It almost seems surreal; like the incantation of a funereal ballad of horror which shows Gambia slowly morph as the Third Reich reborn; methodically transformed into an archetypical anarchist society. The Constitutional parameters, which limit and inhibit the excesses of state power in the Gambia, have crumbled and dissolved into nothingness. The Gambia’s Constitution, a revered social and political organizing document, has, long ago lost its force of law, the victim of Yahya Jammeh’s systemic subversion and determination to decree who lives and dies in the Gambia. Yahya Jammeh has already usurped the authority of the judiciary to determine the legal fate of Gambians, but to insert an additional death penalty language into the Constitution, will essentially legalize the indiscriminate and needless killing of more Gambians, for trivial offenses.

For the second time in five years, Yahya Jammeh’s fixation with amending the Death Penalty Article looks suspicious, apart from the military regime’s total lack of legal justification. The Death Penalty Article itself has a storied history. The 1970 Republican Constitution permitted its legal basis for the felony crimes of murder and treason, but, in 1993, former president, Sir Dawda Jawara’s government amended the Constitution and abolished the death penalty. In 1995, however, the new military regime repealed the Constitution and re-instated the Death Penalty language abolished in 1992. By 2010, Yahya Jammeh’s lust for blood combined with an overarching necessity to conceal his criminal drug connections to South American drug lords, ordered former Justice Minister and Attorney General, Edward Gomez, to introduce a Constitutional amendment in the National Assembly, which added drug possession and sale as death penalty eligible crimes. This addition to the death penalty crimes was, however, severely constrained by Section 18 (2) of the 1997 Constitution, and in 2011, was subsequently repealed in short order, without much fanfare. But a year later, in the summer of 2012, Yahya Jammeh ordered the mass summary executions of between nine and twenty-six Mile 2 Prison inmates, even before the legal appeals of some were exhausted. Today, two and half years after the executions heard around the world, Yahya Jammeh again intends to amend the Gambian Constitution in order to broaden the Gambia’s death penalty eligible crimes.

By now it has become all too apparent that Yahya Jammeh is not driven by the same emotional forces that haunt the conscience and compel the mind to steer towards compassion and altruism. In a rather comical statement that reveals the sheer absurdity of the idea and deviousness of the Constitutional amendment proposal, the motion to amend reads like a scary line from an R. R Tolkien novel: “the amendment seeks to amend the 1997 Constitution of The Gambia to provide for the application of the death penalty in circumstances other than where there is actual violence or administration of toxic substance resulting in death.” What Yahya Jammeh wants in this ridiculous amendment motion is additional death penalty eligible crimes, which will evidently open the Gambia to the characteristic brutality of Yahya Jammeh, whose sole purpose is plant more fear and foil citizen verbalization of their grievances. One of the inherent dangers posed by this amendment is, give Yahya Jammeh, through his poppet judges, extraordinary latitude to adjudge who lives and dies. Without sounding cynical, the politicization of the judiciary will fulfill one of Yahya Jammeh’s objectives of establishing Sharia Law in Gambia. For Yahya Jammeh, the expansion of the death penalty eligible crimes will serve three purposes; satisfy the human sacrifice needs of his oracles, eliminate his real and imagined political opponents, and attract financial support from wealthy Sharia Law compliant Middle East countries. Several years ago, the blow-back from Yahya Jammeh’s dabbling with the idea of introducing Sharia Law, was spontaneous and intense, leading to the demise of that idea. Besides, adding more crimes to the death penalty qualified roster, runs counter to the African Union’s intent of completely abolishing the death penalty in member countries. As late as April, 2015, in its 56th ordinary session, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR), put the abolition of the death penalty at the heart of its debates, and adopted a draft regional treaty to help African Union member states move away from capital punishment. An official panel discussion on capital punishment in Africa took place at the ACHPR session on April 2015. For the AU, its time to close this chapter of Africa’s political barbarism, even as Gambia broadens it.

In the 2010 Death Penalty Constitutional amendment, what most stood out as a signpost of hope became a poignant reminder of the cruel underpinnings surrounding the very concept of expanding the death penalty crimes. Then Attorney General and Justice Minister, Edu Gomez, unwittingly admitted to the international community of the ‘draconian’ nature of the amendment, which made drug possession and sale, death penalty eligible. The contradiction between legality and draconian, was a compelling enough admission to an esoteric intent, apart from providing grounds for its repeal. The issue, then as now, remains challenging why Yahya Jammeh is sickeningly bent on making state-sanctioned killings easier; not harder. With the mass Mile Two Prison executions seared in Gambians’ collective memory, the lingering question then is whether the Gambia’s rubber stamp National Assembly will have the audacity, fortitude and sagacity to withstand the bruising test to Yahya Jammeh’s spiteful retribution. There is no historical evidence to support the independence of the National Assembly; on the contrary, digression from Yahya Jammeh’s goals has led to the expulsion of the entire retinue of AFPRC National Assembly representatives, back in 2006.

