To the charge I robustly and objectively reviewed Papa Faal’s A Week of Hell, I readily plead guilty. But I vehemently reject a faceless contention that my review of the book is “venomous”! Papa Faal placed his intellectual ware in the streams of Gambian public conversation, and I indulged his wish for some reader feedback. We disagreed on Kukoi and what he stood for, a wholly legitimate outcome in light of the public tapestry against which the events originating in July 30 must be analysed. Its seminal significance guarantees that reasonable people are unlikely ever to view this particular event through identical philosophical prisms. For some, a so-called unconstitutional change of government is always unacceptable, and for others, a relativistic approach is more the norm. Philosophically, I am more inclined to the latter contention.Instead of reviewing A Week of Hell as I did, this anonymous person calling himself Kaba Sallah wasted valuable time by responding to my review. What disservice to Papa Faal!
About hating Sir Dawda Jawara’s PPP Government, I again plead guilty as charged. It was a perverse excuse for a government. To sit in power for upwards of three decades and to so completely evaporate in just days since 22 July 1994 constitutes the most disturbing demonstration of the PPP’s hollowness. I’m glad it went never to return. Compared to its replacement, the PPP was quite mild in the manner it interacted with the public as far as physical violence. However, without 22 July, we would still have the PPP in one form or the other, a prospect that would be utterly degrading for an independent country. No matter how tragic our present condition, life, especially that of a nation, is always a struggle.
I don’t know about the ghost calling himself Kaba Sallah, but as far as I am concerned, there is no distinction between disinheritance via physical brutality on the one hand, and by the administration of morphine on the other. A pound is a pound, be it of stone, or of feathers.
As a government, the PPP utterly failed in discharging its Constitutional responsibility of defending the Republic. When that critical challenge came in 1994, a thirty year facade collapsed like a house of cards, with the President and many Ministers running to lands beyond our shores. What an inglorious and fitting end to three decades of a do-nothing and tremendously corrupt government. Having effectively scrapped the so-called Mutual Defence Agreement with Senegal when Sir Dawda walked away from the Sene-Gambian Confederation, Kukoi ensured the success of a 1994-type event. To people like myself yearning for the demise of the PPP, this constitutes his greatest service to The Gambian nation. Well done Kukoi, and good riddance PPP!
As to your rather materialistic outlook in gloating over Kukoi’s alleged state of “destitution” at time of inevitable death, the joke is on you. For good or bad, he is assured a place in the annals of Gambian affairs. Next to the prize he sought and failed to achieve, public remembrance is probably the legacy Gambia’s prince of revolutionaries most yearns for.
About America, what is not to like about the dynamic, self-rectifying society that gave its people the seminal milestones of Dred Scott, and the 14th Amendment; Plessy v Fergusson, and Brown v Board; Dr King, the Civil Rights Act, and the Ku Klux Klan. Allowing for the imperfection of human systems, the US is the most distinguished democracy of modern times. Don’t just obsess with the fantasy coming out of Hollywood, study and understand the nation that in modern times represents the most sublime demonstration of human possibilities. I am forever grateful to America for giving me lasting opportunities!
Unlike you with a pre-1994 mindset, I was looking to a future Gambia enshrined in liberty and justice even as the PPP was totally unravelling in that watershed year. The attached 1994 document that should be read together with this rebuttal of your ghost article outlines some thoughts on The Gambia I would like to live in, a Gambia like the US, and other liberal western democracies.
Don’t just call me naughty for disagreeing with Papa Faal. Review his book! That was what I did, and I remain hopeful a new edition will incorporate some of the observations I made.
More significantly, this gives me and the reading public to compare our records of public service to the only country you and I are native.
And whilst we are at it, be a man and show your face. That’s what I always do!
Lamin J Darbo
DAILY OBSERVER, MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 1994
COMMENTARY
We salute you! Albeit Cautiously
Dear members of the provisional council:
As an international media blitz focused world attention on the tragedy of a million Rwandan refugees in camps in Zaire over the weekend of July 22, Gambians at home and abroad were captivated by the unfolding of the most profound event in our national affairs: the declaration of a military takeover July 23. Even for those Gambians who foresaw military government in our public life, the crisis that started Friday and culminated in a takeover Saturday may have come as a surprise.
As the sketchy details of conditions in The Gambia were taking shape in the media, some of us took informal polls of Gambians in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, eliciting their views on the overthrow of the fraudulent “democratic” tyranny of Dawda Jawara. I even made a few calls to The Gambia for the domestic perspective. To a person, the verdict was unanimous: we are happy and grateful, but??? Without doubt, you are the men of the hour, symbols of heroism to at least 90 percent of all Gambians. The question mark is over the future. And the future is what we must address because therein lies our collective destiny.
