Jobe, because I have a lot on my plate today, I will be very brief with you
and promise to respond in more detail over the weekend. Don't start thinking
that I do not take you seriously. It is just that I have more pressing
things to deal with.

I will first of all address where you said that I was misquoting you when I
said that you tried to absolve Yaya by saying that the security forces did
not act on Yaya's instructions. Here is a reproduction of the post you sent
us on April 18, 2001 which I was alluding to in my various mails: Kebba
Jobe: "I hereby submit that the brutality of some members of our security
forces is inherent in them and has NOTHING to do with Yahya giving THE
Order." Emphasis mine. You recognize this? This was a statement culled from
your piece entitled "The tragic events of April 2000." You are blaming
everyone for what happened EXCEPT Yaya. When I find time, I will comment on
the other issues you raised in that post in order to bolster your above
submission.

Secondly, unless you do not know what the word 'veer' means, I cannot see
how you want to wriggle out of your earlier concession that you deviated
from what Ebrima was saying and started discussing extraneous matters. You
even admitted again in this post that when you did not have anything to
refute in Ebrima's post, you decided to: "bring in OTHER ISSUES that I
[Kebba Jobe] considered relevant to Lers, you and Ebrima included." Emphasis
mine. You are herein admitting that you changed course (veered).

About the apportionment of blame for the Massacre, I am sorry if you cannot
follow a line of logical thought for an extended period of time. There is
very little I can do about that. I will endeavor to be very brief and
straight-forward with you this time so you can follow what I am trying to
say. There is no inconsistency in what I said. I said that ALL the parties
you mentioned HAVE TO be blamed. The degree to which they should be blamed,
is another topic that was not being exhaustively addressed in the post you
quoted. What I was addressing was Yaya's culpability and your attempt to
downplay Yaya's role. If you follow my postings you will realize that I
NEVER said that Yaya was solely responsible for this Massacre and the
ensuing lawlessness. Matter of fact, I even included characters like you
among the culprits.

I hope you get it straight that I am NOT absolving the 'trigger happy
animals' that acted on Yaya's order. However, in my opinion, Yaya is
guiltier than those animals. My point was that the Opposition should not be
lured by the likes of you to FOCUS on the 'trigger happy animals' or the
'NAMS'. Yaya is the bigger culprit here. More importantly, he is the one
that calls the shots and give the shoot-to-kill orders. So, I reiterate that
simple logic tells us to Focus on the bigger fish and deal with the small
fry in due course. I hope I made myself clear this time. You are ALL guilty.
It is just that Yaya is guiltier.

I hope after reading the above, it will also help you to understand my
stance vis-a-vis the parliamentarians and the Indemnity Decree. BOTH the
parliamentarians and Yaya are guilty. But again, since Yaya is the one
pulling the strings, he is guiltier in my book.

I will deal later with the gullibility you evinced by stating such
theoretical maxims about the source of remuneration and security of tenure
of APRC parliamentarians in order to show how independent these morons are
from Yaya. Jobe, I think you think you are dealing with ten-year-olds on
G_L. So the laws said that Yaya cannot remove the parliamentarians and
cannot change their remuneration. Do you read from that that these
parliamentarians are independent and do not have to toe the APRC line? Do
you read from that that Yaya is not pulling the strings? I will give you a
hint and remind you about what the law says about the removal of IEC
Commissioners. Did Yaya respect that law when he wanted to get rid of
Johnson? Jobe, your theories about what is in the books mean nothing to the
Dictatorship. Everyone with a functioning brain knows that if these APRC
parliamentarians go against Yaya's wish in parliament, they will be dealt
with severely. Again you just exhibited your naivete by pointing to these
theoretical checks and balances in order to rationalize what is going on in
the country. Get it in your thick skull that you are not dealing with a
Democracy. You have a Dictatorship back home. Yaya breaks our laws
willy-nilly. If you think the APRC parliamentarians have a genuine security
of tenure and remuneration, you must be on another planet. These people have
their lives on the line if they go against Yaya's wishes; we are not even
talking about the party dumping them as candidates.
KB



