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LEMON TIME
Afghanistan
1295 Posts |
 Posted - 13 Dec 2009 : 14:03:07
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Sunday, December 13, 2009
Face 2 Face With Lawyer Mai Ahmed Fatty, GMC leader
http://allgambian.net/NewsDetails.aspx?id=1379
After very long not talking to Gambian media since registering his party 11 months ago, the leader of Gambia Moral Congress this week finally broke his silence by appearing in our new feature column, Face 2 Face.
In a long interview with PK Jarju, Mr Fatty spoke about why he is clamouring for a change in the Gambia, the difference his party can make, and related matters.
“I believed Jammeh rigged all past elections. The lexis of rigging denotes manipulation, not just tampering with ballot papers on polling day. When you manipulate the electoral process like Jammeh does, you effectively rig the results of that election before polling takes place. Take away the capacity to manipulate and the terrain would be different.” -- Mai NK Fatty
Below is the full interview.
AllGambian: There was a time when many regarded you as supporter of the APRC and Yahya Jammeh, what would have changed you from sympathiser to political opponent?
Mai Fatty: Progressive peoples all over are enthusiastic about prospects of change for the better. However, Jammeh’s coup turned out to be worse than our worst nightmares. A monumental security failure created this monster called A(F)PRC.
Yahya Jammeh must understand that his actions shall incur definite consequences. There is a limit to how far anyone can go, and when you exhaust those limits, it is just a matter of time. Sovereignty belongs to the people, and they shall find a permanent solution to political excesses. Mark my words and make no mistake about it.
AllGambian: You are clamouring for change in the Gambia, how do you think that change will come… and do you have an inkling when it will come?
Mai Fatty: Well, GMC is not alone in clamouring for change. All Gambians are. What you see in the Gambia behind Yahya Jammeh is forced loyalty. You either have to belong or you suffer untold fate. What you see, all that crowd, is a political farce - carefully orchestrated, choreographed and stage managed circus. Let me assure you that no one in that following is ready to break a limb or to put his/her life in defence of APRC. It is the biggest show of fake in political history. Gambians have mastered that game, and Yahya Jammeh has nothing left in the bag. He is now shooting himself on his feet.
Yahya Jammeh is the only one who doesn’t believe that the sandy fortified walls around him have all been irredeemably demolished by his own hands. He is very lonely, isolated, insecure and dangerously vulnerable in all directions. I mean irredeemably. He succeeded in antagonising everyone. No one trusts him anymore. Jammeh has declared war on every Gambian; every Family is victim or knows of his victims. It’s impossible for him to win such a war. He has literally tied up himself with his own rope and may soon get self hung. In diplomatic circles, no one takes him seriously except his proxy in Guinea Bissau. The few others Taiwan, Iran, Libya and Venezuela where he is struggling to belong only use him. In more proper accord of things, with slightest slip, they would jettison him in mid ocean like hot brick!
Within our own region except Ivory Coast, I know that he commands little respect. The Gulf now discovers his Islamic hypocrisy and the entire West while dealing with him considers him a pariah. It is not apposite to circumvent a sitting President, because nation states recognise sovereignty, and for that purpose he still enjoys fair protocol under shelter of diplomacy. However that does not determine the international weight of a Leader. Jammeh has no international influence except in Guinea Bissau or Taiwan globally and he has zero capacity to impede the widening international repugnance against his policies or vulgar manner of rule.
AllGambian: It’s nearly a year since the GMC was registered as a political, what do you figure the Gambian people think of it?
Mai Fatty: I do not want to be presumptuous and claim to know what each and every Gambian thinks of GMC. I can assert that based on our on-going assessments and consultations with the grass roots, GMC has restored tremendous hope in the future. You have to understand the dynamics of Gambian politics. If you were to conduct an opinion poll today, not many Gambians inside the country will speak their minds or if they do, they would mislead you out of personal safety. Yet again unless you are able to read the unspoken words of the majority, the silent subterranean political messages, you will go wrong many times about the national mood. The atmosphere is understandably compulsive of ‘playing the safe game’.
