
>   From Abdoukarim Sanneh - Greater Manchester, United Kingdom.
>
>   “Parliamentary election in Gambia is only a month away. Based on curious 
>observation, opposition parties in the country are not in good shape to 
>dominate the House of Parliament by advantage of numbers. It was this 
>number advantage that gave the ruling APRC party of president Jammeh the 
>power to change vital elements of the constitution creating a situation of 
>life president for President Jammeh. Bulk of Gambia’s more than 1.5 million 
>population are not happy with the way military dictatorship is entrenched 
>in the name democratically elected representative government. Abdoukarim 
>Sanneh sees that as a way of using the democratic instruments of voting to 
>empower a military dictatorship. In the absence of a strategic tactical 
>alliance, Abdoukarim like many Gambians think it is waste of time and 
>blames the country’s divided opposition for being indecisive. In what he 
>calls his New Year Message to opposition parties in Gambia,  Mr Sanneh 
>takes us through how he thinks they
>  will be  able to change the tides for restoring true and lasing democracy 
>in that West African country.”
>
>   It is about time our political animals realise that Gambian citizens 
>cannot follow individual parties that are not ready to cement their 
>differences but continue to foster deep rooted antagonism. It is by good 
>dictates of our clear conscience not to follow either UDP/NRP or NADD. The 
>reason is that they relate to Gambian electorates like members of a cult 
>movement do. They are not willing to listen to concerns of civil society 
>and citizenship both in Gambia and the Diaspora. They have failed to come 
>up with a formidable tactical alliance for a well-balanced national 
>assembly. Failing to do so, nothing prevents parliament of a coup detat 
>regime with irrelevant bills being passed to strengthen Yaya Jammeh’s 
>corrupt dictatorial rule. Gambians have had enough of it. This bunch of 
>opposition politicians need to give up their amateurish behaviour that 
>keeps surfacing in their claims to becoming redeemers of Gambian people 
>from the ruthless, corrupt and brutal dictatorial rule
>  of the APRC Government. Opposition politics without tactical alliance in 
>January parliamentary elections will be in a process of remorseless and 
>seemingly irreversible decay. Many of us at this point in our level of 
>political maturity expect competently redeeming political saints. What we 
>need to see is a body determined political leadership ready to start a 
>healthy political debate for a better way forward.
>
>   It was encouraging to learn that a United States based Save Gambia 
>Democracy Project came up with good proposal for both parties to start 
>dialogue recently. It was equally disheartening to know also all seems as 
>if UDP/NRP coalition plays adamant and rejected the proposal to begin 
>dialogue with NADD. Since after the defeat in the presidential election 
>UDP/NRP coalition is seen still unwilling to concede strengths of APRC 
>party by regrouping with NADD. When will the mindset of the leadership 
>UDP/NRP coalition change over clashes of personality and their 
>miscalculation for electoral success under the prevailing atmosphere?  
>Their continued reluctance to make peace towards a unified approach rather 
>than staying in pieces is based a fallacy. Until a united opposition is 
>reinstated as a significant force in Gambian politics a redemption of 
>Gambia from Yaya Jammeh’s imbalanced politics will remain some distance 
>over the horizon.
>
>   The political terrain in the Gambia since 1994 is a transition from one 
>form of coup d’etat to another. The national assembly is playing a pivotal 
>role in the entrenchment of dictatorship in Gambia. Numerous amendment of 
>the constitution to foster Yaya Jammeh’s mission on partisan basis 
>sidelines the opposition parties significantly. The rubberstamp APRC 
>members of National Assembly are not realising that the devil never learns 
>to be tolerant and will use division of the opposition parties as to gain 
>political capital. This amounts to slashing your necks and leaving you 
>bleed to death. I always feel overwhelmed with astonishment when our elite 
>politicians usually in their feverish political debate keep quoting section 
>after section of the bogus and philistine 1996 constitution as if Gambia 
>under Yaya Jammeh there operates a constitutional democracy. Yaya Jammeh 
>has no respect for that document and shows no political will accept that 
>Gambia is constitutional democracy and
>  not a military dictatorship. The Gambia is not a functional 
>constitutional democracy. To consolidate Jammeh’s dictatorship our 
>constitution is being manipulated and hijacked since the word go. The only 
>changes from military rule to so-called constitutional democracy is Yaya 
>Jammeh’s APRC having jettisoned the letter ‘F’ but  his absolute power and 
>dictatorial tendency remain unabated time after time. What we have seen is 
>unrealistic metamorphosis from a soldier in uniform to a soldier in plane 
>clothes with no changes in character and manner. The 1996 constitution has 
>gone through amendment after amendment all aiming to legalise dictatorship 
>of one form or another. The first manipulation was the removal from the 
>document on matters relating to trial by jury. Without tactical alliance 
>APRC will continue to dominate the National Assembly and one should not be 
>surprised as a day will come when the rubber stamp parliament will pass a 
>bill to enhance Yaya Jammeh’s vision of
>  ruling our country for another 40 years.
>
>   The power struggle between UDP/NRP and NADD is seriously drifting votes 
>to APRC. They need to hammer out that difference. What Gambia needs is not 
>a party of individual self seekers who only think of their own. To effect a 
>change opposition parties in Gambia need to see the radical side of 
>politics. They need an approach that appeals to electorates playing more 
>active part in all sorts of real issue-focused politics without state of 
>fear. It is with tactical alliance in this parliamentary election that they 
>will be able to address lot of fraudulent issues which the criminal regime 
>is using technically to prolong its illegal stay in power. The enactment of 
>military decrees and imposition of such decrees as statuary codes in a 
>parliamentary democracy have further reduced the function of 
>parliamentarians. Military decrees are undemocratic statuary codes which 
>are never put under scrutiny by our parliamentarians. The 1996 constitution 
>recognises all those decrees as legally
>  binding statuary codes without giving the public or our law makers to 
>diagnose their efficiency in a democratic environment. In today’s Gambia, a 
>law relating to both presidential and parliamentary election is/are 
>administering by a military decree called electoral decree. It is this 
>electoral decree which gives the President absolute power to appoint and 
>sack members of the electoral commission. Gambians have witnessed within 
>this few years, three election Commission Chairmen and several members of 
>the   commission sacked. What is the relevance of a military decree in a 
>civilian government? This a real big catch to cause worry in Gambia’s 
>political dispensation. It is simply a so-called civilian government purely 
>ruled by military decrees. We need more opposition parliamentarians who can 
>catalyse dynamism for electoral reforms and debate on legislation for the 
>interest of functional democracy. Only a strategically tactical alliance 
>could make that dream a reality.
>
>   Tactical opposition alliance is an important determinant at this moment 
>in our national resolve to restore true and lasing democracy in The Gambia. 
>As opposition parties sharing a common target you must not see each other 
>as rivals. You must work with the undivided aim of restoring of democracy 
>based on the rights of individuals, personal liberty, social justice and 
>establishment of fairer society. The political trench in the Gambia has 
>changed from the old PPP era and all the opposition parties must be aware 
>of that historical reality. In this transition while Yaya Jammeh’s APRC 
>phases out through its own default, opposition parties need to develop and 
>adapt a strategy alliance not based on domination from one faction but for 
>overall redemption of our country.
>
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