Jobe, I shall try and stick to the issues you raised so far and not explore
the criminal atrocities being committed by this government you support.
Suffice for me to say that the developments you cited are of little or no
significance to one like Ebrima Barry or the fourteen children that were
brutally massacred in broad daylight by the government that is supposed to
"put the aspirations of our peoples first". What use is a TV station to
someone in Dumo's position? Or is he not a citizen whose aspirations matter?

Another housing-keeping matter I will delve into before touching on your
'project' is to set the record straight that the AFPRC/APRC government was
NOT ELECTED by the MAJORITY of the people of The Gambia as you claimed in
your introductory paragraph. A bunch of thugs woke up on July 22, 1994 and
decided to steal power from a democratically elected government.
Subsequently, the APRC used thuggery, intimidation and all forms of criminal
activities to steal an election in order to elect Yaya as a civilian leader.
Everyone knows that Yaya's election was not free, transparent and fair. Your
analysis is flawed in that respect. This unhinges the moral authority and
legitimacy you couch your argument in and blows your arguments to pieces.
But I will still proceed and look into your 'projects'.

Jobe, as I told you before, the difficulty Yaya supporters have is that you
want to force people to compartmentalize. We cannot look at the 'projects'
and ignore the 'atrocities'. The 'projects' are meaningless if the people do
not have the freedom to enjoy the 'benefits' of the 'projects'. We could
have ended our debate here by me pointing out that since you cannot argue
that the 'projects' are a suitable substitute for the lives of our children,
then Yaya does not deserve to lead. In other words, we want a leader that
can give us projects BUT will NOT slaughter our children. I hope you follow
me. Yaya forfeited his right to lead when he murdered those innocent and
defenseless children. He cannot use the 'projects' as a substitute for the
lives of our children. But to corner you in that line of argument would be
an easy avenue on my part. I will indulge you and discuss the developments
you stated.

First of all I will like to point out that my debate is not about the Jawara
regime. I am concerned about who is going to lead AFTER October 2001. To me
most of the comparisons you made in an attempt to knock the PPP regime, is
irrelevant to the discussion. My main contention is whether Yaya and the
APRC deserve to lead when compared with UDP, PDOIS or NRP and their leaders.
I do not know any one that argued with you that was stating that they wanted
to restore Jawara. So I do not understand why you keep dwelling in the past.
Tell us what disqualifies Sidia Jatta and qualifies Yaya to lead. One eye
among the blind is not good enough. Do not tell us what Gambia achieved in
36 years and compare that with what Gambia achieved in 29 years. Obviously
what it achieved in 36 years would be more than what it achieved in 29
years. Since you cannot argue definitively that had Jawara been there until
2001 he will not do more than Yaya in terms of development, I cannot see how
you can use Jawara's record to justify that a child murderer should lead us.
If all you can show is that Yaya did slightly better than Jawara, then
Gambians were better off with Jawara who would not order the massacre of
innocent and defenseless children.

You cannot look at Yaya's six years in isolation and say that there were two
hospitals in 30 years and we built two hospitals in seven years. You have to
look at these developments over a thirty-six year life-span. Yaya was merely
building on what the PPP left there (and what Yaya stole from the PPP).
Brings me to the origins of these projects you talked about. You highlighted
the 'Vision 2020' concept as the 'map' that made you an APRC convert. To
perpetrate your fraud, your gave us a bogus background as to how this
'Vision 2020' came about. I am glad you did not say that it came to Yaya
through a dream. You know that this concept was stolen from the Jawara
regime. This concept has nothing to do with an "in depth study of The
Gambian situation as it was in 1995, by a group of Gambians, who constituted
the National Think Tank (NATT)". Does the names Bakary Darboe, Sara Janha,
Baks Touray, NIB ring a bell to you? Have you ever heard about the
'Singapore of West Africa' concept? The grandiose plans embodied in the
'map' you tout as 'Vision 2020' were in existence long before your cohorts
stole power. This national think-tank you cited is just a fancy way of
describing people that simply sat down and plagiarized the PPP documents.
Why did you not challenge me earlier on with facts when I said that the
first AFPRC budget was a replica of the budget BB Darboe left there before
July 22, 1994? Let the members of the national think-tank come out and claim
ownership to this 'Vision 2020' concept. Let Famara Jatta come out and deny
that he plagiarized a UNDP report in his last budget where he discussed
pro-poor policies.

