Abdou:

Your comments are so insulting that I just could go to
sleep without responding.  Your generalization is totally
far from the truth.

I for want did not benefit a dime from Jawara's government.
If I may add, Sir Dawda was and still indebted to my native
constituency, Kombo East.  Before the rest of the Gambia heard
of Jawara, my constituency was used by Jawara in all political
interpretations for our elders to vote for him.  One disturbing
thing was that Jawara used regionalism by coercing our late
Chief Fa Touray Sanyang, that the Brikama people had no respect
for the people of Kombo East.  With that kind of message our
elders overwhelmingly voted for Jawara as our member of parliament.
If we had overwhelmingly voted for Mr. Kai Jabang, who was the
UP candidate, Jawara would not have been the Prime Minister of
The Gambia.  Sir Dawda had used a process of elimination from the
late Sheriff Ceesay to Sheriff M. Dibba, Assan M. Camara and BB Darboe.
Unfortunately for him, Saihou Sabally was the poison who contributed
to Sir Dawda's downfall.

While I cannot speak for the rest of the conscious Gambians who
believe in equity and fairness, I can attest that I never benefited
from Sir Dawda.  I can clearly say that Sir Dawda and the PPP
benefited from the Gambian people.  A PPP government of 30 years
could not even build a single primary school.

Can we find common ground and mediate for fair and equitable
alliance?

Naphiyo,

Comrade ML Jassey-Conteh
Greensboro, NC/Kombo East Constituency

Original Message:
-----------------
From: abdou toure [log in to unmask]
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 16:59:36 +0000
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: My apology and take on the so-called opposition Alliance


Thank you for this pointed and revealing posting.

Like loafing vagabonds, the comments of some of the UDP/PPP alliance critics
have been remarkably wavy and "herdish" suggesting a flickering and
artificial commitment to the struggle against the madness back home.Everyone
is entitled to her or his political inclination, but undulating postures
suggest just one thing: moral weakness and intellectual ambivalence.

Believe it or not many Gambians who today relentlessly make egregious
attacks on PPP had in fact benefited in many ways from the Jawara regime.
EG, some Gambians who are so anti PPP received their education in the US
through the influence of Gambia's counselor rep Mr. Kolka and the former
external affairs minister and later VP, the late AB Njie.But today, they
would rather pander to the APRC's subtle sympathizers in the name of truth.
Who can provide any logical reasoning that PDOIS or NCP is more committed to
unseating the dictator than the current alliance of UDP/PPP? Examine the
record.

AT


From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: My apology and take on the so-called opposition Alliance
>Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 05:57:31 EDT
>
>Jabou,
>
>Let us have the basic decency to admit the obvious. When you decried what
>you
>termed as a "so-called opposition Alliance" when the reality is that the
>"so-called opposition Alliance" is nothing but a "devious" plot schemed to
>bring back the PPP, you were either engaging us in an exercise of semantic
>sophistry or playing to the anti- PPP gallery. For starters it is plainly
>dishonest to imply that there is no such thing as an Opposition Alliance:
>what would you call agreement of the PPP, UDP and GPP to fight the
>elections
>under the leadership of Mr Darbo? The fact that Mr Darbo heads the
>different
>parties in the Alliance - UDP, PPP and GPP - suffices to say that there is
>indeed an Opposition Alliance, ipso facto. No amount of self-righteous
>pieties can make void this unalterable truism. We can all pen acres of
>rhetorical pieties and self-righteous indignation as per how things got to
>where they currently are; but to say that in all honesty there is no such
>as
>an Opposition Alliance, is merely unbecoming of you.
>
>Furthermore, in a bid to redeem yourself of the moral faux pas you
>committed
>vis-a-vis your rash denunciations of the PDOIS and NCP, you commented:
>
>"You see, after hearing the stories of these two parties, after conducting
>my
>own research and asking yet more questions, and with the way the effort to
>form a united coalition has unfolded, I have come to the conclusion that
>yes,
>brother Halifa Sallah was indeed right that after doing my homework, I
>would
>owe both of these parties an apology."
>
>This merely reflects your own personal weakness; i.e., how you easily
>become
>a victim of your own herd instincts of following popular and fashionable
>opinion rather than research issues and make the appropriate comments. Here
>your comment that you should have at least looked beyond the ordinary and
>do
>your homework before passing judgements is merely the psychological
>portraiture of one hugely predisposed to the short-termist and comforting
>lures of the herd mentality and judges before one has all the facts. Above
>all, this is a huge indictment of your own ability to critically and
>independently think and make critical and independent judgements.
>
>Jabou, at the end of the day, we can all engage this futile exercise of
>playing to the gallery of anti- PPP sentiments and employing all sorts of
>rhetorical pieties that makes us look good - morally. But what will it
>achieve in October? For all that it is worth these days, i was never a PPP,
>GPP or UDP supporter; during the period i happily allied myself with a
>political party, i supported the PDOIS. These days, i no longer endorse any
>particular political party. But i'm in this for something more practical
>than
>abstract. I'm in this because i want my freedoms and liberties back from
>the
>dictatorship that has since July 1994 hijacked the Gambia. If freeing
>myself
>from these hijackers entails a pragmatic alliance with forces i will
>naturally disagree with and oppose their political philosophy, so be it.
>What, however, doesn't help me is to engage in the pastime of anti- PPP
>rhetorical pieties that merely adds allure to the very dictatorship that
>continues to hold hostage our dear country. That will merely elongate the
>predicament that continues to grip the Gambia.
>
>All the best,
>
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>
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