Jabou & Saikss,
I believe you have said it all but I just cannot let this insult from Jammeh go like that. For Jammeh and his government to condemn terrorism when they are terrorising and starving ordinary Gambians is really an insult. If September 11 was declared a public holiday then April 10/11 should also be declared a public holiday. We all sympatises with the Americans and the rest of the world on what happen September 11. But we are against the fact that America will go to bed with dictators and terrorist who are also mudering and killing our people. That we won’t accept in the cause to fight terrorism in the West. Terrorism is not new to us Africans because our people has been terorrised by our governments and leaders for so long that it became a normal and every other day thing.
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The political mismanagement, corruption and disregard by the authorities for the bulk of the people have prevailed, indeed flourished since Jammeh’s take over. What Jammeh and co have created in the country are conditions that are distinctly unfavourable for the development of people's abilities, motivations and political institutions.
They have ruled the country like medieval fiefdoms, looting the faltering economy and through shocking mismanagement creating hardships and famines for people. The West bestow legitimacy on the destructive dictators who have for so long been at the centre of Africa's ruination, and then bail them out with tranches of aid when their countries collapse, when its in their interest.
Jabou you said it all, we have to blame ourselves. The American struggle against terrorism is a clear message to all of us that they care less about what happens in our continents as long as it does not affect them. And this is why we have to shoulder the responsibilities for our nations development. No one will do it for us.
The Struggle Continues!!!
Ndey Jobarteh
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>From: Jabou Joh <
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>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list <
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>To:
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>Subject: Re: Press Release/Saiks
>Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 12:27:46 EDT
>
>In a message dated 9/15/2002 1:45:11 PM ,
[log in to unmask] writes:
>
> > Even going by official information, one
> > would notice that poverty in the country has increase more than double
> > within
> > the period of the rule of the APRC.
> > One would further wonder what is revolutionary in the APRC regime when
> > communal land is being seized from hard working people and handed over to
> > land
> > speculators who have as their primary objectives to satisfy the luxurious
> > need
> > of the reactionary petty bourgeoisie instead of Government taking the
> > responsibility of providing the Gambian masses with decent housing.
> > What is revolutionary in the APRC regime when stalls etc are bulldozed to
> > built four lane highways with loans that generations to come will have to
> > struggle with whiles ordinary people who were struggling for their survival
> > on
> > these high way were forced to abandon their working place in a humiliating
> > manner. What is revolutionary with the APRC regime when jet fighters
> > manoeuvres in the skies at the expense of taxpayers' money, when on the
> > ground, a parliamentarian, on his way to parliament, found our bear footed
> > children searching in the rubbish for something good. What is
> > revolutionary
> > with the leadership of the APRC when they provide their leader with a
> > private
> > jet plane whiles our hospitals and clinics are depended on philanthropists
> > to
> > provide them with basic medical instruments and medications.
> > When revolution is substituted for the personality of the individual, we
> > do
> > not only have the personification of the revolution but also the Godifying
> > of
> > the Leadership.
> >
> > Many a time we have seen how a reactionary leadership is being Godify,
> > whether
> > this is Kim Il Sung or Chairman Mao or Colonel Gaddafi etc.It only shows
> > that
> > the basic principles of a revolutionary collective leadership is being
> > manipulated to suit the interest of the Leader and show the true colours of
> > reactionary so-called revolutionaries as nothing other than political
> > "merchants". They take the masses as the property of the their so-called
> > revolution and subject them to a ritual ceremonies, kneeling on their
> > bleeding
> > knees and look on to the leader as their saviour. Revolution is the
> > creative
> > reaction of the masses against social, political and economic injustice,
> > both
> > in thought and in practice. It is which create the conditions on which the
> > human being both as an individual and part of the collective to advance
> > their
> > condition for total freedom. To even consider what happened on July 22 as
> > revolutionary is enough proof of manipulation of the struggle of the
> > Gambian
> > masses.
