Hamjatta
I think this is an interesting topic to debate with
sincerity. I shall definitely give my response to the
quesdtions you have posed, they are very definitely
food for thought.
Expect a reply by tomorrow.
Sanusi
--- Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > In a
message dated 29/08/2001 08:58:49 GMT Daylight
> Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
>
> > << It was an armed civil conflict brought upon the
> Gambia by Kukoi
> > Samba Sanyang: an ex-NCP parliamentary candidate
> and therefore when the
> > attempted dictatorship failed,some members of the
> come-back PPP regime
> > orchestrasted unjustifiable acts of atrocities
> against some NCP militants
> > and others who were percieved as supporters of the
> attemtpted revolution.But
> > for the direct intervention of Sir Dawda, (of whom
> i am no admirer but even
> > the devil deserves his due)the politics of
> retribution that some members of
> > the PPP wanted to bear upon their political
> opponents would have been
> > worst.Sir Dawda always advocated for the due
> process of law to brought upon
> > all such people which unfortunately was not always
> heeded by his supporters.
> > Had Yahya been in a similar situation, he would
> have ordered extra-judicial
> > killings and secret night burials as he did during
> November 11, 1994 or even
> > ordered a broad daylght massacre as happen to the
> students on April 10 & 11,
> > 2000. >>
> >
>
> Kanteh,
>
> Isn't this the exact point we've tirelessly tried to
> spell out for our anti-
> PPP clerics? Instead of these people taking a pause
> and put things in
> context, they engage in all kinds of intellectually
> dishonest and non
> sequitur arguments about the demerits of Jawara or
> lack thereof. The vast
> majority of these anti- PPP clerics have personal
> gripes against Jawara that
> still rankle. These gripes, and nothing else,
> accounts for their mindless
> anti- PPP zealotry. As i keep on saying, i know a
> lot of folks who have
> suffered one way or the other from the hands of the
> PPP. Unlike our anti- PPP
> clerics, these people have moved on and know deep in
> their hearts that anti-
> PPP zealotry serves none save the current
> dictatorship. Jawara as a president
> had his flaws; as we all are flawed one way or the
> other - like all mortals.
> But there is no doubt that he is a decent and a very
> good man. None can ever
> take that away from him. The idea that Jawara is
> comparable to Jammeh is the
> bane of nauseating hypocrisy.
>
> As per the whole Kukoi question, in my own opinion,
> that ugly episode of
> Gambian history is a moral ragbag. That is to say
> that it is not as
> simplistic as many anti- PPP clerics are positing or
> narrating. Kukoi was
> wrong to carry out that ill-fated armed insurrection
> of July 30th 1981.
> Regardless of Kukoi's wrongs, the zealotry and
> infingements of liberties that
> occurred in some cases, after the putsch was helped
> quashed by the
> Senegalese, is indefensible. Sentimental anti- PPP
> clerics like
> Jassey-Conteh, with his usual sentimental and
> romantic nonsense, claimed
> that after the ill-fated putsch, an anti- "Jola"
> witch hunt was officially
> sanctioned by the PPP. Can anyone be this silly and
> outrageous? Are these
> stupid claims not the very ones that are used to
> affirm Jammeh's morally
> disgusting and divisive affirmative action for
> Gambians he termed as "Jolas"?
> Where was Jassey-Conteh when the likes of Hatab
> Bojang, Musa Babadingding
> Ceesay - who was my neighbour in those days -
> Sanjally Bojang, SM Dibba and
> the numerous individuals who would not normally
> categorise themselves as
> "Jola" speaking people, who were subsequently
> arrested, detained and or
> incarcerated at Mile Two prisons? For Jassey-Conteh
> to rehearse and
> regurgitate this sentimental nonsense shows how low
> people can go in their
> disgusting anti- PPP bashings.
>
> Be all that as it may, since a post mortem of
> Kukoi's ill-fatedarmed
> insurrection is what we are after here, let us start
> putting things in
> perspective and in the appropriate context. I would
> like the anti- PPP
> clerics to answer three questions vis-a-vis Kukoi's
> ill-fated putsch and the
> manner in which it was subsequently quashed:
>
> 1. How should the PPP regime have reacted to armed
> insurrection of the
> Marxist oriented coup d'etat of Kukoi?
>
> 2. Was Kukoi right in the first place to launch an
> armed assault on the
> Gambian polity to achieve his diabolical Marxist
> aims?
>
> 3. Bar the innocent people who died in the conflict,
> what was amoral about
> the Senegalese intervention? What was wrong in
> Jawara asking Senegal to
> intervene and restore order in the country?
>
> Anti- PPP clerics in their mindless zealotry of PPP
> bashing couldn't even
> pause for a second and ask themselves these simple
> questions; questions,
> which if placed in the proper context of what was at
> stake and how it
> chanced, many who are now busy carrying futile post
> mortems of that ill-fated
> putsch will be appreciative of the fact that the
> Marxist oriented armed
> insurrection of Kukoi failed. Had they bothered to
> ponder the implications of
> a Gambia under the leadership of crack-pot Marxists,
> most of these outrageous
> claims will not be uttered here incessantly. I
> submit that had Kukoi
> succeeded with his agenda, Gambia will never be the
> relatively quiet, sedate,
> tranquil, moderate and peaceful place it was before
> Jammeh took over. Gambia
> was more likely to have been reduced to another
> tragic wreckage as Mengistu -
> another crack-pot Marxist - reduced Ethiopia to in
> the 80s with that
> horrendous famine and a seemingly never-ending
> internecine civil strife. I
> regret the lives lost in the ill-fated Kukoi putsch;
> just as i deplore the
> gross Human Rights violations than ensued after it
> was quashed by the
> Senegalese. But i appreciate the Senegalese
> intervention, without which,
> arguably, i would have grown up as another African
> statistics of a displaced
> child of a war torn African country. Forget the
> international legal arguments
> against the Senegalese intervention. Morally, Jawara
> was very right in asking
> the Senegalese to intervene. Without the Senegalese
> intervention, we can
> engage in futile intellectual speculations with
> hindsight as per what the
> fate of the Gambia would have been had Kukoi in his
> bid to force the PPP out
> of by the barrel of the gun. One thing is crystal
> clear to me: the relative,
> but snail pace advancement the Gambia scored post-
> Kukoi's ill-fated putsch,
> would certainly not have been the case had the
> Senegalese not intervened in
> the nick of time and quash the ill-fated putsch. No
> amount of intellectual
> skulduggery and Stalinist rewrite of history will
> change that fundamental
> moral truth. Basic human decency requires that at
> the very least, we admit
> the obvious and regard as morally abhorrent any
> attempts to falsify history
> simply because we have an axe to grind with
> individuals involved in such
> histories. These days, that just seems to be asking
> too much of our anti- PPP
> clerics.
>
> Hamjatta Kanteh
>
>
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