This piece was this morning mailed to some senior members of the British
Government: the Prime Minister, Tony Blair MP; the Foreign Secretary, Jack
Straw MP; the Development Secretary, Clare Short MP. The piece was also
forwarded to my MP and the two main Opposition parties of the UK. I hope, by
this piece, to renew the clarion call for those who can aid our efforts to
defeat the cancerous disease in our country, to remember us as our battle for
decency in the Gambia reaches a make or break point as we enter the crucial
presidential elections of October 2001. I hope i can succeed in pricking a
conscience or two.
All the best,
Hamjatta Kanteh
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******************
The Gambia: The Writings on the Wall
On Wednesday 28th February, 2001, three British Labour MPs - Jeremy Corbyn,
Diane Abbott, and John McDonnell - delegates from some of The Gambia's local
political Opposition, the Gambian Diaspora in the UK, concerned friends of
the Gambia, representatives of international organisations interested in
governance and development issues on the African continent and
representatives of both the British media [interested in African affairs] and
the Gambian print media convened at Committee Room 10 at the House of Commons
to hear briefings from members of the Gambian Opposition on the rapid
deterioration of the social, economic and political situation in the Gambia.
This gathering of peoples from all walks of life and diverse opinions marked
a watershed in Gambian history; especially, as it relates to the new
political assertiveness the Gambian Diaspora has of late demonstrated. The
Gambian Diaspora was ready to be part of the diverse stakeholding that
accounts for modern political entities in an increasingly submerging world
where events at even remote corners of the world have the cumulative effects
of pricking world conscience into moral indignation and action. Of
fundamental importance here also is that this House of Commons Committee Room
10 gathering marked the inaugural event of a movement that has undertaken a
civic response to the catalogue of rapidly deteriorating events - which if
left unattended, could amount to another African tragedy. This movement -
Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in the Gambia, United Kingdom or
MRDGUK, as its acronym goes - has since that inaugural event of Committee
Room 10, made it a sacrosanct duty to respond morally to this rapid
deterioration of the political, economic and social situation in the Gambia.
To understand the philosophical rationale of the movement and how the Gambia
got to be where she is right now, a thumb-nail sketch of events that has
mutated into this degeneration of things in the Gambia, is well in order.
Since July 22nd 1994, when some junior military officers dislodged the
democratically elected government of Sir Dawda Jawara, the Gambia had lurched
back and forth from the precarious to the uncertain. Indeed, for the first
since her existence as a sovereign nation-state, the Gambia began an Odyssey
typical of African crackpot military dictatorships: bad governance, economic
mismanagement, looting of State coffers, gross Human Right abuses,
intolerance of the opposition, the gradual withdrawal of basic civil
liberties, disregard of the due process of the law and in extension the
rolling back of the frontiers of an independent judiciary. To be sure, all
was not rosy with the old order that the military replaced. If anything, the
ancien regime was a benign autocratic capitalist functioning pluralist
political system - which while deficient on the rigorous machinations of
probity, open-ness and accountability of older democracies of, say,
Westminster, was relatively equipped to guarantee basic civil liberties, a
functioning and impartial civil service and most importantly, the due process
of the law. With the military and July 22nd 1994, all these became part of
the country's receding past.
Initially, the military remained impervious to demonstration on the need to
a return to democratic governance as soon as feasible. Indeed, it set up a
four-year timetable in which it enumerated a detailed and very ambitious
programme for a return to the democratic process. This was unacceptable to
both Gambians and friends of The Gambia. And when push came to shove [mainly
through the Major government's laudable and effective travel advice, the US
and EU suspension of aid to the regime], the regime was literally forced to
see sense in reducing their initial time table from four to two years and in
the event quickening the pace of the democratisation process. As it happened,
the result was a consultative exercise, which saw the reaching of a consensus
that will pave the way for a very smooth transition to democratic governance.
Needless to say - and this shouldn't surprise anyone - things didn't go that
smoothly. The ruling military junta - The AFPRC - managed to manipulate that
consensus to its advantage and the result was a Jerry Rawlings [who
maintained a mentor relationship with the junta from day one] type of
pseudo-democratic set up in which the military junta transforms into a
political party and rigs the elections in its favour. On the 26th of
September 1996, the military junta held elections and with the stage set for
electoral fraud, won hands down.