Even without making it official, Gambians live under a constant state of martial law, and the creeping lawlessness of amending the Death Penalty, will further aggravate the dominance of the regime over the people, rather than the other way around. The bottom-line is this; the National Assembly has completely surrendered to Yahya Jammeh’s comedic and Messianic pretentions, and latched onto his every command as a divine order. The way in which the National Assembly has, over the last two decades, deferred to Yahya Jammeh’s arrogance and alienated the Gambian population, violates their solemn contract with the electorate, and National Assembly members need reminding that the arm of justice is long. As we go to press, Yahya Jammeh deception has again come center-stage, as he supposedly pardons some Mile Two prisoners. Lama Jallow whose name was read on national television as pardoned, died last week, in that death trap called Mile 2 Prison, according to his friend. This brings the death toll at Mile 2 Prison to nearly five hundred, and still Yahya Jammeh wants more incarcerations, not less. I have no plea, or advice for the National Assembly. Their choice is between doing what is right for Gambia and what is right by Yahya Jammeh. Thats the bottom-line. End of story.

The Gambian authorities have made good their promise to ban the importation, manufacture and use of all plastic bags (without any exception) with effect from 1^st July. Of course it has been generally agreed that plastic bags are a big environmental hazard, especially in Africa where people do not seem to have the attitude of throwing rubbish into rubbish bins, apparently because in most places, the bins are not even available. However, implementing such a measure like the ban on the use of plastic bags required a thorough study and implementation in phases rather than an abrupt stop like what seems to have happened in the Gambia. It certainly makes no economic sense to impose a complete ban on the use of plastics without enough public sensitization as well as thinking about an alternative.

While it would not be quite difficult to replace plastic bags used for shopping with paper bags, but there are certain trades such as water bottling and the sale of chilled food items that cannot be replaced by ordinary paper. Therefore, the authorities at the National Environmental Agency should have thoroughly studied all the possible negative impact as well as the implications the imposition of the ban would have had on both the society and the economy before implementing it. It is just not enough for them to rely on the power and authority given to them by law to carry out such a measure without considering those negative implications.

One can imagine the chaos the ban has caused in the society, particularly amongst the petty traders and those in the informal sector, many of whom rely on plastic products to carry out their businesses. It is therefore not a surprise that certain businesses have come to a complete halt, apparently because they have not yet had any alternative to the use of plastic products to carry out their business. It is a similar situation with the manufacturers and importers of plastic products, some of whom have been compelled to lay off their employees, thus causing a serious negative impact on the economy as well as a surge in the level of unemployment.

Indeed, this is even very likely to cause an exodus in the few foreign investors still left in the country as well as discourage those with plans to invest in the country. There is for instance this case of a foreign investor who has just established a water bottling plant somewhere up-country which was scheduled to start operations before the end of July, but suddenly, with the ban on the use of plastic bags, the gentleman is confused as he has no idea what alternative he should use to bottle the water. One can therefore imagine the frustration he is presently going through after investing his money in the business. It is a similar scenario with the many water bottling plants dotted all over the country.

One would therefore wonder whether the NEA or whoever was responsible for such a drastic action ever considered such negative implications on the economy and the society at large.

While Senegal is also in the process of enacting a similar law, but in their own case, they have assigned the experts to thoroughly study the implications on both the economy and the society and come up with suitable alternatives. In their own case also, they do not intend to impose a complete ban at once but in different stages while they search for suitable alternatives to the various types of plastic products in use.

Therefore, considering that the Gambia is almost completely surrounded by Senegal and Senegal is yet to impose a ban, one would wonder whether the NEA officials ever thought of the possibility of the wind blowing plastic bags across the border from Senegal and thus negate virtually all their efforts in cleansing the country of plastic bags.

It is a well known fact that plastic is much cheaper than paper and the fact that the Gambia does not have paper production facilities means importing large quantities of paper to meet the needs of the shoppers as well as those who utilize the product. Can anyone the import bill being able to accommodate such an increase? Let us hope that the economists considered all that and advised the authorities accordingly.

One can also wonder how many of the petty traders who used to sell their wares in plastic bags can now afford the paper bags. Therefore, what is likely to happen is that people who used to sell food items, for instance, in plastic bags would tend to resort to using unhygienic materials to wrap the food, thus exposing their clients to health hazards.

It is therefore extremely important that our political leaders always carefully consider the implications of all their actions and consult with the people at every level rather than relying on their power and authority to make certain decisions.

The independent Gambians want the unending bashing of the socalled ‘Jammeh enablers or self proclaimed ‘selfless participants to nation building’ jurors and judges field to halt and recind the recent’idiocy’rants. The Gambian independents and i in particular are bristling at the largely tepid response by so called bloggers and contributors to online media publications to characterization of Jammeh’s enablers as unapologetic, should be ashamed of themselves and step up to the plate” to propell the struggle into victory and finally nail Jammeh and his evil diciples in their coffins for good.

Several 2016 contenders have brushed off Jammeh’s enablers bashing comments while others have ignored them. O.J, a seasoned politician who is a former PPP ruling member, denounced them as not just wrong and inaccurate, but also divisive, after declining for almost 20 years to address the matter directly. Another opposition leader in the race, Ousainou Darboe, said the legal system is terrific, brash and speaks for itself and we should continue to exploit them to dispense judgement on Jammeh enablers or his disciples and not crucify them on social media.

