Hi Everyone,

   The severity of the provocating statements by Mr. Hamjatta Kanteh have
prompted me to find time to post to the list the present response. Not just
that I felt particularly affected by Mr. Kanteh's remarks about MOJA, but
this would also accord me the opportunity to clear the air and attempt to
place MOJA's current torpor in perspective while ceasing the time to comment
on related matters that have in one way or another affected emotions on the
list. Much of the mud-slinging here is understandably a refelction of
current tensions on the ground in Gambia where feelings are running on high
voltage. But there has been an obvious crusade to stifle debate, stultify
important questions, by a marauding band of storm-troopers, on a mission not
only to oust the Jammeh dictatorship (a question that all progressive
Gambians should support) but to replace his regime by one whose identity
must demand serious questioning, even if i should say we better vote them in
by voting the APRC out. The language has been inflammatory, sometimes
abusive, always repelling and disengaging, furious and arrogant,sweeping and
essentialist, almost fundamentalist; moron, vermin, filth, garbage - the
vocabulary of professional scavengers. In sweeping out Jammeh, simple
decency was also being swept away from Gambia-L. In such a climate
responsible discourse is impossible. My libertarian position is averse to
any attempt at policing words, but in societies were democratic institutions
are yet to take strong roots, the deployment of irresponsible language in
the course of discussions simply razes to the ground genuine attempts to
focus on issues, saps away enthusiasm and drains away emotional energies,
opening up the terrain for demagogues, instead of enabling understanding and
enhancing knowledge. If seemingly educated Gambians can engage in so much
verbal violence can we genuinely claim innocence if the electoral campaign
degenearates into communal violence, into civil strife?

Yet the choice is easy if you, like myself, speak or write from the bunker
"security" of your  European or American home: irrespective of who wins the
elections, the majority of Gambian peasants, workers, the poor and
marginalised and the voiceless, will for years and years to come yearn for
basic Human Rights, for democracy, and for freedom from poverty, and  for
lives capable of some measure of dignity. So our concern, in my view
(obviously!) ought to be focused beyond this important but transitional
elections - and that should include even those fellow travellers who have
declared they would have signed off from this list come October 19th.


One thing that would have helped us to better understand MOJA-G's positions
on current Gambian issues and what it's response would be to various
questions, is the determination of MOJA-G's existence and how this existence
is perceived and understood to the extent that it affects current national
issues with a modicum of authority. In a number of interviews with several
media outlets in the past, Ousman Manjang reiterated the position that
MOJA-G "could be down but not out"; i.e for all practical purposes it is in
paralysis but has not been declared dead by those members who see themselves
as being in a position to issue it a death certificate; as an organisation
MOJA-G is completely bed-ridden and can therefore no longer address issues
with the sort of authority it once had. While it is possible for individual
members to challenge this position  (a consequence of MOJA-G's
organisational strucutre) a great majority of those who were once active in
MOJA-G both in Gambia and overseas should uphold the view expressed by Mr.
Manjang in his interviews. A spin-off from this condition is the simple
conclusion that whoever responds to any enquiry, even provocative ones, on
MOJA-G can simply be advancing nothing more than personal views. Granted
naturally that such a view, however biased or inadequate, perhaps may be
preferable to no view at all. That notwithstanding, it is not at all
simplistic to question Mr. Hamjatta Kanteh's motives for the provocation,
given that he directly addressed an organisation he knew quite well, was no
longer active in any meaningful way. But for the sake of intellectual
integrity, I would take Mr. Kanteh's interest as expresssions of genuine
concern for the issues he raised.



Like most political organisations, those individuals who in 1979 decided to
found MOJA-G had their motives for doing so deeply buried in the political
and social history of their country. Gambia was by all means a neo-colonial
state with a tiny economy dominated by the state and its institutions. There
were only a handful of relatively large  business houses a significant
number of which were either owned by foreign interests or naturalised Asian,
Lebanese and Syrian nationals: Maurel & Prom, Shyben Madi & Sons,
Chellarams, Sonar Stores, The Madis (who were the former owners of the
Atlantic Hotel), B. Hocheimy and Sons, CFAO amongst others. Many of these
companies have their roots in Gambia's colonial past and they entrenched
their presence in the neo-colonial economy by slowly but gradually promoting
Gambians into junior managerial positions. Also active in the commmerical
sector were basic commodities import enterprises such as Momodou Musa Njai &
Sons and Mbye Njai & Sons and a few other indegenous Gambian family
businesses. Fewer still were involved in the groundnut trade, while retail
outlets of consumer goods remained almost entirely in the hands of
Mauretanian moors. Eventhough the private sector was expanding, especially
the hotel industry, most employed Gambians were under the payroll of the
state; a condition which easily prompted the government to militate
repressively against the legitimate demands of organised labour. Added to
these, and perhaps more importantly, was the presence of foreign controlled
commercial cartels in the form of banks, construction companies, insurance
brokers all in symbiotic relations with a Gambian class of parasitic
politicians and petit-bougeiosie.


