Conteh, thanks for your insights. You raised some very important issues
about the way forward. The Opposition would do really well following some of
your suggestions. Let me reassure you that vote-buying to disenfranchise
voters is very illegal. The IEC knows that. They knew APRC was buying votes
well before the elections. They did not do a thing. But as we said, let us
not cry over spilled milk. We already told them that we know about their
despicable activities. As you rightly pointed out, now is time to work and
avoid this debacle from happening in October. Let us privately get together
and as a united opposition, devise means of safeguarding the right of the
Gambian voter to cast his or her vote for the party of his or her choice.

That is step one. Step two is to hand combat APRC on their dismal record.
Let us use Famara Jatta's budget as our bible. Their record does not have a
life-span of six years. Their record has a life-span of thirty-six years.
APRC should bear the burden of defending the Jawara record, not UDP. The
obvious reason is that you have characters like Buba Baldeh and Nafa Saho in
the thick of things running the party. You also have spineless civil
servants that messed the country up during the Jawara era, still working for
APRC and helping them to wreck the country further. Almost all the APRC
programs were stolen from PPP. The first budget they passed as AFPRC was a
carbon copy of BB Darboe's budget during the Jawara era. This Vision 2020
thing (the basis of subsequent budgets)you always hear about, was put
together during the Jawara era and was stolen from them by the AFPRC/APRC.

These people are not thinkers that have original ideas to solve our most
challenging problems. Famara Jatta is NOT Sidi Sanneh or Ousman Jah or Lamin
Barrow. The man is where he is because he is an empty barrel. If you doubt
me, just look at what Batchi Baldeh did to them. One moment Baldeh justified
his mortgaging of his soul to the Devil by stating that he was doing his job
(a patriotic duty). The next you know, the hypocrite resigned to go to
greener pastures. I do not blame him for that at all. Matter of fact, I am
very glad that he left to go to a place where his services will be of more
use. My point is, the nonentities running that country do not have what it
takes to survive in the real competitive world. Mediocrity is the order of
the day in an environment that really require smart and original thinkers.

These vermin cannot move us forward. Any imbecile can steal projects from
PPP and beg Taiwan to finance the projects. But what people have to realize
is that we can do better than that. When we have real intellectuals running
that country, Gambians will not grow poorer while God is giving us more
rain. They want to ascribe the increase in productivity to the tractors
donors gave us (and Yaya pretended that it is coming from his pocket). We
all know that the tractors did not do the trick. Besides, what can we show
for the increase in productivity? People being more and more destitute?

These people are filled of crap. If we tell them some of our ideas, they
will steal it and pretend that it is theirs. At this stage, let us point out
their missed opportunities. When the time comes, we will show the whole
world how even High School kids can do better than the bunch of losers we
have running our country. Months ago when I reacted to the message from the
American Ambassador on his birthday, I said that I was not going to give
this illegal government good ideas. I broke that promise on two different
occasions. One was during the Ebrima Barry case and the other one related to
the Alimenta debacle and the plight of our farmers. On both occasions, I
realized that the greater good was served if we intervened. They might deny
that they stole our ideas regarding Alimenta, but we know better. When I was
telling them that the groundnut debacle cannot be solved without
compensating Alimenta, the morons were bent on prosecuting Alimenta for
money laundering. Does that tell you that these people recognized that
Alimenta needed to get out of the way before the groundnut industry can
recover? They were trying to play hardball with Alimenta until we pointed
out to Pap Cheyassin Secka et al that fighting Alimenta will just cripple
the groundnut industry. What happened eventually? They begged the EU to pay
Alimenta 12 million dollars so that outfits such as Hilo can access the
international markets without fear of reprisal from Alimenta.

They used our idea to try and solve the groundnut fiasco. But being the
morons and nonentities they are, they could not follow the logical
conclusion of what we were trying to say. Before bringing in people like
Hilo, they should have made sure that Hilo had enough money to buy the
groundnut. So, you see where they screwed the farmers again? These people
cannot solve our problems. We on G_L did more digging on Hilo than the
vermin running our country. All they were interested in, was getting a cut
from the operators in the industry. Yaya and his cohorts do not care whether
our farmers sell their nuts at competitive rates. Even if they cared, they
do not have the wherewithal or the good heart to put together a good deal
for the benefit of our farmers. Instead of putting the farmers number one,
Yaya is preoccupied about the bribe he and characters like Baba Jobe and
Amadou Samba are going to get.


