Ebrima

    Is there a text copy of Jammeh's speech on July 22nd and his
statement to the APRC Youth Wing.  Can you forward me a copy or let me
know how I can access these.  Thanks.

                                    Jamila
______________________________________________________________________


--- ebrima ceesay <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Gambia-L:
>
> I listened in amazement this afternoon to Yahya Jammeh's speech,
> brought to
> me in the UK courtesy of GRTS, marking his 6-year anniversary in
> public
> office!  Quite honestly, I was incredulous and quite bewildered by
> what I
> heard. Indeed, Yahya Jammeh's words to mark six years of his impotent
> regime's attempts to govern our nation, confirmed what many of us
> have been
> suspecting for so long - namely that the man "has lost it": that he
> is in
> the terminal stages of psychosis and rapidly approaching total mental
> breakdown.
>
> Even the photograph of Jammeh that GRTS used three times (!!) to
> illustrate
> the bulletins showed us a man with apparent "health" problems: did
> you note
> as I did, the thickened facial and body features of a person in a
> terrible
> condition of decline? And the voice?  Well, he certainly sounded
> close to
> hysteria. I shall come later to the content of what the man said to
> his
> audience.
>
> But before that, I must tell you that just yesterday afternoon, one
> of my
> unimpeachable sources in the heart of the Government, reported to me
> about
> Jammeh's constant daily habit of getting a "Gambia-L Fix"!  Jammeh is
> so
> desperate to know the true situation in our country and the thinking
> of
> Gambians abroad about his despotic regime that he spends many hours
> on a
> daily basis accessing our postings and acting on them! Early on
> Friday
> morning, my source assures me, Yahya read the third of my messages to
> all
> Gambians: his immediate reaction was to change his mind about getting
> Isatou
> Njie-Saidy or Susan Waffa-Ogoo to deputise for him at Saturday's
> march past.
>
> Instead, to prove that he was mentally okay and governmentally
> soundly in
> control, he jumped alone into one of the government Jeeps garaged at
> Kanilai
> and without the usual escorts, made the perilous journey along the
> south
> bank road heading for Banjul. To his dismay, heavy traffic in
> Kanifing
> brought solitary driver Jammeh and Jeep to a halt: jumping down from
> the
> driver's seat, our so-called "leader" was totally shocked and
> humiliated
> when people in the vicinity, who in the past would have crowded
> around him
> with praises, waving and hand shaking, refused even to acknowledge
> his
> presence in any way.
>
> He was forced into using his personal mobile phone to ask the
> Kanifing
> police for assistance in reaching Banjul. It was then that a police
> siren
> came to escort him from the Jimpex area and drove in front of him to
> Banjul.
> We could only guess at his state of mind upon reaching State House,
> and we
> could only pray that they opened the gates and let him in.
>
> How good it is to know that Jammeh attends to our messages on the
> Gambia
> List, and that our sources in The Gambia are providing such
> impeccable and
> detailed information about Jammeh's everyday plans and activities.
> The
> interventions of those of us who are posting messages on the List are
> increasingly crucial in getting Jammeh to "act" in response to OUR
> news and
> views! If we can continue to exert this sort of pressure and strategy
> on
> Jammeh, then the future is ours! Fellow Gambia L-ers! Please, be
> assured
> that we are having a potent effect on the regime and on Jammeh
> himself: let
> us do all in our power to keep the postings going and see the back of
> the
> Butcher of Kanilai.  Believe it or not, we are now having a
> tremendous
> effect on Yahya's thinking and actions, even on the smallest of
> matters.
>
> Now, back to today's GRTS news bulletin - couched in very careful
> language
> indeed, it neglected to tell us from where Jammeh was speaking. Could
> it be
> that the man had decided to remain behind the Moroccan fortifications
> of
> State House to make his speeches, or did he brave the gathered
> "multitudes"
> of well-wishers and school children marching past the crumbling Arch
> 22?
> Only time will give us the answer to these questions - certainly not
> the
> ambiguous GRTS.
>
> I could not believe my ears when I listened to the content of the
> man's
> speech.  How dare he boast of six year's of social and economic
> (under)
> development and call them "hall marks". How dare he suggest that his
> (supposed?) achievements were "much to the satisfaction and well
> beyond the
> expectations" of others?  Who IS he kidding??
>
> In my recent postings, I have taken great pains to detail the
> terrible state
> of social and economic life across the whole of The Gambia. I have
> received
> so many public and private replies to these postings, and each one
> provides
> further evidence of the chronic state of every sector at home.
> Yahya's
> dishonesty and corruption, and the sleaziness of his minions are what
> characterise the social and economic life of The Gambia today. We
> move from
> scandal to scandal, from disaster to disaster, from lie to lie, from
> evidence of corruption to even greater evidence of it! We are living
> in
> sorry times, all thanks to Butcher Jammeh.
>
> Jammeh's next claims about the happy state of Education Services in
> The
> Gambia left me completely perplexed. Every child is receiving his or
> her
> entitlement to a minimum of 6 years education, he claimed, and 9
> years of
> education is available for high-fliers.  Education under his regime,
> he
> claimed, was truly a "right and not a privilege".  What a lot of
> bunkum!!
> Yahya should get out into the streets on a weekday, and count the
> number of
> school-aged children NOT in school: whose parents cannot afford to
> pay the
> term fees, the book fees, the uniform expenses, the furniture
> expenses, the
> examination expenses.
>
> To keep a child at Lower Basic levels of education is now upwards of
> one
> thousand dalasis per year: how many of our fellow citizens can
> possibly
> afford to educate even one child in the family?? Jammeh should go and
> talk
> to his farming communities, and ask them about how they pay for their
> children to be educated!! They will soon see the back of him.
>
> Next, he went on to talk about his determination to stamp out hunger
> and
> malnutrition: about how his government were ensuring that "all
> Gambians have
> access to affordable food at all times".  Let Jammeh go and talk
> these
> issues through with the unemployed, for whom the daily struggle to
> get fish
> money and rice is an appalling worry.  Let him talk to the housewives
> who
> try to feed their families on miniscule, and every decreasing,
> amounts of
> money. Let him go to the markets, and get direct experience of the
> reality
> of inflation as it hits the poorest:  let him try to fill his
> shopping
> basket with nothing instead of dalasis.
>
> Indeed, let him go to the mosques throughout the country on Friday
> afternoon
> for "Ajumaa" prayers: let him run the gauntlet of the countless
> beggars
> there, asking for a crumb to stay alive. The man is so out of touch
> with the
> reality of everyday life in The Gambia in the year 2000. His speech
> writers
> are doing him a terrible disservice - and us who oppose him, a good
> service,
> because the more that ordinary people can begin to understand Yahya's
> DISHONESTY and IGNORANCE of the state of conditions in the country,
> then the
> sooner he will be forced from power.
>
> Yahya's following pronouncements concerned those detractors, like
> some of
> us, who are "relentlessly determined to undermine our efforts and
> plunge
> this country into chaos". He spoke of the "stark manifestations" and
> the
>
=== message truncated ===


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