It is time for Yahya Jammeh to ask himself how safe for him is the ‘safe game’, that The Gambian public continues to play on him. The truth is that Yahya Jammeh is delusional and currently at the centre of the biggest deception racket. When people follow you because they fear you, you should fear the worst because beneath the appearance of normality is a latent political volcano that may furiously explode on you at anytime. No one in full possession of his mental faculties should place him/herself in that political situation. History is replete with such foreboding situations.
AllGambian: Do you seriously believe that GMC can make any difference in Gambian politics?
Mai Fatty: You have to approach every political situation from historical analytical context. GMC did not come into existence because it is convenient to do so. Matter of fact in practice it is not so easy to form a political party in Gambia today. Most likely your subscribers would be neutralised from on-set by the ubiquitous NIA army of full time and part time agents terrorising the populace. However, no system can continue to subjugate the people all of the time.
Already GMC is making a difference. We have helped to resuscitate the alternative process, and among those ranks natural existential threats have compelled reviews of strategies on the ground to avert irrelevance, and we note certain bold steps being initiated so as not to be left behind. This is very good for the alternative process and for our democracy. A week after our formal registration in the Gambia, APRC conducted a nationwide grass roots tour, reform local structures, created new ones, amended its constitution and manifesto and adopted new strategies. In my own constituency, Governor Omar Khan was instructed to get back to the people, placate them, built new alliances, strengthened old ones. Governor Khan threatened the district chief as to how a Chairman of a new opposition party could emerge from his particular village. The district chief sent emissaries in abject fear to my family for me to make official clarifications that I did not originate from his village. APRC would not publicly admit it, but they are very worried about GMC’s potentials.
Nonetheless we continue to engage the regime at short-hand level demanding the answers to tough issues, and we continue to brief those political leaderships who matter in our region through appropriate conduits, in preparation for things to come. In less than one year today, GMC has been able to position itself such that it is being consistently consulted by the international community, thanks to our robust precision diplomacy. However we appreciate that ultimately the opinion of voters counts most – those who will go to the polls in the Gambia to cast their ballots at elections.
Naturally internal political activity is being circumscribed by bad laws contained in series of anti-democratic statutes, and some in the Elections Decree itself. It is not lawful to conduct regular public political campaigns except three months before elections. While we now found a solution to this anomaly, we shall act with tact and astuteness not to play into the hands of the enemy.
AllGambian: Is GMC contesting the next general elections?
Mai Fatty: Naturally a political party’s goal is to form government some day and GMC is no exception. Ideally our goal is to form the next government of the Gambia or to be part of a viable political alliance in power provided all privies had agreed on principled consensus. I can assure Gambians that GMC is not averse to working with other opposition parties and leaders under a united platform in principle and I am not at liberty to elaborate more at this time.
I am very concerned about reports I receive of the alleged dilution of Gambian law enforcement outfits by foreign elements operating in our country. This allegation insinuates that non-Gambians of sub-regional origin are being recruited into an elite unit of the army that is not responsible to the normal high command chain. I understand that this unit, allegedly more ferocious than Francesco Caso’s should have the capacity of conducting clandestine extra-territorial operations in pursuit of perceived enemies. This information, if accurate sends a very disturbing signal for 2011. It marks a new escalation and is recipe for anarchy and probably even the conceivers of this alleged unpatriotic act may not survive it.
AllGambian: Do you believe that the elections will be free and fair?
Mai Fatty: The results of an election should not be based on what happens on polling day alone. I have always maintained that an election cannot be free and fair if the processes leading to that election are not free and fair. If the opposition parties are not permitted to persuasively sell their programmes freely and extensively to the voters and the clamp down on personal freedoms persist and if law enforcement continues to be more militant than Yahya Jammeh and many other compelling variables, the election couldn’t be seen free and fair. These used to obtain in the past. I want to re-condemn the arrest and detention of Hon, Halifa Sallah on the so-called witch-craft issue, and I strongly denounce the on-going persecution of Hon. Femi Peters of the UDP. I believe both actions were cowardly, calculated to intimidate, oppress, and both have woefully failed.
