Congratulations Baba Galleh and co. and thank you for your independent view
on events.

Momodou Camara
-------------------


Four Years Hence &The Eagle Flies

http://allafrica.com/stories/200307180893.html

The Independent (Banjul)
COLUMN
July 18, 2003
Posted to the web July 18, 2003

By Baba Galleh Jallow


On July 5, 1999, a new paper hit the Gambian Newsstands. The first issue of
The Independent Newspaper with the lead headline screaming WE ARE NOT AT
WAR announced the arrival on the Gambian media scene a paper that would
continue the tradition of independent journalism introduced into the
country by veteran Liberian journalist Kenneth Y. Best, who five years
before, had been unceremoniously deported by the Jammeh junta.

The idea to start The Independent was born when I was Editor-In-Chief of
the Daily Observer and at the height of the Jammeh regime s harassment of
that paper. I had seen five consecutive years of harassment of the paper by
the NIA, the Immigration department and the Police Serious Crimes Unit. I
had seen the unjust and arbitrary deportation of the paper s founder and my
mentor in journalism, Kenneth Y. Best back to war-torn Liberia in October
1994. I had seen the deportation of almost all the foreign reporters and
staff of the Observer and the fleeing of the rest. Among the deported were
Ghanaian Editor-in-Chief Ellicott Seade who was my immediate predecessor,
Alie Badara Sheriff, Sule Musa, Moco Macauley and Pa Horace Whenton, a
seventy-year old Sierra Leonean refugee who worked as a store clerk for the
company and had nothing to do with the contents of the paper. There were
other victims. Some deported. Others fleeing like Justice Fofana and Rodney
Seah. I had seen the positioning of Immigration officers at the gates of
the Observer compound 24 hours a day, seven days a week for over one year.
These officers checked the identification papers of all who came into the
premises of the Daily Observer and turned all non-Gambians away. This was
in addition to the fact that all non-Gambian staff had been banned from
working for the paper.

I had seen Observer reporters and myself suffering numerous arrests and so-
called interrogations by both the NIA and the Police Serious Crimes Unit.
On one occasion, I was arrested by a group of five NIA agents who showed me
an arrest warrant that said I was suspected of dealing in drugs and
dangerous weapons, and being in possession of dangerous documents. Of
course, their search yielded no such drugs, weapons or dangerous documents.
And I had known, deep within that the Observer as it was then, could not
survive much longer. I had known too, that without a strong independent
press to check the excesses of our pseudo-military regime, The Gambia could
easily go down the bloody path of the Sierra Leones and Liberias of Africa.
It was such an acute awareness of our sensitive situation that planted the
idea of The Independent in my mind and led me to pick up my phone and
invite Alagi Yorro Jallow, then a freelance reporter for the paper, to come
work with me on the new project.

A few months later on May 12, 1999, we got the go ahead to begin
publishing. And by a strange coincidence the following week, I was informed
that Amadou Samba had bought the Daily Observer Company from Mr. Best. One
further month of planning culminated in the printing of our first issue
with the We Are Not At War headline. The main thrust of that article was to
tell the Gambian public that contrary to rumors circulating around Banjul,
The Independent was not at war with anybody and that we were simply out to
operate as an independent paper with an independent editorial policy. To
challenge ourselves further, we chose as our motto Truth Is Our Principle
which is still on the paper s banner. We also chose the eagle as our logo.

Contrary to subsequent NIA allegations during our arrests that we were
being funded by an external power, not a single butut of anyone s money
went into funding the paper. We started out by securing an office with no
furniture and by renting the Gambia Press Union s computer, scanner and
printer. What we had in abundance was a cadre of respected and talented
reporters and editors and a steely determination to succeed. The Observer s
Dr. Owl, quite skeptical of our ability to succeed and underestimating our
determination and resolve, loudly declared that An Eagle Cannot Fly on
Chicken Wings. We thank God that the Eagle continues to fly four years
hence and what Dr. Owl perceived as chicken wings was after all, not so
chicken.

Over the past four years, The Independent has suffered all kinds of
persecution by the Jammeh regime. A regime that strives on intimidation,
the breaking of promises and care free political adventurism cannot stand
the heat of a newspaper founded on the principles of truth and justice.
Thus the paper s reporters and editors have continually suffered
persecution and intimidation. In a classic case of Orwellian absurdity,
even my parents both of them illiterate and peace loving village folks were
in August 2000 taken in for questioning over my nationality as a Gambian.
Less than a month after we started publishing, we were banned for over
three weeks on the spurious allegation that we had not registered our
business name with the Registrar General s office and when we went to pay
the 500 dalasi required to register, we were told that the Registrar
General s office had orders from above not to accept our fees. When we
defied the ban and went ahead to publish our next issue, we were arrested
by the NIA who told us that they had credible information that we were
being funded by an external power and that the funds were being channeled
through UDP leader Ousainou Darboe. Their investigations could obviously
not turn up non-existent evidence to support their absurd intelligence
information. On another occasion, we were charged with libel against the
President because we write a story about his family life. The bogus charge
was of course later dropped but not before the Police Serious Crime Unit
had had a good time harassing us.

Our reporters have been brutalized by the NIA and The Independent continues
to operate in an environment of extreme hostility and danger. But we remain
unshakeable in our resolve to report the truth and nothing but the truth.
And as we made clear to the Jammeh regime on many occasions, we are
beholden to a power far more potent than his and theirs. As we continue to
work for truth and justice in our society, we seek refuge at the feet of
the All-Powerful God and we are confident that He would protect and guide
us. We find solace in the fact all truth loving Gambians are behind us and
that ultimately, whatever happens, we shall go down the annals of history
as a group of well-meaning Gambians who have contributed in our own little
way, in preserving sanity in our dear motherland. We seek the support of
our truth and justice-loving compatriots and the guidance and protection of
the All Mighty Lord. Amen.



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