Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – US-based Gambians, under the banner of the Democratic Union of Gambian Activists (DUGA), have condemned President Yahya Jammeh’s government for oppressing its citizens over the past 20 years, DUGA said in a statement.
The Gambian leader on July 22, 2014, marked his 20 years in power and DUGA, in a reaction, released its statement criticising the Jammeh regime over alleged tyranny.
”Twenty years of Jammeh’s tyranny has dawned upon our beloved Gambia! Since that infamous day of July 22, 1994, many have been unwavering, whether publicly or silently in the stance that Jammeh and his Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) would hinder progress and freedom for the Gambia, and put the country on the wrong trajectory,” DUGA alleges.
”Throughout this period, we have witnessed an awakening of the Gambian people, and increased participation of our compatriots in the struggle to rescue our nation from the clutches of tyranny.”
According to the group, although they have made significant gains, ”we maintain that 20 years is too long to have put up with Jammeh.”
”We have come full circle in this struggle to uproot Jammeh, but we must ask, what is the way forward from here?”
”We must move beyond merely listing the Jammeh regime’s atrocities in the past 20 years, his barbarism is undeniable, even to his most willfully ignorant sycophants. Instead, we must move towards tangible collective actions that will be the catalyst for the final push to liberate our country,” DUGA added.
The statement went on to indicate that factual observations point to evidence that the Jammeh regime’s future is very precarious.
DUGA hinted that Jammeh, in desperation, will try his best to survive ”this catastrophe by resorting to his old tricks of silencing and punishing dissent; and continued attempts to sanitize his international image, as in the upcoming White House Africa Summit, August 5-6.”
The group also expressed its resolve to carry on its campaign and activism against the Jammeh Government.
”We in DUGA are poised to escalate our activism without compromise; never to surrender to the Jammeh regime.”
”We are calling on all principled, action-oriented and freedom-loving Gambians to join the movement to end Jammeh’s tyranny,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, DUGA further announced that it will organise a protest action at the White House in Washington DC during the US-Africa Summit under the theme, ”Operation free Gambia.”
