Musa,
Your memorandum entitled "Mass Demonstration and Civil Disobedience is a
Viable Option" is the last to be received.
The art of leadership calls for open ears. Those who seek to devise tactics
and strategies for the transformation of society must be able to appreciate
the concerns of the people.
It has been very useful to sit back and read what others have to say on the
way forward. You wrote: "Nonetheless, it is also abundantly clear that
sending open letters to Mr. Jammeh may not save us from the path to a Sierra
Leone or Liberia, and there is a need to try a different tactic. The
suggestion to lead a civil demonstration with all political parties,
religious groups, associations, vous and businesses would definitely bring
some sort of response from Mr. Jammeh. He needs to understand that the
country is not going to sit idly by and allow him to destroy the Gambia.
"Mr. Sallah, it is about time to take a much more aggressive strategy and
raise the stakes a little bit higher, and to demand from Mr.Jammeh that we
want our country back. It is pre-determined that the 2001 elections are
going to be rigged, people are going to be intimidated with violence and
Jammeh will be elected for another five years."
Musa, let me quote some of the reports in the Gambian press for you so as to
help to update you on the present situation.
When the UDP was denied a permit, Mr Femi Peters had an interview with the
Gambia News and Report in its 18-24 July 2000 issue. He indicated that "We
the UDP will continue to comply with all the legalities. We shall pursue it
with the Police. The UDP are too clever and responsible to give the comfort
that the Police and APRC are so provocatively looking for."
He added "As usual, this party has been restraining its militants and that
they will continue to tell them keep up with that."
Furthermore, Mr Darboe was interviewed by the Daily Observer on the
situation and he indicated the following: "They want to impose a state of
emergency to prevent the opposition from convening political rallies. We
have it from very good sources and I won't reveal my source, but that is the
plan they are on; to create a situation in the country so that they could
have an opportunity of declaring a state of emergency."
Darboe further indicated "We also, through the Minority Leader, tried to
get in touch with the Secretary of State for the Interior and we hope, as
responsible Gambian and public officer, he will do everything in his power
to diffuse the situation and we also hope that the IEC, as the regulatory
body, will step in to ensure that the playing field is level, to ensure that
all political parties have equal opportunities in propagating their views,
in organising their membership at the grassroots level."
In his interview with News and Report Magazine, in its 1-7 August 2000
edition, Lamin Waa Juwara said: ".... Whilst they in the opposition are
talking about reconciliation and democratic renewal, the government is
talking of going back to the politics of the coup period....
"And as a nucleus of a national conference, he said, the Independent
Electoral Commission has created a consultative forum which the government
has accepted to endure. He said that the consultative forum should be
enlarged into a national conference which will provide the forum for
opposing groups to discuss and negotiate political issues in a peaceful,
structured environment to obvert violent conflict.
"Juwara views that national conferences are predominantly a Francophone
African phenomenon, with the exception of South Africa and Kenya. The
concept therefore he says is originally African and should be accepted to
President Yahya Jammeh "with his reference to European imposed democracy on
Africans and his vague rhetoric revolution."
"Juwara described such a national conference as a means of bringing together
key political civic groups to prepare the country for a free and fair
election and as a political forum to discuss all matters of political
concern. The conference's key objective, he said, will be to level the
playing field and to forge a natural consensus with the singular aim of
restoring democracy to The Gambia to entrench, in our body politics,
multi-partisan, freedom of association, speech, assembly and a free media.
In such a conference, he said, all participants will enjoy equal status and
any agreement reached must be acceptable to all, which means "nothing is
agreed until everything is agreed."
"As a conflict prevention forum, Juwara said, the IEC in this case must take
the initiative for such a venture in consultation with the government and
opposition parties and civic bodies including human rights organisations,
members of the bar and bench, religious leaders, trade unionists, NGOs,
prominent intellectuals, peasant groups, Gambian donors, as well as aid
donors in consultation with the Senegalese government and opposition
parties.
"A follow up on implementation groups, he claimed, should be formed to carry
out a consolidating process which will eventually lead to the translation
into action of all issues agreed upon. One issue that will be of paramount
importance, he highlighted, is the question of reconciliation. Such a
reconciliation must be caused on the truth as it regards grievous human
rights abuses since July 1994 with the aim of facilitating national
reconciliation where both the violator and the victim can come to terms.
"Juwara, citing it as an example, said in 1989 Benin was in a state of
crisis. Mathieu Kerekou, who was installed by the military, was in power for
17 years with his Marxist People's Revolutionary Party. By 1990, he stated
that Kerekou had lost control of political events, as it is beginning to
happen in The Gambia. When repression failed, Kerekou settled for a national
conference because he knew he was uncertain of the support of the army
against the democratic organisation. The conference, he says, brought
spectacular results by saving Benin from blood bath.
"The conference, he said, allowed Kerekou to remain as President pending
democratic Presidential elections and the conference decided that Kerekou
would not be prosecuted for any crimes he had committed while in office.