It’s an uncomfortable moment for the opposition, who want more financial and political support and usage of online media airtime from the ‘Ex enablers’ surging into struggle population, fleeing for fears of persecution and personal safety from Jammeh’s brutal tight fist governance.

And it could be a costly moment if more opposition candidates like Halifa Sallah don’t go beyond their Jammeh-will-be-Jammeh and ‘Yalla bahna’ response and condemn him directly and name and shame anyone involved in his brutality.

“The time has come for the candidates to distance themselves from gimmicks and embrace substance and call out all documented or non documented evil metted out on Gambians and not these bashing online newpapers comments that are: ludicrous, baseless and insulting.” “Sadly, it hurts the struggle with ‘Jammeh’s runnaways or socalled ‘enablers’ doing their quotas in selflessly narrating their stories and that of others left behind in ailing prison and legal conditions as born_a_agains participating in protests, on line call in forums or even publishing articles documenting and calling out Jammeh’s crimes.

It’s a level of idiocy I haven’t seen in a long time to lose focus and inwardly fighting each other instead of trying to win more hearts and minds to join the struggle, to get rid of this conterminatinating and poisonious Jammeh regime.

So far, Jammeh has paid less of a political price than an economic one. The EU, America, Taiwan and Arab nations, has backed out of sending blank aid checks (foreign aid) to Gambia, NGO’s a joint venture between Gambia and Charitable Non Govermental organisations , which also recently began cutting+ ties with Jammeh. Other African leaders are facing pressure to follow suit.

In his speech last month marking his entry into the reconcilation mode with former jailed compaetriates like Musa Suso in Sukuta, Jammeh said ‘Musa paid the price for their friendship by not listening to his advice about distancing himself from drug dealers and crooks. That they’re only bringing crime towards him and not wealth as thought by Musa.’

The Lebanese businessmen has refused to write checks to Jammeh and are not willing to bribe or back down, although Jammeh has recently expelled people like Tajudine and then recinds and now he is allowed to stay and even insists his remarks were misconstrued. His IEC reforms on presidential candidacy financial requirement contributions were deferred by supreme court.

His statements have been contorted to seem harsh and uncalled for, his concerned fellow citizens and even some supporters wrote in a message to the struggle on FB Wednesday. What he wants is for inclusive voting system and not a one man show or one party state legal and not to be unfairly punishing future interested and capable presidential candidates because Jammeh wants to rule for life. His original comments, though, did not make a distinction between one party state and a no election contest.

His rhetoric may resonate with some of the APRC Party’s most passionate voters, who have long viewed Jammeh as a demi God, as one of the nation’s most promising president and best citizen.

But the 2016 contest brings opportunity for the struggle to make inroads with undecided voters and those defected Jammeh supporters.

Even so, Ahmat Bah has said little more about Jammeh’s comments than that they were wrong.

Maybe we’ll have a chance to have an honest discussion about it online any day he decides to come out of hiding and grant and interview with the struggle online radios.

We are all paying keen attention to how the candidates respond to Jammeh’s xenophobic, homophobic and divisive rhetoric.

We’re listening very, very closely, not just what candidates say but what they don’t say — the sins of commission and the sins of omission, carry same punishment in common law.

Calling defectors enablers is wholly inappropriate and we should wait until Jammeh is out, set up a comission and not rush to judvemnet. But in a subsequent conotation, those that reserve judgement on enablers and so called enablers have all right to be where they are on the fence for now, until reconciliation commitee is set up and rules judgemnt post eviden e collection, scrutinisation and analysis.

I don’t think online publication’s remarks reflect the struggle annd they are engaging in political correctness in attacking anyone who severed ties with dictator Jammeh, afterall he is a dictator. The struggle needs someone who brings Gambians in diaspora and those at home together — not someone who continues to divide us.

There are tens of professional Gambians illegally dismissed from their longstanding jobs and then summarily arraigned before the courts to be sentenced to many years in prison. Many have to flee the country to struggle in foreign lands, while others have become paupers in their own country after giving the best and most part of their lives to national development. There are many Gambians who have be illegally arrested, detained and tortured and then arraigned before the courts to be sentenced to long jail terms for political reasons.

There are many Gambians who have been illegally arrested and summarily executed.

The Government of Yaya Jammeh has refused independent visits to the prisons such as by the Red Cross or the UN Special Rapporteurs in November 2014, among others.

Many more Gambians continue to languish in the prisons without trial or placed in remand for long periods.

There are many more abuses and atrocities such as the murder of Deyda Hydara for which the Government has refused to investigate appropriately. There is the case of Chief Ebrima Manneh in whose favour the ECOWAS Court ruled and yet the Government refused to fulfil its obligation as per that ruling.

Gambians continue to be subjected to all forms of abuses and violations by law and practice in all spheres of their lives.

