NEWS
FORMER AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL STAFF RUBBISHES FATOUMATTA JAHUMPA'S "LIES AND
DECEPTION CAMPAIGN"
BY STAFF WRITER



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

September 11, 2005
A former Amnesty International local staff, has cleared the air by
rubbishing claims made by Ruling APRC self styled "Griot" Fatoumatta Jahumpa
Ceesay, that the recent Amnesty rights report vindicated the Jammeh
administration, describing it as yet" another bunch of lies and an attempt
to down play atrocities committed by the current administration."

The former Amnesty official told The ALLGAMBIAN online newspaper that
"Amnesty does not grade governments on their records on human rights.
Instead of attempting comparison, it concentrates on trying to end a
specific violation of human rights on each case. Amnesty is opposed to death
penalty and death penalty is in the status book of The Gambia. It was the
Jammeh dictatorship who reinstated the death penalty in our constitution."

According to the Amnesty former official, Fatoumatta's Jahumpa's jubilation
of the said report exposes that "she may be some one living in a different
world, where bad manners, low life tactics, abuse for human rights,
corruption and lies are celebrated as good virtues.

Such tactics said the former official, only served to entrench her
reputation "as some one who practices ignorant, insolent journalism that is
not based on the truth, but based on lies and suppositions, which is then
"defended" with rudeness and meaningless, unintelligible composed language,
of the types favoured by people with marginal schooling like the likes of
president Yahya Jammeh."

Further dismissing what he called Fatoumatta's "misplaced" reaction and
baseless ranting on the said Amnesty report, our source maintains that The
Gambia was never vindicated by the Amnesty latest rights report on the
continent. "I have no doubt in my mind that at the time of the compilation
of this report, the researcher on the Gambia, had not presented his or her
report at the time. This could be a possible factor for Gambia's absence on
the report. No section, group or member is expected to provide information
on their own country. The report does not vindicate the Gambia in anyway."
the AL former staff member pointed out.

The former Amnesty staff also informed The ALLGAMBIAN, "about a recent
report, in which Amnesty raised concerns about certain human rights abuses
and violations that happened in The Gambia in 2005, such as the brutal
murder of Deyda Hydara, the shooting of Ousman Sillah and the burning down
of the Independent Newspaper, just to name a few. These rights violations
will no doubt appear in subsequent Amnesty International Country reports."

The economic crimes and corruption committed by the regime said the former
official, are all glaring examples as human rights wrongs in The Gambia. "If
anything human rights is an unfilled and betrayed promise in The Gambia. The
current government had committed a lot of atrocities over the years, which
they will be accountable to future human rights trials." he warned.

Amnesty he went on, opposes torture and "torture is the order of the day in
NIA cells, police cells and the prisons. We have also seen the cowardly
attacked on Ousman Sillah, the brutal murder of Deyda Hydara, the arson
attacks on the Independent Newspaper and the House of the BBC correspondent.
The draconian media laws are all indications of Gambia government's lack of
respect for human rights and the rule of law."

The rights activist also intimated that Amnesty International worked for
fair trial and release of prisoners of conscience. But In the case of The
Gambia, he went on "you have prisoners of conscience languishing in Gambian
jails and one cannot say there is free and fair trials in The Gambia,
considering the presence of machinery judges and lawyers imported by Jammeh
from the sub-region notably Ghana and Nigeria."

The economic crimes and corruption committed by the regime said the former
official, are all glaring examples as human rights wrongs in The Gambia. "If
anything human rights is an unfilled and betrayed promise in The Gambia. The
current government had committed a lot of atrocities over the years, which
they will be accountable to future human rights trials." he warned.

Finally the former Amnesty staff said "at this juncture Gambians should stop
talking and start action now by coordinating their efforts in bringing
Jammeh and his gang of torturers to face justice. For example, in certain EU
countries there exist legislations which can enable Gambians to bring
charges against those perpetrators of April 10 and 11 massacre, if they
happen to visit the jurisdictions of those EU countries."



Go To Top

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright © 2004 AllGambian.Net. All Rights Reserved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