The international oil crises of 1973 dealt a heavy blow to the Gambian
economy but the effects of recession were exacerbated by gross government
incompetence and mismanagement. To pay for increased fuel cost the
government raised import duties on basic consumer goods, an exercise that
ate away wage increases of the past years. The prices of commodities soared
while the the producer price of groundnuts continued to fall. The poor
peasants in order to compensate for their lost in revenue, charged urban
dwellers more cash for locally produced agricultural goods. Backs that were
already laden with the burden of unaffordable food imports faced the added
terror of artificially created shortages. For the urban workers, price hikes
largely incurred as a result of cascading import duties on basic goods meant
a sharp fall in the value of real wages. To keep revenues at a constant
level the government embarked on a programme of mass lay-offs while in some
cases it keept wages low by threatening to hold back on permanent employment
status for workers.  Labour unrest followed, culminating in one strike
action after the other. The government responded by banning the powerful
Workers Union followed by the arrest and trial of many of its leaders in
1976/77. The lay offs and the stagnation of wages in all sectors of the
economy led to an increase in the crime rate, followed by rampant
prostitution and  drug abuse amongst the urban youth. Eventhough the
government was partly right in blamimg the oil crises and the sahelian
drought for the contry's economic woes, its continued import of luxury
goods, and the incessantly huge volumes of air travel overseas by government
officials (including the president himself) shattered any veneer of
credibility it had. Yet this state of affairs was the beginning of a
downward spiral never before known in the barely ten-year old independant
West African state.

  Within the state machinery, reports of corruption scandals overtook one
another as theft, nepotism and bribery exposed the managerial anarchy in one
ministry after another. Sums involved in these scandals measured so
significantly to the country's GDP that it became impossible to dismiss the
incidents as isolated cases of unethical administrative practice. Corruption
was, as it now is, a pathological condition in the Gambia, eating into
departmental budgets, hampering the progress of development projects, and
impeding the growth of a national moral conscience of her own. By the late
1970s, paymasters took short cuts out of the country with the salaries of
workers in briefcases, while their assistant time-keepers drew out salary
slips for unexisting workers all over the country - even in the Area
Councils; ambulance services in the country-side came to a standstill
because of a shortage of petrol, yet PWD drivers would be hosepiping gallons
of fuel into taxis for a dalasi below the market price. Drugs destined for
the out-patient wards at the RVH found their way into closets of private
pharmacies, while dispensers switched roles in to qualified medical
practitioners prescribing all sorts of drugs to illiterate peasants. Gambian
passports and birth certificates were sold to foreigners through the
services of professional dealers ("dugalanteh katt") and big men could pay
for immunity from water and elctricity bills; not only did court exhibits
disappear while in police custody but  well-connected clients could purchase
prosecution files out of existence. Officials would overprice the cost of
equipment while forging LPOs and purchase orders bled state coffers white.
In the business sector the acquisition of government contracts became
synonimous with returning kick-backs to facilitators, while obtaining bank
loans became impossible without an under-the-counter payment of a commission
to some shoddy loan officer. Issueing loans without sufficient colateral
became a notorious practice at the Gambia Commercial and Development Bank.
(Little wonder that it made a laughable operational profit of D20,000 -U$
2000 - in one particular year)!! (I remember particularly the case of an
employee -I think a son of Sefo Abu Khan - stealing D87,000? from the NTC;
and another case of high profile theft from Gambia Airways - some of you out
there must remember?). This, Gambia-Lers, is the phenomenon that the
students and youth of those days referred to as the "Rat Race".

In the political plane, the country was undergoing tremendous upheavals.
Jawara, in a shrewed and manipulative move to trim the winds in the sails of
his foremost competitiors in the PPP hierarchy, broke ranks with Sheriff
Dibba and Sheriff Ceesay. Both Dibba and Ceesay, were, in the eyes of
Mandinka traditionalists, better qualified to lead the nation, being the
sons of Chiefs, while Jawara was a mere "farabo" or "karanke" (leather
worker). Dibba formed the National Convention Party while Ceesay formed the
Democratic Congress Alliance both opposing the PPP. To humiliate Dibba
publicly, his former party buddies exposed damaging reports about his
brother's smuggling activities. Ceesay on the other hand, was made to
publicly apologise to Jawara on a particular issue (I can't remember
precisely what). The effect was that the two, who were long-time childhood
friends became bitter enemies. But the intolerable economic conditions and
the disintegration of the institutions of state coupled with a rising level
of discontent within broad cross-sections of the entire population generated
the growth of a political radicalism never before experienced in the
country. An underground paper secretly dumped at selected junctions in the
urban centres instantly captured the imagination of the entire student body
in high schools. Students and the youth simply found their grievances
concretely articulated in the pages of the newspaper which carried a strong
streak of left-wing analyses. The appearance of the Voice of The Future
catapulted an already discredit government into a frantic search for
scapegoats. Shortly afterwards another radical party, Gambia Socialist
Revolutionary Party, founded by Pengu George, also appeared on the political
scene.