When you have this kind of situation in a country, what difference does it make to release 85 prisoners among whom some are already dead while many others are due for release anyway? At this moment there are hundreds of fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, children, men and women in all walks of life sitting in our prisons and other unidentified detention centres in total contravention of our constitution and laws. No one but Yaya Jammeh has caused them to be confined in these ungodly places with impunity. Conditions in these prisons and detention centres remain dire while torture and other forms of inhuman treatment continue unabated.

Since the release of these 85 people, many individuals have been pouring praise on Yaya Jammeh for the gesture as if they do not seem to realise the above realities in this country? It is sad that Yaya Jammeh has succeeded to hoodwink these people to believe that he is a man of mercy and a leader who is fulfilling his responsibilities to his people. While this is far from the truth, our people have not asked themselves who in fact are these 85 people? But more importantly, what about the many more tens that are being bars simply for political reasons or perceived threats to the regime and for sheer abuse of power by the President of the Republic. With all fairness to them, what crime has Njogu Bah or Pa Harry Jammeh or Jesus Badgie or Lamin Jobarteh committed that is far more serious that Yaya Jammeh’s crimes? When Jesus Badgie testified in court that it was Yaya Jammeh who asked him to sell drugs and the court did not reject that testimony, what justification is there to therefore send Ensa to prison and leave Yaya Jammeh out? Yet Yaya Jammeh has refused to release Ensa Badgie or Njogu Bah who were merely following the orders of Yaya Jammeh? Of course we know that Njogu Bah or Lamin Jobarteh or Ensa Badgie are being paid in their own coins because after all they know and yet defended the criminal project of Yaya Jammeh, and for that we hold little sympathy for them, if any at all. But they have rights that must be respected according to the laws of the Gambia.

But then what about the illegal jailing of UDP’s Amadou Sanneh or the disappearance of a Police prosecutor Eliman Njie and even the insulting detention of Mamburay Njie among many who are languishing behind bars on the orders of Yaya Jammeh in total disregard of law and God.

More painfully what about the parents and children of alleged armed attackers of December 30? Why would you incarcerate old men and women and children just because their sons and fathers were in a state of dispute with you? Why didn’t Yaya Jammeh release those people? In fact why should those people be arrested in the first place? How can you lock those people and then go ahead to release so-called 85 people, some of who could be probably serving genuine jail time for their own crimes? How about these people, who have not committed any crime whatsoever?

Let the truth be told.

Yaya Jammeh pardoned these people not because he believes in mercy and compassion and is interested in fulfilling his constitutional responsibilities. He released them because he has no plans to abandon his evil project but is seeking to divert attention and reduce pressure on him to do the right thing. No one should accept and applaud this gesture. Rather this is the moment to highlight the hypocrisy and the evil nature of this ungodly act, and put even more pressure on Yaya Jammeh to leave the Gambia for good.

Gambians, let us not allow a criminal to rape our mother and then shower gifts on our aunties and sisters and then we applaud him. Yaya Jammeh is a damaged property beyond repair. He cannot be salvaged through any acts of hypocrisy and deception. His only repair is his removal and trial and incarceration. No more, no less.

The deferment of the tabling of the electoral reforms bill before the National Assembly for a second time (first scheduled on June 23 and then June 30) and now slated for July 7 is a clear and deliberate message from the APRC NAMs to Gambians. The message is: Gambians rise up and storm the National Assembly and save the nation. Never in the history of the 2^nd Republic did APRC NAMS stall a bill emanating from their Executive. The fact that they have done it now for two times is a very direct and clear message to the people. This proposed amendment to the elections act is a calculated, even though grossly misguided attempt to practically loot our sovereignty and place it in the hands of one person, Yaya Jammeh, thereby killing democracy in the Gambia leading to a total outbreak of armed violence in this country.

The task now is whether the people under the leadership of our opposition parties and leaders will take the bull by the horn and salvage ourselves. No one should get into any kind of analysis other than to realise that the time has come for Gambians to do as the Burkinabe did when their parliament wanted to change the constitution in order to allow the Blaise Campoare to run for a third time. Led by the opposition leaders and civil society, the Burkinabe stormed their National Assembly leading to regime change at a cost of 30 lives. This is the challenge that Gambia faces on July 7: The day of liberation.

Since 1994, it is clear that Yaya Jammeh is not a leader but a ruler whose one and only preoccupation is to own the Gambia by hook or crook, and all its contents: our people, our women and girls, our land, our money, our institutions, our youth, our wealth and our future. The evidence is on the ground that Yaya Jammeh does not have the capacity to lead our people and manage the resources of this nation to ensure development that our people deserve and need. His blatant abuse of our lives, our rights and the laws and the plunder of our resources for his selfish interest is a clear manifestation that this man lacks the morality and patriotism to be even considered a genuine citizen of this society. He has ridiculed the dignity and our sovereignty. He has put the integrity of the presidency and the dignity of the entire state into utter disrepute. He has made mockery of the Gambia as a laughing stock of the world.

