Hamjatta,

We have been very busy with more important matters. I have just been going
through the printouts and came across your piece: "Strengthening The Hand Of
The Devil: African Leftists And Dictatorships".

There is nothing wrong in being a critic. However, if you were to
rely on historical evidence instead of prejudices, you would not have failed
to come to the conclusion that the likes of Nkrumahs and Nyereres did not
prevail in most African countries. Those you classified as the "Left" were
pushed off the political centre stage, and the Houphiet Boignys, Mobutus,
Bandas, Bokassas held sway. In fact, throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, it is
those you classified as the "Left" who found themselves in prisons and
underground movements struggling against tyrants.

I am sure your so-called Leftists can never be seen to have been the bed
fellows of the Mobutus, the Bokassas, the Bandas of Africa. Anyway, I will
take you on this subject at a later date by relying on accurate historical
records. My schedule is too busy to do that now. Moreover, I do not know
what criteria you utilise to classify people as Marxists, Pan Africanists or
African Leftists, and I do not want to raise these issues at the moment
since there are more important things to attend to in The Gambia.

Secondly, you talked about the bankruptcy of Socialism as a system of
economic management. What is best for you, Hamjatta, is to open up your mind
and read anything that you can put your hands on. Political science is not a
game where one classifies players into "Leftists" and "Rightists" and then
take sides. Human social organisation needs to be studied in order to have
greater understanding of how to become the architects of free and prosperous
societies.

I was just reviewing the Human Development Report for the year 2000 and was
just curious what the rating of Cuba was, even though we do have our
critical conception of how the leadership manages its politics. What is
interesting, Hamjatta, is that Cuba is rated 56th. The closest African
country in rating after Cuba is the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which is rated
72nd. South Africa is next and is rated 103rd. No  "Leftists" has ever ruled
Kenya, which is rated 138th, or Cote d'Ivoirie, which is rated 154th or
Senegal, which is rated 155th.

What you people should be asking is why African countries, irrespective of
whether they claim to be "Left" or "Right" have been wallowing in the abyss
of poverty and despotism. This is what you should occupy yourself with
instead of allowing your brains to be clogged with cold war propaganda which
have no relevance to our time and circumstances.

Political science is not a religion. "Leftist"  and "Rightist" camps are
sectarian classifications. What we need now are African thinkers with
holistic conceptions of history, society and the State. This can only be
acquired through the pursuit of knowledge without harbouring any prejudices.
The new African thinker must be exposed to all sources of information
knowing fully well that ideas are mere guides to our understanding of the
world and action to change the world to address our needs and aspirations.

I had also assumed that we have finished with the old debates and are now
paving a new path of constructive engagement. I have seen that in your
posting you sank back to old allegations. I will, however, treat these in a
different way this time so that we can move ahead. The Labour Party has
invited PDOIS to its annual conference in September. If you will promise me
that you will organise a forum for us to engage in debate on all issues you
wish to raise, I would try to convince our Central Committee to allow me to
come to Britain and face those critics that you have always mentioned. This
will be the best forum to thrash out some of these issues you are still
dwelling on.

However, I will take you on few points in order to clarify issues further.
You wrote: "In his defence, albeit in a different context, of Nkrumah's
enlightened dictatorship, our esteemed friend Halifa Sallah made a
crypto-apologetic plea that the period needed Nkrumah operated under needed
strong assertive leaders and hence it follows from such logical progression,
excesses and trampling of rights is conceivable and indeed prudent."

Hamjatta, this is not the way to encourage a healthy debate. You do not
attribute to others what they did not say and argue vehemently to prove that
they are apologists of a person or phenomenon. If you had followed all our
writings on Nkrumah, you will detect two tendencies. One tendency is to take
on critics who wish to treat him as a historical villain. The other is to
take on those who want to romanticise Nkrumah into an "Osagyefo" (saviour).
Our position has always been that Nkrumah is neither a historical villain or
an "Osagyefo". He is a historical personage who was among those who
pioneered the national liberation movement against colonialism, just like
the George Washingtons pioneered the national liberation movement against
British colonialism. We do not, in anyway, object any exposure of any wrong
that had been done. What we object to is the cold war propaganda which try
to classify him as a villain, whilst projecting the George Washingtons as
national heroes.

