Ebrima,
As always your postings are a delight to read.  I hope Gambians will
exercise their constitutional right to vote out these morons come 2001.  You
are right to state that the real challenge for us is yet to come.  We've got
a mammoth task of nation rebuilding if we are able to do away with Yahya and
his friends.  I shall add that not only are we to cleanse ourselves with the
bad omen that is Yahya, but also Jawara's legacy.  Some l'ers might not like
it but Jawara created this monster Yahya.  Why do i bring Jawara into this
debate?

Some of us were born when Jawara was Prime Minister.  We grew up withnessing
him become president and following the abortive coup of 1981, made himself
executive president with extra power.  Jawara's opportunism has manifested
itself throughout his career as the leader of the Gambia.

Jawara created a culture of 'clientalism' in the Gambia. Anyone who stood
against him paid dearly.  Remember the late Sheriff Ceesay(PPA founder in
the late 60s)who became  Minister of Finance under Jawara. This was a
consolation for his humuliation when he wanted to rejoin the PPP.  He was
made to tour the Gambia with Mr Jawara and apologise for his straying away.

I can give many more examples.  Not many people can remember the first
Speaker of the House, one Dr Jones.  He died not a very happy man due to
Jawara's vindictiveness.  Jawara basked in sycophancy.  He enjoyed the likes
of S. Sabally.  During the Sana Manneh case, Jawara promised us that anyone
found guilty would face the music yet he promoted Sabally.

Jawara governed the Gambia negligently.  What came out of RDP
project-nothing.  OVer D29 million went down the drain.  This amount is
three times its value today.

This is the legacy we Gambians face.  We are left with the legacy two
leaders who had made our country despondent.  One was  sophisticated in his
vindictiveness and the other is an uncouth buffoon.

Please let us not forget the big picture-the emancipation of the Gambian and
African people from poverty, indignity and despair.

Africa had produced noble sons and daughters-C.A Diop, Lumumba, Sankara etc.
  There is still  light at the end of tunnel.

