Mr President, I cannot help but applaud your government through your minister of Foreign Affairs, Lawyer Ousainou Darboe for the Gambia’s stance on the Saudi Arabia-Qatari issue. Of late, countries have been abandoning Qatar like a man stricken with leprosy, or worse, with Ebola.
Saudi Arabia’s calling Qatar a sponsor of terrorism is nothing but the height of paradox. It is like a case of a pot calling a kettle black. When one considers the stance of Saudi Arabia on terrorism, and then looks at the number of Saudi nationals embroiled in acts of terror, it becomes very evident who is a likelier sponsor of terror between the two nations.
Albeit, this in actual fact has got nothing to do with who is sponsoring terror and who is not. It’s unfortunate that Saudi Arabia has tied a rope on its nose and given the end of the rope to the United States to be pulled wherever and whenever they please; sometimes to the detriment of the Muslim world. The US-Saudi Arabia relationship is very complex indeed, and that much corrupt as well.
This relationship is used to entrench the stranglehold the United States has on the Muslims to ensure that the some-times-lone-voices of dissent are put in check. One can observe this in the fact that part of the problem between Saudi Arabia and Qatar was sparked by the reporting of Aljazeera, a Qatari backed news channel on the so-called Arab Spring which rumpled feathers in the Middle East. This shows that all they are worried about is an uprising of the masses like what was observed in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries. The US has an interest in a stable Saudi Arabia as the Royal Family seems to be in their pocket.
So one may ask, what the heck does any of that have to do with little Gambia, thousands of miles away? Well, as we live in a global village, all countries are interconnected. But that connection has not gone to a level where we should just blindly follow Saudi Arabia in boycotting anyone, or jump anytime they say we do. So the stance of your government expressed through the foreign minister to stay out of this so-called fight against terror. Bravo Lawyer Darboe.
Let us make our own decision; of course after careful consideration and consultations. We are not sheep to be led blindly!