However, elections or no elections, virtually little has changed in the
Gambia. To be sure, the inauguration of the Second Republic did to an extent
liberalise the tyrannical and despotic impulses of the regime. Yet, the
withdrawal of basic civil liberties, corruption, the bludgeoning to death of
the independence of both the judiciary and the civil service, disregard of
the due process of the law, economic mismanagement and political repression -
especially of the political opposition - remained the order of the day albeit
the quasi democratisation. The political repression reached a crescendo on
April 10th last year when students went out peacefully in the streets to
demonstrate their disgust of the regime's handling of two of their colleagues
who were abused by security forces; one of whom was raped [a young teenager]
and the other also a youth still in his teens who subsequently died as a
result of the tortures he received from the authorities. In the event, the
head of State and commander in chief of the armed forces, Yahya Jammeh,
reportedly told the Vice President to "deal with them" - the students. The
result was an unprecedented butchering of some 15 people [mainly students
with a child as young as three, a journalist and a Red Cross volunteer],
maiming of school children and wanton destruction of property.
Even after this, the regime remained remorseless and unrepentant in its
tyranny against the Gambian people. Under pressure, it set up a commission to
investigate the April incidents, the Report of which - together with that of
the Coroner's Inquest - it callously dumped into the bin refusing to
prosecute anyone as the Reports advised. To this very day, none has been
brought to justice for these heinous crimes committed against Gambian
children as young as three. Against such a backdrop, the Blair government,
and contrary to common decency, went ahead and re-established military
cooperation with the same criminals who gunned down children as young as
three. Nothing could be more callous. Coming right after a very repressive
military butchering of school children, the re-establishment of this military
cooperation with the Jammeh regime was like rubbing salt in a festering
wound. When petitioned on the rationale behind this retrogressive move, the
FCO took the usual official escape routes. As Nicholas Hackett of the FCO's
Gambia desk puts it to a concerned Gambia, "the Gambia has repeatedly proven
herself ready to support international peacekeeping efforts under UN auspices
in trouble like Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Kosovo. This was
a key factor in our decision to support Sandhurst training for Gambian
Subaltern: we are keen to support Gambian efforts to create professionals
capable of carrying out its international and domestic duties to the fullest
extent possible."
Needless to point out that this is humanitarianism turned topsy-turvy:
sending murderers to police potential or indicted murderers. This is just
akin to helping train Milosevic's thugs so they can go and help police thugs
in, say, East Timor. Be that as it may, it remains to be seen how such
military assistance could help things in a country that is under the same
yoke of oppression that the mandarins of the FCO believe the likes of Kosovo
are suffering from to warrant humanitarian intervention. Perhaps, if Hackett
and his seniors read the recent US State Department Report on the Gambia
[http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2000/af/index.cfm?docid=799], they will
have a rethink on the Gambia. Or better still read the damning UN report on
the Blood-Diamond trade, in which the Gambian government was severely
indicted and sanctions recommended against it. This is a regime known to
harbour, aid and sympathize with insurrectionists fighting for independence
in Southern Senegal.
Added to this bleak vignette of political repression, is a general economic
meltdown that has seen the Gambia's economic performances plummeting from bad
to worse. Without a productive base to sustain the economic vandalism of the
ruling elites with their total disregard of international law as it relates
to foreign investors, the Gambian economy is experiencing its worst ever
inflationary upsurge as basic commodities hiked to over 100% whilst consumers
spending powers keep dwindling with the aid of a depreciating national
currency. This economic malaise is not helping the repressed, increasingly
restless and forlorn Gambian populace.
It is not too late for the Blair government to rectify its phenomenal foreign
policy misjudgment in a country that is ever lurching precariously to what
Rwanda was like before the genocide. And like Rwanda, the writings are on the
wall. The year 2001 is a make or break year for the Gambia - if left
unattended. In October, the country is due to hold presidential elections and
all indications are that a repeat of the electoral fraud of the1996
presidential elections is being hatched or is in the making. The only
difference is that this time around civilians - morally bolstered by the
recent wave of despots being beaten at their own games around the globe - are
ready to go that final mile of head-on confrontation should the incumbency
steal the elections. That can mean anything; internal civil strife and in the
extreme, the Gambian going down the abyss of anarchy - if things are left
untempered. And if the Gambia goes down, rest assured it will with the whole
sub-region. It will not spare the modest gains that neighbouring Senegal has
achieved in her social, political and economic pursuits since the government
of Liberal Wade came to power. It is not too late for the Blair government to
set an imperium vis-à-vis containing and diminishing the brutality of the
regime by ensuring that any form of cooperation is hinged on - and this is to
paraphrase a recent Economist editorial - commitment "to honest government,
free elections, a tolerance of dissent and the unfettered rule of the law".
Also the Blair government should do all that is within its powers to pressure
the regime to come to its senses by complementing the decent efforts of the
democratic forces in the campaign to renew decency in that part of Africa. In
the final analysis - and like all other troubled spots of Africa - the
writing is on the wall: Left unattended, the Gambia could unleash another
Great Lakes type of situation in that sub-region of Africa.
Hamjatta Kanteh
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