Editor, RE: “International media and human rights organisations stole the Gambian election” (The New Times, January 2). The post-election situation in the Gambia is the perfect illustration of that English phrase, “Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory!” How Adama Barrow’s lieutenants, egged on by professional “human rights” ideologues, managed to push Yahya Jammeh, who had already conceded defeat, to reverse himself and refuse to recognize his opponent’s electoral victory is an objective lesson in the consequences of hubristic overreach by neophyte African politicians dancing to the drumbeat of foreigners pushing their own agendas (in this case the defense of the ICC) rather than putting the interests of their electorate before everything else. And as usually happens in such circumstances, we now have a mess that nobody knows how to resolve that is going to make Gambians’ already dire situation even worse. Mwene Kalinda ***************************Adama Barrow is the people’s choice. He is not fit to lead, nor is he a statesman. He may have been sponsored by external forces precisely for that to be a stooge. However, it is unclear those who sponsored him aimed for peace, transition, or the departure of Jammeh. It is also unclear Barrow wanted to be president in the first place. Their pursuit, I suspect, was to sponsor chaos and thus justify their bread and butter. Jammeh’s early acceptance had wrong-footed them and threatened to unravel their initial scheme to make money. There are two tragedies in life, a famous aphorism goes: “Not to find what you are looking for; and finding exactly what you are looking for. Gatete
