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The Balangbaa Movement: The Coalition for Civil Disobedience in The Gambia
Tuesday, 19 April 2011 19:52
Letter from AmericaTo begin with, we want to extend our gratitude to The Gambian people for their remarkable reaction to the Balangbaa challenge. The reaction of Gambians over the past three months has ensured that Set-setal is dying a natural death. We thank everyone for mustering the courage to stand up and for refusing to be ruled by fear and using that new strength to defy Yahya Jammeh’s over-reach and intimidation tactics. Judging by the population’s refusal to participate in the past few Set-setals, Balangbaa has shown some success, yet it is only the beginning. The Balangbaa Movement: The campaign for Civil Disobedience in The Gambia maintains that Gambians have a right to go about their businesses without being restricted by any arbitrary and draconian pronouncement by Yahya Jammeh; Gambians have a right to find ways to feed their families; to visit
loved ones; to go to places they want or simply to get in their vehicles and drive to wherever they want to, for anything or for nothing at all. It is our inalienable civil rights to so do, a right that Yahya Jammeh or anyone else can deny us. As we said before, this is just the beginning. Now as the farming season draws near, we will launch a new campaign geared towards encouraging Gambians; both the military, civil service and the population NOT to allow Yahya Jammeh to coerce and use them as slave-laborers on his farms; whether it is in Kanilai, Jiboro or Koina and Sutusinjang. We as a country will not tolerate Yayha Jammeh’s coercion of our people as SLAVE-LOBARERS on his so-called farms. This has gone on for far too long and it has to end.Fellow Gambians, we are here once again to address matters of significant importance to our country. Just last week we commemorated the eleven anniversary of the massacre of sixteen students at the hands of Yahya Jammeh and his regime of criminals, thieves and thugs. We know it is of little consolation to the parents of these brave young men and women as long as the perpetrators of these crimes are not brought to justice. As we all know, the massacre of the students is only one of a litany of heinous crimes Yahya Jammeh and his henchmen have to answer for. In every civilized country in the world, when people are killed, their deaths are investigated and those who committed the crimes are held accountable. In our case, of the nearly hundred Gambians who have been murdered and the twenty who have simply disappeared from the face of this earth, there has been no serious investigation not to speak of arrest of the perpetrators. And there is a reason for that. Yahya Jammeh is the primary mastermind of each incidence of murder, execution and disappearance that has happened in our country. He and his regime are the primary beneficiaries of these heinous crimes against our people. The time has come for us to demand answers, as it is our right to know, but more importantly, our laws and our sacred Constitution demand it. But as we all know, Yahya Jammeh does not care about laws or Constitution of our country; for he has always subverted these institutions whose primary tenants are to foster security and peaceful coexistence amongst ourselves. Today, Yahya Jammeh is the law; the Constitution and the National Assembly all wrapped into one.
Fellow Gambians, today we have no functioning government. The only thing that preoccupies Yahya Jammeh from the moment he wakes up to the time he goes to bed, is to ensure his security, to find innocent Gambians he feels are a threat to this power and prosecute them over false allegations. It is as if there are no longer any governmental institutions in the country. For years now we not heard of the Ministry or Department of Agriculture. The only thing about agriculture we hear about is the military and civilian population slave-laboring on Yahya Jammeh’s dozens of farms located throughout the country. Gambians labor on Yahya Jammeh’s farms under the hot sun like slaves and he in turn uses that harvested crop to feed his fellow Jola tribesmen from Casamance. We no longer hear about the Ministry and Department of Health. We no longer hear about any ministry or government department or agency; for Yahya Jammeh has assumed the roles of every government institution and agency in the country, and the news headlines in the Daily Observer scream about it all the time; Yahya Jammeh donates ambulances to the health ministry; Jammeh donates medical equipment to the ministry of health; Jammeh donates military trucks to the army; Jammeh distributes uniforms to the military; Jammeh donates 50, 000 dalasis to staff of an agency; Jammeh donates tractors to the department of agriculture; Yahya Jammeh donates vehicles to.. It goes on and on. The governmental institutions which ought to have budgets to purchase what they need to operate effectively on behalf of the Gambian people are all redundant. Government civil servants report to work each day and get paid each month for doing absolutely nothing.
Fellow Gambians, the world is changing rapidly all around us while we still doze off as if nothing is wrong with our country. This attitude of complacency is no longer sustainable. If any Senegalese President had ordered the murder of even one person, he would be jailed and perhaps even executed. At the minimum, there would be riots throughout Senegal for the people would rise up and demand answers and accountability. So why does Gambians continue to allow Yahya Jammeh to get away with the horrible crimes he has committed against our country and our people? Just recently, another five more of our young military men have been reported missing, not to mention the many others who have been executed or disappeared without a trace. Yet our military and security forces just sit there and pretend nothing is happening to their fellow brothers, co-workers and countrymen at the hands of Yahya Jammeh. Blaise Campoare of Burkina Faso might be on the way out, to end his twenty three years of dictatorial regime, because he locked up a few soldiers. Today as we speak, the students and the youth of Burkina Faso have joined forces with the military to kick Blaise Campoare from power after twenty three brutal years. We Gambians can no longer allow ONE man to rule our country like a king. We can no longer tolerate Yahya Jammeh behaving as if he is the only living person in our country. We are tired of Yahya Jammeh acting like an imperial Emperor?