However GMC has additional plans and it shall be evident. We are operating on many fronts on the basis of possibilities. A GMC senior citizen militant at Banjul Half-Die tells me that if you are in pursuit of a prey, you should not cough; meaning we are not setting alarms at this crucial stage of our pursuit.
AllGambian: What are GMC’s strategy to deal with intimidation, harassment or organised political violence?
Mai Fatty: We have learnt ways the regime relates to other parties, arresting, jailing and persecuting their leaders and supporters. We received concerns that nothing practically happens when party leaders are rounded up sending signal to cadres that it would be worst if they were caught. It makes lots of supporters despondent and cautious about the limits of demonstrating their assertive militancy. I assure you that GMC shall not sit by idly and watch its Leadership or supporters being brutalised by anyone. If you want peace, we shall preach peace. If you instruct police or army brutality against us, we shall fight you back brutally in ways that would jolt and awe your senses. There will be no peace until we rattle out those responsible all the way up the command chain. At crunch time if you abrogate the rules of fairness in the process and hit below the belt, you calling for trouble. Normally we would use the judicial provision for redress but we all know that no opposition should expect justice from a court that is being remote controlled from elsewhere. We shall opt otherwise.
We shall literally return fire for fire, injury for injury, explosion for explosion. We shall not be found wanting in any manner of planning and execution or counter-intelligence. We have the right to self defence and we shall use all protective means applicable whatsoever and howsoever to defend ourselves. No political organisation under those circumstances would adopt a conventional confrontation. If you believe in intimidation, violence, torture and murder and understand that to be the exclusive language of engagement, we shall confront you squarely and defeat you on your terrain. You will not govern, I promise you, and it would be unfortunate to test our determination.
I am confident that the capacity, if required, to inflict retaliation cannot be averted by conventional law enforcement dictates. Change of attitude on the part of those who believe and use violence or intimidation is the only elixir or they’d be doomed by their own devices. Of course GMC prohibits violence as a political strategy, but even Gambian law permits self defence. That is a legitimate quest and my position on this is very clear in advance.
AllGambian: Why violence? Is violence a viable political option?
Mai Fatty: I am not talking about violence, but resistance. We believe that violence is not the solution to political problems, and that’s why as a political entity it is outlawed in our Party Constitution. Resistance is a last resort as a mechanism of self-defence. We refuse to accept despair in the face of unprovoked violence from law enforcement with the sole object to intimidate, suppress or neutralise especially when the judiciary is no longer a viable refuge. I value the doctrine of non-violence like Ghandi and Martin. Another of my Heroes Mandela used the law to combat the system, but when the judiciary personified the extended arm of executive oppression, he opted for armed resistance as the only language of engagement understood by the Executive. This has proved positive that non-violence may not be practicable in every political circumstance. It is not a call to lawlessness but recognition of reality. I am an exponent of the realist school of Gambian politics.
Some say the Green Boys & Girls are mere thugs with executive immunity, I don’t know, but we shall prove that. Therefore let me clarify my position again: I support the sort of resistance that shall restore peace and stability. For instance if unlawfully provoked by APRC thugs or security elements, and fighting in self defence would restrain future acts of that nature, to deny them the ability to hurt us, we shall fire back in ways their training never prepared them for. In any legal contest against the APRC or government, we cannot expect justice, and this is the political environment we have to operate. Must we simply fold our hands? No!
AllGambian: Do you have the resources to fight a serious election against Jammeh?
Mai Fatty: Like I said earlier a week is too long in politics let alone over a year. There are other possibilities and the fight against APRC may emerge from a different political formation of which GMC may be a part. All options are at stake.