On the international stage, Southern Africa was still in Chains. Ian Smith
was vowing that Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) would be ruled by white
settlers for another thousand years. The CIA was colluding with the
Apartheid regime in South Africa destabilising the entire region while
bankrolling and arming right-wing and mercenary movements bent on supressing
the struggles of African peoples for liberation from colonial and imperial
domination. Africans were being slaughtered in those countries still under
colonial rule while in those others which gained formal independence from
European and American imperialism supported all kinds of covert insurgencies
to destabilise and destroy local experiments at democratisation. Concrete
support for the struggles of African peoples came from the socialist block
of countries. Guinea-Bissau was free but still bled profusely from gory
injuries sustained in the bloody struggle for independence from a viciously
brutal and fascist Portuguese colonial domination led by Amilcar Cabral;
Steve Biko had just been killed; while Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki, Kathrada,
Luthuli, Waochopi, and many other leaders of the anti-Apartheid struggle
languished in prison - almost forgotten by the world. In the U.S, African
Americans waged violent struggles for civil rights and against racial
oppression and discrimaination. All over the world oppressed peoples were
fighting for liberation from all kinds of exploitative and opressive orders.

This, from my perspective, is how the world looked like (from Kartong,
anyway) when in December 1979, a group of Gambians concerned with the plight
of their country, and inspired by and informed with the struggles of other
people for basic Human Rights, decided to form  a political organistion
called the Movement for Justice in Africa - Gambian section. The choices
were even then pretty simple, but within a year they were even going to be
much simpler:

The cleansing services in Banjul collapsed making the invasion of that
island by swarms of giant mosquitoes a nocturnal nightmare; the irregular
supplies of electricity and water became even more erratic making life in
the slums unbearable. During the parliamentary budget session of 1981, the
Minister of Health admitted that infant mortality rate had risen to a
horrible 33%!! Almost all the parastatals, GPMB, GUC (Give Us Candles, young
Gambians humurously translatedit), Gambia Ports Authority, Gambia Public
Transport Corporation, and the Agricultural Development Bank together made
cumulative losses of more than D30 million -much of this loss incurred
through theft and various white-collar crimes and the failure of departments
to own to their debts.

In October 1980 six MOJA members found at Koro Sallah's residence in
Half-Die were arrested by an armed contingent of the Field Force. During an
intense campaign for their release in March 1981, violent riots broke out at
Yundum Training College and the Anglican Vocational Training Centre for
better conditions leading to the dismissal of many students and the closure
of campuses. In April anti-riot police stormed the Albert market to suppress
strikes by market women and stall-keepers against higher stall tax; during
the same month radio announcers petitioned for better working conditions but
were dismissed despite widesprpead public sympathy for their demands. On the
1st May workers demonstrated at the MacCarthy  Square with their grievances
scrawled on colourful placards demanding amongst other things that a stop be
placed on the practice of perpetual daily-paid labour. (I was there and no
other than O J captured the hearts of the workers when he condemned the
injustices suffered by the workers and promised he would march with them to
the State House the very next day.
The president, we later learned, in his characteristic answer to the
grievances of the workers promised he " would look into it". Later that
month, dock workers met in one of the town halls, threatening strike action
for more pay, insurance and pension rights. On June 30, members of the
workers union defiantly met to rebuild their banned union.

On and on and on continued the struggle for basic rights and rice, for
better education and against corruption and nepotism, and against a decadent
regime that was leading the country into a dark and dreary abyss. For years
the PPP government was unable to muster the moral courage to self-criticism
and lacked any plausible formula to solve the deepening crises. On July 31
that year all these contradiction exploded into a rebellion led by Samba
Kukoi.
That morning about a dozen MOJA members met to deliberate on what to do in
the circumstances. A majority of them agreed that they would remain calm and
would not as a matter of principle support the coup; but they would arm
themselves to defend the country in case of any violent Senegalese
inrtervention. In that fight many of its members died while some eventually,
spent years in detention at Mile II prisons. Others were forced into exile.

MOJA was not a romantic organisation intoxicated with adventurist heroism.
It was a determined group of people many of whom  sacrified their lives for
the improvement of the Gambian condition.

(to be continued)

Momodou S Sidibeh
Stockholm/Kartong

(To avoid confusing me with another Modou Sidibeh on the list kindly note
that I am neither from Serrekunda nor Gunjur - in case Amadou Janneh implies
otherwise)

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