Courtesy: Senegambianews.com

Doh Kick?

Karamba Takes a Swipe at President Jammeh on GPU 7 Trial


Published 07/26/2009 - 1:44 a.m. GMT










President Yahya Jammeh regarded as one of the bloodiest rulers in Africa in recent times




The Gambia Press Union has long endured the brutal excesses of Yayah Jammeh's evil regime. At various times the President himself publicly directed vile and rancid threats including murder at the members, and has followed through each time subjecting these good folks to incessant arrests, tortures , dissapearances and death. Notwithstanding the near perpetual duress it is operating under, including the forced exile of some it's membership, the union continues to fight on thanks in large part to the sheer resilience of the people involved and their certitude in the just nature of the principles they seek to defend for all of us. Short of physically eliminating the GPU, Yahya Jammeh seems to settle for the method many tyrants have used against perceived opponents, and that is to employ a mosaic of repressive tools by making some disappear, killing others, employing a corrupt judiciary to tie them in endless litigation to culminate in heavy fines designed to deplete the meagre resources of the UNION . The intention is to make the operating environment so toxic that the GPU would institutionally neuture itself and join his long line of courtiers angling for favors and become a bona fide member of the permanent 'SIBORU' class that has now become the establishment in the banana republic that our country has become.

Alas, that is not to be. In his latest attempt to smother the GPU by arresting it's leadership and persecuting them, the bloody tyrant has started a battle he can't win, regardless of what his utterly discredited judicial mercenaries might render. For starters, the Gambia government has succeeded in shining a bright light on it's outrageous misconduct attracting the entire world's attention and painting itself in awkward position by putting itself and it's ugly policies on trial. This is what accounts for the gov't's stupid and ultimately futile attempts at holding the trial in camera initially, and then to reverse course by replacing both the judge and deciding to have an open trial. Both actions do not represent substantive concessions to assure a fair and speedy trial, but rather a cynical ploy to try to give what is essentially a kangaroo court, a facade of process propriety. And that is precisely why it won't work because the Gambian people and the rest of the world who are now also invested in the outcome of this persecution will see it for what it really is.The GPU, and in no small measure, their able President Ndey Tapha Sosseh, have successfully galvalised the whole world and effectively made this a larger narrative of our struggle against the mad man we have as president.

With it's succinct, clear and direct advocacy as evidenced by the very first press release they issued in response to the President's ugly and cruel comments about Deyda Hydara, ( a man whose death he is entirely responsible for), has renewed my faith in the proposition that transformational change in societies are often heralded by intense minorities to be later followed by majorities. The adversities the GPU continues to face has only embolden them in their pursuit of what they and all of us know to be true, and they derive their strength not from numbers but from the justness of the cause they pursue on behalf of a beleaguered population. Like a disciplined army on a clear mission, the GPU has both inspired and challenged the rest of the Gambian people on how to fight for what is right and why it is important to keep fighting even under adverse conditions. One of the most disheartening character traits among us is the seeming ease with which most folks can insulate themselves from manifest injustice meted out to their fellow citizens. I am willing to say that there is no adult alive today in the Gambia or a Gambian resident overseas who has not heard of or known a person who was either murdered, arrested, tortured , disappeared or otherwise victimized by the regime of Yahya Jammeh. How then is it possible that a population who until 1994 had never experienced murder, torture and persecution as routine instruments of government and profess a religious and cultural affinity that absolutely forbids all such conducts, can tolerate the one man who presides over all these atrocities? The answer is most folks don't view the regime's excess as a threat to them and that is all they need to continue their lives. I have seen my fellow citizens, sane and as far as I can tell, still clinging to our shared religion of Islam, casually dismiss murders the President has overseen in his bloody regime but insist that critics give the regime credit for a lousy TV station. Not only is the moral equivalency abhorrent but it points


 to the larger dark nature of people who are willing to chalk up the wanton murder of their fellow citizens as an acceptable price to pay for vanity undertakings such as Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS)! I am yet to see a Gambian who comes out and publicly state that the Jammeh regime has murdered or disappeared a close relative but they have forgiven him and are just thrilled that he has managed to make the country a heck of a place to live in. It hasn't happened because victims of the regime like human beings everywhere, are the ones that endure the lasting impacts of having a loved one taken from them unjustly. The rest of us must do what our faiths enjoin us to do and that is to always stand up for justice and to actively oppose injustice.The battle lines have long been drawn between honest Gambians and their allies the world over who seek nothing more than a peaceful and prosperous nation that is anchored on a true democracy, the rule of law on the one hand and a murderous tyrant who seeks to run a fiefdom employing cruelty and disdain to cower the population in bid to reduce them to proverbial chickens pecking at his feet for crumbs leftover from their treasury he looted.

The GPU leadership on trial represent all of us and we must enthusiastically join their battle and put the regime on trial infront of the world. There is no scenario in which they can win. If they release these good folks and drop these mendacious charges, the veracity and demands in the original press release that rightfully demanded specific action, would remain only now every institution concerned with freedom of the press including governments be actively fighting along the GPU. That is a battle Yahya Jammeh can't win. If they decide to proceed with a capricious prosecution and render their predetermined verdict even if it is a symbolic one, would only validate their own disrepute and would bring the wrath of the world with real consequences. Putting these folks on trial might end up being for the gov't of Yahya Jammeh the classic tale of the mythological Hardington Street football; Kick deh, nyaka kick deh.

Karamba Touray, Florida, US



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