Kabirr:

Please, do add my name to the Dumo Saho latest petition. By the way, I was
going through "The Black World Today" Web Page, and came across this
article, by chance. Dumo Saho's name is mentioned in it. Anyway, I am
forwarding it for your perusal.

Brother Tijan Jobarteh: I hope the Journalist (Charisse Waugh) who wrote the
story below, did not misquote you. Well, I know you are more than
capable/competent to clarify issues if need be. Cheers!

Ebrima Ceesay
Birmingham, UK.

________________________________________________________________________




Crackdowns in The Gambia


By Charisse L. Waugh


At the conclusion of President Clinton's trip to Africa last month, he
conferred with Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt, about issues concerning
the Northern African region.  It was a familiar photo op:  An American
President and his Egyptian counterpart in grave conversation.  Nothing about
Clinton's activities in Africa was unfamiliar though, at least not to anyone
who has read a newspaper, watched a nightly newscast or a public television
documentary here in the last few years.

Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Burundi, the main subjects of those programs,
were also the focus of Clinton's diplomatic exercise on the world's second
largest continent.  There are other African countries, however, which have
escaped the radar of the western press.  But they too are experiencing a
reversal of their human rights, social and economic fortunes.

The Gambia is one such country.  So tenuous is the human rights situation
there, that as Clinton and his entourage were traveling to Africa, a senior
producer at The Gambia's state run television station was heading to the
U.S. seeking refuge from possible arrest by the Gambia's National
Intelligence Agency.

Tijan Jobarteh, a U.S. educated journalist who has served as the senior
producer at Gambia Television Services for the past six years was attending
a communications conference in South Africa when he received word that a
colleague with whom he had founded a community center in the Gambia had been
arrested with seven others and charged with treason.  It was the latest in a
number of events which last month prompted Representative John Lewis of
Georgia to prepare a written condemnation of the country's increasingly
brutal and authoritarian government.

Last April, 13 high school students were shot dead by the police while
participating in a peaceful demonstration against the death of a 13-year-old
boy who died in March while in the custody of fire officers.  According to
Gambian press reports, the official autopsy showed that the boy had
apparently been beaten to death.  Also prompting the student protests was
the rape in early February of a young girl allegedly by uniformed officers
at a sporting event in front of witnesses.  No arrests have been made.

Crackdowns on the press have become arbitrary and frequent.  Last month a
popular radio station was firebombed, and its proprietor injured.  No one
has claimed responsibility for that assault, but it came a few days after
President Yah Yah Jammeh, in a speech to youth, threatened the state radio
for its broadcasts.

"I don't want to be associated with the government anymore," says Jobarteh.
"The security forces have been given carte blanche to do what they want.
The President is creating another ton-ton macoute," claims the 40 year old
journalist in reference to the Gambia's National Intelligence Agency's
resemblance to the notorious security forces who showered death over the
country of Haiti during the Duvalier regime.

Until now, The Gambia has enjoyed reasonably positive press in the U.S.  Its
most controversial coverage being the question of whether Alex Haley's
"Roots" in which Haley claimed Gambian ancestry was authentic or not.

Last June, an op-ed article appeared in the Journal of Commerce praising the
Gambia's 35-year-old President for "representing hope for a brighter future
and an end to the social ethnic and religious scourges that have kept
problem-ridden African off the global agenda."  The editorial was
subsequently entered into the congressional record by three African-American
congressmen who visited The Gambia in 1999.  Representative Bennie Thompson
of Mississippi was part of that entourage along with Representative James
Clyburn of South Carolina and Earl Hilliard, a congressman from Alabama.
Thompson says he did not see anything amiss during his trip.  "At that time
the situation had not de-stabilized," said Thompson after learning of the
country's current troubles.  "We try not to get involved in the political
situation of a country anyway.  We try to go in and change the quality of
life of individuals through the use of foreign aid."  Thompson explained
that every member of the Congressional Black Caucus has a piece of the
"motherland" that they try to help by lobbying for aid here in the U.S.  "We
have done this for Sierra Leone, and other countries whose governments we
don't agree with.  Our history is very consistent with this."

Jobarteh attended college in the U.S.  He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s
in Media Studies from the New School University in New York.

After completing his studies in 1994, he returned to his native Gambia.  "I
was thinking I could contribute something positive," he says.

A few months before his arrival, Jammeh, then a 29-year-old army officer,
had seized control of the government in a coup that upheld Gambia's
reputation for peace.  He ousted Dada Diawara the only President to serve
since the close of British rule over 30 years ago.

By 1995, Jobarteh was made a principle producer at the state run television.
  He immediately began trying to influence its programming, and changing the
format from mainly soccer games and local soap operas to more substantial
fare.  For example, he aired a documentary on the Million Man March held in
Washington, D.C. in 1995.  He says: "People loved it.  They were calling the
station."

Buoyed by the enthusiastic response, Jobarteh began scheduling documentary
programming every Monday night during prime time.  He showed films and
videos he had acquired from friends in New York City such as a documentary
about Malcolm X by the African-American filmmaker St. Claire Bourne.
Subsequent documentary subjects were Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon and other
political and historical figures.  "I was trying to find material relevant
to the history of Gambia and West Africa.  I knew it was successful, because
people expressed their opinions in newspapers and to the station itself."

In December of 1996 Jobarteh was suspended indefinitely.  He believes it was
his programming decisions that left him vulnerable.  "They couldn't pin me
on that though, because what I was showing mirrored their rhetoric," he says
referring to the two-year-old government and its youthful President who
often praised the virtues of socialism and pan-African values.  "They knew I
was political, but I was professional."

The official reason given by the government for the suspension, according to
Jobarteh, was because he refused to interrupt scheduled programming to send
a crew to film government officials as they were breaking ground for a new
Insurance Institution.

The country was about to elect a new President and political campaigning was
heavy.  Jobarteh who was in charge of coordinating all of the political
broadcasts, says he didn't think it was fair to the other candidates to make
special arrangements for the government.  There were more than 20 different
parties vying for the presidency and other offices just two years after the
coup.

"Fundamentally, I believed we had a new democracy.  My guiding principle was
to give equal time to everybody.  I thought the people could decide for
themselves."

"I had been out of the country for 10 years.  How could I come home and take
a stand.  All the parties were new anyway."

Jobarteh was eventually reinstated to his position.

He was attending a conference in South Africa on children's educational
television programming when he received an email about his colleague's,
Momodou Dumo Sarho, abduction by the National Intelligence Agency.  He and
Sarho were the main coordinators of a community center they had founded a
few years ago for poor youths.  The center provided educational and
recreational services, and recruited the country's professional class to
volunteer as teachers and mentors.  About 60% of the youths who participated
were girls.  "Education for girls is very important in the Gambia," says
Jobarteh.  "Traditionally this is the group that has been left out."

Jobarteh is extremely concerned about the well being of Sarho.  "No one has
seen him since his arrest.  Not his lawyer or his wife.  We don't even know
if he is alive," Jobarteh says of the 45-year-old community activist.

"Here is a man who dedicated his whole life to working for his people and
this is what he gets.  This is very scary."

Instead of returning to the Gambia from the conference in South Africa,
Jobarteh took the advice of his family and friends who told him that he
should "lay low."  He traveled to Sweden and then made his way to New Jersey
where he is temporarily living with relatives.

While he is here Jobarteh plans on pursuing his Ph.D., but he intends to
return home soon.  "I'm not fearful of my own life," he says.  "I'm fearful
about what is happening to my country, and what it is becoming."

© 2000  The Black World Today. All Rights Reserved.

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------