Gassama, if your last piece is aimed at justifying the ‘coup’ then you have
woefully failed again. You think you are talking to people that NEVER lived
in Gambia. Are you all right?  Your difficulty is that you do NOT have the
wherewithal to rewrite history. I will NOT even respond to the upper part of
your garbage. Your lies are talking about an era I have very little interest
in. Save to shatter any justification for the illegal usurpation of power by
a bunch of bandits, we are looking forward. We want a Gambia we have never
seen before. You can remain in your daydream imagining horrors and that you
were a nonentity during the previous regime. We are looking for a new
leadership and a new Gambia with real professionals and NOT mediocre mines
like yours that need praise-singing to keep a job.

Suffice for me to refer you to the Famara Jatta piece which you yourself
posted to G_L. Even Famara Jatta does NOT love AFPRC/APRC that much to lie
about the Jawara record the way you are lying about their record. Famara
Jatta had the decency to point out that our economy and our people were
doing great until 1994 when a bunch of thugs stole power from a
democratically elected government and attracted sanctions to our country.
Why you decided to ignore that from your own camp (Famara Jatta) and instead
lie about the Jawara regime, is just mind-boggling to me. You CANNOT even
begin to justify the criminal activities of these vermin. They took our
people from the frying pan to the fire. Your own figures (not mine) show
that our people got worse off under Yaya’s watch. Without those statistics,
one just have to look at the exchange rate of the dalasi and the price of
commodities in the country to know that people have grown poorer under
AFPRC/APRC. Before this regime took over (illegally) Gambian farmers have
NEVER gone destitute because they could not sell their groundnuts. That has
NEVER happened in the country before. Those are some of the realities you
CANNOT do anything about. No matter what daydreaming you do; no matter how
many lies you decide to tell, fact remain that the AFPRC/APRC failed the
majority of our people (the farmers). Why? Because thugs like Baabaa Jobe
were left to determine the fate of our groundnut industry.

You move from the groundnut industry, your own stats again (Famara Jatta)
said that the tourism industry declined 70% after the AFPRC/APRC took over.
To break it down to your level. We were now earning 30 bututs for every one
dalasi we use to earn.

You move away from that industry. According to Famara Jatta, 90% of our
development budget comes from grants and loans. After the ‘coup’ we lost 50%
of those grants and loans. When you are faced with these stats, you CANNOT
escape the obvious. This is a recipe for acute poverty. What this adds up
to, is render the majority of Gambians destitute under AFPRC/APRC watch.

To add insult to injury, the vermin brutalize our people and slaughter our
children. But they do NOT stop there. They steal our meager resources to
open Swiss Bank accounts and send their wives to America for shopping sprees
and to have babies. Shameless characters.

Gassama, the fact that you are a sycophant just after favors from this
illegal government, is beyond question in my mind. The pity is that you
caught up to this shameless modus operandi years after people like Tombong
perfected the art. Lie about the Jawara regime and get rewarded by
AFPRC/APRC. We know how the game is played. Some of us just don’t want to
stoop that low. We can make it without favors from some High School
drop-outs. But one day, you will all account for your lies. Do you know how
stupid you sound when you say that certain types of education was a
privilege accorded to a chosen elite in the Jawara regime; in the same piece
you turn around and boast of having that education; to top it off, you then
argue that you were not among the chosen elite. So how did you get what you
got? Either you are lying about your education or you are imagining this
thing about a chosen elite in the country or you are lying when you said
that you were not benefiting from the system. Which is which?

You know you CANNOT survive outside your little enclave in Gamtel. Like I
said, Bakary Njie should have sacked you for using Gamtel time to come to
G_L and argue as Kebba Jobe. Bakary Njie should have sacked you for lying on
G_L about Darboe’s relationship with Gamtel. You know you CANNOT survive in
an environment where mediocrity does NOT rule. If you start bragging about
being a stellar engineer, your credential becomes game. You force people to
start talking about your record and your habits (both professional and
social). I will let this one slide, but next time you make these silly
comments to impress Yaya, I will pounce on you. There are a lot of questions
about your mental state of mind.
KB



