In a message dated 29/08/2001 08:58:49 GMT Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
> << It was an armed civil conflict brought upon the Gambia by Kukoi
> Samba Sanyang: an ex-NCP parliamentary candidate and therefore when the
> attempted dictatorship failed,some members of the come-back PPP regime
> orchestrasted unjustifiable acts of atrocities against some NCP militants
> and others who were percieved as supporters of the attemtpted revolution.But
> for the direct intervention of Sir Dawda, (of whom i am no admirer but even
> the devil deserves his due)the politics of retribution that some members of
> the PPP wanted to bear upon their political opponents would have been
> worst.Sir Dawda always advocated for the due process of law to brought upon
> all such people which unfortunately was not always heeded by his supporters.
> Had Yahya been in a similar situation, he would have ordered extra-judicial
> killings and secret night burials as he did during November 11, 1994 or even
> ordered a broad daylght massacre as happen to the students on April 10 & 11,
> 2000. >>
>
Kanteh,
Isn't this the exact point we've tirelessly tried to spell out for our anti-
PPP clerics? Instead of these people taking a pause and put things in
context, they engage in all kinds of intellectually dishonest and non
sequitur arguments about the demerits of Jawara or lack thereof. The vast
majority of these anti- PPP clerics have personal gripes against Jawara that
still rankle. These gripes, and nothing else, accounts for their mindless
anti- PPP zealotry. As i keep on saying, i know a lot of folks who have
suffered one way or the other from the hands of the PPP. Unlike our anti- PPP
clerics, these people have moved on and know deep in their hearts that anti-
PPP zealotry serves none save the current dictatorship. Jawara as a president
had his flaws; as we all are flawed one way or the other - like all mortals.
But there is no doubt that he is a decent and a very good man. None can ever
take that away from him. The idea that Jawara is comparable to Jammeh is the
bane of nauseating hypocrisy.
As per the whole Kukoi question, in my own opinion, that ugly episode of
Gambian history is a moral ragbag. That is to say that it is not as
simplistic as many anti- PPP clerics are positing or narrating. Kukoi was
wrong to carry out that ill-fated armed insurrection of July 30th 1981.
Regardless of Kukoi's wrongs, the zealotry and infingements of liberties that
occurred in some cases, after the putsch was helped quashed by the
Senegalese, is indefensible. Sentimental anti- PPP clerics like
Jassey-Conteh, with his usual sentimental and romantic nonsense, claimed
that after the ill-fated putsch, an anti- "Jola" witch hunt was officially
sanctioned by the PPP. Can anyone be this silly and outrageous? Are these
stupid claims not the very ones that are used to affirm Jammeh's morally
disgusting and divisive affirmative action for Gambians he termed as "Jolas"?
Where was Jassey-Conteh when the likes of Hatab Bojang, Musa Babadingding
Ceesay - who was my neighbour in those days - Sanjally Bojang, SM Dibba and
the numerous individuals who would not normally categorise themselves as
"Jola" speaking people, who were subsequently arrested, detained and or
incarcerated at Mile Two prisons? For Jassey-Conteh to rehearse and
regurgitate this sentimental nonsense shows how low people can go in their
disgusting anti- PPP bashings.
Be all that as it may, since a post mortem of Kukoi's ill-fatedarmed
insurrection is what we are after here, let us start putting things in
perspective and in the appropriate context. I would like the anti- PPP
clerics to answer three questions vis-a-vis Kukoi's ill-fated putsch and the
manner in which it was subsequently quashed:
1. How should the PPP regime have reacted to armed insurrection of the
Marxist oriented coup d'etat of Kukoi?
2. Was Kukoi right in the first place to launch an armed assault on the
Gambian polity to achieve his diabolical Marxist aims?
3. Bar the innocent people who died in the conflict, what was amoral about
the Senegalese intervention? What was wrong in Jawara asking Senegal to
intervene and restore order in the country?
Anti- PPP clerics in their mindless zealotry of PPP bashing couldn't even
pause for a second and ask themselves these simple questions; questions,
which if placed in the proper context of what was at stake and how it
chanced, many who are now busy carrying futile post mortems of that ill-fated
putsch will be appreciative of the fact that the Marxist oriented armed
insurrection of Kukoi failed. Had they bothered to ponder the implications of
a Gambia under the leadership of crack-pot Marxists, most of these outrageous
claims will not be uttered here incessantly. I submit that had Kukoi
succeeded with his agenda, Gambia will never be the relatively quiet, sedate,
tranquil, moderate and peaceful place it was before Jammeh took over. Gambia
was more likely to have been reduced to another tragic wreckage as Mengistu -
another crack-pot Marxist - reduced Ethiopia to in the 80s with that
horrendous famine and a seemingly never-ending internecine civil strife. I
regret the lives lost in the ill-fated Kukoi putsch; just as i deplore the
gross Human Rights violations than ensued after it was quashed by the
Senegalese. But i appreciate the Senegalese intervention, without which,
arguably, i would have grown up as another African statistics of a displaced
child of a war torn African country. Forget the international legal arguments
against the Senegalese intervention. Morally, Jawara was very right in asking
the Senegalese to intervene. Without the Senegalese intervention, we can
engage in futile intellectual speculations with hindsight as per what the
fate of the Gambia would have been had Kukoi in his bid to force the PPP out
of by the barrel of the gun. One thing is crystal clear to me: the relative,
but snail pace advancement the Gambia scored post- Kukoi's ill-fated putsch,
would certainly not have been the case had the Senegalese not intervened in
the nick of time and quash the ill-fated putsch. No amount of intellectual
skulduggery and Stalinist rewrite of history will change that fundamental
moral truth. Basic human decency requires that at the very least, we admit
the obvious and regard as morally abhorrent any attempts to falsify history
simply because we have an axe to grind with individuals involved in such
histories. These days, that just seems to be asking too much of our anti- PPP
clerics.
Hamjatta Kanteh
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