A cautionary note to UDP and PPP leaderships

Following yesterday's demonstration of anger and frustration by supporters of the United Democratic Party who were coming from a successful party Congress in Basse that re-elected Ousainou Darboe as Secretary General and party leader, the dictatorship was rattled by the size of the crowd that paraded their anger along the streets of Serrekunda.

Jammeh was reportedly visibly shaken by both the size of the crowd and the show of vehement defiance of the repressive regime by a group of determined young men and women, most of whom were supporters of the United Democratic Party, Gambia's leading opposition party.

According to sources, Jammeh is more cautious now than previously as he inches towards the December elections by shedding his trademark confrontational approach towards his opponents, both real and perceived.  He will, thus, avoid deploying the army to confront protesters because of the volatile nature of the political environment that is being fueled by both the repressive measures of the regime and the deteriorating economic conditions resulting from incompetent management of the economy and high-level corruption.

Rather than confront his opponents, Jammeh's approach going forward is to target the leadership of the UDP and PPP who, in the eyes of the regime, pose the greatest threat to his leadership. According to our sources, the leadership of these two political parties and the most prominent and vocal supporters are potential targets.

Disappearances using Salif Sadio's MFDC renegades to carry out his dirty work, rather than arrests, detentions and torture will be the preferred method of dealing with opponents, according to our source.  The opposition parties, especially the UDP and PPP, are thus being cautioned now so that to appropriate measures are taken..                    

Jammeh must be confronted head on.

Sidi Sanneh 

Elections will not remove Jammeh from power; only direct action of civil disobedience in the streets will.  Confrontation of the kind seen recently in Burkina Faso is the only solution to the tyrannical rule in The Gambia.

The elections scheduled for December this year have already been rigged. assuring Jammeh another "win" and, thus, any attempt to go to the polls with Jammeh under the skewed electoral laws will guarantee the vile, corrupt and incompetent regime of Yaya Jammeh yet another 5 years of corruption, ineptitude, torture and mayhem.

The temptation of an election under the current electoral laws must be avoided at all cost.  Here's why.

The electoral rolls are filled with the non-Gambians from the sub-region with the majority from the southern Senegalese region of Casamance who have been issued with national identification and voters cards.  The rolls also contain fictitious names, names of the deceased and thousands of young Gambians who have voted with their feet by taking "The Back Way" to Europe via the Mediterranean.

The regime has confirmed our point by inadvertently illustrating our point in real time by collecting over a quarter of a million signature and voters' cards from registered voters in a span of one week across the country that has a total population of 2 million people.

According to the discredited Independent Electoral Commission, the total number of registered voters is close to half of the entire Gambian population.  In a country where it is estimated that over 500,000 are Senegalese nationals, the total number of registered voters provided by the IEC becomes highly suspect.

Anticipating a win, the opposition, as they have in four previous presidential elections that they end up losing to the dictator, brushes off these statistical anomalies as insignificant or inaccurate or both, plunging yet again into the dark unknown at the peril of a skeptical and apathetic voting public.

Confronting Jammeh head on in the streets is the only viable option left in ridding The Gambia of what has become a scourge that must be excised from the political scene for the rebuilding of the country to commence.   Gambia will never progress with Jammeh at the helm.

Jammeh invites Casamance citizens to protest against Senegalese government over border closure

As the border closure enters its sixth week, the economic repercussions are beginning to be felt across Gambia.

With little chance of negotiations between the two parties taking place anytime soon, further delaying the possibility of a reprieve in the immediate horizon, Jammeh invited a "large number" of  influential citizens in Casamance to a strategic meeting.

According to our sources, the delegation that was invited to Jammeh's home village of Kanilia, included village heads (chefs de villages), transporters including truck and bus drivers, mechanics, apprentices etc) to a strategic meeting.  The meeting took place Saturday, April 2nd.

The purpose of the meeting was to entice and encourage attendees to publicly demonstrate against the border closure by blaming Macky Sall and his government - a government increasingly seen as the main culprit despite that it was Jammeh who unilaterally increased the tariff by 1,000% without consultation or timely notification of the aggrieved party.

