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Momodou
Denmark
11646 Posts |
 Posted - 13 Aug 2007 : 22:07:15
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FOCUS ON POLITICS
P.P.P CLOCKS 20 YEARS OF ITS RULE
HOW DID THE PEOPLE FEEL?
With Suwaibou Touray
We have been making steady progress in our drive to narrate and or analyze, where necessary, the socio-political history of The Gambia, from pre-colonial to post-independence epoch. We have gone a long way in our narration of events of the first Republic from 1965 to 1984. We have just started looking into events which unfolded in the year 1985.
Let us continue from where we have stopped.
Now that the state of Emergency was lifted, many Gambian intellectuals in country and in the Diaspora could now express themselves on the political and economic situation of the country. As for the PPP, the lifting of the State of Emergency coincided with the 20th anniversary of the PPP in power. The party in government made a big celebration of the event but despite that critics highlighted the party's weaknesses and attacked it from all angles.
The 20th anniversary came with unpleasant rumours that political violence, from "Bomb threats" to coup d'etat, would disrupt the day. According to the Torch newspaper, it was predicted that mothers would be concerned about the safety of their children and which might discourage them from allowing their young ones to attend the traditional march pass parade at Marcarthy Square, when the president Jawara makes a traditional speech to school children on the occasion. Because of this rumour, official security was expected to gear up in the arrangements.
By this time, Mr. Cheyassin Secka's reported operation at the RVH sent a wave of sympathy across Gambians, both at home and abroad. The resolve of this man increased the respect many had for him.
At the hospital, the Torch managed to speak with Mr. Secka who said he was pleased to hear the news of his family in Sierra Leone; that it was more than what he had bargained for. According to the Torch, Mr. Secka's long stresses of confinement were evident that the general incoherence, pain, the need to be believed, a general deterioration etc made the Torch to fear for his mind.
In the editorial of the Torch, the paper believed that Mr. Secka made a host of political mistakes; that the man's basic belief in the basic destiny of his country is unmistakable; that inspite of horrible public relations at any level he must be rehabilitated in the conditions of work he knows how to do best; that the right to life which has been restored, should become wholesome.
The Torch expressed the feeling that this man, Mr. Secka, deserves freedom, work participation, and as they euphemistically put it, the country has the strength to give that.
According to reports, Mr. Secka's father, a 73 year old man at the time, Mr. Ousman C. Secka said Che told him, "I am under custody but I enjoy, all the time, the air of innocence."
It was the Torch that called on Che's former university to plead on his behalf as he was their old product. They also called on the University of America and Columbia, the International Peace Academy, Inns of Law in London etc not to keep silent over Secka's political troubles. The Torch sent what they called a silent letter through the British and US Embassies in The Gambia.
Many people expressed their joy that the state of Emergency was a thing of the past. One Alhagie Kemo Landing Fatty, who lived in Finland at the time, summed up the feelings of many . Mr. Fatty felt, among other things that it was a great joy to learn that the terrible state of Emergency is lifted in The Gambia which he said was a good gesture. He felt that the jubilation of Gambians at home must be high; that it certainly must be a relief for Gambians to witness the end to the 31 months of state of emergency which was not only experienced with permanent wave of arrests and detentions without charges and trials, but created a state of confusions, paranoia and suspicions in the minds of the people.
'Since this gesture seems that your government overcomes the nightmares of the Putsch,' he told the president, 'one can hope that the records will soon be clean up by adjusting to Democracy, Justice and Human Rights' says Mr. Fatty. And if Democracy should take its course, fatty opined that people like Sosseh Colley, Halifa Sallah, Amie Sillah Sarr, Musa Ceesay, Jainaba Ba, Sam Sarr etc should not only have their peace of mind but the right to have a job or any document, a citizen has a right to possess, but the insults and harassment of NCP supporters especially in the region of Baddibu should cease to occur.
Mr. Fatty also adviced the president to avoid another "Kukoi Samba Sanyang" that is, to get rid of the conditions which created "Kukoi" i.e; instead of higher concentration on the political opponents and their activities, managing the economy of the country should be given the highest priority so as to combat unemployment, malnutrition, semi-famine and all the spelling words of poverty.
Mr. Fatty counselled that the enemies of the country and the real creators of "Kukoi" are not political opponents but the ones who contribute to deteriorate the national economy with all forms of economic sabotage including fraud, bribery, corruptions, and mismanagement and, as he said, 'most unfortunately, a lot of them were still in disguise.'
Mr. Fatty asked the president to extend the gesture to the prison walls by giving amnesty to political prisoners to make it more humane. He reminded the president of his own saying to "practice what you preach" and give chance to democracy, human rights, peace and national unity etc.
Feelings of some Gambians in the Diaspora on both the state of emergency and the 20 year anniversary of the PPP in power was captured by Mr. Tombong Saidy, who thanked God that the state of emergency has been lifted and that as he felt, all just and progressive Gambians are now given the green light to express their views as regards the political, social, and economic developments which befell our beloved nation since July 30 1981.
According to him, what he called the Kukoi hysteria and the resulting events have played and will continue playing significant role in our lives as Gambians, but opined that we face reality and call a hoe, a hoe. For Saidy, Gambian intellectuals are socially indisciplined, morally corrupt and egoistic and upon all that, unproductive. He said instead of being assets, they are liabilities to the society; draining an already dry economy.
He criticised intellectuals for coming back home with the ambition of self-enrichment; that they are what he called petty bourgeoisies and economic saboteurs.
Mr. Saidy was troubled by the saying of intellectuals that "The country is hard" but as he asserted they are not doing anything to solve the problem; that when one talks to them, they say, "They don't want to involve in politics." He said what they fail to know is that politics is part of our life. The time has come he opined, for them to let go their selfish attitude and contribute positively to the development of the nation.
Summing up the 20 years of PPP's existence in government, Mr. Saidy opined that since 1965, the achievements of the Jawara administration are rarely visible nor his political ideology known. He criticized the mono-crop economy system as unfruitful, the Senegambia confederation as a political nonsense, the so -called free education as academic mockery and the only successful achievement was the detention of opposition members. Mr. Tombong Saidy who was resident in the United States of American concluded by saying, among other things, that what we need was a total socio-political and economic re-orientation to solve the problem of The Gambia in order to have a stable, progressive and respectable living standard. He finally said the country was controlled in 1985 by a handful of what he referred to as the Mafia, who were in control of key financial, political and social positions, and who would manipulate the economic wheel of the nation to the direction of their choice.
'The Worker Newspaper' commenting on the lifting of the state of emergency as well as the curfew also described the feeling of the people at the time. It stated that Gambians, for the first time in the long, virtually unmemorable history of the nation, have experienced enforced confinement to their homes from dawn to dusk; that it is sad to learn a lesson in such a painful way but as they observed, whether accidentally or by design, preconceive or, inadvertently, The Gambian people have been embroiled in what they described as a holocaust of much abominable magnitude with its devastating repercussions.
The paper went on to euphemistically assert that it is only a lesson of this nature that could digest forever in the minds and memories of The Gambian people, and awaken them to safeguard their lives and liberty constantly without let up.
See next issue as we steadily pedal into the happenings towards mid 1985.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 94/2007, 13 - 14 August 2007
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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