Thaanks for the insight bro. Good thing you're out of
there.

--- ebou colly <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>     COUP IN GAMBIA ONE
>
> A British military officer I once met in San Remo
> Italy asked me to put the reason why there was a
> coup
> in The Gambia in two words.
> "Command breakdown and government complacency," I
> gave
> it to him in five.
> The British officer who was very interested in the
> military history of The Gambia had been for the
> weeks
> we worked together curiously firing me all sorts of
> questions about what made it possible for the junior
> officers of the GNA to seized power in 1994.
> The story I explained to that gentleman is the one I
> wish to share with the G-L readers in this series
> entitled COUP IN GAMBIA. It is a story I intend to
> tell in the simplest form based on my personal
> experience of the coup in The Gambia on the 22nd
> July
> 1994, the accidental role I played in it and most
> important of all the facts according to what exactly
> happened. I may also in this exercise attempt to
> periodically express my views or opinion about the
> special situations encountered.  Hearing about the
> general misconception developed by Gambians and
> non-Gambians alike, in the country or outside about
> the 1994 coup, coupled with the absolute silence
> from
> those who actually know the facts, compounded by
> mainly the lies Yaya and his lackeys have been
> peddling about the event, the coup in the final
> analysis has now been reduced to one shameless BIG
> lie. Those who should have been termed the actual
> heroes in that mutinous and criminal operation have
> long since been killed or reduced to subservient
> nonentities while the cowards who should have been
> permanently locked up behinds bars for their
> traitorous actions stole the center stage, supported
> by intellectual criminals and defended by armed
> bandits. However regardless of how strong or deep
> they
> may anchor their vessel of deceit in the divine sea
> of
> life, the wind of truth will someday blow away these
> floating evil doers to the shore of reality where
> the
> crew will be exposed in their naked images.  Those
> thinking that they could disguise themselves in this
> doom-bound vessel enjoying the loot of the
> bloodthirsty pirates, encouraging them to shed more
> blood for bigger treasure and then disappearing
> unnoticed at the final day of reckoning ought to
> think
> twice about that ungodly fate. If Gambians should
> think that they could get away with killing innocent
> armless children for anything in this world and then
> turn it into a political issue, manipulating the
> laws
> to exonerate the guilty murderers, some of them
> being
> so sick to make it a laughing matter in the heart of
> the nation then Gambians could as well exempt the
> existence of god and the dynamic laws of nature from
> life. These knuckleheads cannot learn from the
> common
> saying that no condition is constant except change
> itself.
> Lets remember Samuel Doe, Emperor Bukasa, Mengistu
> Haili Mariam, Edi Amin and Mobutu with their doomed
> followers. These leaders blatantly flouted all kinds
> of rules, secular and divine, with powers far
> greater
> than the ordinary or with powers which Yayas will
> never dream to acquire in this world; leaders who
> thought they could get away with any crimes, lies
> and
> deceit perpetrated towards their innocent subjects
> until the day of divine intervention dawned on them.
> Days that come without warning and often when things
> are at their sweetest. Days when the predators are
> caught happily licking their blood-dripping fingers
> from devouring the flesh of their unfortunate preys.
> Day that found them in festive moods when they the
> least suspected that the judgement day is indeed
> here.
> That day in the Gambia will soon come. The day Yaya
> and his callous follows will know that children in
> the
> kingdom of god are after all real angels and that no
> hoodlum would get away with killing them out of
> share
> madness.  Call it the big time day of reckoning.
> Having said that, I will now turn to my new topic,
> thanks to loony Paul. Evidently, if Gambians had
> developed the special tradition of recording and
> referring to their history as time and events unfold
> before us from period to another, we would have
> realized that the same situation that led to the
> abortive coup of 1981 more or less recurred in 1994.
> And perhaps that would have helped in averting the
> 1994 calamity.
> For instance by the time Kukoi lured the Field Force
> into his nightmarish coup in 1981, it could be
> remembered that there was a total breakdown of
> command
> and control in Depot, Fajara Barracks. The late Eku
> Mahony was strangely shot and killed by the late
> constable Mustapha Danso the previous year 1980;
> also
> the late Commander Bojang was suspected of
> complicity
> in what was thought to be a deadly factional
> conflict
> among their subordinates leading to one of his men
> killing his command counterpart. Bojang was retired
> or
> weeded from the force but had refused to vacate his
> official residence when asked to do so by
> government.
> The atmosphere was as a result charged with heavy
> gossip of a coup planning at the depot, yet
> government
> by its actions showed little concern about the
> potential explosion facing the nation. Nothing was
> more important at that critical time in government's
> agenda than the security crisis in the Depot that
> required immediate and total attention. Whether
> there
> was even a national security crisis management organ
> in the country for such unexpected emergencies was
> another thing we may never know. However if there
> was
> one, I don't think it was official or effective or
> even known to the Gambians. Historians may one day
> have to help us with this one. Anyway I still think
> that the government was rather complacent with the
> situation until Kukoi stuck, surprised and shocked
> the
> whole world. A civilian taking command of the
> county's
> major security force using its personnel in a coup
> attempt was unimaginable and disgraceful. Thank god
> there was foreign intervention to stop Kukoi;
> otherwise the crisis that had erupted could have
> pretty well degenerated into full-blown civil war.
> And
> I still firmly believe that what The Gambia escaped
> in
> Kukoi 's failure in 1981 was the exact leadership we
> got in Yaya's success in 1994. In other words, I
> think
> Kukoi in 1981 was going to be what we got in Yaya in
> 1994. But it was still possible that Kukoi might
> have
> been a little more genuine. Nothing could be like
> Yaya.
> Another critical factor often neglected but very
> important in command stability but was and is still
> lacking in The Gambia's security institutions is the
> personality and caliber of persons recruited and
> entrusted with the defense of the nation. The
> westerners that introduced modern military concepts
> in
> The Gambia built their own forces from men and women
> committed to the fundamental course of defending
> their
> national sovereignty because of the stake they have
> in
> the society. They are generally well cultured,
> properly educated and tested to meet the set
> standards; they have self-esteem and definitely
> understand that the country equally belong to them
> in
> the very way it belongs to any president. None of
> these virtues prevailed in the Field Force where the
> service men were literally social outcasts in terms
> of
> origin, education, social status, family background
> and self-esteem.. So instead of having fine warriors
> prepared to lay their lives for the defense of their
> nation, we ended up grooming angry jealous armed men
> full of hate and destructive tendencies ready to
> follow any deviant or criminal into a path of
> national
> destruction. Rebellious soldiers in uniform or
> civilian bandits, whose ultimate target is to
> destroy
> rather than construct, often are the organizers of
> coups. The Field Force behind Kukoi was without
> doubt
> armed men madly inclined to help destroy The Gambia
> they had no stake in building or protecting.
> A similar situation was re-created in the GNA in
> 1994.
> There was a command break down when the late General
> Abubacarr Dada was sent a successor from Nigeria
> Colonel Gwadebeh to command the Gambia Army and the
> former refused to hand over the seat to the latter.
> That conflict was what actually undermined all the
>
=== message truncated ===


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------