Huge sums of money were given to the Casamance visitors by the Gambian dictator to help defray the cost of mobilizing the local population in border towns and neighboring villages against the government of Macky Sall. This latest development is further evidence of how extensive is Jammeh's meddling in the internal affairs of Senegal.    

Gambia apologizes to Senegal, Foreign Minister Macdoull-Gaye requests a meeting for 5th April to discuss border closure

Senegal's Foreign Minister, Mankeur Ndiaye

Mrs. Neneh Macdoull-Gaye, Gambia's Foreign Minister has written to Mankeur Ndiaye, Senegal's Foreign Minister apologizing to Senegalese authorities, for what appears to be a breach of diplomatic protocol, on behalf of a Gambian delegation, led by the country's Trade Minister, who were in Dakar to procure and urgently ship a consignment of engine lubricant to Banjul.

Gambia's National Electricity Company (NAWEC) is not only running out of fuel but its stocks of lubricants, essential for the smooth running of its generators, are running dangerously low too.  It was this NAWEC delegation that resided at the King Fahd hotel.  When we asked why Gambia's Trade Minister headed the delegation and whether his presence in Dakar was necessary given the current tense diplomatic atmosphere that exists between the two countries as a result of the 5-week old border closure.

It turns out that the Trade Minister and the NAWEC who were mistaken for the Gambian ministerial delegation, did not meet his Senegalese counter-apart, and had to rush back to Banjul to attend "an extra-ordinary emergency session" according to the letter written by Gambia's Foreign Minister.

The extra-ordinary emergency session Foreign Minister Macdoull-Gaye was referring to was the State Opening of Parliament which was neither an extra-ordinary nor an emergency session of Parliament.  The session is a fixed item on the legislative calendar.  So it is incomprehensible as to why she will deceptively characterized a parliamentary session in this way.  She excused the delegation that had to rush back to Banjul and for this she apologized to the Senegalese Foreign Minister.

In apologizing for the breach in diplomatic protocol, Gambia's Foreign Minister formally requested a new meeting date of Tuesday 5th April, a day after Senegal's Independence Day, which could pose a problem.  In all likelihood, the meeting, if it's going to be held in the near future, will not be on the proposed date.  The proposed 5th April meeting is a preliminary and low-level meeting to set the agenda for a high-level meeting that will be schedule at a future date, according to Gambia's letter to Senegal.

It just so happens that the Minister of Trade issued a notice convening a town hall meeting of "all government stakeholders, commercial vehicle owners, transport associations and transport unions among others on Tuesday the 5th April - same day that Gambia is proposing to meet with Senegalese authorities - "to discuss issues affecting the transport sector and map out an approach on the way forward."

Gambia's Foreign Minister, Macdouall-Gaye 

The dilemma facing the Jammeh regime is that the Gambia National Transport Control Association (GNTCA), the premier transport union that has acted as intermediary between the Senegalese Transport Union and the government has since been banned and members of the executive charged with economic crimes.

It was while in custody that one of its executive, Sheriff Dibba, died under suspicious circumstances, leading to the call by the London-based International Transport Federation and the International Labor Organization - a UN Agency.

A second executive, Mr. Moumini Sey, who was arrested, charged, held in custody and subsequently released has not been heard from since. The Senegalese Transport Union, in solidarity with its Gambian counterpart has been insisting on an investigations into the suspicious death of their colleague with whom they have collaborated in the past.

The clumsy manner in which the border closure crisis is being handled from Banjul is further indication that the regime has lost both direction and the will to govern.  It also shows the total lack of expert advise in general and the area of foreign policy and international relations in particular. Another striking revelation brought on by the crisis is the isolation of the Jammeh regime in the absence of any offer of mediation by Gambia's neighbors in the region such as Guinea-Bissau or Nigeria.

A source sums up the unpopularity of Yaya Jammeh in Senegal and the region when he said "who cares about Jammeh's complaint in a situation where only Faure Gnassingbe (Togo's president) is his ally in the community', responding to a question I posed regarding the status of Gambia's complaint reportedly filed with ECOWAS.  