>From: Kebba Jobe <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: My Reply To Kebba Jobe!
>Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 15:19:14 -0000
>
>Ebrima, you wrote:
>
>"So, "Kebba Jobe", where do we go from here? It is rather difficult to
>maintain a meaningful debate with someone who is in agreemment in the main.
>As you know, I am not afraid of open debate, and I have referenced detail
>to
>support all my claims and statements".
>
>Ebrima, this debate is about our country and what is happening here. We may
>agree on some points but there are perhaps many others that we will most
>probably disagree on. There is a need for this debate to continue so that
>by
>the end of the day we will all be better informed. Others following it are
>also putting forward their comments which give different insights to it.
>
>When I posited that "the government is not Jammeh and Jammeh alone", you
>totally disagreed. My position on this is that we deserve a system of
>government that does not revolve around individuals (presidents) as seems
>to
>be the case in most African "Republican" countries. Accoding to our
>constitution, the three arms that constitute the governement are the
>Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary. The fouth arm, the media is young
>and growing. It is my opinion that the powers of African presidents are,
>for
>all intends and purposes very similar to those of monarchs. The only
>difference is the socalled elections which are in, most cases, usually not
>free, fair or transparent.
>
>I am sure you will agree that whilst the general direction of government is
>determined by the executive, it is equally true that these direction must
>be
>in conformity with laws that are formulated by the lesgislature to
>safeguard
>the interests of the people they represent. Under the 1997 constitution,
>our
>elected national assembly members cannot be removed by the executive, their
>renumerations cannot be altered to their disadvantage by the executive and
>they cannot be appointed Secretaries of state. On ther other hand, the
>legislature under certain circumstances may cause the removal of the
>executive, in this case the president. Under this set-up why do you want to
>exonorate the NAMS? Here we have some seemingly decent people, who lied to
>their own people that they will promote their interests in the national
>assembly, swore to put the national interest before self, swore to
>safeguard
>the very constitution that guarantees us our aspirations, and yet time and
>time again put party above all else. Take the recently passed Indemnity
>bill
>for instance. With the exception of Hon. Kebbeh, a NOMINATED member, who
>said ""We should not look at things like that, Security Forces should not
>be
>given carte blanche to kill because something could happen tomorrow.
>Adding:
>"are we backdating because of April 10/11 or what? We can pass the bill but
>with some amendments", almost every one else was either absent or voted
>along party lines. The point am making here is that the whole government,
>including the NAMs, should be held accountable for most of what has
>happened. I also posit that as long as the majority of the electorate
>continue to see the presidency as the alpha and omega of government, we
>will
>continue to have a rubber stamp national assembly and rubber stamp Public
>service commission. The presidency must be DEMYSTIFIED for a way forward
>and
>this can only be achieved by patiently and honestly discussing issues of
>national interest even if don't agree.
>
>DAMPHA
>
>Dampha, if you think that I want to bring disharmony to the opposition by
>labeling some of you angry and trying to applaud Ebrima and way he is
>debating me, then there must be something seriously wrong with you. What
>would I gain from that? If you also believe that because I have agreed with
>Ebrima on certain issues so far, that I will not challenge if posts things
>that are not factual, then you are be bigger fool than I thought. I
>endevour
>to respond to all and sundry about any issue I feel is incorrect WITHOUT
>HESITATION. Get it?
>
>You wrote "You attempted to absolve Yaya by saying that the trigger happy
>animals that massacred our children were NOT acting on Yaya's orders".
>Where
>and when did I ever say the above? Please don't misquote me. I have NEVER
>DEFENDED ANY EVIL ACT COMMITTED BY ANYBODY.
>
>My friend get real. What were you thinking of when you say "I am glad that
>you admitted that you veered off from the debate topic Ebrima was engaged
>in"? I did not admit veering off from any thing. I continued to use veer
>just to give you that feeling of cornering me. I had conluded commenting on
>what Ebrima wrote and decided to to bring in other issues that I considered
>relevant to Lers, you and Ebrima included.
>
>You wrote: "I noticed how you craftily tried to make it a matter of 'either
>or' when you asked to me opine about who to blame: security personnel or
>yaya. I say not so fast. I blame both of them".
>
>You later wrote: "Simple logic demands that we focus on the person that
>will
>not hesitate to order the massacre of our children".
>
>This was followed by: "I understand that unlike animals, our souldiers have
>independent minds and should reason".
>
>And: "But apart from the gullible, like you we all realize the duress these
>soldiers work under".
>
>What on earth are you trying to say? First you blame both, just to come
>back
>telling us that these 'trigger happy animals' as you call them, cannot be
>blamed because they 'work under duress'. Are you cuckoo? What sort of logic
>are you talking about for God's sake? This is a classic case of gullibilty
>and hypocricy, if you ask me.
>
>You also wrote:
>
>"It is the hight of naivete for educated Gambians like yourself to try to
>extricate Yaya from activities of parlimentarians. Do you honestly believe
>that parlimentarians are responsible for the indemnity legislation or any
>legislation for that matter?".
>
>You see your warped logic at work again. First, you tell us that yaya is
>inextricabily linked to the parlimentarians as far as the imdemnity
>legislation or any other for that matter just to backtrack implying that
>the
>parlimentarians cannot be blamed at all.
>
>Dampha, I still maintain that the anger in you will not allow you to see
>the
>bigger picture. Our problem cannot be narrowed down to only
>Yahya. I opine that, we have a mystified presidency, a less than honourable
>bunch of NAMs, brutal security forces and very gullible so called
>educated/informed paper tigers.
>
>Bye 4Now, KB Jobe.
>_________________________________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
>
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