Mr Bah,

I will judiciously ignore your scurrilous and snide remarks. Suffice to say
that they are baseless and irrelevant.

As per your comment how informed i am about the situation on the ground, i
can assure you that i'm very informed about the general political situation
back home. Matter of fact when the scheduled Opposition meeting was going on
today, i was duly informed of the players and constituents involved and the
circumstances. In this age of the internet and wireless communications, you
would be surprised the extent to which people are informed about things in
far off places and remote corners of the globe. Never assume that just
because we happen to be temporarily residing outside the Gambia means we are
totally in the dark about what goes on in the country - generally.

Some of the comments in your previous correspondence are plainly a distortion
of how things chanced. For instance you commented:

"Are you aware that the UDP had made an announcement endorsing Darboe as its
presidential candidate and are to
launch their campaign on the 18th. of August? Are you aware that only the PPP
endorsed Darboe's candidature
at a meeting which was suppose to be an all opposition party meeting without
any invitation to PDOIS or NRP?"

This is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. For starters, all parties -
registered and non-registered - were duly invited to attend this meeting.
Certainly, it was the case that the PDOIS was formally informed of this
meeting as was case with the NRP. As it happened, the NRP leader was out of
town and the meeting had to be re-scheduled twice in lieu of this. Only this
because of time constraints, was the meeting allowed to progress ahead
without the NRP leader partaking in the political horsetrading. So it was
grossly misinforming - to say the very least - your assertion that both NRP
and PDOIS weren't invited to the talks. I repeat ALL parties were invited to
take in the said talks. As i understand it, the NRP leader has conveyed
through third parties its endorsement - in principle - of how these talks
were generated and progressed. One shouldn't be surprised to see Hamat Bah
endorsing the current Alliance plans upon his return.

Contrary to what you said, it was not the UDP that exclusively selected Mr
Darbo to lead the coalition; rather, it was OJ who put forward Mr Darbo's
name as a leader of the Alliance and this was seconded by the majority of the
delegates. It was only after this nomination that Mr Dibba felt that he
couldn't be part of the current scheme of things because he felt he had to
lead the coalition. That is a regrettable and regressible development. But it
is not true that it was the PPP and the UDP that exclusively conspired and
colluded by nominating and seconding Mr Darbo's ascension to the leadership
of the Alliance. It is, therefore, a fabrication of how things materialised
to suggest that PDOIS or any other party was stitched out of partaking in the
negotiations. Or to say there was a PPP-UDP conspiracy that treacherously
plotted against the other parties - as your correspondence seemed to me to
suggest. Furthermore, it ought to be claified here again that it was not the
UDP which announced Mr Darbo as their presidential candidate and that they
will begin their campaign on the 18th of August. Rather, this was an Alliance
position and not a unilaterally imposed UDP one.

PDOIS' lack of engagement in the current scheme of things and its desire to
start sullking again about being left out is no one's fault but its own
making. By their own admission, PDOIS acknowledged through it's political
organ, Foroyaa, that the UDP had invited ALL parties to join it on its
campaign trail but it [PDOIS] failed to seize the initiate and engage the UDP
and the other parties on issues that are common to all parties. Instead, it
is now descending to its old pastime of phobic PPP and Jawara caricatures and
unwittingly doing Jammeh's dirty work for him. If PDOIS is serious about an
Alliance it would have proactively reached out to the others with open-minded
altruism, generate their trust that ultimately will act as a repository of
mutual cooperation without which an Alliance will ultimately flounder.
Despite the hisses and sulks that emanated from the PDOIS, it has never
publicly initiated mechanism that can help finesse any obstacles that might
later hinder an Alliance progrss. PDOIS also whined and sulked about a lack
of agenda and a framework for possible cooperation with the other parties.
Did PDOIS take the initiative by coming up with an agenda and a framework
that can be used as basis for mutual cooperation with the other parties?
Rather, PDOIS, through its political organ, Foroyaa, whined and sulked about
how they are being left out the scheme of things. Oh, and reducing the paper
into a recycling plant of APRC rumours and disinformations. Is this the way a
party interested in cooperation handles itself? Does sniping maliciously
about your would-be Alliance partners in your paper the way to win their
confidence and trust? Gauging by the manner in which it has goofed on the
Alliance progress, i want to suspect that PDOIS has misgivings - that it has
never bothered spelling out to the public - that was left with no choice but
to sulk and whine incessantly about what have done or might have done. PDOIS
has no one to blame for its predicament but itself.

Take for instance PDOIS' lack of attendance of yesterday's talks. Having
weighed the evidence, it seems to me PDOIS exploited the procedural
discrepancies of not receiving an official letter from the convenor of the
said talks and decided not to attend the talks on such flimsy grounds. This
is lamentable. For none of the other parties that attended the talks received
no official letters from the convenor of the said talks. Yet, that never
stopped them from attending the talks. This is not the first PDOIS has used
such dissembling arguments to masquerade their unwillingness to be part of
the collective effort. With the London Briefing Sessions, it used similar
subterfuges an excuse not to attend that as well. The fact of the matter is
that of all the good things that can be said of the PDOIS, cooperation with
the mainstream parties ain't amongst them. PDOIS has simply shown that it has
a deep seated ambivalence towards the Alliance from the moment it was mooted.
PDOIS was never honest enough to publicly state this deep seated ambivalence.

Ultimately, i respect PDOIS' right to do as they deem fit or as their
consciences dictate to them. Similar respects are extended to Mr Dibba and
the NCP. I hope, before it is too late, Mr Dibba can be persuaded that his
party's interest is best served by joining the Alliance and working with them
to defeat the dictatorship. What, however, would be unbecoming of the PDOIS
is to start working unwittingly for the APRC by doing its dirty for it; i.e.,
 whipping up anti-  PPP sentiments and caricatures to the extent that it
serves as an allure to the dictatorship. That, in my opinion, would do PDOIS
no favours. For it is such retrogressive acts that strengthen the hand of the
devil that continues to wreak havoc on Gambian lives and the Gambia. I
sincerely hope that PDOIS this time around heeds the writings on the wall.

Hamjatta Kanteh

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