As was mentioned here last week, a devastating blow was dealt The Gambia
when Prime Minister Tony Blair blatantly snubbed the country and went all
the way to Senegal and refused to visit Gambia.  This clearly shows that
Gambia is still NOT in the caliber of Democratic countries like Ghana and
Senegal.  This shows that the recently concluded presidential and
parliamentary ‘elections’ in the country were nothing but a charade.  The
British and all other civilized countries for that matter, know that
Gambians still live under a Dictatorship.  Cosmetic gimmicks like appointing
SM Dibba speaker of the parliament and giving ‘amnesty’ to Jawara is neither
here nor there.  That does NOT mean that the elections were not stolen.
That does NOT mean that our children were not slaughtered in broad daylight
by some trigger-happy thugs that are still roaming the streets of Banjul
scot-free.  Yaya’s ‘magnanimous’ actions towards Dibba and Jawara do not
mean that we no longer have political prisoners like Dumo in the country.

The international community sees through these gimmicks.  Window-dressing
would NOT suffice to bring Gambia into the fold of civilized countries.  We
still have a barbaric and callous regime back home.  No one can deny that
our children were massacred by this regime in broad daylight and the regime
continues to deny justice to the families of the victims.  What civilized
nations think of Gambia and the leadership of the country is very important.
  Why?  90% of our ‘Development Budget’ is financed by international grants
and loans.  Without these grants and loans, Yaya himself will be eating
grass.  Without these loans, there would be no roads, hospitals, schools,
markets and dump trucks. Think of the plight of the poorest Gambians if the
country cannot attract these funds.  Talk about generating taxes from
Gambians and the people being self-sufficient is utter nonsense.  The
reality is that the country is surviving because at a micro level people in
the Diaspora send money to their folks and at a macro level, civilized
nations give us grants and loans.  That is the bottom-line.  Silly talks
about ‘Allah’s Bank’ is just ludicrous.

So, one can convincingly argue that the best asset Gambia has is the
‘goodwill’ of civilized nations.  With Yaya and his cohorts at the helm,
Gambians should forget about portraying a good image for the country.  Just
since the ‘elections’ this illegal government has done a number of things
that would further isolate Gambia.  As usual, Yaya went on a firing spree
and engaged in a number of politically motivated sackings.  This put the
government on a collision course with both the World Bank and the EU (two of
the major donors and lenders in the country).  Do we need an erratic person
like Yaya Dictating to impotent civil servants like Alieu Ngum and Famara
Jatta to alienate the international community?

But perhaps the most disastrous dent to our image since the presidential
elections is the entry of Baabaa (‘Blood Diamond Dealer) Jobe to parliament.
  We do not just have an internationally proscribed criminal in our
Assembly, the APRC made this thug their leader in parliament.  It is
pathetic to watch old men like SM Dibba defer to this common criminal.  You
have all the APRC cronies/rubber-stamps in parliament cheering as Baabaa
(‘Blood Diamond Dealer) Jobe attempt to silence people like Halifa Sallah.
We have a criminal government that hugs common criminals in defiance of the
United Nations.  Does this government behave like a government that wants to
join civilized nations?  Even nations like Libya, Cuba and Iraq are making
‘smart’ moves to rejoin the ‘League of Nations’.  When Liberians were
sanctioned with Baabaa (Blood Diamond Dealer) Jobe, even the Liberian
government was acting rationally and tried to put together a coherent case
to the international community.  But what did our illegal government do?
They blamed the diamond smuggling on the Sarahulehs in the country, wrote an
ill-advised ‘protest’ to the United Nations and to top it off, the
government now makes a common criminal their most ‘important’
parliamentarian.  Clearly, this government does NOT know what it is doing.

There is talk that the British and the French are looking into having joint
embassies in certain parts of Africa, including West Africa.  Now, if these
plans come to fruition, can people guess where the joint embassy is going to
be located between Gambia and Senegal?  Do people think that when an
important British diplomat like Bharat Joshi (who was expelled from The
Gambia by our illegal regime) is asked to make recommendations about the
location of the joint embassy, the man will have difficulties making a
recommendation?  Of course the man will NOT want their diplomats to go to a
Dictatorship where some erratic leader will just wake up and give diplomats
few hours to pack their bags and leave.

This illegal government has burnt many bridges.  I need not tell anyone what
it means to not have a British embassy in the country.  I will just let this
government continue to shoot itself.  That way, Gambians will eventually get
tired and get rid of them.  What we can do from our end and what we will
continue to do is expose the illegal behavior of the criminals running our
country.  We have a visionless bunch of criminals lording over incompetent
and impotent civil servants that do not have the wherewithal or the guts to
do what is right.  We will continue to be isolated so long as Yaya and his
cohorts are at the helm.  Blair and the international community have served
us notice in no uncertain terms.  Dictators like Yaya, Mugabe, and Charles
Taylor will no longer be tolerated or appeased by the British government and
its allies.  It is the duty of the Opposition to expose the terrorism and
corruption our callous leaders engage in to the detriment of defenseless
citizens.  That way, the international community will isolate these leaders
and hit them where it hurts the most: their Swiss Bank Accounts.  Without
aid money Yaya will have to use some of his loots to ‘donate’ to Gambians to
‘develop’ the country.  This is simply pathetic.
KB


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