On the issue of finance we know the experiences of better financed candidates who were robbed of victory so funding is not the sole determinant for electoral victory. There is a forced coalition government in both Zimbabwe and Kenya, and elsewhere. Election is a political process, and the process does not begin on polling day. The most important question is to be answered by you and all Gambians. Would Gambians accept the results of an election whose process was fundamentally flawed from day one? That is what is at stake.
AllGambian: It is being rumoured that GMC is being financed by President Abdoulaye Wade’s Party in Senegal?
Mai Fatty: That is absolutely untrue and I have no further comments.
AllGambian: Do you seriously think Jammeh can be removed from power through the ballot box?
Mai Fatty: If I had lost confidence in the capacity of Gambians to boot out Jammeh, I would not have accepted the Chairmanship of GMC. The fact that GMC is in existence is eloquent testimony of our conviction that electorally Jammeh is not invincible. No one must insult the intelligence of Gambians.
GMC conducted a comprehensive analytical study and evaluation of all political strategies and tactics used against Jammeh since 1994. We know why there were failures, but we also have answers and plans. If you expect us to be making noise at some street corner at Bundung or Nyakoi on a political campaign daise, then you may be disappointed. We are implementing a Plan, and by our on-going assessment our Plan is succeeding. We are in touch with grass roots voters– and they matter most. Farmers like my parents from rural Gambia don’t know about the arm-chair gallantry of cyber critics or what the Observer prints. We are reaching those who will actually cast their ballots in The Gambia. I believed Jammeh rigged all past elections. The lexis of rigging denotes manipulation, not just tampering with ballot papers on polling day. When you manipulate the electoral process like Jammeh does, you effectively rig the results of that election before polling takes place. Take away the capacity to manipulate and the terrain would be different.
AllGambian: But President Jammeh has said that the opposition cannot win an election.
Mai Fatty: That is his wishful thinking. Let him dream on. A rude awakening awaits him.
AllGambian: How can the opposition seriously defeat Jammeh when the playing field is not even?
Mai Fatty: You are right there is no level playing field, and that is evidence of a fundamental flaw in the process. I believe with the right leadership coordination, Gambians shall resist the legitimizing the results of any flawed electoral process. It is also true that David defeated Goliath. No system can continue to subjugate people, and the APRC system is no exception.
AllGambian: Can Mai Fatty make a difference in Gambian politics?
Mai Fatty: I would rather say whether GMC can make a difference. I am just an individual, and the Party is greater than me. I work with a Team and so many other people around the country. They are more important than me. I believe that we are servants of the people and NOT their masters. The difference is being made by ordinary peoples everyday putting food on the table, ensuring that their families are taken care of, sending kids to school, coping with expensive medical bills, fighting hard to make ends meet, those of you in the Diaspora sending remittances; those toiling on the farms to shape our economy - ordinary Gambians. They continue to make fundamental differences in our national life. I salute them because they are my heroes/heroines.
AllGambian: What do you think of Jammeh as a President?
Mai Fatty: My personal opinions on Jammeh matters less. Rather what do Gambians think of Jammeh. The answer is obvious: Gambians would like to know what happened to Koro Ceesay, Deyda Hydara, Chief Manneh, Kanyiba Kanyi and many others of similar fate. He came to power 15 years ago without owning a bicycle or a good radio set, today he’s a globe trotter with his own private jet; we know how much he had saved on July 31st 1994, and today his personal fortune exceeds the total liquid assets of The Gambian State. He is implementing an official policy of murder which was only publicly declared recently by himself on national TV. By his own admission he is so opulent that even ‘his’ grand children would not know poverty. Yet through his reckless spending and willful default, he caused ‘our’ children’s future to be foreclosed by a national debt burden he negligently contracted in excess of over $500,000,000 (five hundred million Dollars) incurred within a decade.
Just days ago his own Finance Minister confessed in Parliament that the economy may be heading for worst times if the government’s appetite for spending is not restrained. The 2nd Quarter of 2009 alone witnessed slippages caused by unplanned expenditures creating a negative balance of 61 million Dalasi by end September 2009. This is Yahya Jammeh’s Finance Minister publicly exposing the height of fiscal irresponsibility. Macro-economic policy has been highly circumscribed by inefficient, highly uncertain, and unsustainable public sector spending. Under Yahya Jammeh, the traditional instruments of economic management – the national plan and budgeting processes – have been rendered ineffective. Finances are poor at all levels.