In fact in some of the past exchanges, I did make it categorically clear
that I do not belong to the school of thought of the Nyereres and I did
indicate to you concrete reasons why that was the case. Any student of
history would know that the movement for national liberation in many
countries were led by strong nationalist leaders who were sometimes
monarchically inclined or had taken on the spirit of republicanism. They are
usually treated as national heroes for combating national oppression and
effecting national liberation under difficult circumstances. I do not think
that there is any honest African who fails to understand Nkrumah's
contribution to the liberation of the African continent.

However, we have always maintained that the major shortcoming of the African
nationalist movement is the failure to link political independence to the
empowerment of the people by enlightening and organising them to become the
true architects of their own destiny. How can you assert that I have ever
said that Africa needs strong leaders with firm hands? Can you quote where I
had ever made such a remark which is so contradictory to everything that
PDOIS stands for?

Furthermore, I cannot understand how you come to this comparison between
Nkrumah and Jawara. I only hope that you are not saying that we should
equate Nkrumah to Jawara. I hope you know your own history and how Jawara
came to be the leader of the PPP. We do not need to go into such an issue.

Finally, you wrote: "The biggest surprise however came from the
PDOIS/Foroyaa elites who wittingly and unwittingly have given this barbaric
regime both comfort and allure to their poses. For reasons perhaps best
known to themselves, they appointed themselves resident intellectuals of a
so called transition process, continuously tossing about favourable feelers
to Jammeh and even openly calling upon him to stand for elections to
legalise himself. This, in the face of massive evidence of Jammeh's
treachery. As if these were not enough, engaged in intellectually shoddy and
pseudo-scientific pretentious "investigation" into the murder of Koro Ceesay
and the question of the Gambia's missing millions siphoned off to
Switzerland by Jammeh of which the New African Magazine did a very lucid
reporting of. From ferocious critics of Jawara, they metamorphosed into low
risk and soft critics of the Jammeh era. An era unrivalled in the annals of
our history as barbaric and despotic. Anytime they make feeble attempts to
critique Jammeh, there is always the Jawara experience which they
incessantly parade alongside Jammeh's excesses. Their shameful complicity in
strengthening the hand of Jammeh is a stark emphasis of what I earlier
called the relativism they employ when it serves their ideological stripes
and purposes. My indictments stand."

Hamjatta, your indictment has become weak. In fact it exposes the weaker
side of you which I thought you would have conquered by now. It reveals that
you are just full of sentiments which get the bigger side of you.

You have said that PDOIS strengthened Jammeh. Can you name the members of
the first cabinet constituted by Jammeh and point out the people you
classify as "Leftists", especially PDOIS members in such a cabinet? I am
sure the whole cabinet would fall under the category of people you will
classify as "non-Leftists". Here PDOIS stands honourably by refusing cabinet
posts when the coup occurred and instead was the only political party which
called for the respect of all political parties instead of banning them when
the coup occurred. It called for a democratic constitutional order and
asserted that the only way those who have taken over power could remain in
power is by joining the contest to seek the mandate of the people. This was
said on 24 July 1994, two days after the coup, when your Bakary Darboes were
waiting to come from Senegal to take up their cabinet posts.

Hamjatta, it was during this time that genuine democrats, like you pretend
to be, should have joined PDOIS to call on all the political parties to
refuse to be banned like PDOIS refused to be banned, call on your members of
the House of Representatives where you had the Sheriff Dibbas, the OJs and
the Lamin Juwaras to also stick to their guns and call on the coup makers to
negotiate with civil society for the type of transition that would create a
level playing field. Instead of doing this, PDOIS was left alone to stand
against the odds. Youths like you were condemning PDOIS for not joining the
youthful leadership. Youths like you preferred to join the bandwagon in
support of the coup. The other political parties accepted to go on leave and
criticised the PDOIS people for not being on the same wave-length with
people. The Yahya Jammeh you people criticise as having low education
managed to manipulate your Bakary Darboes; frightened your cabinet ministers
and members of the House of Representatives; drove them into quietitude and
once it became clear that there was no longer a unified opposition they
decided to take on PDOIS by creating the Political Activities Suspension
Decree which the PDOIS leadership decided to challenge. Young people, like
you who believe that democracy should be defended, did not come to the court
houses in their tens of thousands to make us a force to be reckoned with
until the case was finished.

