vents that occured within the ranks of the oposition in the Gambia during the past few days brought both hope trepidation to many who follow such events. First, moments of hope with news of impeding alliance and later trepidation and disappointment that the alliance that emerged was not total.Lamentably, the opposition on the ground is short of sufficient passion for a total alliance to fight a dcadent regime in the forthcoming election. Now a few comments on some interesting comments made on these events. First, I am not sure that it is not correct to say that a leader was hastily selected. Before the Monday meeting there were a series of consultations involving Hassan Musa, Dibba and the PPP representatives. Further, Camara did circulate a memo to all parties on the alliance proposal. This suggests to me that no party was left out. In fact, it has been said that the meeting was postponed to allow Bah of the NRP to return from his overseas mission. Looking at Dibba's remarks at his press conference, I cannot see any reason why the NCP should have worked out of the meeting. Even where the udp and ppp had decided to confer privately, there is nothing wrong with that. This is negotiation and anybody who has been involved in negotiation knows that parties to a negotiation do confer in the course of bargaining or discussions; infact it is not unusual for one side to ask for adjournment while they consider new elements that may emerge. That has nothing to do with beig secretive. Any party to a negotiations comes with an identity and a set of interests and leaves with less than he began with. This requires maturity and a genuine commitment to the goals of what is being negotiated. In this particular case, both the required level of maturity and the commitment to task at hand had not been fully demonstrated. What is crucial here is a strong passion for unity, a passion that is much stronger that the passion for individual interest. We know that the desire for unity is dictated by the even greater desire - to rescue the country from grip of a dictatorship that will continue to bring misery and degeneration in our country. We must therefore forget about past glories and agonies of individual parities . Undoubtedly, Dibba's credentials are impressive: a founding member of PPP which led us independence, a former holder of various key cabinet portfolios and a former leader of the main opposition party.As a politician; Dibba is charismatic and has stelar public speaking abilities. Yet his deafening silence during the past 7 years has raised many questions about his leadership credentials. Although he has explained that the reason for his silence was meant to avoid instability, there are many Gambians who would not buy that. If he was convinced of the illegitimacy of the yaya regime, which replaced a democratically elected government he should have at least spoken his mind. I don't see how speaking out like, OJ did, would have led to instability. The bottom line is: anybody who is interested in unity as a legitimate weapon of fighting the dictatorship should subordinate all other considerations and join the alliance. If this does not happen, then it would not be inaccurate to assume that these leaders have not had enough of the dictatorship that yaya jammeh brought onto a "virgin" country of innocent and decent people. Dampha, I do understand your position against reconvening a meeting. But, I think as we move forward, let's keep our options open. As the saying goes, no situation (particularly in politics) is permanent.I think if all the opposition parties can develop the right amount of alliance passion, the present distance among them could be bridged. Jabou, I am glad you are holding unto your apology until all the parties speak out In fact I don't think you owe anybody an apology for expressing you views based on your assessment of what was happening. If they turn around and treat this situation as an emergency requiring bold decisions that subordinated individual philosophies and idiosyncrasies for the interest of the country, they could then be congratulated, without apologies for views expressed on previous manifestations. What we are faced with is an historic opportunity for good to prevail over evil. If we fail, history will not exonerate our current opposition leaders. AT _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------