Conteh, one critical point Yaya and his supporters want us to miss is, where
does Gambia get the money to finance poverty alleviation projects. Yaya,
being the moron he is cannot come up with something more original than
Allah's Bank. This is all a ploy to confuse people and trivialize a very
fundamental issue. The fact of the matter is, 90% of our poverty alleviation
program is financed by donors in the form of grants or loans. These are
Famara Jatta's and UNDP's figures; not mine. You see why it is crucial that
we know where the money we depend on comes from? The question now becomes,
who is in a better position to attract these grants and loans? A
dictatorship that alienates the most powerful countries in the world, or a
democratically elected government that won a free and fair elections? Do we
stand a better chance with a government led by a moron that cannot
articulate the plight of our people or do we want thinkers that can present
our case in a logical fashion? Do we want a mediocre like Famara Jatta to
represent us before the international community or do we want higher caliber
people to be our ambassadors?

There is nothing called an Allah's Bank. Look at Jatta's budget. The money
Yaya dishes around are either the proceeds of criminal activites (bribes and
drug traficking) or handouts from rogue nations like Taiwan. We should quit
asking the vermin where he got his money from. You can strip him naked and
beat the Hell out of him and the moron will never give you a coherent
explanation about where he got his money and the money the government uses
in order to 'develop' the country.

Famara Jatta only revealed the source in his budget because he knows that if
he does not do that the donors will not give them handouts. Try getting
another APRC supporter to tell you where Yaya got his money from. There is
nothing magical about the answer. The pertinent question is, who is in a
better position to get us the money to develop the country? But you can only
get to that question after you figure out where the money comes from. You
see why they do not want people to know where the money comes from? You see,
Yaya can always claim that he has better access to Allah than us. The
'Jalang' worshipper relies on these childish mumbo jumbo in order to mystify
people. We know he is lying. He knows that if he tells us that he goes to
Taiwan and Libya to beg for money, people will tell him to go to Hell
because we can certainly do better with a smarter and more polite beggar
than he is.

Conteh, as you can tell, whichever way you slice it, these vermin are not
good for our country. First of all, they are not well positioned enough to
attract all the money that can come to the country. Do you know the amount
of foreign exchange we lost as a result of the withdrawal of agencies like
USAID? But worse still, these vermin do not know what to do with the meager
aid money we are getting now. They are busy enriching themselves at the
expense of the Gambian poor. It is important that we let our people know
that these vermin have nothing to offer us but misery. Yaya and his cohorts
are where they are today because they used bandit tactics and stole power
from a democratically elected government. That's all.
KB





>From: MLJ Conteh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Please Let Us Learn From This One
>Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 07:08:21 -0400
>
>Comrades:
>
>Many of us have expressed our feelings on our
>loss to the dictator in Kiang East bye-elections.
>We have unfearingly expressed our distaste for
>the moron and his new strategy in buying voter
>cards.
>
>Some have suggested that we educate the voters
>of their short-comings in accepting a onetime
>advance of D25.  I believe that will not be
>the solution to the problem.  We should actively
>write letters to the Independent Electoral
>Commission in denouncing the illegal tactic by
>the dirimo of kaninlai.  We should ask whether
>vote buying is a violation of The Gambia electoral
>laws.  If in fact it is true that no political
>party should buy voter cards, then we will be in
>better company for the Presidential Elections.
>The opposition should also divide villages and
>towns into subsets of about 50 registered voters
>and enumerate to ensure that their supporters
>are encouraged to vote.  Voters should be asked
>whether they have their voter cards, especially
>at elections time.  Each subset head should
>even collect voter cards from any willing voter.
>The names of persons who will keep voter cards should
>be discrete.
>
>We must set strategies and vow to rescue our
>country from satan yahya jemus.  The opposition
>must also embark on a public relations campaign
>in ensuring that no Gambian is denied the right
>to vote.  Another illegal move by moron jemus is
>the use of state money in buying tractors solely
>for enticing his supporters in the provinces.  Is
>this procurement passed by the legislature?  Can
>the opposition clearly make a case in
>substantiating that taxpayers' funds were used
>to buy these tractors?  How can the dictator afford
>to buy these tractors?  How much is he paid yearly?
>
>The opposition should also embark on a foreign
>relations campaign in engaging the donors to The
>Gambia on the dangerous precedent they are
>inadvertently setting by donating money
>to our country without any specifications or
>conditions.  The UDP, NRP and PDOIS should
>collectively visit donor countries and express
>their feelings of how moron jemus is using donor
>funds for his own selfish advantage.
>
>We cannot just condemn the illegality of the
>forces of evil without providing solutions to
>the problems.  We have provided The Gambian
>people with pertinent information on the dubious
>acts of the illegal government of the day.  Our
>resources and convictions will provide assurance
>for a better Gambia.  Our desire for a free
>Gambia will be a reality if we unite.  Our house
>should not be divided because we know who our
>enemy is.  Whether you support UDP, NRP or PDOIS,
>you should know that our refusal to speak in one
>clear voice will result in dictator yahya's
>success in reigning over us.
>
>Long live democracy and down with dictator dirimo
>yahya jemus.  Dictator yahya, please let my
>people go.
>
>Naphiyo,
>
>Comrade ML Jassey-Conteh
>
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