Peace,

Mboge


>From: Ebrima Ceesay <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: My Message to All Gambians!!
>Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 08:40:26 GMT
>
>My fellow Gambians:
>
>All the latest reports and telephone calls from The Gambia which I have
>been
>receiving, in addition to the information coming from my centrally-placed
>sources in The Gambia, indicate extremely worrying trends. The Gambia is
>now
>showing distinctive trends of increasing chaos and lawlessness. People have
>been pushed so far against the wall by the iniquitous actions and haphazard
>governance of Jammeh's regime, that they no longer care to follow the
>dictates of good citizenship.  Poverty is at a level in our country where
>people will do anything just to survive, and to ensure their loved ones'
>survival in a fiercely competitive society.
>
>Today, our once-reliable system of care within the extended family has been
>pushed to extremities: so many breadwinners have been rendered unemployed
>and disempowered and in fact, the whole fabric of our social well-being is
>now under terrible threat, thanks to the Kanilai butcher. People, who no
>longer have ANYTHING, will do ANYTHING to ensure the well being of their
>loved ones.  It has become a basic matter of survival.
>
>And needless to say, the disintegration of our beloved nation under Jammeh
>and his cohort touches every sector: governance, economic, judicial,
>social,
>health, educational, artistic, moral: the impact of this terrible regime
>bites hard in every facet of our daily lives.
>
>Therefore, it is time NOW for our people to prepare for the forthcoming
>Presidential election in November 2001 (if it does take place at all, given
>the political threat under which Yaya Jammeh is labouring) so as to
>successfully unseat Jammeh from the Gambian presidency: our country needs
>to
>be mobilising NOW to ensure that Jammeh is finished by the end of next
>year.
>
>The way forward for The Gambian Nation is for its people to use the ballot
>box to vote Jammeh out come the next presidential election. The man's
>record
>is awful: in power for 6 years, and our country has taken three or more
>steps backward. We have become the laughing stock of the world, and the
>"poor boy" of the African continent. Jammeh has brought notoriety to our
>wonderful country: he is known for his lawlessness, for his thirst for
>power, for his lust for ill-gotten gain. He dabbles in a war-mongering
>statesmanship on a stage peopled by like-minded personalities bent on
>personal gain.
>
>In any case, we should not be allowing Yaya Jammeh to divide us: his true
>intention is to "divide and rule". Consequently, we have to do everything
>in
>our power to resist this. Only by remaining a unified opposition to this
>villain will we see the back of him and his ilk. My fellow Gambians, the
>problem in our country is Yaya Jammeh, not our people and not those
>unfortunates who have had to seek refuge in our nation. There is no dispute
>about the fact that Jammeh is, in actual fact, the root and branch of our
>misfortunes as a nation. So our people have to have the WILL to get rid of
>the man.
>
>Our need as Gambian citizens with a deep and abiding love for our nation is
>for peace, stability and genuine co-existence. These three things used to
>mark our country. Now we have been betrayed by six years of brutal
>militarism, dishonesty and "intransparency". And Jammeh has also done his
>best to play a tribal game in our country; he has tried to set us against
>each other, and to disempower many of us at the expense of his favourites.
>But we have to do all in our power to resist this trend, and to ensure that
>the Gambia remains a polyglot nation with a genuine respect for, and
>tolerance of, difference. We have to present a united front of opposition
>in
>order to uproot the butcher of Kanilai.
>
>However, we should not fool ourselves: the task in front of us is enormous,
>especially after Jammeh is gone!  The damage that Jammeh has done since
>1994
>is going to take years to put right. To this end, we need to undertake a
>massive repair job as soon as we have seen the back of this despot through
>the ballot box. We need to call on every human resource available to us:
>all
>those concerned citizens who have remained in The Gambia, and all those who
>have been forced by one means or another to flee the country and settle
>elsewhere in the world. In fact, knowing the gravity of the destruction in
>our country as a result of Jammeh's ineptitude, I would even argue that we
>need to be making moves now to bring these people together so as to tackle
>the human resources problem, which our country is now facing.
>
>Gambia-L, there is no doubt that the Gambia is at a crossroads; tension is
>raging in the country as a consequence of Yaya Jammeh's tyrannical actions
>and heavy-handedness. What Gambians must therefore understand is that Yaya
>Jammeh has come to bring chaos in our beloved country. He represents doom
>and despair. He wants to bring turmoil in our country but we as a people
>should not accept that. We must ensure the continued peace and stability of
>the Gambia.
>
>From day one, we have always had a peaceful co-existence as a people. That
>MUST continue. Consequently, we are now faced with the challenge of making
>sure that peace and stability are consolidated in our country, knowing full
>well that if trouble erupts in the Gambia, it is us the ordinary people who
>will die en masse, while the main culprit (the butcher of Kanilai) would be
>relaxing in his presidential suite in Kanilai, or in one of his Moroccan
>palaces.
>
>Having said that, since it is now clear to us that Yaya Jammeh only
>represents retrogression and a potential chaos for our country, we MUST try
>and join hands, despite our differences here and there, and vote him out of
>office come November 2001. In this regard, all Gambians who have reached
>the
>voting age, but who do not possess a Voter's card must make sure that they
>get a voter's card before the elections. And having a voter's card and not
>voting on Election Day should also be a thing of the past. All those who
>are
>eligible and have a voter's card should go and get dictator Jammeh out of
>office in the forthcoming election if they genuinely want a quick end to
>the
>mess in which our country now finds itself.
>
>And at Election Day and also during the pre-election period, all Gambians
>must be vigilant enough to ensure that the possibilities of rigging are not
>only minimised but also removed completely. To this end, the role of the
>Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) will be crucial/paramount, but we as
>a people should also have to be our own police and ensure as much as
>possible, a totally fair and unambiguous ballot.
>
>Gambia-L, the stakes are high and needless to say, the ONLY way forward for
>our beautiful country is to unseat dictator Jammeh from the presidency come
>the next presidential election. No one in his or her right frame of mind
>needs convincing that Jammeh has nothing to offer to Gambians except
>tyranny
>and corruption. He is nothing but a thief, a murderer, a liar, and a
>nuisance whose only goal is to swindle public funds.
>
>He has already done massive damage in our beloved country by inflicting an
>unprecedented level of poverty; in fact, in a post Jammeh era, eradicating
>poverty and ensuring the continued peace and security of our country would
>be paramount. We must, in a post Jammeh era, underscore the need to promote
>genuine democracy and popular participation in governance through greater
>pluralism, transparency and respect for fundamental human rights as a
>precondition for peace and sustainable development. Peace and security and
>the achieving of sustainable development are very much related. So it
>should
>be clear to us that the absence of durable peace and security will no doubt
>prevent us from achieving sustainable development for our country. The
>message is therefore clear: in a post Jammeh Gambia, we must also address
>the twin phenomena of sustained development and peace and security.
>
>Whoever is going to succeed Jammeh must articulate a new and realistic
>development paradigm that can, at long last, address the Gambian people's
>needs and aspirations. But, meanwhile, our challenge  - if we really love
>our country - would be to vote Jammeh out of office come November 2001. We
>cannot afford to give him another mandate. That would be tragic if it were
>to be the case. How can someone who cannot even manage his own house be
>expected to lead a Nation? And another thing: once we succeed in unseating
>Jammeh, we would then have to try him before a court of law and make sure
>that he accounts for his past deeds and actions. More importantly, he must
>also surrender all the public money he has siphoned off.
>
>Meanwhile, we must be prepared NOW to ensure a good future for our country:
>we have to mobilise every concerned citizen firstly to get rid of Jammeh by
>peaceful means through the ballot box, and then to work in harmony together
>to start the mammoth task of rebuilding our nation.
>
>Ebrima Ceesay,
>Birmingham, UK.
>
>PS: I am urging Gambians in the Gambia with access to the Internet to make
>print out of this message and distribute it to those Gambians without
>access
>to the Internet.
>
>Cherno Baba Jallow: Your piece on the Independent editorial was apt and
>inspiring. Keep it up, and please do write as regularly as possible; this
>is
>an era of clarity and, certainly, your beloved country needs you NOW more
>than before. Also get our sister, Fatou Jaw Manneh, to join the debate.
>
>________________________________________________________________________
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