Dear Patriotic Vanguard,
I read Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim’s analysis on Guinea, under the title: CHALLENGES TO DEMOCRACY: THE MILITARY IN GUINEA, and which was published in your esteemed online newspaper, dated 3rd April, 2009, and wish to write this REJOINDER.
It is indeed very interesting, and of course should be a welcome development that the Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development, Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim had recently paid a week long visit to Guinea Conakry. To any patriotic African, such a visit was supposedly meant to have a glimpse at the real situation in Guinea, in the aftermath of the demise of President Lansana Conte.
Unlike the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, whose prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo
locked himself in air-conditioned rooms only to ridicule and scorn African leaders based on the manipulative mechanism of foreign forces hostile to Africa.
I want to believe that Dr. Ibrahim’s visit to Guinea was a followed-up of the outcomes of the conference organized by the Centre for Democracy and Development and the West African Civil Society Forum, which aimed at mobilizing civil society groups in the region, for increased engagement in the search for democracy.
What one cannot understand is Dr. Ibrahim’s Organization definition of democracy, particularly in the Guinean context, whether it seeks to address the problems of social vices and degeneracy inherited by the CNDD Government of President Moussa Dadis Camara is yet to be desired. What is clear and that which my compatriot African brother attempted to dodge in his analysis of the Guinean situation is that the
orthodox prescription of democracy as represented by funded institutions has done more harm than good to Africa. The concept of democracy in this situation is defined in terms of ’freak and farce’, while the mass of the people, who are supposed to be the recipients of the system continued to linger in pain, misery and dehumanization.
Moreover, one has observed that even the African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have no moral definition of democracy in the true meaning of attempting to address the genuine concerns of the African people. These concerns include respect for the sovereignty of the people, respect for human rights, freedom and dignity. Instead, the AU and ECOWAS it seems are only concerned with rehearsing orthodox rhetoric, which are nothing but anathema to peace, justice, good governance, freedom, protection of the environment, security and dignity.
Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim analysis of the situation in Guinea one must be honest, appeases only foreign detractors, hiding behind curtains to plunder and pillage the continent at the expense of the masses of the people. The analysis contained also grudges, malice and hatred towards the CNDD, whose crime is only for pursuing a genuine national agenda for the good of the Guinean people.
Dr. Ibrahim would have done a good thing if had seized the opportunity to use his recent trip to Guinea, to meet and discuss with members of the CNDD. But analysis based on imagination and which is far away from the truth and reality is meant only for detractors.
Dr. Ibrahim claimed that the CNDD has an agenda to perpetuate its rule. Guineans do not share that assumption. The problem is not the noble goals the Centre for Democracy and Development claimed to represent, but that, all evidence point to the fact that there is a sinister agenda on the table waiting for Guinea.
The question is when did Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim and his Organization, the Centre for Democracy and Development become interested in helping Guinea, if it has such a program? Have Dr. Ibrahim and the Centre for Democracy and Development ever been interested in advocating for upliftment of the status of the Guinean people?
The answer is NO, because from Dr. Ibrahim’s analysis of Guinea, the Centre for Democracy and Development is interested principally in advocating a proxy agenda in Guinea. The motive has been to smear and vilify the CNDD, to achieve this ill-fated agenda.
If Dr. Ibrahim’s interest is very much for the good of the people of Guinea, what has he to say about the fact that the current political parties in that country are ethnic groups, with each espousing an ethnocentric agenda? Had Dr. Ibrahim ever condemned late President Lansana Conte’s despotism, ethnocentric politics and oppressive tendencies in Guinea? Had Dr. Ibrahim ever challenged the US and Western European support for late President Conte’s undemocratic, reactionary, fascist, ethnocentric terrorism and misrule in Guinea?.
Dr. Ibrahim claimed also that President Moussa Dadis Camara has refused to commit himself to the calendar proposed by the international contact group to organize elections and handover power by the end of this year. For heaven’s sake, let Dr. Ibrahim be fair and realistic in his commentary about the situation in Guinea. The CNDD inherited a system that enslaved, pauperized, infringed upon basic human rights and democratic freedoms of the Guinean people; a wicked, tribalistic and spurious system that hated democracy, ignored decent politics and which subverted the Constitution of the Republic of Guinea.
The international contact group has its own agenda in Guinea. The international community knows what exactly to do to help the CNDD organized a credible transition program according to the wishes of the Guinean people. To force the CNDD now, without putting in place all that is needed for that purpose is tantamount to betrayal of the Guinean nation.
If Dr. Ibrahim and his Centre for Democracy and Development are really very interested in helping Guineans, they should do so by supporting the CNDD’s laid down program for peaceful, transparent, honest and credible transition by the end of 2010.
If Dr. Ibrahim and the Centre for Democracy and Development cannot help Guinea in this regard then any other help cannot but be without a sinister motive.
Let common sense prevail, and let the people of Guinea led by the CNDD be allowed to chart their future.
Alimamy Bakarr Sankoh
Leader and Chairman of the Sierra Leone People’s Democratic League (PDL).
Email: freedomsal@yahoo.fr.
Photo: Alimamy Bakarr Sankoh.
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