Mathew K Jallow: No To Meeting With Yahya Jammeh’s Regime

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Mathew K Jallow: No To Meeting With Yahya Jammeh’s Regime

Tuesday, 27 December 2011 15:48

Dear Editor,
(Mailbag) - I read with curious interest the Gambia’s Foreign Minister, Mr. Tangara’s effort to reach out to Diaspora Gambians. I said curious because this is only now happening when Yahya Jammeh’s regime is increasingly under intense pressure from the international community after the recent fraudulent elections.

What this latest move has made abundantly clear is that in Yahya Jammeh’s attempts to be a smart ass, he has exposed his stupidity. Yahya Jammeh in his crazy mind thinks that he can win over the Diaspora community with what can only be described as his superficial posturing and laughable gimmicks.

We have seen this funny movie before, but each time Yahya Jammeh has never failed to relapse into his familiar repressiveness and brutality. And if anyone is JollofNews_Mailbag

deluded enough to think that Yahya Jammeh somehow suddenly had an epiphany and received religion, he or she has something else coming. Yahya Jammeh will try any trick in the books if it will help to prolong his reign of terror and one-man regime.

With so much international pressure mounting around his regime and squeezing the life out of his reign, it may soon be possible to discredit his regime in the international community, such that the flow of foreign aid that keeps the regime running, will be withheld first by western governments, and eventually the United nations and its ancillary institution and the IMF and World Bank.

This is his biggest fear and the reason why he is trying to reach out the Diaspora Gambians. But we are more committed to the effort to see his backside than ever before, and we are not shrinking from what is to us the Holy Grail no matter what tricks he comes up with.

Moreover, having listened to and read the divergent views surrounding the proposed meeting in Banjul in the early New Year, there is no doubt where my loyalty and that of most Diaspora Gambians lies.

I am personally vehemently opposed to meeting and discussing anything with Yahya Jammeh and with good reasons. But even more astoundingly still, it appears, Yahya Jammeh’s regime seems interested in discussing two areas of interest dealing with business; completely ignoring the serious issues of poor governance, which is the area of greatest concern to Gambians everywhere. To hold a meeting in order to try to convince Diaspora Gambians to participate in our country’s development is like preaching to the choir.

Gambians do not need to be convinced to do what is their obligation and are in fact everyone is dying for an opportunity to do anyway. It is clear, therefore, that Yahya Jammeh and his cabal are looking for a problem to fit their narrative in all the wrong places. If Yahya Jammeh can fist his four fingers, he will realize that where his thump is pointing, is where the problem is; himself.

The Gambia no longer has a functioning government largely because Yahya Jammeh has seized all the power to himself and the government bureaucracy, the National Assembly and the judiciary all operate under duress and Yahya Jammeh’s usurpation of absolute power is hurting our country. Beyond that, putting on the table anything for discussion other than the issues of dysfunctional government, murders, continuous arrests, detentions and incarcerations, the reigning fear and intimidation, the runaway corruption and other things, is utterly unserious and completely disingenuous.

And after seeing the names of the people who are slated to attend the Banjul meeting, one thing became apparently clear; it would appear none of them seem affected by Yahya Jammeh reign of terror; directly or indirectly through a distant relatives of friends. And curiously also, most, if not all, appear to be from the Greater Banjul area and of Aku and Wollof by culture, but not by tribe.

This is hardly surprising, because the same type of people have had such meeting in Banjul before and it was always trumped up as Diaspora Gambians supporting Yahya Jammeh’s regime, but when the dust settled, all their efforts came to naught. The wall of resistance mounted by the vast majority of Diaspora Gambians cannot be easily breached. We are loud. We are persistent. And we are unbending in our quest to see the back of Yahya Jammeh. Like before, we are again ready to drown out any propaganda Yahya Jammeh throws out through his echo chambers after their Banjul summit, and we will prevail.

It is disappointing to see Diaspora Gambians meeting Yahya Jammeh to discuss business, ignoring the fact Gambians are being murdered, and Mile 2 Prisons is full of Gambians suffering the worst kinds of human rights abuses among many other things. Their meeting will change nothing because none of the people who really matter most, is going to attend this bogus Banjul meeting anyway.

We the holdouts will always prevail, because we represent the true interest of our beloved Gambia and are never going to surrender to Yahya Jammeh’s cheap tricks; especially not without preconditions which will include the release of all prisoners jailed under Yahya Jammeh’s judiciary, end the arrest and detentions, investigate the murders, identify the gravesites of all murdered Gambians among many others. In the end, this ought to be the bottom-line for every Gambian.
Written by Mathew K Jallow

Comments

+9 #1 2011-12-27 18:14

There can never be a more alluring and compelling journey....than the one that takes you home.

Matthew makes a "rational" argument for consideration.

That is to state..that the desirious journey and home comming..no matter how much it bleeds the heart...can never be at the expense of those who have been murdered, gone missing or wrongly imprisoned.... or abandoned without hope.

Matthew is again on the right side of history...when he says...the hard core defenders of Gambian human rights...do not view this attempt by Banjul...as anything other than a further comedy of "Banjulian" errors.

A Gambian will always be a Gambian..nomatter where he or she lays there head.

To sleep perchance to dream...in mutually assured freedom, is never too much to ask.

Matthews first step as GPU/USA boss is a confident one.

A voice for the voteless..and a vote for the voiceless.

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