In light of the track record of military regimes in other African countries, the near unanimous but qualified support is understandable. We would hate to see our parents, families, friends, and any Gambians for that matter flee the country in fear for their lives. Death would be preferable to countenancing such a spectacle. To solidify your position and keep the country together, you must avoid the adoption of the modus operandi of military governments in Africa. More fundamentally, you cannot afford to create martyrs. And vindictiveness must not be a part of the new order of national affairs. Memories last forever, and if bitter, they become a factor in the calculus of daily events, escalating the potential for tragedy on a constant basis. Ordinary Gambians, especially the unlettered bulk whose support for Jawara’s government had no rational basis, must be left alone. Only those public servants whose conduct clearly triggers the response of our laws may be fair targets for investigation.
Dawda Jawara was a captain who lost his bearings, and the ship of state he disastrously piloted was destined to run aground. He finally arrived at the ultimate destiny of his nepotic, corrupt, and incompetent administration: the trash-hip of history. Dawda Jawara’s absolute control over the reins of power made him more feared than respected. You have the right to expect loyalty from your closet advisers, but they must not be fearful to the extent of endorsing all your policies regardless of their merits. You must be open-minded and receptive to ideas different from yours.
We are not nostalgic for an era and a government that visited executive vandalism on the Gambian people. But we also refuse to be sentimental and complacent about the present. Your place in history will entirely depend on how you utilise the awe-inspiring instruments of government at your disposal.
After a fraud lasting three decades, the populace may be prone to the syndrome of unrealistic expectations that are almost always integral to forceful government transitions in Africa. Your task is to communicate in effective but realistic terms, and to refuse to feed the frenzy of utopian sentimentalism during your honeymoon with the Gambian people. This, however, is not to suggest that you shy away from engaging the practical challenge of nation building. And nation building necessarily involves national reconciliation. In light of the manner you ascended power, certain constituencies may feel alienated. Your task is to reassure everyone, and not make anyone desperate through fear for personal safety. And even if private property is seized pending further investigation, I strongly recommend that a final determination of forfeiture be adjudicated before the tribunals of justice in The Gambia. In similar vein, and notwithstanding the suspension of the Constitution, the Cabinet members of the overthrown government must be accorded due process commensurate with the basic tenets of justice.
The families of those former cabinet members, whether among the Jawara asylum party in Senegal, or other parts of the world, must not be used as bargaining chips. They are not even vicariously responsible for the untoward conduct of their spouses and/or parents. Although our first successful national encounter with a forceful displacement of government, the experience of other countries should provide cogent instruction in our attempt to fashion a strategy of national unity in the aftermath of such an earthshaking event. The overthrow of the Jawara government was bloodless and we challenge you to keep your administration bloodless. This means no hostages, no summary trials, and absolutely no executions.
Lieutenant Jammeh’s interview with the BBC and his comments regarding the plight of the “little man on the street”, coupled with his statement concerning civilian involvement in the council, are encouraging.
As you make appointments to the cabinet and other policy-level positions, you are well advised to draw from a talent pool untainted with the cancerous corruption and indiscipline of the Jawara government. This should effectively exclude all the past and recent high-level officials in that administration who involuntary left office. Certainly no cabinet member as of July 22 should be included in your government, although reports reaching us indicate otherwise. From a national security perspective, such an appointment may be unwise considering the person’s key role in the Jawara government for over a decade.
A watcher of the Gambian political scene said that we should approach events in our homeland with “cautions optimism”. For now, we salute you, albeit cautiously, for ending a three-decade fraud that emasculated the Gambia. Everyone I contacted simultaneously endorsed the overthrow of the Jawara government, and expressed uneasiness with a permanent military regime in The Gambia. I strongly recommend that you seriously consider and communicate to the Gambian people a timetable for a return to civilian rule in the country.
Excuse my concern but my civic duties dictate that I express my thoughts on a condition of first impression in my country. The stakes are too high, and sink or swim, we are in it together as Gambians. For 17 years, I have followed every major political event in Africa and the world. I have seen governments, civilian and military, engineer and nurture atrocities of mind-boggling dimensions on the people whose welfare they are supposed to protect. I have also seen the silent killers, the governmental equivalents of high blood pressure, arrest the hopes, and drown the dreams, of generations of their youthful citizens. Jawara belongs in the latter. Governmental crime has different formulations, but after the enervating trials of the Jawara fraud, Gambians may have no patience left to tolerate an assault on their material and spiritual heritage.
May God bless The Gambia and Gambians in this hour of trial!
Lamin J Darbo
The University of
Tennessee College of law
3700 Sutherland
Avenue, Knoxville,
TN 379191, U.S.A.
(Tel: 615558 7034)