POLITICAL PARTIES, SECURITY CHIEFS, AND SoS MEET AT I.E.C. FOR DIALOGUE
While Dumo Sarho and Others Still Languish in a State of Limbo

Gambia is a State of contradiction. When one listens on Radio 1FM News Hour
on Sundays or receives information such as the ordering of the opening of
Citizen FM, one tends to feel that there is a trend towards tolerance of
divergent views and assertion of the independence of the judiciary.

However, when one witnesses the disappearance of people like Modou Dumo
Sarho and others, irrespective of the constitutional provisions for
detainees to be given access to counsels within three hours and to be taken
before courts within seventy-two hours, one tends to feel that the country
is plunging head on into a state of lawlessness. It is, however, our duty to
create certainty where uncertainty struggles to prevail.

This is why FOROYAA has been monitoring what is essentially the
disappearance of people like Dumo. We have contacted the Secretary of State
for the Interior and it was made clear that Dumo and others are not under
the custody of the police or the National Guard. Up to closing time on
Wednesday, 5 July 2000, we could not get confirmation as to whether Dumo and
others are not with the NIA. Is Dumo and others under the custody of the
security forces or have they simply disappeared? The State cannot be silent
on this matter.

Gambians must not keep silent in the face of arbitrary arrest, detention or
disappearance of human beings. When people are suspected of committing
crimes, the due process of law should be adhered to. People arrested are not
island to themselves. They have families and associates. They have
obligations. It is always necessary for people to know where they are
detained.

Any government which finds it difficult to safeguard its security within the
confinement of its own laws admits its own unsuitability to govern a society
comprising a sovereign people. It is, therefore, absolutely essential for
the government to look into this matter with immediacy and make
pronouncements regarding the whereabouts of Dumo Sarho and others.

On the other hand, representatives of the four political parties in the
country met at the headquarters of the Independent Electoral Commission, in
the presence of the Inspector General of Police, the Commander of The Gambia
National Army, the Secretary of State for the Interior and representative of
the Secretary of State for Justice, to discuss the political climate in the
country.

Since the press was not included, FOROYAA will avoid getting into the
details, but would recommend for a press conference to be held jointly by
all those who attended at a convenient date to explain the developments.

What is, however, evident is that there was commitment to a type of
political environment where political parties can exercise their political
rights without discrimination, and that political parties will establish a
climate of peaceful coexistence under which they would put the politics of
issues to the fore and negate politics of intimidation or provocation. The
different parties who raised the issues of intimidation and provocation are
yet to full substantiate what they mean. Future meetings may reveal concrete
examples.

All the parties were committed to evolving new political ground rules to
shape the political life of the country. The meeting ended in high spirits.
Let us hope that it will bear the fruits anticipated.

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