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Subject:
From:
Jabou Joh <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
The Gambia and related-issues mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 1 Sep 2001 17:43:08 EDT
Content-Type:
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If  Momodou Lamin Sedat Jobe was an honourable man, he would not have served
all this while in an administration whose hands are tainted with the blood of
Gambians, as well as whose human rights abuse  record is not even something
they hide anymore, and whose pockets are bulging with the meager resources of
our national coffers.

During the regime of Yaya Jammeh and his co-conspirators, many atrocities
have befallen Gambians, including the cold blooded order to shoot students
who were exercising their rights under our constitution to express their
opinions.

If Sedat Jobe was a man of honour, there have been many instances in the past
where he could have demonstrated this honour by extricating himself from
being part of a murderous and abusive regime.

Administrations are not comprised of different departments that are mutually
exclusive of each other. Together, these various depatments form the
government as a whole. All of them are part of what makes the whole.
Therefore, it cannot be said that Jobe is honourable because he resigned
only when something untoward transpired in his department. That is too easy
and assumes that people by and large will fall for any excuse.

All of the people in Jammeh's cabinet are part of this regime, and whatever
this regime does reflects on the entire lot of them. Together, they are one
entity. For this reason, if anyone is  truely motivated  by ethical issues
to resign from an administration, that issue does not have to be specific to
a particular department of that administration alone. This ethical stance
should apply accross the board.

The objective of an ethical and honourable person is to make sure that they
have no part in any government like that led by Yaya Jammeh. Sedat Jobe has
been center stage in this regime, despite all of the atrocities that have
transpired since he joined them. He is no honourable man, and we have no
right to ecpect positive changes if we pat people like Jobe on the back, and
heap praisies on them. Those two things are incompatible.

Rather, Sedat Jobe did not resign from this regime because he is honourable.
It is more likely that he contemplated his prospects for employment on the
international scene post Yaya Jammeh, and came to the realization that he
could not very well show up at an organization like the U.N or any other
international agency dedicated to the improvement of the human condition and
hope to be employed after being part and parcel of a regime that not only
expelled a diplomat merely because he attended an opposition party rally in a
country that claims to be free and democratic, but also has a human rights
record that is legend throughout the World by now. But sedat came to this
realization too late.

True to the devious nature of the people in Jammeh's administration,Sedat
Jobe was trying to use the excuse of the expulsion of this diplomat as proof
of his ethical stand, but what he needs to realize is  that his resignation
is too little too late and that he is already associated with the record of
the regime he was very much a co-conspirator of.
Perhaps his best option would be to try to take advantge of the "politics of
revenge" that unfortunately seem to be the modus operandi in  much of Africa
where regretably, a lot of us seem to form our political allegiances based on
the concept that if you are no longer with my rival, then you are OK, no
matter what your record.
Perhaps he will use that to his advantage, and the cycle keeps repeating
itself.

Jabou  Joh.

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