Jammeh Should Shut Up! Ousainou Darboe Reacts to President's Outbursts

http://allafrica.com/stories/200308010458.html

The Independent (Banjul)
NEWS
August 1, 2003
Posted to the web August 1, 2003

By Ejatou Jallow
Banjul

Following President Jammeh's brutal swipe at the opposition, their slighted
leaders have been making tit-for-tat responses to the Gambian leader among
them Ousainou Darboe of the United Democratic Party who described him as a
maverick.

Mr. Darboe said after all his rapine plunder of the Gambian economy
allegedly by the APRC regime, President Jammeh should be the last man to
speak disparagingly of anybody more so the opposition and should therefore
shut up. He said aside from being an irresponsible head of state who cannot
be restrained by moral considerations from being a mudslinging politician,
President Jammeh had made it clear to all and sundry that he meant ill for
those working within democratic means to unseat him and end the story of
untold misery bedeviling the Gambian people. "From the onset Jammeh had not
wished anything good for anybody threatening his political position and now
he has demonstrated that he has no room for dissent although he could still
pretend to be the head of a democratic system" Darboe argued, adding that
if Jammeh has any morality in him, insulting the opposition for their
valiant defiance to his misrule would have been his last resort. He said
President Jammeh's tirades were just betraying him as a desperate
politician who has realised that his end was drawing near, as the evidence
of his plunder of the country becomes common knowledge.

The UDP leader said he understood Jammeh's jitters against his party since
they had made a series of embarrassing revelations, which had exposed
Jammeh as a rotten potato among a bunch of good ones whose riddance was
necessary if sanity were to return to the Gambian political scene. Darboe
said the revelations included the crude oil saga in 2000, the scandalous
bank deposits which were allegedly made by Jammeh and his cohorts at a
Swiss Bank, the challenge on why Jammeh bought helicopters and jet fighters
which were flown over a visiting head of state during an independence
celebration, the parrots bought from Costa Rica, the corruption-ridden
transformation of Kanilai to a modern town and the latest crude oil
saga. "This is why he described us as devils because everything that he is
doing have been noted and revealed to the people" Darboe said.

He described the recent July 22nd celebrations as an undemocratic act of
the highest irony, which saw the Gambian leader chronicling his utopian
successes while the teeming majority of Gambians are groaning from the
stranglehold of a cruel economic gridlock.

"A government calling itself democratic and a respecter of the rule of law
and constitutionalism should not celebrate what is virtually a military
coup" he noted. He argued that it was a contradiction in terms for a
government to celebrate the unconstitutional change of a constitutional
government that in effect had more positive results than its successor.
Darboe believes that such an occasion would send the wrong signal around
the sub-region, which may see nothing amiss in toppling governments.

He observed that during the last 12 months Gambians have suffered more than
ever as their living conditions deteriorate to unspeakable level.

Darboe stated that his party were on the verge of staging a protest march
against government for allegedly causing economic hardship, "but we would
first sensitise the people on whether they are ready for it".




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