Yaya Jammeh is the leading threat to national security by his deliberate and expensive acts of abuse and violations of national processes and institutions. He has not only undermined state institutions by creating counter institutions and dismissing professionals, but went further to drain the country of its able-bodied sons and daughters through various economic and political strangulations over the years. Yaya Jammeh has indeed damaged the independence and professionalism of state institutions such as parastatals, local government authorities, IEC, NCCE, Ombudsman, regulatory authorities, security and armed services, and central government institutions. He has rendered these institutions as toothless bulldogs, inefficient and ineffective. He has drained these institutions of their resources and politicised them into milking cows for his APRC and personal political and illegal business interests. It is clear that indeed Yaya Jammeh is utterly and strategically positioned against the personal and sovereign interests of the Gambia and her people.

This is why July 7 is our day of liberation. Are our opposition ready to mobilize the people to storm the National Assembly and take back our country or are we going to let yet another piece of our sovereignty by cut off and handed over to a ruler who has no mercy and no conscience. The APRC National Members have done the best for the country for the first time by delaying this bill with a view to give the people this unique opportunity to save the country. By delaying the bill on two occasions, APRC NAMs have done their bit in saving the country albeit very late. But it is said better late than never. We must commend the APRC NAMs for this patriotic position because even though they risk dismissal from their party hence losing their seats if they did not vote for this bill, yet they have delayed it so that the people can come to their rescue and save the nation.

Gambians, are we ready? If the opposition parties refuse to mobilize the people of this country, I wish to call on the people to rise up in their numbers and storm the National Assembly. If the people do that, surely the leaders will follow them. Not only the opposition leaders but also the police and soldiers of this country will do so.

The 3^rd Republic starts on July 7.

On the surface, the looming opposition presidential contest fee hike, and its affordability or lack thereof, may seem like a benign money matter, but it is far more complicated than its superficial appearance. It is, first and foremost, a withering indictment of the Gambian regime’s mindset and Gambians’ collective complicity by indifference, which has enabled Yahya Jammeh, time and again, to undermine the capacity of the Gambian Constitution to regulate the political atmosphere and ensure civility in the political discourse.

It also challenges Yahya Jammeh’s indifference to the Constitution as a living document that is replete with unwritten laws and rules, which assign reasonable social and political behaviors in the greater bargain for fairness and justice. But, far worse than the fact that Yahya Jammeh’s arrogance is grounded in an ostentatious show of power, his habitual flaunting of the laws and Constitution of the land with reckless abandon, is absolutely unprecedented both in its scope and frequency. Yahya Jammeh intermittent bizarre clown shows, which strike most Gambians as needless buffoonery are, above all, extremely damaging to the Gambia’s standing in the international community. Of the many dumb ideas conceived by Yahya Jammeh’s rash decision-making, includes the arbitrary increase of fees for potential presidential candidates, but there is pervasive hostility towards a gutless idea that departs from customary protocol. The sweeping impeachment of the fee hike proposal from Gambians, has also generated unanimous international condemnation and spun a serious conversation around the legality of the fees, which Gambians see as an illegal form of taxation.

The fact that this terrible idea grew out of someone’s dim brain is, by itself, incredibly troubling, and above all, it demonstrates a painful lack of fairness and political civility. In Senegal where citizens understand their roles at the very apex of the political food chain, unjustifiable trampling on the rights of citizens often easily sparks widespread unrest in order to reassert the supremacy of peoples’ voices. The fee increase proposal, intended as punitive avenging for funds remittance made to political parties by the diaspora dissidents, inadvertently puts a price on democracy, apart from posing an existential threat to peoples’ rights to choose their leaders, unencumbered by the imposition of malicious and retributive barriers. Yahya Jammeh’s intent to scrape money out of diaspora pockets, to pay for the exorbitant presidential candidates fees, is a classless act of malicious thuggery. The burden the fee increases will put on the opposition, apart from being totally unfair, is completely at odds with the democratic processes, and, therefore, has no place in the Gambia’s political system. The Gambia’s gradual slide into a one-man regime, and Yahya Jammeh’s emboldening transformation into characteristic tyranny, began with the assassination of former Finance Minister, Koro Ceesay, and continued on with the 2000 student massacre, the execution of twenty-six Mile Two Prison inmates, the kidnapping and disappearance of Gambian citizens and hundreds of similar cases in between. Clearly, the Gambia’s descent into a state of chaos defies the law of chemistry, which dictates that every action has a reaction. Like nations, which historically suffered the burdens of deadly tyrannies, Gambians have fallen short of their patriotic obligations and have only themselves to blame.

After each heinous crime Yahya Jammeh ordered, his actions were met with complete silence and morbid fear from Gambians, rather than the wrath of the population. The threats that still loom large over Gambian’s men and women of conscience, forced Gambians into fear-induced denials, complacency and radio silence; acts of moral cowardice that have buried Gambians in shame and regret. The nexus between public complacency and Yahya Jammeh’s predilection to buy support, silence and indifference, form the genesis of his shiftiness and the basis of his disastrous unilateral decision-making. In 1661, King Louis XIV of France declared; “L’État, c’est moi” (“I am the state”), and three hundred fifty years later, Yahya Jammeh can declare he is the state, and he will be absolutely right.