Jobe, we all know the same civil servants that are running the government
machinery. I am glad that you made it glaringly clear that Yaya is a
vision-less leader that is not spear-heading these 'development projects'.
That leaves us with the civil service. Who constitutes the civil service
now? Mainly a bunch of cowardly and corrupt failures that are too scared to
think straight. Cowards that even if they have good ideas would be scared to
take them to Yaya because they want to operate below the radar screen.
Batchi Baldeh just showed you what caliber of civil servants we currently
have in the country. Any Gambian worth his salt is either in the private
sector or working outside The Gambia. The question now arises: does Yaya and
the inept civil servants we currently have, possess the wherewithal to move
the country forward? If all you can do, is steal projects from PPP, then we
do not need you and your brutality and corruption?

Let us now examine the specifics of your 'projects'. Again, we cannot
isolate Yaya's seven years when we talk about education in the country. Yaya
did not educate the teachers that man the new schools. Yaya did not build
the roads that were used to transport the building materials to the villages
and towns where the new schools were being built. It is NOT true that Yaya
built a new university from scratch. Yundum College, GTTI, MDI, Nursing
School and Hotel School were there before Yaya came to power. Yaya himself
was educated by the Jawara regime. So these projects did not just drop from
the sky the past seven years. These projects built on existing achievements
by the PPP regime. Again rather than comparing 29 to 36, we should be asking
ourselves thus: If PPP was there until 2001 would they build more schools
than Yaya? If Darboe was the one that was elected in July 1994, would he
have taken the country further than Yaya? But if you really want to dwell on
the irrelevant past, you can ask yourself whether if Yaya was there from
1965, he would achieve more than PPP did in 1994. Comparing 29 years of PPP
rule and seven years of AFPRC/APRC rule is comparing apples and oranges.
Yaya's record spans over 36 years if you want to dwell in the past. He
inherited a lot from the PPP, including PPP projects and civil servants. If
it were not for PPP Yaya will be in Kanilai tapping palm wine.

Where is the wisdom in giving our children a university education and false
aspirations without providing them a job and making them productive citizens
after their education? I am not advocating here that we should condemn our
children to illiteracy. But our education policies have to be rationalized
with what is going on in the rest of society. We do not just build schools
because we want to have a building we can point to during election time. We
build schools so that children get an education and be in a better position
to contribute to society. Tell us the logic in building a school in a remote
village; asking poor farmers to send their children to school instead of
going to the farms; on top of that, you ask the farmer to use his meager
family income to pay for his child's schooling; the primary school in the
village is manned by inefficient teachers; the teachers graduate the kid and
sends him to the urban areas; the farmer is still struggling to maintain his
kid in the urban area; the kid graduates from High School and goes to the
university; he then gets a degree in hotel management; upon his graduation
he realizes that our tourist industry is going no where. Matter of fact, the
hotels are laying people off and would not hire anyone that is not a Jola
sent to them by Yaya. Now tell us how your education policies are going to
help this kid and his family? How is this man going to contribute to the
welfare of his family and the society at large? Remember, he already is
exposed to the 'good life' in the urban area. He does not want to go back to
the farm and help father. The problem with these so-called projects is that
most of these projects are just meant to perpetuate Yaya. Obviously someone
that will not hesitate to order the massacre of school children is not
concerned about the welfare of school children. These projects are for
clowns like yourself to have something to brag about to help perpetuate a
child murderer. Yes we need more schools and more universities, BUT
moreover, we need comprehensive education and human resource development
policies that will ensure that our children are educated and well equipped
to benefit society.

