Hamjatta,

You really do amaze me. Why didn't you send a copy to George w. Bush, Kofi
Annan or better still to the heads of state of the G8? THE FIRST REPUBLIC IS
DEAD, LONG LIVE THE SECOND!!!!

Gassa.

>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: The Gambia: The Writings On The Wall
>Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:31:46 EDT
>
>This piece was this morning mailed to some senior members of the British
>Government: the Prime Minister, Tony Blair MP; the Foreign Secretary, Jack
>Straw MP; the Development Secretary, Clare Short MP. The piece was also
>forwarded to my MP and the two main Opposition parties of the UK. I hope,
>by
>this piece, to renew the clarion call for those who can aid our efforts to
>defeat the cancerous disease in our country, to remember us as our battle
>for
>decency in the Gambia reaches a make or break point as we enter the crucial
>presidential elections of October 2001. I hope i can succeed in pricking a
>conscience or two.
>
>All the best,
>
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>
>******************************************************************************
>
>******************
>
>The Gambia: The Writings on the Wall
>
>
>On Wednesday 28th February, 2001, three British Labour MPs  - Jeremy
>Corbyn,
>Diane Abbott, and John McDonnell - delegates from some of The Gambia's
>local
>political Opposition, the Gambian Diaspora in the UK, concerned friends of
>the Gambia, representatives of international organisations interested in
>governance and development issues on the African continent and
>representatives of both the British media [interested in African affairs]
>and
>the Gambian print media convened at Committee Room 10 at the House of
>Commons
>to hear briefings from members of the Gambian Opposition on the rapid
>deterioration of the social, economic and political situation in the
>Gambia.
>This gathering of peoples from all walks of life and diverse opinions
>marked
>a watershed in Gambian history; especially, as it relates to the new
>political assertiveness the Gambian Diaspora has of late demonstrated. The
>Gambian Diaspora was ready to be part of the diverse stakeholding that
>accounts for modern political entities in an increasingly submerging world
>where events at even remote corners of the world have the cumulative
>effects
>of pricking world conscience into moral indignation and action. Of
>fundamental importance here also is that this House of Commons Committee
>Room
>10 gathering marked the inaugural event of a movement that has undertaken a
>civic response to the catalogue of rapidly deteriorating events - which if
>left unattended, could amount to another African tragedy. This movement -
>Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in the Gambia, United Kingdom or
>MRDGUK, as its acronym goes - has since that inaugural event of Committee
>Room 10, made it a sacrosanct duty to respond morally to this rapid
>deterioration of the political, economic and social situation in the
>Gambia.
>To understand the philosophical rationale of the movement and how the
>Gambia
>got to be where she is right now, a thumb-nail sketch of events that has
>mutated into this degeneration of things in the Gambia, is well in order.
>
>Since July 22nd 1994, when some junior military officers dislodged the
>democratically elected government of Sir Dawda Jawara, the Gambia had
>lurched
>back and forth from the precarious to the uncertain. Indeed, for the first
>since her existence as a sovereign nation-state, the Gambia began an
>Odyssey
>typical of African crackpot military dictatorships: bad governance,
>economic
>mismanagement, looting of State coffers, gross Human Right abuses,
>intolerance of the opposition, the gradual withdrawal of basic civil
>liberties, disregard of the due process of the law and in extension the
>rolling back of the frontiers of an independent judiciary. To be sure, all
>was not rosy with the old order that the military replaced. If anything,
>the
>ancien regime was a benign autocratic capitalist functioning pluralist
>political system - which while deficient on the rigorous machinations of
>probity, open-ness and accountability of older democracies of, say,
>Westminster, was relatively equipped to guarantee basic civil liberties, a
>functioning and impartial civil service and most importantly, the due
>process
>of the law. With the military and July 22nd 1994, all these became part of
>the country's receding past.
>
>  Initially, the military remained impervious to demonstration on the need
>to
>a return to democratic governance as soon as feasible. Indeed, it set up a
>four-year timetable in which it enumerated a detailed and very ambitious
>programme for a return to the democratic process. This was unacceptable to
>both Gambians and friends of The Gambia. And when push came to shove
>[mainly
>through the Major government's laudable and effective travel advice, the US
>and EU suspension of aid to the regime], the regime was literally forced to
>see sense in reducing their initial time table from four to two years and
>in
>the event quickening the pace of the democratisation process. As it
>happened,
>the result was a consultative exercise, which saw the reaching of a
>consensus
>that will pave the way for a very smooth transition to democratic
>governance.
>  Needless to say - and this shouldn't surprise anyone - things didn't go
>that
>smoothly. The ruling military junta - The AFPRC - managed to manipulate
>that
>consensus to its advantage and the result was a Jerry Rawlings [who
>maintained a mentor relationship with the junta from day one] type of
>pseudo-democratic set up in which the military junta transforms into a
>political party and rigs the elections in its favour. On the 26th of
>September 1996, the military junta held elections and with the stage set
>for
>electoral fraud, won hands down.
>
>However, elections or no elections, virtually little has changed in the
>Gambia. To be sure, the inauguration of the Second Republic did to an
>extent
>liberalise the tyrannical and despotic impulses of the regime. Yet, the
>withdrawal of basic civil liberties, corruption, the bludgeoning to death
>of
>the independence of both the judiciary and the civil service, disregard of