The level of power Yahya Jammeh’s welds over Gambians is unparalleled in Africa south of the Sahara, and the fact that Gambians still cower in fear of a man, who, in reality, is the one most fearful of them, is logically unexplainable. For eighty percent of the enraged population to rise up against a tyrant who will not stop murdering, disappearing and incarcerating them, should be a no-brainer. It is not. And that is the sad part. But, it is never too late to stand up to a vicious regime that has little regard for human life. Understanding the price he has to pay for the murders, plunder, and economic rape of the country, Yahya Jammeh is literally fighting to save his life, as Gambians fight just to be free. But the day of reckoning cannot be delayed forever. The writing is on the wall. The proposed fee should not stand; but more, the public out-cry is that Yahya Jammeh should not be permitted to contest in one more Gambian election. Period!!!

Thousands of miles east of the vast African continent; far from where European tourists luxuriate in the intoxicatingly blissful ocean breeze and the magical beauty of the Gambia’s serene Atlantic coastline, a heterogeneous group of young Gambians face the challenges of a lifetime, in a country that seems more hostile than the world’s most massive gulag prison camp; North Korea. China; a country steeped in culture, and a nation on the rise to global superpowerdom, seems at once both mysterious and unpleasant.

For, China has a dark side, which a majority of European visitors will never experience; a side that is unwelcoming, even hostile to visitors from the continent that most of all bends over backwards to make the Chinese experience in Africa gratifying and memorable. In a country that now has so much, it should be a mark of honor for China to embrace the dignity of caring for persons from parts of the world ravaged by man-made disasters. China cannot expect recognition as a leader in global politics with its doors shuttered on a segment of the world’s population who come from a continent that is inextricably tied to China’s economic growth. China’s is enormously dependent on Africa for resources to fuel its massive growth, and for the country to treat Gambian refugees in such a horrible fashion, as if the UN Convention and Protocol do not matter, is mind-boggling and unacceptable. As China continues to expands its citizens’ massive presence on African soil, Africans expect reciprocation to their generosity in order to make the lives of African refugees in China both pleasant and tolerable. This will further cement China’s bilateral relationship with the African continent as China seeks to benefit from exploitation of Africa’s vast natural resources. China’s presence on the UN Security Council, notwithstanding, it’s non-existent relations with Gambia speaks the difficulty of rationalizing with the tyrannical regime in Gambia. The mass exodus of Gambians citizens to safe havens in distant lands is driven by absolutely horrendous human-rights record in their country.

In 1951, the United Nations Convention, which was subsequently amended as the 1967 Protocol, defines lawful refugee as “Persons who flee their countries because their lives, safety or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights, or other circumstances, which have seriously disturbed public order.” Since the military took power in Gambia in 1994, thousands of Gambians have fled to safety in lands near and far, from Senegal to South Korea; Mali to Los Angeles. Inarguably, Gambia is today the one country in Africa more racked by state-sanctioned violence than any other, and the regime’s litany of crimes range from executions, murder, inhuman treatment, barbaric torture and mass incarceration. The Gambian regime’s cruelty includes forced disappearances, which has become a common occurrence particularly among Gambians who reside overseas and are forced to return home and Gambians who return voluntarily to attend family funerals or visit aging parents and family. The last two attempts to remove the military regime failed, but it turned Gambia into a hellhole with indiscriminant arrests and incarceration without trial,, which includes poisoning death and abduction of Gambian citizens sheltered in neighboring Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Guinea-Conakry. Gambians are routinely kidnapped and disappeared and recently, Gambians with dual US citizenship, Alhaji Ceesay and Ebrima Jobe were abducted in Gambia and have never been heard from. Businessman Saul Ndow and politician Mahawa Cham, both exiled in Senegal, were kidnapped and have not been seen or heard from ever since. Gambians refugees fleeing to China are not unlike those in the US and Western Europe, but China’s treatment of its African refugees contravenes the UN Convention and Protocol. Gambian refugee’s constant fear of arrest and incarcerated by police maybe violating the1951 UN Convention and the 1967 UN Protocol on refugees..