> > The Gambian Youths are not naive, what is revolutionary would not subject
> > them
> > into a perpetual state of unemployment and humialition, they have seen how
> > the
> > leadership of the APRC, within 7 years, have provided themselves with
> > enough
> > privileges, are the Gambian press not speculating that the Gambian
> > president
> > is one of the richest in the sub region after he the president saying that
> > not
> > even his grand children will be poor. They have been accused of being
> > responsible for the food crisis in our country because they are said to
> > refused to go back to the land and refused to take up jobs which only
> > foreigners are interested in. Any serious revolutionary government will be
> > at
> > the services of the youth, it will create better condition for them in all
> > fields of live, today not a single Gambian youth is without this dream of
> > leaving the Gambia for greener pastures, this is so because they are
> > betrayed
> > and humiliated, loitering in the streets, condition in the country is
> > unbearable for them, they either find their parents with the difficulty of
> > funding their education etc and denied the basic right to express
> > themselves
> > and since the army have jet fighters now and not in April 9/10,they will
> > continue to see the APRC regime as an absolute expression of a repressive
> > regime.
>--------------------------------------------!!!!!!
>Brother Saiks Samateh,
>
>Thank you, the above was worth repeating.
> Indeed one wonders what is revolutionary about the mis-dealings of the APRC
>regime and the tendency of our people to be so maleable to manipulation.
>
>Yaya Jammeh is hard at work ever tightening his grip by engaging in more
>manipulative tactics. It was no mistake that he declared a public holiday on
>9/11 when even the U.S themselves did not mark this tragic day as a public
>holiday.
>
>As so many around the World have commented already, and as evidenced by the
>illegal political maneuverings of Pakistan's Musharaf who blatantly gave
>himself another five years in office without the blessings of the Pakistani
>people really, and the Uzbek president whose human rights abuses are
>becoming legendary and the Bush administration looks the other way because
>these guys have learned to use their all inclusive language of "fighting
>terrorism" They are "friends" and thus the same human rights abuses that the
>U.S condemns elsewhere seems to be fine in these places. Yaya Jammeh wants a
>cut of his piece of that pie.
>
>Jammeh too is gaining milage in the name of "fighing terrorism" by first
>showing the U.S his allegiance to the cause by declaring 9/11 a public
>holiday even when the Americans didn't.
>That in itself would have been fine if it was not coming from someone whose
>human rights record is already dismal, and whose every move seems to be
>motivated by manipulative intentions.
>
>We Gambians cannot help but shudder at the possibility of dictators like Yaya
>Jammeh finding a new avenue to entrench their dictatorial regimes and
>legitimize the unleashing of even more of their venom on our people and all
>he has to do is label them Terrorists.
>However, we Africans as well as the rest of the poor, disadvantaged, used
>and abused people's of the World have no illusions about the disdain,
>disregards and lack of concern that the administration of George W.Bush has
>for us and ours.
>
>The case of trying to feed poor Africans genetically engineered food in the
>name of "AID" for the hungry is a fine example that the wealthy nations of
>the World like the U.S need their poor starving masses to use to get richer
>and to use as guinea pigs for experimentation.
>
>Please note that any food even rumoured to have even an ounce of genetically
>engineered grains is immedialtely ordered taken off the shelves of
>supermarkets in this country, so think about that for a moment when the same
>government has no care to send the same food to Africans.
>
>However, as I have always said, it is not the Bush administrations of the
>World that we have to blame for our situation in Africa, but our own African
>leaders, the likes of Jammeh and those that surround them whose interest
>lies far beyond the caring of a people whose very existence are the reason
>these so-called leaders hold office in the first place. But the worst of it
>by far is when one sees the same suffering people so oblivious to the things
>that can leberate them from their misery, and instead turn into the loudest
>and most loyal "servants" of the causes of their suffering.
>
>
>Jabou Joh
>
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