A GMC government fiscal policy shall include:
1. Creating a predictable macro-economic environment in which the resources are used efficiently predicated on a Medium-Term Expenditure Framework that ensures predictable and sustainable public finance at all levels.
2. Adopting policies that are consistent with raising domestic savings and increasing private investments.
Our key fiscal strategy would be a budget strategy that strengthens the planning process robust project and programme evaluation, with early involvement of stakeholders. We shall adopt a medium term expenditure framework and a fiscal strategy paper that is consistent with our reform agenda, and establish a public expenditure rule that holds the deficit to no more than 2% of the GDP. We shall reform and strengthen the procurement process and diversify revenue base.
Finance Minister Kolley has failed to introduce a more orderly and disciplined budget formulation process that corrals the numerous sources of extra-budgetary expenditures. While the key challenge is to reign in on government spending, it should also be in line with predetermine priorities and reap value for money spent.
AllGambian: Why haven't you return to Banjul since after your accident?
Mai Fatty: You are completely wrong and misinformed about my travel movements which I shall not discuss. I have been staying in hospitals and that is why I was substantively away from home. This is known.
I was under long medical care, followed by prolong physiotherapy. I had broken legs and neck, and Allah granted me another opportunity to appreciate what is most profound in life. Most people do not survive what I went through, the long excruciating pain, trying to walk again and regain and build muscle strength, trying to regain cervical rotation, coping with stress and injuries, multiple surgeries, heavy medications, long hospitalisation in single confined medical environment, diet, away from friends, family, loved ones in a foreign country. I lived in hospitals, but my mind and spirit remain indomitable. I do not wish for anyone to go through something similar.
During this period I wrote a book while in hospital, establish new alliances with progressive forces internationally, helped register a political party with all documentation, detailed manifesto working with people on the ground in The Gambia, obtain additional qualification reading between pain relapses and keeping my mind active regardless of the situation. Technology made so much of this possible. However the initial support of my colleagues at the Bar was decisive and the love from my family and closed friends kept me going. Above all, I was determined to be myself again and nothing would stand on my way.
AllGambian: There are some conspiracy theories that you were supposed to be killed in that accident.
Mai Fatty: With the record of this regime, logically such theories are reasonable. At the time of the ‘accident’ I was prosecuting three active cases against the army. They were all human rights cases involving abuse of authority, excessive use of force and denial of due process. I was also defending a treason case against the army in which I interrogated in the dock three of the five top military brasses including the Chief of Defence Staff. It was not friendly because they invented many lies which I believed I had proven in court. I told them in court that I was minded to have them for perjury, a criminal offense that could potentially put them in prison. I also had two active cases against the NIA, one of which involved the Director General who was reluctant to appear in court, but against whom I filed a subpoena to force him to appear and be cross examined in court. I was also conducting some cases against the Police. At one point I filed papers for the Inspector General of Police to appear and be cross examined on specific issues under his jurisdiction.
I was also fighting with the Justice Department (The State) and the Chief Justice to get my client’s (Hon. Baba Jobe) appeal case to be heard, a matter they still refused contrary to law. I was told by a senior judicial officer that there were orders from State House to suppress Baba Jobe’s case, and I was determined to reverse that order using legal means. I was embroiled in so much confrontation against the State, and these are all matters of public knowledge. I was under constant surveillance, and for months I wouldn’t step out of my gate after 8pm. I received death threats. Even my old mother was not spared from the threats to get at me. My car was tampered with twice when I parked it near the beach and went for evening jogging.
I had to hire a driver and guards for my residence at Kerr Serigne near Coconut Residence, from a professional security company out of caution.