More specifically, Baba Mansally, a Ganbian refugee in the city of Guangzhou, Modou Cham resident in Beijing, Ensa Suso incarcerated in Beijing for over eight months, without the money to bail himself out or leave the country, Habib Boye, also incarcerated in Guangzhou for over six months who lacks the wherewithal to self-bail or leave China, Lamin Charty, also incarcerated, but whose whereabout is unknown, Tijan Jallow, a resident of Beijing and Mariama Camara, the only female, also resident Guangzhou, are collectively under extremely difficult conditions in China and all their efforts to seek UNHCR assistanc in Beijing and elsewhere, has been absolutely futile. Their constant harassment by Chinese police and the arrests and incarcerations almost bothers on inhuman treatment, but it is certainly cruel. Apart from the police harrassmernt, those refugees who are free, remain unemployed, hungry and fearful of being arrested and jailed by police like their compatriots. Even going out to find food is by itself is a nightmare done at a great risk of being arrest. The constant theme the refugees are told is that they are not allowed to live in Beijing. In addition, China is said to routinely expel refugees to third countries regardless of the UN Convention and Protocal it is signatory to. The UNHCR in Beijing opens its door to refugees on Wednesdays only between 10 am and 5 pm and the agency’s promises to return calls are almost never followed through. In public interactions with Chinese citizens is a disgraceful experience as they, more often than not, close their noses and avoid contacts with Africans. This kind of behavior and public display of bigotry speaks to Chinese attitudes towards black people in general. The Gambian refugees in China don’t deserve to live in such torture; in fact, no human being deserves to be treated like a sub-human. The condition of Gambians in China; without jobs, no food, no housing, no identity, no UNHCR assistance subjects them to terrible psychological burdens. But more, to return these refugees back to Gambia where they are in jeopardy of losing their lives, or face cruel prison conditions, is against the spirit of the Geneva Convention. The Gambia has often been described as the North Korea of West Africa. That says a lot, China a neighbors of North Korea should what this implies. These refugees from The Gambia deserve to be treated the same way Chinese citizens are treated all across the African continent.

It was a vigorous back to back manifestation of new breath of political life. First, PDOIS held its annual Congress in Bansang and produced an ambitious 17-point plan of action. This was soon followed by the UDP’s nationwide tour, which commenced on a rather rough foot; entangled with the regime over what is clearly the party’s most fundamental right. As, elections, 2016 draw near, the political atmosphere seems shrouded in new found giddiness, which has on occasions burst out into seemingly uncontrollable euphoria.

The undeniable success of the UDP’s tour is reverberating across the length and breadth of the country, as Gambians rediscover the freedom to participate in the electoral process without fear. The political developments back home have had similar effects on the diaspora, who embrace the determination and the path the political parties are taking towards complete freedom from political underhandedness. It is a new day. Gambia is changing; not by the will of the regime, but in spite of it, and by the force of nature. For what is still new to the military regime, is now old to the rest of the population; the fear, terror, intimidation. Yahya Jammeh cannot stop progress, and he has no option but relent to the dynamic forces of time, and its invisible control of the natural course of change. At the start of this season’s political campaign, the UDP slogan, “No Fear”, became a fitting encapsulation of the two decades of opposition straight-jacketing and self-censorship, which often resulted in the unorthodox and ineffective campaign messaging. This year, the political turnaround is both visible and profound, and once again, Gambians across the land are taking their solemn political duties with patriotic urgency as crowds welcome UDP at various campaign stops. It was almost like reliving a past that almost died under the weight of a regime whose core belief systems is underpinned by a burning desire to alter the character of Gambian life through social engineering based on tribal preferences and ethnic bigotry.

This political season has become a perfect storm, either by design or the accident of nature, as the new rediscovery of opposition rights is complemented by the promise of profound political change from the broader international and regional communities. The creeping death of political tyranny and perennial presidencies across the continent of Africa are exemplified by ECOWAS’s recent efforts to twist the arms of the region’s imperial leaders by instituting term-limits. The self-serving opposition to the term-limits proposal; Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh and Togo’s Faure Gnassingbé, have succeeded in stalling the term-limit measure, “but it is far from dead,” said Gambia’s renowned technocrat and former Foreign Minister, Sidi Moro Sanneh. The term-limits issue in ECOWAS will rise again to help limit the powers of ECOWAS’s imperial monarchs, bring Africa to modernize its political systems, and stretch the frontiers of democracy to its very limits. The unrecognizable human skeletons in deep, dry wells, the hidden graves disturbed by hungry, wild animals, the fragile skeletons of small children, the hunger and emaciated bodies in Mile Two Prison; Gambia is a political disaster waiting to happen. There is acknowledgement by both Gambians and the international community of the necessity for political change, and even with the imposition of the tyranny of the Jola minority, cast aside, Gambians and non-Gambians have paid dearly with their lives in Yahya Jammeh’s perpetual quest of instilling fear and terror in the hearts of citizens, for the sole purpose of preempting internal dissent and the likelihood of orchestrating the military regime’s forcible removal. Today, the choice is clear, and so are the objectives; the removal of Yahya Jammeh’s pernicious and dangerously factious military regime. What is not very clear, however, is the strategy to untangle citizens from the mythical appeal of tyranny and ways to liberate a segment of society consumed by the allure and the trappings of power, privilege and tribal affinity. The rationales for political change are abundant and easily definable; not so the strategies for achieving them. The ideas floated by Gambians occupy both ends of the spectrum; from the forcible restoration of democracy and the rule of law, to democratic elections. In between the two extremes on opposite ends of the spectrum, lies a range of other options. What is clear is that political change through the democratic electoral process is not possible; not now; not as long as Yahya Jammeh is in complete control of the levers of power.