This is what is lacking. That is why you have all these 'projects' and then
have figures and confessions from Gambian farmers that will also tell you
that Gambians have grown poorer under Yaya's watch. The 'map' you alluded to
earlier on is not leading you to the desired objective; i.e. to make the
lives of Gambians better. Right there goes your stated basis for supporting
the APRC dictatorship. Every Gambia aspires for live, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. How are those aspirations being met by the government
that massacred 14 innocent and defenseless children in broad daylight? How
are those aspirations being met by a government that will send thugs to
people's houses to abduct them and incarcerate them incommunicado for
several months without trial? How are those aspirations being met by a
government that cannot guarantee our farmers (overwhelming majority of the
people) an environment where they can benefit from the fruits of their sweat
and toil?

On the other sectors you raised, I would just want to point out to you that
the environmental policies you talked about were already in place when Yaya
took over. Remember Jawara's long trip to the Earth Summit in Brazil?
Brusubi was also stolen from PPP. If you want to tout that I will just reply
and tell you that we would rather that Jawara (who will not massacre
innocent children) implement the project. This was not Yaya's idea. You did
not invent the Brusubi project. Where was Yaya when Kanifing and Bakoteh was
built? He was guarding Jawara and developing a deep inferiority complex and
hatred for hardworking and successful Gambians.

About communication, I am even surprised you brought the matter up in order
to give Yaya some credit. Yaya dilapidated Gamtel. Thanks to this regime,
now it is virtually impossible to get through to The Gambia via telephone.
The government raided Gamtel from the onset in order to finance ill-advised
projects, including GRTS. Not too long ago did we not read on Gambian papers
that Gamtel was crying that it risked going bankrupt if it continues to
bankroll GRTS? How did your inept government handle that debacle? They
proposed that other 'para-statals' together with Gamtel should now start
bankrolling GRTS. So, rather than bankrupting one 'para-statal', your
government now wants GRTS to bankrupt all the 'para-statals'. Is this sound
policy-making? Can you argue that UDP cannot do better than you? Can you
even argue that if Jawara was there with better civil servants he will not
do better than Yaya?

About the television, tell us the wisdom in risking to bankrupt Gamtel just
because we want a television that is seen by less than 5% of the population
(if there are no black-outs); a television that does little other than
propagating garbage from Yaya; a television that will allow a moron to stand
before a national audience and insult all our parents and threaten to bury
people six feet deep if they dare oppose his government. What do we need
that television for? Especially if it is going to cost us something more
important. Don’t you think it would have been wiser to sort out our
electricity and water (power) problem first, before embarking on a
propaganda tool for Yaya? But then, we are NOT talking about the
'aspirations' of Gambians. We are talking about what Yaya can point to come
election time.

I noticed how you conveniently brushed over the GSM (mobile phone) project.
What you do not want to talk about is that Gamtel management is furious over
the under-hand and corrupt way Yaya and Tarik Musa have treated Gamtel.
Classic case of 'monkey fend, baboon eat'. After Gamtel has spent a huge
amount of money studying and readying the project, Yaya and his unscrupulous
partners snatched the project away from them so that they can fatten their
(Yaya's and Musa's) bank accounts. We are still waiting for your promised
update on the status of the GSM fiasco.

I noticed also that you refrained from discussing the financing of these
projects and the dubious deals Yaya and his cohorts are engaged in. The
compartmentalization again. Not so fast. We will engage you on the rampant
corruption in the country when you finish touting your 'projects'. Like I
said, what is pertinent here is: where could the country and its people have
been after 36 years of independence? If Darboe was given $35 million by
Taiwan and government Decrees at his disposal and PPP project proposals,
could Darboe have achieved what Yaya achieved? As you can see, broken down
in that way, any moron can do what Yaya did. But does Gambia deserve a moron
that goes around slaughtering innocent children?
KB
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------