By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor
Each day that passes brings us closer to the point of no return, and we know this, because this is a road well traveled. Many African countries have taken this route before, way back in the 1970s, with disastrous consequences. Yesterday, one country after another realized that no one can force himself or herself on a people in perpetuity, and today all those countries are giving democracy a chance to succeed. Our government too must realize that there is a limit to how much pain and agony people can take, and some day, some day; Jammeh might wish he were never born in the first place. It is not a given, but the very likelihood is by far greater than the impossibility. To begin with, I can never ever imagine a government like ours ever existing in Senegal, with all the educated class fleeing their beloved Senegal for The Gambia, France and The U.S.A, and the prisons overflowing with political prisoners, as death and torture stalks members of the civil service; from the military to the civilian population. There is a country to run, but Yahya Jammeh apparently does not have grasp of what it is to be a head of a government. His every waking moment is spend in self-aggrandizement, and chasing ghosts, imaginary enemies, and devils lurking in every corner. His vindictiveness has gotten the better of him and he is consumed by the desire to destroy peoples lives by killing, torturing, imprisoning, exiling and sacking them so they are unable to provide for their families. What a way to run a country? What a nightmare?
The court martial trial of so many of our young men is just one example of how Yahya Jammeh is slowly but surely ripping the soul out of our country. With so many of our educated men dead, in jail or finding their way out of the country, Jammeh will soon have only the women to run the country for him, because no self-respecting person should put up so much humiliation at the hands of Yahya Jammeh. But coming back to the court martial, it is hard to imagine what it is like to be incarcerated in Mile II for twenty-five years and for life. Death is better than to be condemned to such an impossible life. But we will send a message to Yahya Jammeh that these sentences will not stand. We will free our young men from the prisons to which he has condemned them, and someday he might have Mile II all to himself, but before that we will put him in a cage right in the center of McCarthy Square and Gambians will come and look at him like they do to a zoo animal.
Like many other things that come out of our country, the sale of Gamtel/Gamcel was for me a riveting piece of news. Barely a month ago, I wrote about the possible demise of Gamtel, but nothing prepared me for this bit of news. Gamtel, which until recently was the greatest corporate success story in West Africa, gone down the drain in eight short years. What a sad story? But, this is probably just the beginning of the economic nightmares we have yet to see in our country. Gamtel could have been privatized without having to sell it to outsiders, but what makes its sale more disturbing are the characters allegedly involved in its sales. Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc) was a former President of Haiti, having succeeded his father, the butcher of Haiti Papa Doc Duvalier President between 1956 until his death in 1971. No one knows how many Haitians he murdered during his two decades as President. His son Jean Claude, Yahya Jammeh’s new friend became President at age 19 years because his father amended the Constitution so he could succeed him. He was overthrown by a popular revolt in the provinces, which spread all the way to the capital Port-au-Prince.
Jean Claude fled to France after he was confronted by the military and civilian heads to resign and leave the country. He and his father turned Haiti into the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and when he was still President, Haitians were reduced to eating leaves and roots for nourishment. That man is Yahya Jammeh’s new friend, and the buyer of Gamtel. Incredible! It is just unbelievable.
Nowadays, every time I look at the papers, the only thing that seems to be happening in the country is the endless court cases. One story after another is dealing with either a court case, crime and some other symptom of social decadence. The government has so many people on trial, that that is the only thing occupying the entire justice system for all these months, and will likely continue for months and years to come. It seems that Yahya Jammeh came to State House to waste so much of our resources on expanding the security forces, and on trials and incarceration of innocent Gambian. To make matters worst, violent crime and drug use, alien to our culture until recently, have become parts of the fabric of life. So many young lives damaged and destroyed by the scourge of drug addiction, and prostitution has grown exponentially over the past decade. These are the characteristics of a decadent society, a hopeless and a society caught between the need to do the right thing against the counterbalancing forces of abject poverty.
April 10th. 2007 has come and gone, but we will forever remember April 10th. 2000 as the day our country lost its innocence. The brutality with which a student demonstration was put down will remain burnt in our minds for eternity. We as a country will not rest until we deliver justice to all those young students so full of hope and promise, to their parents and to the citizens of our country. Like everyone who has died at the hands of Yahya Jammeh’s regime, we will immortalize them with a national hero’s memorial someday, sometime and somewhere. On this anniversary of that fateful day, we should all rededicate our efforts, do justice to them by promising never to rest until this murderous, divisive, uncaring, corrupt and incompetent regime is out of power by whatever means necessary. Yahya Jammeh has taken our pride, our hopes and aspirations, our existence and our very lives, and turned us all into a country of obedient slaves. How much longer can we put up with this emasculation, this humiliation, and this oppression? How much longer? My heart fills with grief when I think of all the pain and agony that our country is going through, because on this very long journey, we are on The Road To Nowhere.