In an interview with journalists at the Banjul International Airport upon arrival from New York where he attended the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly, he said: “The ideology, principle and objective of the founding fathers of the United Nations were to put an end to wars. That is why from the League of Nations, the UN was created for the freedom of all people. One of the mandates of the United Nations was to end colonisation in Africa. President Franklin Roosevelt is the first and last United States president to visit The Gambia. When he saw the conditions under which The Gambia’s colonial subjects were living, he told the British prime minister Winston Churchill: ‘You better let go of that country because what I have seen are famished and starving wretched Africans and if you cannot take care of them, give them their independence’. And so he went back to the United States and they said he died because of a flu he had contracted in The Gambia. But what is important is the fact that he became more convinced perhaps in The Gambia that the United Nations was necessary. He even suggested that before independence is given to any [African] country after the massive exploitation by the British, the French colonialists and all colonial powers, this country should be developed to the level of the colonial master before its handing over. That was why the United Nations was supposed to take over these colonies in a transitional period, develop them to the level of their colonial masters and give them independence.”
On the UN General Assembly in which more than 140 world leaders converged on the UN headquarters at Turtle Bay in midtown Manhattan to discuss some of the many urgent matters, President Jammeh declared: “We discussed pertinent issues that confront the world today. We are talking about the future we want for ourselves but what type of future do we want? That is why in my statement, I specified that we want a peaceful and bright future for humankind. There is no way we can have a peaceful and bright future as far as wars are raging on, powerful countries bullying weaker countries; creating unnecessary tension just because they want to sell their weapons and bully and intimidate people. Whenever there is a crisis, oil prices go up and poor countries like The Gambia that are developing find it very difficult to afford the oil, fuel or energy. We know that there can be no development without energy. So these unnecessary and inhumane brutal bullying of other countries must stop. The United Nations of today has been turned into a ministry of defence or a ministry of war by some superpowers whose objective is to antagonise people thousands of kilometers away just because they think it is their birth right to control humankind. Not only humankind but what they are also interested in is their natural resources.”
]]>