Hamjatta! Hamjatta!! who really strengthened Jammeh? I was just searching
for the article you wrote in defence of Ngaga Ceesay who wrote to challenge
our position that constitutions are not necessarily a phenomenon of western
origin meant to govern western societies, but were a necessary instrument
for republican governance, after Ebou Jallow, the then Spokesperson of the
AFPRC, called Jammeh to be a "hout bu sa maan", and that constitutions were
alien western phenomena.

If you want us to continue this debate, I will bring all the materials to
Britain if you organise the forum I have proposed.

Now, after waiting until Jammeh has consolidated power, we struggled with
our "tiny, isolated force" to use every tactic to make our contribution for
a transition to be effected. Those who were sleeping all the period suddenly
found that Jammeh had consolidated power and then wanted something to be
done, but never came to a decision as to what they should do. This is your
problem. This is also the problem of many Gambians who either joined the
bandwagon or were waiting on the way side hoping that something acceptable
to them will emerge from the blue.

You have been trying to give a very wrong picture of PDOIS throughout by
indicating that in criticising the wrongs of the past, we are strengthening
the hands of the doers of the wrongs of the present. This is your opinion.
The only unfortunate thing is that you rely on an opinion to indict those
who do not subscribe to it. It is our conviction that the only people who
are disturbed by our approach to criticise the past and the present are the
apologists of the past and those who have been misled by their propaganda.
What we have discovered here is that those who support the APRC can never be
won over from the APRC by condemning the APRC while praising the past regime
or remaining silent about its wrongs. People consider those who criticise
the wrongs of the past and the present as being very objective and sincere.
We, therefore, will continue to expose everything that was wrong in the past
as well as everything that is wrong in the present.

Finally, the impression you give that we were more confrontational during
Jawara's regime than APRC regime is simply not accurate. PDOIS has never
been a confrontational party. If we were, we would not have survived the PPP
era. There were times when alkalolu took cutlasses to threaten us not to
hold meetings in their villages; yet we never hesitated to hold meetings in
any village. What has always been the result of holding such meetings is to
earn the respect of people who always concluded that we were preaching to
the people and not engaged in politics. At that time, and until now, people
felt that what opposition meant was simply to stand and insult a government
and its supporters. The reason why PDOIS never engaged in confrontational
politics is because of our understanding that the people are the owners of
power; that since that power belongs to them those who wish to represent
them should put their programmes before them to seek their consent. PDOIS
has always been opposed to usurpation of power by few individuals. We have
always stood for the empowerment of the people.

In our view, the people require two instruments to be empowered, that is,
enlightenment and organisation. PDOIS has seen it as its fundamental duty to
contribute its quota towards enlightening and organising the people so that
they can freely make enlightened choices. We have never induced anybody nor
intimidated anyone to support PDOIS. We will never induce anyone or
intimidate any person to support PDOIS. This we have carried out in
practice, not only in words.

We also do recognise that the governments of the day may pose obstacles to
the exercise of rights and freedoms prior to change. We have seen it as our
duty to put pressure on such governments in whatever way necessary to get
them to respect those fundamental rights and freedoms.

We have also maintained that where a government obstructs all avenues for
the exercise of the right of the people to change their manner of government
and do everything in its power to impose tyranny over the people, we reserve
the right to be one with the people to do whatever is necessary to abolish
such tyranny.

This has been the principle of PDOIS since its inception during Jawara's
period and it is still its principle. In that respect, if in your
classification we are considered "Leftists", then this group of so-called
"Leftists" in The Gambia has proven in words and in practice to be the only
force capable of enlarging democracy in the country, since it is the only
force which seeks the consent of the people without inducing or intimidating
them but by simply putting their programme before them to seek their
mandate.

History, of course, is the final judge. We, therefore, are not afraid of
standing before its court tomorrow to be heard. You are free to indict us.
We are also free to say that history will absolve us.


Greetings.

Halifa Sallah.





----- Original Message -----
From: Hamjatta Kanteh
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 9:18 PM
Subject: Strengthening The Hand Of The Devil: African Leftists And
Dictatorships



Let me begin with a disclaimer. Exposing the witting and unwitting
unapologetic complicity of Pan Africans of Marxist persuasions of all
stripes with brutal crackpot African dictatorships that I intend to labour
on here, is not a retrospective act of holier-than- than moral excoriation
by a former closet Liberal who ironically did guzzle from the same fountain
well of Pan African Marxism. Rather, it should be viewed in the light of
historical hindsight, and setting the scorecards straight.

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