The state tried to get me disbarred from practice using the Police to launch an international criminal investigation on me with Interpol working with the current Nigerian chief justice as the prosecutor, and they failed. Mr. Jarju, you yourself covered that incident when you were working for the Observer. I was operating in a very hostile and volatile environment created by the State. This culminated in the ‘accident’.
AllGambian: How did it happened?
Mai Fatty: A trailer truck left its lane in my opposite approaching driving direction and rammed into me twisting the front of my car 180 degrees towards the direction I was driving away from.
It took Fire Services over TWO HOURS on the scene to get me out of the car. I could’ve bled to death during this time that they were encircling my car with other uniformed agents from other law enforcements outfits. Instead they tried to hand cuff my younger brother who was called to the scene by a spectator who identified me in the wreckage, for arguing with them about how and where they should hold me and for ‘obstructing’ their mission. The ‘accident’ occurred three minutes from President Yaya Jammeh’s Officers Mess (the exclusive entertainment center for the top military brass at Kotu). I received information attributed to law enforcement sources that the accident was orchestrated, and I was to die in the crash. Another medical source revealed that I was to be ‘finished’ in hospital, but the NIA guy posted to keep night watch over me decided to sleep believing that in that broken shape I wasn’t a flight risk. I cannot personally confirm or verify any of this information.
Fortunately for me, my evacuation out of the country was managed efficiently and swiftly, and I was quietly taken out of the private ward late in the night to the airport to wait for the aircraft that flew me to Dakar at dawn. I am grateful to The Gambia Bar Association, especially the Executive for their support. As a practicing Muslim, all I can say is that Allah was in-charge, and it had to go His way. I was to live to continue to fight another day and no one has the power or authority to alter that. All Praises due to Allah! Hamdulillah!
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There is no god but Allah |
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shaka
996 Posts |
Posted - 13 Dec 2009 : 23:37:19
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| The honeymoon is long done Mr Fatty. Cross the border and join your collegues on the ground to talk the talk. The battle ground is not in Dakar. |
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Karamba
United Kingdom
3820 Posts |
Posted - 16 Dec 2009 : 00:49:59
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Lemon Time,
Mai Fatty has been generous to share. It appears that he is not bent on leading but open to be part of a united front. Those options are clearly spelt in his responses.
In the look of things, it appears he is ready to exchange fist for fist, fire for fire in the event the Jammeh thugs take chance over his lot. It is not clear where his power rests as he does not seem showing any numbers. May be he does not want to disclose much about his support base.
One thing is that the man looks quite ready for business, whatever his means.
To Mai, keep going. |
Karamba |
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mansasulu
997 Posts |
Posted - 16 Dec 2009 : 15:44:34
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| I was waiting for PK Jarju to ask if he was a ONE MAN PARTY and disappointedly it did not come. |
"...Verily, in the remembrance of Allâh do hearts find rest..." Sura Al-Rad (Chapter 13, Verse 28)
...Gambian by birth, Muslim by the grace of Allah... |
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shaka
996 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2009 : 16:54:48
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quote:
Originally posted by Karamba
One thing is that the man looks quite ready for business, whatever his means.
To Mai, keep going.
True that!!! Business sure looks rosy in cozy Dakar. But i don't do looks and appearances. The business is getting the job done in Banjul. If Mr Fatty is incapacitated either physically or mentally to join the battle field then, he should with all due respect resign as head of a registered political party in the Gambia and handover the reigns to a more eligible person. His contribution within the diaspora opposition would be better served in some other capacity not the leader of a registered political party in the Gambia. Anything short of that would amount to connery by using the name of the Gambia and her people to garner status and whatever benefits or relevance the position of 'leader of a political party' yields. I have given the man enough benefit of doubt but his prolonged absence from Gambian jurisdiction serves the cause he pledges to Gambians no good. There is enough diaspora 'politicians' as it is, with little or no significant muscles to dislodge the dictator except for cheap talk. The honeymoon is long done!!! |
Edited by - shaka on 18 Dec 2009 16:59:38 |
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