Thank you Halifa,
Keep up the good job.As usual,your points are as clear as the morning star for those who have the welfare of the Gambia at heart wihtout a hidden agenda.Those who endeavour to spend sleepless nights,looking for solutions to the Gambian problem.People whose heart beats in unisum with that of the ordinary Gambian.People who donīt cherish and selfishly sacrifice our long and lasting solutions to our problems for short term gain.
Steadily hold on to your bearings,l salute you.Greetings to Mother Gambia.
Praises are due to our ancestors!!
Landing Alkalo Sanyang.
----- Original Message -----
From: foroyaa <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, August 07, 2000 6:07 PM
Subject: Re: Mass Demonstrations and civil disobedience is a viable option
> Musa,
>
> Your memorandum entitled "Mass Demonstration and Civil Disobedience is a
> Viable Option" is the last to be received.
>
> The art of leadership calls for open ears. Those who seek to devise tactics
> and strategies for the transformation of society must be able to appreciate
> the concerns of the people.
>
> It has been very useful to sit back and read what others have to say on the
> way forward. You wrote: "Nonetheless, it is also abundantly clear that
> sending open letters to Mr. Jammeh may not save us from the path to a Sierra
> Leone or Liberia, and there is a need to try a different tactic. The
> suggestion to lead a civil demonstration with all political parties,
> religious groups, associations, vous and businesses would definitely bring
> some sort of response from Mr. Jammeh. He needs to understand that the
> country is not going to sit idly by and allow him to destroy the Gambia.
>
> "Mr. Sallah, it is about time to take a much more aggressive strategy and
> raise the stakes a little bit higher, and to demand from Mr.Jammeh that we
> want our country back. It is pre-determined that the 2001 elections are
> going to be rigged, people are going to be intimidated with violence and
> Jammeh will be elected for another five years."
>
> Musa, let me quote some of the reports in the Gambian press for you so as to
> help to update you on the present situation.
>
> When the UDP was denied a permit, Mr Femi Peters had an interview with the
> Gambia News and Report in its 18-24 July 2000 issue. He indicated that "We
> the UDP will continue to comply with all the legalities. We shall pursue it
> with the Police. The UDP are too clever and responsible to give the comfort
> that the Police and APRC are so provocatively looking for."
>
> He added "As usual, this party has been restraining its militants and that
> they will continue to tell them keep up with that."
>
> Furthermore, Mr Darboe was interviewed by the Daily Observer on the
> situation and he indicated the following: "They want to impose a state of
> emergency to prevent the opposition from convening political rallies. We
> have it from very good sources and I won't reveal my source, but that is the
> plan they are on; to create a situation in the country so that they could
> have an opportunity of declaring a state of emergency."
>
> Darboe further indicated "We also, through the Minority Leader, tried to
> get in touch with the Secretary of State for the Interior and we hope, as
> responsible Gambian and public officer, he will do everything in his power
> to diffuse the situation and we also hope that the IEC, as the regulatory
> body, will step in to ensure that the playing field is level, to ensure that
> all political parties have equal opportunities in propagating their views,
> in organising their membership at the grassroots level."
>
> In his interview with News and Report Magazine, in its 1-7 August 2000
> edition, Lamin Waa Juwara said: ".... Whilst they in the opposition are
> talking about reconciliation and democratic renewal, the government is
> talking of going back to the politics of the coup period....
>
> "And as a nucleus of a national conference, he said, the Independent
> Electoral Commission has created a consultative forum which the government
> has accepted to endure. He said that the consultative forum should be
> enlarged into a national conference which will provide the forum for
> opposing groups to discuss and negotiate political issues in a peaceful,
> structured environment to obvert violent conflict.
>
> "Juwara views that national conferences are predominantly a Francophone
> African phenomenon, with the exception of South Africa and Kenya. The
> concept therefore he says is originally African and should be accepted to
> President Yahya Jammeh "with his reference to European imposed democracy on
> Africans and his vague rhetoric revolution."
>
> "Juwara described such a national conference as a means of bringing together
> key political civic groups to prepare the country for a free and fair
> election and as a political forum to discuss all matters of political
> concern. The conference's key objective, he said, will be to level the
> playing field and to forge a natural consensus with the singular aim of
> restoring democracy to The Gambia to entrench, in our body politics,
> multi-partisan, freedom of association, speech, assembly and a free media.
> In such a conference, he said, all participants will enjoy equal status and
> any agreement reached must be acceptable to all, which means "nothing is
> agreed until everything is agreed."
>
> "As a conflict prevention forum, Juwara said, the IEC in this case must take
> the initiative for such a venture in consultation with the government and
> opposition parties and civic bodies including human rights organisations,
> members of the bar and bench, religious leaders, trade unionists, NGOs,
> prominent intellectuals, peasant groups, Gambian donors, as well as aid
> donors in consultation with the Senegalese government and opposition
> parties.
>
> "A follow up on implementation groups, he claimed, should be formed to carry
> out a consolidating process which will eventually lead to the translation
> into action of all issues agreed upon. One issue that will be of paramount
> importance, he highlighted, is the question of reconciliation. Such a
> reconciliation must be caused on the truth as it regards grievous human
> rights abuses since July 1994 with the aim of facilitating national
> reconciliation where both the violator and the victim can come to terms.
>
> "Juwara, citing it as an example, said in 1989 Benin was in a state of
> crisis. Mathieu Kerekou, who was installed by the military, was in power for
> 17 years with his Marxist People's Revolutionary Party. By 1990, he stated
> that Kerekou had lost control of political events, as it is beginning to
> happen in The Gambia. When repression failed, Kerekou settled for a national
> conference because he knew he was uncertain of the support of the army
> against the democratic organisation. The conference, he says, brought
> spectacular results by saving Benin from blood bath.
