OP

|A Classic Example of Mercenary Diplomacy and How Not to Conduct International Relations|   By Pa Louis Sambou    W ith Presidential elections barely two months away, visa restriction measures imposed against The Gambia, for the government’s failure to cooperate with the EU’s deportation regime as was confirmed in a recent  press statement by the European Commission  could not have come at a more critical time. For the special interest opposition for whom accusing the government of facilitating deportations served a rewarding political weapon of choice, this development slams shut such an otherwise useful misinformation gateway. To do justice to other opponents of this government whose opposition is premised on principled disagreement, it is fair to qualify what I meant by ‘special interest opposition’ being those former political associates of the President whom are in opposition today against their will, not because of any principled conviction but rather, because the President dismi

  By Pa Louis Sambou    C ontinuous politicking is a permanent fixture in any democracy. Without such, there will be no democratic counterbalance to the incumbent, nor any mechanism through which the government of the day could be challenged and held accountable as is required under any respectable multi-party democratic framework. Effectively, what the President laments in his recent  State House diatribe  as ‘endless politicking’ is, a feature which is by all accounts a vitally essential pillar of Gambian multi-party democracy. The opposite is, the antithesis of democratic existence whose prevalence it seems the President aspires to doggedly pursue at some time in the very near future, never-mind the cringeworthy ‘clarifications’ and ‘re-clarifications’ (or perhaps Trump like alternative facts) advanced by his misplaced-loyalty-powered ‘politburo’. I note that most dismiss these as peak tosh by cranks, which characterisation is perhaps reaffirmed by the comical optics the affair proj

  By Pa Louis Sambou   I t is natural human reaction cum instinct to embrace any, if not the first conviction which comes by, following the occurrence of a crime. In this instance, it was no ordinary crime and, to add insult to injury, its first conviction may with time be laid bare as anything but justice for the victim. The unique brutality which surrounds the circumstances of the case in question and the very long wait for justice may perhaps be qualifications which better explain the gravity of the aforementioned reception as regards news of  Yankuba Touray’s murder conviction  in the case of  late Ousman Koro Ceesay, AFPRC Finance Minister murdered in 1995 . For a transgression so brutal in its execution and coverup, the blatant refusal by the rogue State (as it then was) to acknowledge or even recognise such occurrence as a bona fide crime worthy of an investigation, no amount of convictions nor weight and burden imposed by any sentence may sufficiently bring forth a sense of pub