Ngorr, you could not have said it better....like
reading you. Am really proud of the power of your pen.
I pray that you grow with your analytical mind.

E Sillah.


--- Ngorr Ciise <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > In
today's quote, Brother Sanusi Owens wrote:
>
> <<"Contrary to the intentions of the military, every
> detention against me strengthens my resolve. Every
> act
> of persecution through police cell or criminal
> charges
> advances the cause I fight for. Anytime I am
> arrested
> and taken to the police cell or to the prisons, I am
> not sad and I don't feel inconvenienced simply
> because
> I am not there because of myself fighting my own
> cause."
>
>
>
>
> Chief Gani Fawehini. Nigeria's Human Rights
> Crusader.
>
>
>
> This quote is dedicated to all political activists
> who
> were unlawfully detained in The Gambia during the
> First and Second Republic.>>
>
> Brother Sanusi, with your kind permission, can i be
> more specific and single
> out the brave, heroic and patriotic stance of a
> Brother, who not only
> selflessly defended constitutionality on July 22nd.
> 1994 but, most
> importantly, defiantly defended his actions on that
> fateful day, and paid
> the price of being illegally detained for said
> stance? The Brother in
> question is Ebrima Ismaila - formerly of the Gambia
> Police Force. But before
> i proceed to say why i think Chongan is worthy of my
> deepest amiration and
> respect, let me cull yestesday's quote, which you
> provided, and the
> appropriateness of this exercise would have a better
> context:
>
> <<"It is not the duty of the army to rule or govern
> because it has no political  mandate...... If the
> national interest compels the armed forces to
> intervene, then immediately after the intervention
> the
> army must hand over to a new civilian government
> elected by the people and enjoying the people's
> mandate under a constitution accepted by them. If
> the
> army failed to do this , then it has betrayed the
> people and the national interest. "
>
> Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's First President and
> Founding
> member of the Pan Africanist Movement>>
>
> When i read this quote yesterday, the mouse that ran
> in the attic of my
> memory was how this quote aptly described the stance
> Chongan and his men
> took against the mutineering soldiers, who by quirk
> twist of fates ended up
> with an unintended "coup d'etat" in their hands.
> Imbued by the admirable
> ideals of constitutionality, Rule of Law and a grand
> sense duty, Chongan and
> his men valiantly defended first Denton Bridge from
> the onslaught of the
> mutineers, and when the tide went against him and
> his small band of loyal
> patriots, they took the fight all the way to Radio
> Syd. It was only upon the
> realisation of the futility of further exchanges
> with the mutineers, and the
> young Gambian lives that could invariably have gone
> that Chongan -- with
> dignity and his integrity intact -- asked his men to
> lay their arms downs
> and negotiated a compromise.
>
> For this stance, Chongan and every right thinking
> individual amongst his
> small band of patriots were illegally detained for
> months; they tortured,
> harrassed and intimidated relentlessly by such
> sadists like Sanna Sabally et
> al. During those emotionally trying and perplexing
> times, Chongan stoically
> persisted with the ideals that imbued him to take
> his heroic stance against
> the banditry of Yaya et al. He never wavered in his
> belief that the position
> he staked on July 22nd. 1994 was the right one, and
> wholly defensible. Much
> froth and nonsense has been written -- especially on
> Gambia-L last year --
> about Chongan's motives on that fateful day, to the
> effect it had been
> erroneously and nastily insinuated that the reason
> why he defended
> constitutionality on that fateful day was because he
> (Chongan) was a mere
> PPP operative. This is nonsense on stilts: not only
> has Chongan taken an
> astringently liberal slant in the course of
> executing his duties, especially
> the executing of the conditionalities of granting
> permits for political
> rallies in the First Republic, but, most
> importantly, he had granted such
> then radical groupings like PDOIS permits as and
> when they applied for one.
> These liberal interpretations and executions of
> conditionalities for permits
> didn't go down well with the PPP establishment; but
> Chongan was a
> conscientious PUBLIC SERVANT, serving the STATE and
> NOT any other political
> grouping -- be it the PPP, NCP or PDOIS. It was his
> understanding of his
> duties as an employee of the State which proplled
> him to interpret and
> execute his duties as he had sworn to do so when he
> joined the Services
> decades ago.
>
> Much to the AFPRC/APRC's chagrin, the case they
> tried to build against
> Chongan failed; and they were forced to release him.
> As it happened,
> Chongan's resolve, principles, integrity and
> conscience was further tested
> by the APRC when he was released: he was offered a
> job by Yaya, and Chongan
> turned down the offer. Chongan knew then, as now,
> that men of conscience,
> principles and impregnable integrity are incapable
> of a worthy relationship
> with Yaya's. But unbeknownst to him, by refusing
> this job offer on grounds
> of incompatible principles with the APRC, this
> stance was to be used against
> him when he left the Gambia for the UK, and sought
> political asylum there.
> Indeed, the job offer was used as anecdotal evidence
> to the effect that if
> his life were under threaten by the APRC, he would
> not have been offered a
> job the APRC. Luckily for him, his one-time boss in
> the police and former
> Mile Two detainee, Pa Sallah Jagne, who did accept
> jobs from Yaya with
> disastrous consequences, defected from the APRC and
> bolted before the stable
> doors were locked on him. Signally, Jagne's fall
> from grace in the scheme of
> APRC politics, and subsequent defection to the US
> rendered obsolete any such
> claims that Chongan will ever be safe in a Gambia
> under the tyranny of Yaya
>
> Even in the UK, life was never as easy as he may
> have anticipated. With much
> brio and principles, Chongan literally went through
> countless setbacks,
> seemingly never-ending trials and tribulations that
> invariably comes with
> migrations, especially migrants migrating with a
> young family. An instance
> of Chongan's self discipline, hard work and sheer
> knack for sticking to
> principles under considerable strain was how he got
> his first degree. The
> Brother paid his first year through university from
> his own pockets, whilst
> weathering the emotional and financial storms of
> bringing up a young family
> on his own in an alien country by working full time
> at night and studying
> full time during the day for his degree. As with
> stories of perseverance and
> dignified struggle against the odds, Chongan's
> trials and tribulations paid
> off handsomely: he's now got his LLB Honours Degree
> under his belt; a  new
> career in the British Civil Service; and a family
> integrating with him in
> their host society -- a society that has shown time
> and again that it is
> relatively tolerant, fair-minded and rewards hard
> work and self-discipline.
>
> I hope that by going this far to commemorate the
> dignified trials and
>
=== message truncated ===

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