Leading human rights activist in The Gambia, Madi Jobarteh, has said that Gambians will Monday, June 1, apply for a permit to the Inspector General of Police to provide security for a peaceful assembly in front of the US Embassy in Gambia.
Jobarteh said: “We are going to request for a police permit to embark on a peaceful protest in front of the US Embassy to submit a petition to the US Ambassador.
“We want to demand that the US Government enforce its own Constitution, uphold its own Declaration of Independence of 1776 and implement its entire civil rights act to protect the lives and dignity of Black People.
“We demand that the US Government investigates the murder of Momodou Lamin Sisay, a Gambian and Americans George Floyd and Breonna Tayler and all oher victims of police brutality and hold all those officers responsible accountable.”
“Above all, we demand the US Government to immediately put a complete end to institutionalized racism against African Americans in all spheres of life and society,” Jobarteh said in a statement received on Sunday.
He disclosed that the protest is planned for Monday, June 8, at 10am.
“We will converge in silence. We will stand on one knee like Colin Kaepernick to symbolize our mourning and condemnation of the acts of violence meted out to Blacks in the US by the police.
“By 10:30am, we will hand over a signed petition to the Ambassador and then peacefully disperse.”
“We will ensure social distancing and we urge all to donate and bring face masks, water buckets and soap and hand sanitizers in respect of the state of emergency regulations,” he further disclosed.
According to him, after 244 years of the US Declaration of Independence in which US Founding Fathers declared that all human beings are created equal and endowed with the inalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, the fact remains that African Americans are not treated as such.
He also said “Looking into the social, economic and political indicators in terms of access to power, leadership, resources, wealth, education, healthcare, housing and voice and you will find Black People are disproportionately lower than Whites.
“Therefore, as Africans on the continent we are going to protest this unfair, unjust, illegal and oppressive treatment of our kith and kin in America. It is high time that each and every African in the continent of Africa makes the issue of America a personal and a national issue
“Not just because African-Americans are our blood kith and kin but also because we have millions of fellow Africans living in the United States. And they have not been spared as we have seen in the murder of Momodou Lamin Sisay few days ago as well as the murder of Amadou Diallo from Guinea in New York in 1999 just to mention a few.”
He recalled that it was White People from Europe and America who got up on their own to come to Africa hundreds of years ago to forcefully kidnap our ancestors and then carry them into slavery in the Americas against their will.
“Kunta Kinteh never asked to be made a slave. The kings and people of Niumi in the North Bank Region of The Gambia never invited White People to visit their village to kidnap Kunta Kinteh.
“Rather, slavery was the imagination and invention of White People and it was Europe and the United States that emerged successful from slavery. The people of Juffureh, Niumi, The Gambia and the entire Africa only lost and became weak socially, economically and politically because of slavery,” he pointed out.”
He said Kunta Kinteh and his descendants worked all their lives in the United States to build the country and its vast economy to what it is today, for free.
“Our Ancestor Kunta was never paid for his labour. Even when the US President Abraham Lincoln declared in 1863 that he had freed the slaves, the US Government until today has failed to pay back its Black citizens their fair share or uphold and protect their rights.
“Even the promise of forty acres and a mule that the US Government said it would give to each and every Black person since 1865, the US Government has failed to fulfill that promise even until today,” he said.