>From: Jungle Sunrise <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Of goats and politics - part 2.
>Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 14:36:48 +0000
>
>After the young army officers joined the party uninvited, many ran away
>while others stayed. The army officers announced a 4year rectification
>program that was immediately rejected by the masses. A 2year compromise was
>reached after sufficient consultation with the masses. During this period,
>these officers took an inventory of the leftovers and found out that there
>was hardly anything left. They took remedial action against some of those
>found to have been culpable while others hastily ran for cover in foreign
>lands. It has to be remembered here that when the sovereignty of this
>nation
>was mortgaged after the failed coupe attempt of 1981 we were never
>consulted.
>
>THE REALITY?
>
>It was discovered that self-enrichment was the order of the day. Several
>dubious deals were done undercover without the knowledge of Gambians, the
>nation’s economy was in shambles, most of our infrastructure had collapsed,
>access to education or health facilities extremely difficult, there was no
>effective auditing system to track down how our meager resources were being
>plundered, our “national” radio” (the mouth piece of the government) was
>hardly "divisional", as it could hardly be heard outside Kombo, our schools
>lacked basic furniture etc, etc, etc. To have a better idea of how this
>oligarchy nearly sank our state, lets look at some the things they did.
>
>The Gambia inherited a very effective river transport system from the
>colonialists when we had independence. We had a steamer that used to sail
>to
>our neighboring countries and the UK, our main trading partner then. We had
>a fleet of tugboats that transported goods very cheaply to the interior of
>the country and brought back rice, groundnuts, livestock and other things
>towards Banjul. Agriculture was generally ok and our rural folks had
>something to look forward to, come the dry season. The GPMB (formerly GOMB)
>was marketing our best nuts directly from Kuntaur and later Kaur and Denton
>Bridge to the outside world. The lower quality ones were decorticated and
>turned into cooking oil and soap whilst some chip wood for furniture and
>brickets for heating fuel were obtained from the shells. We had ferries
>throughout the country and the cost of living was very affordable
>throughout
>the country. There was a groundnut mill at Kaur that employed many people,
>a
>rice mill at Kuntaur that also employed many people and there was very
>little difference between the cost of goods in Banjul, Kuntaur or Basse.
>When The Gambia introduced the Dalasi and Butut, CFAO sold their
>warehouses,
>shops, residence including a historic storey building with a bunker and a
>tropicalized green house in Kuntaur, to The Gambia for a token price of ONE
>DALASI (D1.00). In the name of decentralization the area councils were
>created. Around this time, in the 70s, the tourism industry has started
>contributing more to the economy. Things were relatively OK and our
>propects
>looked good then.
>
>WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
>
>As the revenue from tourism increased, neglect of our rural poor began.
>River transport went out of the window; rural administration neglected
>allowing very unscrupulous civil servants to plunder, with impunity,
>co-operative and GPMB revenues. Government infrastructures were neglected
>and allowed to fall into disrepair, very little or no attempt was made to
>improve access to education or health. Being a senior officer in an area
>council, customs, GPMB, Cooperative union, ferries, police or a headmaster,
>particularly in the provinces, gave one a ticket to self-enrichment. While
>the tug boats that used to pull the barges along the river to transport
>goods were being taken to Denton bridge and allowed to sink one by one, we
>were busy constructing concrete wharfs (15 of them) along the river knowing
>full well that there were no plans to use them. Meanwhile we were busy
>buying the Mansa Killas.
>
>The result; people in the rural areas were becoming poorer by the day.
>Rural/urban migration began to accelerate. The agricultural sector was
>neglected except for those that attracted financing from abroad to allow
>another breed of Derrimos to plunder our resources. The economy began to
>shrink and the Dalasi depreciated. Yes the Dalasi depreciated. Against the
>CFA, it depreciated from about D35.00 for CFA5,000 in the 70s to more than
>D200.00 for the same CFA5,000 in the early nineties. Against the Pound
>Sterling it depreciated from about D5.00 to the Pound in the late 70s to
>more than D12.00 about a decade later. The government completely failed to
>put in place structures or policies to create jobs or wealth for the
>nation.
>The energy sector that is so vital for the development of light industries,
>was never given the attention it deserved because they had their private
>generators.
>
>Lack of access to schools despite our rising population led to record
>number
>of school dropouts. These school dropouts knowing that if only they had
>access to schools would not have found themselves in the state they were,
>could bring themselves to going back to the land. These young people began
>moving towards Banjul hoping to get a job. As these young ablebodied young
>left the rural areas and their now aging parents to fend for themselves.
>Rural girls were, in most cases, not allowed to attend school because they
>needed to help with the domestic chores. Some were forced into early
>marriages just for the dowry.
>
>Because our tradition encourages us to have many children as a form of
>insurance during old age, our baby producing factories went into full gear.
>This desperation was exploited to the full by senior civil servants and
>politicians alike. School children were being impregnated left, right and
>center and squandering our limited resources on naming ceremonies. In fact
>some even used to boast of how many illegitimate children they had and by
>whom. Meanwhile, the government became dumb, deaf and blind to all these
>things happening. These were some of the things that created the atmosphere
>that necessitated and facilitated the demise of the previous regime.
>
>To be continued.
>
>A friend of mine in the Diaspora wants me to remind you of:
>
>1. The TWELVE FEET DEEP MASS GRAVES from the 1981 uprising.
>
>2. The Gambian Field Force.
>
>3. The Gambian urban intellectual HOLOCUST.
>
>4. The foreign army brought in here by Jawara to butcher his own people in
>1981, the CHILDREN AND THE YOUTHS IN THESE MASS GRAVES, the lootings, the
>tortures, the intimidations and the RAPES OF OUR HELPLESS WOMEN by the
>occupation ARMY.
>
>5. That BANJUL, our CAPITAL CITY THAT IS SINKING; and that by the time your
>so called democratic ship makes it to port you will be welcome by the
>Atlantic sharks and escorted by our mighty tropical MOSQITOES.
>
>Dampha,
>
>If you or anybody else believes that I am pretending to be a victim of the
>previous regime to gain favor from this regime that person better do some
>background checking or have his head examined. For the record I have never
>been a victim of the previous government nor this one. I have never gained
>any special favors from this government or the previous one. Whether you
>believe it not, that’s up to. One thing I can tell you, without any fear of
>contradicting myself, is that I don’t consider myself among the best
>engineers in this country, but among THE VERY BEST. I am very fit both
>mentally and physically and I have the confidence and competence to go it
>alone or seek employment in the private sector!
>
>Have a good day, Gassa.
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
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