>the due process of the law, economic mismanagement and political repression
>-
>especially of the political opposition - remained the order of the day
>albeit
>the quasi democratisation. The political repression reached a crescendo on
>April 10th last year when students went out peacefully in the streets to
>demonstrate their disgust of the regime's handling of two of their
>colleagues
>who were abused by security forces; one of whom was raped [a young
>teenager]
>and the other also a youth still in his teens who subsequently died as a
>result of the tortures he received from the authorities. In the event, the
>head of State and commander in chief of the armed forces, Yahya Jammeh,
>reportedly told the Vice President to "deal with them" - the students. The
>result was an unprecedented butchering of some 15 people [mainly students
>with a child as young as three, a journalist and a Red Cross volunteer],
>maiming of school children and wanton destruction of property.
>
>Even after this, the regime remained remorseless and unrepentant in its
>tyranny against the Gambian people. Under pressure, it set up a commission
>to
>investigate the April incidents, the Report of which - together with that
>of
>the Coroner's Inquest - it callously dumped into the bin refusing to
>prosecute anyone as the Reports advised. To this very day, none has been
>brought to justice for these heinous crimes committed against Gambian
>children as young as three. Against such a backdrop, the Blair government,
>and contrary to common decency, went ahead and re-established military
>cooperation with the same criminals who gunned down children as young as
>three. Nothing could be more callous. Coming right after a very repressive
>military butchering of school children, the re-establishment of this
>military
>cooperation with the Jammeh regime was like rubbing salt in a festering
>wound. When petitioned on the rationale behind this retrogressive move, the
>FCO took the usual official escape routes. As Nicholas Hackett of the FCO's
>Gambia desk puts it to a concerned Gambia, "the Gambia has repeatedly
>proven
>herself ready to support international peacekeeping efforts under UN
>auspices
>in trouble like Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Kosovo. This
>was
>a key factor in our decision to support Sandhurst training for Gambian
>Subaltern: we are keen to support Gambian efforts to create professionals
>capable of carrying out its international and domestic duties to the
>fullest
>extent possible."
>
>Needless to point out that this is humanitarianism turned topsy-turvy:
>sending murderers to police potential or indicted murderers. This is just
>akin to helping train Milosevic's thugs so they can go and help police
>thugs
>in, say, East Timor. Be that as it may, it remains to be seen how such
>military assistance could help things in a country that is under the same
>yoke of oppression that the mandarins of the FCO believe the likes of
>Kosovo
>are suffering from to warrant humanitarian intervention. Perhaps, if
>Hackett
>and his seniors read the recent US State Department Report on the Gambia
>[http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2000/af/index.cfm?docid=799], they
>will
>have a rethink on the Gambia. Or better still read the damning UN report on
>the Blood-Diamond trade, in which the Gambian government was severely
>indicted and sanctions recommended against it. This is a regime known to
>harbour, aid and sympathize with insurrectionists fighting for independence
>in Southern Senegal.
>
>Added to this bleak vignette of political repression, is a general economic
>meltdown that has seen the Gambia's economic performances plummeting from
>bad
>to worse. Without a productive base to sustain the economic vandalism of
>the
>ruling elites with their total disregard of international law as it relates
>to foreign investors, the Gambian economy is experiencing its worst ever
>inflationary upsurge as basic commodities hiked to over 100% whilst
>consumers
>spending powers keep dwindling with the aid of a depreciating national
>currency. This economic malaise is not helping the repressed, increasingly
>restless and forlorn Gambian populace.
>
>It is not too late for the Blair government to rectify its phenomenal
>foreign
>policy misjudgment in a country that is ever lurching precariously to what
>Rwanda was like before the genocide. And like Rwanda, the writings are on
>the
>wall. The year 2001 is a make or break year for the Gambia - if left
>unattended. In October, the country is due to hold presidential elections
>and
>all indications are that a repeat of the electoral fraud of the1996
>presidential elections is being hatched or is in the making. The only
>difference is that this time around civilians - morally bolstered by the
>recent wave of despots being beaten at their own games around the globe -
>are
>ready to go that final mile of head-on confrontation should the incumbency
>steal the elections. That can mean anything; internal civil strife and in
>the
>extreme, the Gambian going down the abyss of anarchy - if things are left
>untempered. And if the Gambia goes down, rest assured it will with the
>whole
>sub-region. It will not spare the modest gains that neighbouring Senegal
>has
>achieved in her social, political and economic pursuits since the
>government
>of Liberal Wade came to power. It is not too late for the Blair government
>to
>set an imperium vis-à-vis containing and diminishing the brutality of the
>regime by ensuring that any form of cooperation is hinged on - and this is
>to
>paraphrase a recent Economist editorial - commitment "to honest government,
>free elections, a tolerance of dissent and the unfettered rule of the law".
>Also the Blair government should do all that is within its powers to
>pressure
>the regime to come to its senses by complementing the decent efforts of the
>democratic forces in the campaign to renew decency in that part of Africa.
>In
>the final analysis - and like all other troubled spots of Africa - the
>writing is on the wall: Left unattended, the Gambia could unleash another
>Great Lakes type of situation in that sub-region of Africa.
>
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>
>
>
>
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