U.S. Senators urge Jammeh to release radio journalist, Alhagie Abdoulie Ceesay

U.S. Senator Richard J. Durbin  of Illinois 

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of  Vermont

Senegal's position on border closure remains unchanged; it will remain firmly shut

Sidi Sanneh 

Reports that a Gambian delegation led by the Foreign Minister Neneh Macdoull-Gaye is in Dakar as guess of the Senegalese government to discuss the border closure has proven to be false.

The story appears to have been planted by Jammeh operatives to gauge the reaction of the Senegalese - whether they are in the mood to negotiate.

The response was swift and emphatic.  Senegal's position on the border closure has not changed and, by all indication, will not change anytime soon.

There is a Gambian delegation at the King Fahd but members are are there on a different mission, according to our sources.
Members of this particular delegation may have floated the idea of wanting to meet with the Senegalese authorities to discuss the problem of the border closure which has caused havoc on the Gambian economy and to the general population.

Yaya Jammeh's decision to unilaterally increase the Trans-Gambia highway tariff by 1,000% a little over five weeks ago, without the courtesy of notifying Senegal, has been the cause of the retaliatory measure.

Senegalese frustrations have been building over time, as tariff increases without notice became more frequent - a muscle-flexing tactic that the Senegalese would like to see stopped because of the disruption to commerce it causes, and the inconvenience to the travelling public it poses.

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Jammeh's cash "donations" are obscene gestures.

Christians receiving D 2.3 million from VP, Njie-Saidy

Why would the Christian community accept such vulgarity in the midst of Gambia's worst economic crisis?

The D 2.3 million cash "donation by Jammeh as Easter gift" (equivalent to $ 46,000 that puts "smiles on the faces of the Christian community" as described by the regime's official mouthpiece, The Daily Observer.  It may have put a smile in some faces but, to many, the physical exhibit of raw cash during the presentation ceremony is an egregious display of bad taste.

The Gambia has fallen on hard times as a result of Jammeh's bad economic policies and a high level of corruption never experienced in over half a century of post-Independence history of the country.

Under Jammeh, the level of poverty has increased with rural poverty reaching inhumane levels.  As we speak, there are certain portions of the country, particularly the CRR, where Gambian children are dying of hunger despite the regime's claim that food security is a priority.  Its agriculture policies have failed disastrously in spite of claims of success in the regime's countless Visions.

Projects and government programs are starved of financial resources because of misappropriations and downright theft by a kleptocratic regime that the public treasury is indistinguishable from Jammeh's pocket.  It follows that all the physical cash on display in from of cameras and plastered across the official news outlets are resources belonging to the Gambian people.

It is, therefore, an obscene gesture to be seen making public display of stash of cash, using members of the Christian community as backdrop, for political propaganda purposes.  It is also uncivilized and uncouth.

It is ironic that Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy and Foreign Minister Neneh Macdouall-Gaye who offered their full-throated support of Jammeh's unilateral decision to change the status of The Gambia from a secular to an Islamic State, are the very same persons now saying that Jammeh's declaration is meaningless, implying that it should be ignored.

And they used the occasion to make the announcement which suggests appeasement of a community that has been threatened by the idea of an Islamic State after living for years peacefully and side-by-side with the Muslim community.  The Christian community, like the rest of ordinary Gambians, deserve better treatment from a regime that continues to treat its citizens with contempt.

The respect the Christian community has earned over the years by resisting the temptation of being used as pawns in our fight against an unjust, incompetent and corrupt regime is on the verge of dissipating because of the community's flirtation with the dictatorship.  Gambians are suffering at the hands of Jammeh and his henchmen who conduct torture sessions regularly against a defenseless civilian population.  We expect the Church to be on the side of the oppressed and not the oppressor.

Finally, if the tainted money cannot be returned to the Gambian treasury, ALL of it should be used to help alleviate the suffering of the poor and destitute (including other victims of the regime) as proposed by a member of the Christian community.

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