Anybody that remotely knows Ousainou Darboe will respond to this question
with a resounding YES and would not entertain the idea that Darboe will be a
willing participant in such thuggery. We do not need any phony investigation
to tell us that Darboe was not the aggressor in that fracas. Even if you
have never spoken to the man before and do not know his background, you
cannot escape the fact that Darboe is barely five feet three inches tall and
weighs around 130 pounds. He is a small man; albeit with the heart of a
lion. He is not a machete wielding thug. But what is more important is to
know who Darboe really is. I will start by sending a caveat here. I hold no
brief for Darboe. I am not friends with Darboe. I do not profess to know
Darboe more than his close family members, friends and associates. By now
everyone should know that if I had a court case in The Gmbia, I will give it
to Ousman Sillah and not Darboe qua lawyer. I also want to state that I will
never participate in an election where Yaya is a contestant. But I will even
go further and say that if I had to vote in a presidential elections today,
I will probably not vote for Darboe because I have a lot of issues with him.
But those reservations should be placed on the back burner in light of the
atrocities we continuously face in our beloved country.
Darboe is a very professional, smart, humble, cultured and philanthropic
man. Am sure I could have used numerous other positive adjectives to
describe him. This is not a power hungry thug who wants to cling to power at
all costs. For crying out loud, Darboe was chosen to go monitor elections in
Eritrea in his capacity as vice president of the Gambia Bar Association and
a human rights advocate. If one knows anything about Darboe's background,
one will know that he came from a very prominent family (Numukunda Darboe).
Because of his family connections, personality and brains, he was courted by
numerous political parties during the Jawara regime to enter into politics.
The man refused and instead continued to tirelessly represent his clients
(including Pap Cheyassin Secka) in court. Right after the 1994 coup, Darboe
was very active in the Bar Association and I remember seeing in the
newspapers a very lame condemnation of the coup coming from the lawyers just
to be followed by a stinging attack from the doctors of all people. I can
guarantee that Darboe had no political aspirations then or he would have
used his influence in the Bar Association to put more pressure on Yaya. But
once the coup began to mature and Yaya started brutalizing Gambians, the
calls on Darboe started again. When Yaya and his bunch of bandits got wind
of this, they attempted to kidnap Darboe at his 'vous' in Bakau. Very few
people knew of this at the time. This happened in 1994 right after the coup.
The attempted kidnapping failed because the van the thugs brought was
surrounded by Darboe's friends at the 'vous' and the environs. The cowards
fled. In my humble opinion, this was what spurred Darboe to stand up against
these people and become politically active. So this is not a power hungry
man but a reluctant politician (different from the johnny just cam
politicians) who was brought into this by the Gambian people that support
him; the same people that go to rallies with him and vote for him; the same
people that used to queue at his office before he became a politician
begging him to become one; the same people Darboe dished out money to from
his lawyer's office at Hill Street (pre-1994) in order to help them feed
their families; the same people he offered pro bono legal services on
numerous occasions. I call upon these same people, as a concerned Gambian
whom Darboe has done nothing for, to take over the police station where
Darboe is illegally incarcerated and free him and his supporters to go back
to their families. The man is in this mess because you convinced him to
represent you. It is your turn to show him some loyalty. So stand up for
what is right. FREE DARBOE. Upon his freedom, we urge Darboe to go
underground until the dust settles. Alternatively, he and his supporters can
match to Kanilai and demand the head of Yaya and his cohorts. They cannot
annihilate us. Do it for the sake of our children that died on April 10 and
11 and the many more that will die if we do not get rid of this government
with their nihilist and their genocidal tendencies. Follow Colly's advise
and make the dispensation of justice in the murder of our children your
priority. Justice here means parading Yaya, Yankuba, Singhateh, Badgie,
Sabally, Baabaa Jobe, Fatou Jahumpa, Saja Taal etc. before a firing squad at
the Independence Stadium and blowing their brains out. Had that been done
from day one, we would probably be cheering someone for killing Yaya rather
than having law abiding citizens being accused of the execution of a
nonentity thug.
KB
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
