Could any one help me with Foroyaa's editorial email address please?
God Bless!
-Pa
panderry mbai <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Thanks brother Sidebeh for the powerful piece. Well said.
Momodou S Sidibeh wrote: Brothers Joe and Moe,
I am sure you both know you speak for most of us. I do not know whether or
not there was a coup attempt. But indeed, the fact of it is almost
irrelevant to the barrage of abuse the population is still being subjected
to by the powers that be. Unfortunately even the opposition politicians seem
to acquiesce in the farrago of nonsense spewing from those corrupting
newsies. And there is nothing as saddening!
Condemning coups, real or imagined, is fashionable these days all over
Africa. From the African Union boss to the last Alkali in town, everyone
must reject and condemn coups, even if only to ward off ghosts of suspicion
of possible complicity that may eventually haunt you. The AU sanction
against coups is indeed an important milestone in African politics. But it
must also be recognised that the outright rejection of coups - which we
should all applaud - nevertheless, provides a field day for tyrants and
frenzied dictators. Since they theoretically fear no coups d'etat, they
quickly start constructing personal republics of fear that they rule and
rule until they die. The AU's checking mechanism provides no counterweight
to the sinister designs of said tyrants and dictators. It ought also to have
insisted that African Constitutions include limits to presidential terms in
office: probably the best insurance policy against useless military coups;
coups that have ravaged societies all over West Africa.
So while we understand the quick condemnation of the purported coup from our
politicians, and while offering no excuses for the alleged plotters; they
could have insisted that term limits to the presidency make for a wiser
national securtiy policy than the president's blood-curdling threats of
setting unforgettable examples! Again!
Liberation and democracy do not come by special delivery, either from god or
Yaya. It comes through struggle for basic rights, such as the right to
protest against injustice. But even this fundamental right of all human
communities on earth, our politicians have conceded to Yaya. Not even Halifa
wants to defend that right! And so the unfailing logic of the evolution of
the Gambian struggle for democracy follows a path as predictable as
clockwork.
A government minister is killed, soldiers disappear, school children are
then massacred, numbers of civilans are killed by soldiers, a lawyer
survives an assasination attempt while a prominent journalist is murdered.
Except for other journalists, no one protests phyiscally in the country.
Violent deaths and disappearances and bloody threats become the regimes
staple diet. Its terror police, euphemistically called the NIA, employs
refined methods of harassment and torture: they pick up people in the cover
of darkness, and dump them into unknown detention centres. When the police
claim no knowledge of these detainees, fear creeps into the psyche of family
members and friends. A litany of unanswered or answereable question flood
the mind: where is my husband, did they kill him? Is he sleeping well? Is he
being fed? Rumour mills mushroom as NIA spies and informers multiply.
Suddenly no one knows who is a spy or who is no spy. First it was no
protest. Now it is no anti-Jammeh talk. The circulation of bad news assumes
internet speed. Any tiny sound of gunfire or something send mothers and
sisters nervously running for their kids at schools.
This is nothing short of a campaign of terror; and terrorism when
orchestrated by a state on a tired and tried population has only one
purpose: to create fear. But why is the state bent on creating a climate of
fear? To cause paralysis. So no one does a thing. And in their fear, people
would wish for peace, a peace that they think possible if they vote for
Jammeh or pray to god; and so we summon another five years of darkness, and
uncertainty and death and sorrow. Another five years of pain for our beloved
journalists at the Independent.
Cheers,
sidibeh
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