Congratulations Baba.

Malanading


Baba Galleh Jallow wrote:

> Dear Friends,
>
> On this occasion of World Press Freedom Day, I am pleased to announce 
> that my new small book, "Mandela's Other Children: The Diary of an 
> African Journalist" is out. Attached is the cover template for the 
> book. Signed copies can be purchased from the FreeGambia website at 
> the following address:
>
> http://www.freegambia.net/shop.html
>
> The book may also be purchased directly from the publisher at:
>
> http://www.wastelandpress.net/Mandela.html
>
> I join all journalists in remembering our dear brother, father, uncle, 
> mentor, and doyen, Deyda Hydara who was brutally murdered by gunmen on 
> December 16, 2004.
>
> Below are three of the book's forty-two chapters.
>
> Baba
>
>
>
> Chapter Nine
>
> It’s been about three months since our absurd arrest over the 
> Norwegian paint ad. I spent the past three days locked up 
> incommunicado at NIA headquarters. Last Sunday morning, I arrived at 
> our offices around 9:00am to oversee work on the Monday paper. As I 
> walked through the gate, I noticed two cars packed outside and some 
> men standing around. I recognized them immediately as NIA agents. The 
> little guy wearing a black felt hat and dark glasses was Baba Saho, 
> the guy who interrogated me and asked me to write a statement over the 
> paint ad. I waved at them and proceeded upstairs to my office. Shortly 
> after I closed the door behind me, I heard a knock and asked them to 
> come in. Five men filed into the office. I exchanged greetings with 
> them and asked them to sit down on the three available chairs. Three 
> sat down and two leaned against the wall by the door, their hands 
> folded on their chests, wearing the customary iron looks on their faces.
>
> ‘Well Mr. Jallow, we have a warrant for your arrest,’ Baba Saho said, 
> looking across the desk at me behind his dark glasses.
>
> ‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘That’s interesting. And for what crime am I being 
> arrested?’
>
> Saho motioned to one of his men who stepped forward and handed me a 
> yellow sheet of paper. As I read, I felt my eyes widening with 
> disbelief. The warrant said I was suspected of trafficking in arms, 
> ammunition, and drugs, and being in possession of dangerous documents. 
> I could not help laughing out.
>
> ‘This is ridiculous,’ I said. ‘Suspected of trafficking in arms, 
> ammunition, and drugs?’
>
> ‘Have you read the warrant, Mr. Jallow?’ Saho asked.
>
> ‘Yes I have,’ I said.
>
> ‘Please sign it,’ he added.
>
> I signed the document and handed it back to him.
>
> ‘Can we search your office?’
>
> ‘Oh sure,’ I said, rising up from my desk and standing aside. Three of 
> the men started rummaging the piles of paper on my desk, pulling out 
> my drawers and shifting through their contents. After a while, they 
> were through. Of course they did not find any arms, ammunition, or drugs.
>
> ‘Can you take us to your house, Mr. Jallow?’ Saho said.
>
> ‘No problem,’ I retorted. ‘Let me just tell my colleagues what’s going 
> on.’
>
> As I walked out of my office towards the newsroom, one of the men 
> followed me, as if I was going to run away. I told everybody what had 
> happened and asked them to make sure that the paper comes out on 
> Monday. Then I locked my office and walked downstairs with the men. I 
> was escorted into one of the cars, which started driving towards the 
> city.
>
> ‘My house is in the other direction,’ I reminded Saho, who sat in the 
> front seat with the driver.
>
> ‘It’s no longer necessary,’ he said. ‘We just received orders to take 
> you straight to headquarters.’
>
> I sat back in the backseat, sandwiched between two stone-faced agents. 
> I had no idea why I was arrested. I knew the contents of the arrest 
> warrant were simply ridiculous and not deserving of the slightest 
> concern. And I could not think of any story or editorial or 
> advertisement over the past week or so that could have led to my 
> arrest. But then in our country, the NIA do not need any good reason 
> to arrest somebody and lock them up for as long as they are asked to. 
> Orders from above are a good enough reason to presume anyone guilty 
> until proven innocent. I resolved to adopt a policy of wait and see. 
> We drove in silence into the gloomy NIA headquarters.
>
>
> Chapter Thirteen
>
> Our worst fears are becoming a reality. Jammeh is not stepping down. 
> He is going to stay on in power till God knows when. Over the past 
> week, busloads of peasants from districts across the country have been 
> going to State House to ‘beg’ Captain Jammeh to contest the 
> forthcoming elections. Of course, it is all stage-managed. The 