>
> "The conference, he said, allowed Kerekou to remain as President pending
> democratic Presidential elections and the conference decided that Kerekou
> would not be prosecuted for any crimes he had committed while in office.
> This was on condition that he abandoned his Marxist ideology and allowed the
> free legal formation and operation of opposition parties.
>
> "He says presidential elections were held in March 1991 and 13 candidates,
> including Kerekou, contested and Nicephore Sogho became President.
> "Following his decisive election defeat, Kerekou asked for forgiveness for
> abusing power during his tenure in office", said Juwara.
>
> "The outgoing dictator, he says, has pledged loyalty to the new government.
> He was given amnesty and transformed into a democrat and in a dramatic twist
> of events he contested the 1996 presidential elections and he gained power
> through democratic means as he is Benin's present President.
>
> "Juwara could then not see why the little Gambia cannot draw from the
> experience of Benin to correct all the wrongs that had been committed since
> July 1994 including the return of all confiscated properties to their
> rightful owners; to free all political detainees; to allow the return of all
> political exiles and make bold to confess all crimes committed against the
> Gambian people.
>
> "He cautioned that any attempt here to control the electoral process and
> neutralise the opposition would lead to confrontation and insecurity on both
> sides of the political divide. He expressed his agreement with Halifa
> Sallah's comment that security cannot be planted by seeds of insecurity.
>
> "He finally noted that a national conference took place not only in Benin
> but in Mali, Togo, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, South
> Africa and a few others."
>
> Musa, it is clear from this that the UDP has its own strategy of how to
> handle its own political difficulties. For your information, they have been
> granted a permit and Mr Darboe did not hesitate to advise his members to be
> law abiding. In fact, Ousainou Darboe did not hesitate to indicate that when
> the coup took place, he went to the State House to congratulate Jammeh for
> overthrowing Jawara and even took a photograph with him, but that Jammeh had
> betrayed his expectations.
>
> In early interviews, the UDP leader did indicate possibilities of serving in
> a government with Jammeh if certain conditions were put in place. On a
> lesser serious note, Lamin Juwara did even take a shot at us by indicating
> that we were carrying the APRC on our backs and when they bit us we had to
> throw them down; that in fact we were the first to attack them when they
> made their statements during the recent meeting between the Youth Action
> Group of the APRC and the President. He indicated that those who criticise
> the past regime in conjunction with the present should be taken to Campama.
> (laugh). This shows that Lamin is having fun. He added somewhere that if
> Jammeh electrifies the whole country including Dankunku, even he will join
> him.
>
> It is clear that the UDP politics has gone back to normal and that the duty
> of PDOIS is also to go back to her normal politics. I am not sure whether
> your call has not come at the wrong time. May be we will shelf it as of now.
>
>
> PDOIS' POSITION
>
> Our position is clear. When a Code of Conduct was established for the
> students, we kicked against it. The Department of State for Education
> dropped the idea. GAMSU is now holding a Mini-Congress attended by students
> from all over the country. They went about to do a sensitisation tour in the
> schools prior to the Congress. In our view, we are being taken seriously and
> we are seeing effect on the basis of the issues we raise in our letters.
>
> When the UDP was denied a permit, we refused to hold meetings until all
> existing political parties were given equal opportunity to seek the mandate
> of the people. Permit had been granted to the UDP and it has held its rally
> on Saturday. .
>
> We therefore deem our letters and methods to be effective PDOIS' position is
> that every effort must be done to ensure a climate for free and fair
> elections. PDOIS will, therefore, take any step to discredit any action and
> put pressure on the authorities to do what is necessary to ensure a climate
> for free and fair elections. Where such a climate cannot be created, PDOIS
> will not hesitate to boycott elections and do whatever is necessary to
> ensure that the will of the people prevails.
>
> For example, if the State refuses for a political party to hold rallies,
> PDOIS obviously will continue to refuse to hold rallies. If elections were
> to come without other parties holding rallies, we could not have possibly
> participated in such elections. We do not do this for the UDP but to ensure
> that we have a climate that would be conducive for change on the basis of
> the consent of the people.
>
> You have concluded that Jammeh will rig elections and there is no need to
> talk about elections. If Wade had said that, there would not have been
> change in Senegal today through the ballot box. What we would have had is
> coup d'etat after coup d'etat. History has shown that civilians do not take
> over power through civil disobedience. They only create avenues for those
> who control the guns to take power on their behalf. Civil disobedience come
> as a result of desperation as a matter of last resort when nothing works.
> Needless to say, in most cases it is again exploited by a few to spring to
> power. In fact, Abdou Diouf invited Wade to join his government when faced
> with a situation of ungovernability in Senegal. What type of government
> would you recommend and what would its composition be if it were possible to
> apply the measures you suggested?
>
> Presidential election is just one year ahead. What is more sensible is to
> put all the pressure we can to ensure that the people have the freedom to go
> to the polls to elect the persons they want to lead them instead of putting
> our hopes on some imaginary situation whose architects are yet to be
> resolved as to what alternative they want.
>
> Greetings.
>
> Halifa Sallah.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Musa Jeng <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2000 7:12 PM
> Subject: Mass Demonstrations and civil disobedience is a viable option
>
>
> > An enlightened electorate can help in the workings of democracy. PDOIS
> > has always belief that teaching people about their rights is the bedrock
> > to an open and democratic Gambia
>
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