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City of Banjul
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
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The cost of imperialism

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Dear Editor,

Western governments in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome to Washington, Ottawa and Canberra are saturated with war criminals and genocidaires who are never held accountable. Here is the former deputy  prime minister of the United Kingdom John Prescott making an apology before he died in November 2024 for the war crimes committed by his government led by Tony Blair in Iraq. What an apology!

The story of the American led invasion of Iraq is the same story of invasions, massacres, atrocities, war crimes, genocides and crimes against humanity that Western governments have consistently been committing over the past 500 years across the world. Yet they are never held accountable except if their crime is against themselves.

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For example, Nazi perpetrators of Germany continue to be hunted to be brought to justice for the Holocaust. But German officials and soldiers who committed genocide against the Herero people in Namibia in 1904 have never been held accountable. Belgian king, Leopold II, and his soldiers and officials have never been held accountable for their atrocities and crimes against humanity committed in the Congo in the 1900s.

Four US presidents involved with the Vietnam War, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon and their officials and generals have never been held accountable for the war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide including the use of chemical weapons committed in Vietnam.

Across the world, there are uncountable instances where Western governments unleashed unimaginable violence against non-white populations of the Global South without any provocation. From India to Africa to the Americas across to Asia, the footprints of Western crimes remain indelible on the lives of victims and far reaching until today. These acts of aggression by western powers have been recorded way back since the Atlantic Slave Trade and colonialism in Africa and beyond which were crimes against humanity and genocide in themselves.

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As it was in the past, still today we are seeing the same acts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide being committed or aided and abetted by Western governments against the Palestinians, Afghans and others yet never held accountable.

Instead these war criminals such as George Bush, Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Joe Biden, Emanuel Macron, Olaf Sholz, Giorgio Meloni, Keir Starmer and their officials and generals continue to be shielded and celebrated even when they are committing, aiding and abetting heinous crimes on innocent peoples around the world. They must be stopped and brought to justice. One day.

Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh

If 2026 election is about voting for more of the same, Barrow will win again

Dear Editor,

The infamous interview of QTV was staged for President Barrow to announce that he’s running for a third term. And about What’s On Gambia and its jags to fund raise and recruit staff to sensitise the Gambian electorate, whatever you do has to be organised under a political leadership and platform for change.

Opposition political leadership and political agenda for change are what are totally missing in Gambian politics.

What’s On Gambia can recruit volunteers and paid staff to sensitise the Gambian people about the power of their vote but The Gambia is a democracy. For there to be an organised political movement for change, there has to be the opposition leadership and the political agenda for government. You can’t put the cart before the horse or else we are not going anywhere as a democracy.

President Barrow is a national disaster. He’s deluded and annoying but where’s the opposition political leadership and the political agenda for change? Darboe has become a political liability obstructing the change agenda in The Gambia. The other opposition leaders and their runaway political antics are only enabling the re-election of President Barrow apparently.

The Gambia is a democracy and meaningful change and national development can only be brought about through political leadership and vision for change. Everyone running on his or her own as headless chickens in a field is not how a functioning democracy works. The Gambia is looking for political solutions from the opposition leaders to its socio-economic development challenges and problems. That’s the political agenda for change that the majority of the electorate are looking out for from the opposition leader.

The Gambia cannot vote out President Barrow without the opposition leadership and the political agenda for change and national development. If the 2026 presidential election is about voting for more of the same nonsense, President Barrow will win again. It’s up to Darboe and the other opposition leaders to provide the political leadership and the political agenda for change come 2026. That’s all we are asking for!

Yusupha ‘Major’ Bojang
Brikama

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