Fellow Gambians, two weeks ago, Yahya Jammeh made some ominous and significant promotions within the military and security ranks, which only proves that his intentions for our country are treacherous and evil. First Yahya Jammeh retired Serign Modou Njie and promoted several of his henchmen, most of them Jolas like him, some of who are known to have committed murders for Yahya Jammeh in the past. Sulayman Badjie his fellow Jola tribesman, who is not even fit to be a drill-sergeant for Boys scout troop, was promoted to Brigadier General, and Commander of the Republican National Guard; Alhaji Martin who is one of Yahya Jammeh’s serial murderers-for-hire, was promoted Brigadier General, and Commanding the States Guards; Bora Colley who headed the group that strangled my newphew Sgt. Illo Jallow on two months ago, was promoted to a Brigadier General and Commander of the Kanilai Garrison; and both Solo Bojang and Umpah Mendy were promoted to Luitenant Colonel and Colonel respectively. What all these new so-called Generals and Colonels have in common is that they little or no education and lack the professional skills needed for the military titles they now hold under a regime that has no sense of professionalism. Yahya Jammeh’s primary intention is to use these desensitized, gullible and callous individuals to protect him by whatever means necessary. Yahya Jammeh promotion of his fellow Jolas tribesmen and the vicious murderers he has used to will not prevent the Gambian freight train from bearing down on him. Moreover, we don’t need all these security establishments; State House Guards, a Republican Guard, and a National Guard, which are all established to protect Yahya Jammeh and keep him in power against the wishes of our countrymen. Yahya Jammeh wants to ensure that there is bloodbath between these security establishments in the case of civil strife, but we have seen more elaborate and lethal security apparatuses in other dictatorship more powerful than Yahya Jammeh, yet when the people rise up, nothing can stop them for they are the only real power in any country.
Fellow Gambians, Yahya Jammeh is running the most corrupt regime on the African continent today. Apart from the billions of dollars of our money he stashed away in bank accounts outside our country, he has given millions of our money to griots, musicians, Casamance rebels and others who have no right to our collective national wealth. Besides he also looted billions of multilateral and bilateral aid given to our country and converted it to his personal property. Cases in point include the Green Busses which were given to our country to facilitate public transportation, but which Yahya Jammeh concerted to his own property; the yellow Mercedes Benzes meant the strengthen our public works for the construction, repairs and maintenance of our road and government facilities infrastructure, but which Jammeh has made his own property, the gift of hundreds of thousands of bags rice from Japan, which Yahya Jammeh sold and pocketed the money; the properties recovered by the Asset Management and Recovery Commission which now virtually belong to Yahya Jammeh to decide what to do with them. The Gamtel/Gamcel, Customs and Excise and Ports Authority and other income generating institutions all work for Yahya Jammeh, giving him our money whenever he asks for it, or organizing and funding sports tournaments in the name of Yahya Jammeh’s son and spending millions in other things just to impress Yahya Jammeh. But one of the most troubling and stupidest things to come out of the Yahya Jammeh regime in the recent past was the closure of the border with Senegal. Two days ago Yahya Jammeh again maligned our country by his declaration that Gambia will not recognize the legitimately elected government of President Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast, but Yahya Jammeh is not representing our collective voices as Gambians. We as Gambians recognize the newly elected President of Ivory Coast, President Alasane Ouattara as the legitimate President of his country, regardless of what Yahya Jammeh says. Last week Yahya Jammeh called all the security Chiefs to a meeting and scolded them, but Yahya Jammeh was doing what he does best; transfer blame to them instead of taking responsibility for the mess he has committed the past decade and half. As I come to the end of this letter, I received a call about border skirmishes between Senegal and Gambians forces in which forty Gambian soldiers lost their lives. I have come to the conclusion that Yahya Jammeh sent these young Gambian soldiers to their deaths by forcing them to engage a more superior force of military men. This is a new development that has taken the Senegalo-Gambian relation to a whole new level of discourse that is dangerous to the brotherly relations we have throughout our history. Fellow Gambians, this is one more reason why Yahya Jammeh MUST go and NOW. The time to resist is now. Let us send Yahya Jammeh where he truly belongs; to the dustbin of history. It is NOW or NEVER.
Mathew K Jallow. Balangbaa: The Coalition for Civil Disobedience in The Gambia.
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Comments
George Orwell's 1984...came and went?
Though I suspect that the American view of being the worlds "policeman"...is being negated by a much stronger and independant United Nations?
The quest for liberty and freedom in The Middle East...following the movement away from the soviet bloc..to a kind of "peoples revolution"...will sweep Africa...soon.
The intelligent would seek to forge a united front...and not to form breakaway movements.
That united front must be based firmly on Law.
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