This was on condition that he abandoned his Marxist ideology and allowed the
free legal formation and operation of opposition parties.
"He says presidential elections were held in March 1991 and 13 candidates,
including Kerekou, contested and Nicephore Sogho became President.
"Following his decisive election defeat, Kerekou asked for forgiveness for
abusing power during his tenure in office", said Juwara.
"The outgoing dictator, he says, has pledged loyalty to the new government.
He was given amnesty and transformed into a democrat and in a dramatic twist
of events he contested the 1996 presidential elections and he gained power
through democratic means as he is Benin's present President.
"Juwara could then not see why the little Gambia cannot draw from the
experience of Benin to correct all the wrongs that had been committed since
July 1994 including the return of all confiscated properties to their
rightful owners; to free all political detainees; to allow the return of all
political exiles and make bold to confess all crimes committed against the
Gambian people.
"He cautioned that any attempt here to control the electoral process and
neutralise the opposition would lead to confrontation and insecurity on both
sides of the political divide. He expressed his agreement with Halifa
Sallah's comment that security cannot be planted by seeds of insecurity.
"He finally noted that a national conference took place not only in Benin
but in Mali, Togo, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, South
Africa and a few others."
Musa, it is clear from this that the UDP has its own strategy of how to
handle its own political difficulties. For your information, they have been
granted a permit and Mr Darboe did not hesitate to advise his members to be
law abiding. In fact, Ousainou Darboe did not hesitate to indicate that when
the coup took place, he went to the State House to congratulate Jammeh for
overthrowing Jawara and even took a photograph with him, but that Jammeh had
betrayed his expectations.
In early interviews, the UDP leader did indicate possibilities of serving in
a government with Jammeh if certain conditions were put in place. On a
lesser serious note, Lamin Juwara did even take a shot at us by indicating
that we were carrying the APRC on our backs and when they bit us we had to
throw them down; that in fact we were the first to attack them when they
made their statements during the recent meeting between the Youth Action
Group of the APRC and the President. He indicated that those who criticise
the past regime in conjunction with the present should be taken to Campama.
(laugh). This shows that Lamin is having fun. He added somewhere that if
Jammeh electrifies the whole country including Dankunku, even he will join
him.
It is clear that the UDP politics has gone back to normal and that the duty
of PDOIS is also to go back to her normal politics. I am not sure whether
your call has not come at the wrong time. May be we will shelf it as of now.
PDOIS' POSITION
Our position is clear. When a Code of Conduct was established for the
students, we kicked against it. The Department of State for Education
dropped the idea. GAMSU is now holding a Mini-Congress attended by students
from all over the country. They went about to do a sensitisation tour in the
schools prior to the Congress. In our view, we are being taken seriously and
we are seeing effect on the basis of the issues we raise in our letters.
When the UDP was denied a permit, we refused to hold meetings until all
existing political parties were given equal opportunity to seek the mandate
of the people. Permit had been granted to the UDP and it has held its rally
on Saturday. .
We therefore deem our letters and methods to be effective PDOIS' position is
that every effort must be done to ensure a climate for free and fair
elections. PDOIS will, therefore, take any step to discredit any action and
put pressure on the authorities to do what is necessary to ensure a climate
for free and fair elections. Where such a climate cannot be created, PDOIS
will not hesitate to boycott elections and do whatever is necessary to
ensure that the will of the people prevails.
For example, if the State refuses for a political party to hold rallies,
PDOIS obviously will continue to refuse to hold rallies. If elections were
to come without other parties holding rallies, we could not have possibly
participated in such elections. We do not do this for the UDP but to ensure
that we have a climate that would be conducive for change on the basis of
the consent of the people.
You have concluded that Jammeh will rig elections and there is no need to
talk about elections. If Wade had said that, there would not have been
change in Senegal today through the ballot box. What we would have had is
coup d'etat after coup d'etat. History has shown that civilians do not take
over power through civil disobedience. They only create avenues for those
who control the guns to take power on their behalf. Civil disobedience come
as a result of desperation as a matter of last resort when nothing works.
Needless to say, in most cases it is again exploited by a few to spring to
power. In fact, Abdou Diouf invited Wade to join his government when faced
with a situation of ungovernability in Senegal. What type of government
would you recommend and what would its composition be if it were possible to
apply the measures you suggested?
Presidential election is just one year ahead. What is more sensible is to
put all the pressure we can to ensure that the people have the freedom to go
to the polls to elect the persons they want to lead them instead of putting
our hopes on some imaginary situation whose architects are yet to be
resolved as to what alternative they want.
Greetings.
Halifa Sallah.
----- Original Message -----
From: Musa Jeng <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2000 7:12 PM
Subject: Mass Demonstrations and civil disobedience is a viable option
> An enlightened electorate can help in the workings of democracy. PDOIS
> has always belief that teaching people about their rights is the bedrock
> to an open and democratic Gambia
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