 The Gambia’s hostile political climate makes barring Yahya Jammeh from contesting elections in 2016 a viable and realistic option. This requires the creation of a transitional government of unity that fuses the political establishment and civil society working in tandem to replicate a Burkina Faso type political uprising that returns power back to the people. With Senegal, Guinea-Conakry and Burkina Faso, acting as frames of reference, Gambians have the capacity to force change, and end the Gambia’s long-running carnage. There is nothing more primeval than the desire to live in peace, and with this as a motivating factor, Gambians are obliged to coalesce around a cause that has the promise of removing the threat to their very existence. At this stage, it is imperative that political parties continue to educate the population, with the objective of awakening citizens from political apathy and infusing them with the courage to make choices that speak to their collective needs. More crucially, it is imperative to broaden the scope of this campaign season by not limiting the political narrative to simple democratic elections. Gambia is a country in crisis, and at the crossroads of five more years of death and destruction or forcible end to the tragedy that has consumed the Gambia for two decades. The political establishment must respond to citizens’ calls with the urgency commensurate with the political disaster that has continued to devastate the country, in more ways than one. It behooves party leaders to transform the campaign season from its narrow party attitude, to a broader national character that reaches citizens at a much deeper level of political consciousness. And as diaspora organizations seek to forge a common-ground, there are expectations that the political establishment too will commit to unity, and working with civil society, no force on earth can stop the united march to freedom. The executions, political killings, mass incarcerations, fleeing of Gambian citizens, the expulsion of international diplomats, the high cost of living; there are sufficient reasons for Gambians to engage in mass popular unrest that forces political change. The stars are aligned for this to happen, and Gambians cannot wait. Mass popular protests are within Gambians’ Constitutional rights to changing their government, and as ECOWAS and the free-world awaits to see political change, Gambians are obliged to do what is relevant, necessary and inevitable to bring about change to their pitiful political circumstance.

Most Gambians were no doubt quite taken aback when President Yahya Jammeh recently threatened to withdraw from membership of both the African Union and Ecowas, if either of the two regional blocs should be “reduced to the control of Western powers”. President Jammeh was apparently reacting to the recent aborted attempts by Ecowas to introduce a term limit for sitting leaders of Ecowas member states, which we are told was blocked by the Gambia and Togo, the only members without a term limit. He in fact accused the West of being behind that attempt. “… Now they [West] are trying to use Ecowas. They said Yahya Jammeh cannot be changed by elections. They want to use their stooges in Ecowas to impose term limit because that is … a Western agenda.

Where were the so-called Western leaders today 20 years ago when I became head of state? Let me warn Ecowas – Gambia is nobody’s colony and our development is not dependent on Ecowas that has already failed because it has been hijacked by the West. Even if the whole world introduced term limit, I will not have a term limit and let me see what you can do.

Democracy is power to the people and not power to the West,” he was quoted saying in the Gambian media.

He went on to say that as a pan-Africanist he will not subscribe to any institution that is hijacked by the West and be used against Africa. “If it is the AU, I will leave AU; if it is Ecowas, I will leave Ecowas, but I will not be given lecture by any of these institutions on behalf of the West. Tell me about one electric pole here which was installed by the AU (African Union) or Ecowas or by the British or the Americans. We are not fools! Let them mind their own business.”

While there is no indication that President Jammeh is serious about carrying out such threats, but we can recall that in 2013, he unceremoniously pulled the Gambia out of the Commonwealth after accusing that organization of being a neo-colonial body. He did not even consult the National Assembly as would be expected in any country with a semblance of democracy. Therefore, it would not be a surprise to anyone if he made good his threats to withdraw from either of the two regional bodies.

However, it is hard to imagine how Gambians can handle the negative consequences of the Gambia withdrawing from Ecowas for instance. Presently, there is an Ecowas protocol which allows free movement of peoples and goods within the sub-region, which means that Gambians can travel to any of the Ecowas member states without requiring a visa. However, if the country were to withdraw from Ecowas, Gambians are not likely to continue to enjoy such a privilege.

Therefore, with virtually all foreign embassies accredited to the Gambia being based outside the country, mainly in Dakar, one can imagine the trouble that Gambians will go through if they had to travel to Dakar to apply for visa every time they intend to travel to any country within and outside the sub-region.

“Can you imagine one having to go to Dakar to apply for a visa to travel even to Guinea Bissau? That is the craziest idea that Gambians can never withstand,” said an opposition militant.

One would however tend to question whether there is something else that has made President Jammeh angry with these two regional bodies and indeed the whole world, apart from the term limit issue. Let us recall that he is presently the longest serving leader within Ecowas and the 7^th longest serving ‘elected’ head of state in the whole of Africa. Yet, he has never been elected to head any of the two organisations, apparently because even his colleagues despise his usually undiplomatic behavior. It is even harder for him to stomach the fact that Senegalese President Macky Sall, who is hardly three years in office has been elected chairman of Ecowas and a despot like Robert Mugabe has been elected chairman of the AU.

Of course some people feel that President Jammeh has a point because a person like Mugabe has been in power for more than 35 years while he (Jammeh) has served only 20 of the “one billion” years he intends to remain in power. Therefore, no one would say that it is because he has stayed too long in power that is why he has not been honoured with chairmanship of these regional bodies. There must of course be another reason why his counterparts tend to avoid him like a plague.