> so-called opinion leaders – illiterate village elders, religious 
> leaders, and women - are literally rounded up by the regime's hordes 
> of sycophants, given some money as ‘cola nut price,’ and brought to 
> Banjul to beg the great leader to stay in power for the sake of God 
> and of the country. The little money they receive, the prospect of a 
> free bus ride to the capital city, a delicious meal at State House, 
> and a rare opportunity to shake the hand of the head of state is more 
> than enough bait to get these simple-minded folks to play along with 
> an insidious plot by the military to hang on to power.
>
> In front of TV cameras, the so-called opinion leaders, one after the 
> other, stand up and praise the sterling qualities of the great leader 
> and beg him to contest the elections. He and his great soldiers have 
> sacrificed their lives to free The Gambia from the clutches of 
> ex-president Dawda Jawara and his gang of corrupt politicians. They 
> must not abandon their responsibilities. Some of them likened Jammeh 
> to the Prophet Moses, sent by God to deliver his people from the evil 
> pharaoh and lead them on to the Promised Land. Every day, another 
> group of so-called opinion leaders from a different corner of the 
> country is driven to State House to utter their ignorant nonsense. The 
> nonsense is then relayed over national radio and television: The 
> people love and trust Jammeh so much that they are all begging him to 
> stay in power. The lie gets bigger by the day. It is repeated so often 
> that it begins to sound like truth. Rumors are circulated by his 
> cronies that the great leader himself really does not want to stay in 
> power. But the people are begging him to do so. Since the voice of the 
> people is the voice of God, he really has no choice. They add their 
> voices to the universal cry for Jammeh to stay. It is clear that the 
> plot to hold the Gambian people hostage is going to succeed. This is 
> exactly what is going to happen: The busloads of ‘opinion leaders’ 
> will continue to come to Banjul to beg Jammeh to stay in power. After 
> ‘opinion leaders’ from across the country have been herded like cattle 
> to Banjul to beg the great savior to stay in power, Jammeh will then 
> declare that well, he has no choice but to abide by the will of the 
> Gambian people; for the will of the people is the will of God. That he 
> feels truly humbled by the great trust reposed in him by the Gambian 
> people. That in accordance with the wishes of the people, he is going 
> to retire from the army and become a true servant of the people. This 
> is a well-beaten path for Africa's military depots.
>
> Mr. Jammeh and his colleagues in the military think that they are 
> being clever by engineering this fake show of universal support. But 
> they are not being clever. They are being selfish and greedy. They are 
> being disloyal to the nation. They are sealing their betrayal of the 
> trust of the enlightened forces in this country. They are exploiting 
> the political ignorance and simple-mindedness of the people to 
> legitimize their hijacking of our country. And they are being seen in 
> all their ugly nakedness. The emperor has absolutely no clothes! These 
> outrages shall not go unpublished, now or in the future. They shall 
> not go unexposed to the big wide world. And Jammeh and his cohorts 
> shall one day be dragged before the uncompromising court of history. 
> And they shall be judged and sentenced according to their crimes. ‘Mr. 
> Jammeh, you stand accused of forging a counterfeit sovereignty, of 
> using the law to break the law, of embezzling millions of dollars of 
> public resources . . .’
>
>
> Chapter Thirty-One
>
> December 24, 2004. Deyda Hydara, 58, Editor and co-founder of The 
> Point newspaper has been brutally murdered. Deyda was gunned down last 
> night, around 11:00pm, as he drove home from his office. It was the 
> thirteenth anniversary of The Point and Deyda and his colleagues had 
> spent the day celebrating. But for Deyda, the meal he had that day was 
> his last. Among the guests at his office, chatting and talking, 
> showing teeth hiding streams of hot blood, or just waiting nearby 
> outside his office, were some men who knew that Deyda would not see 
> the light of the day tomorrow. As he drove home, an unmarked taxi cab 
> overtook him, drove adjacent him, and a man in the front passenger 
> seat pumped two bullets into an unwary Deyda’s head and one into his 
> chest. He lost control of the car, which swerved into a ditch. He died 
> on the spot. His passengers, two young ladies, members of his staff he 
> had offered a ride home, suffered gunshot wounds to the legs. The 
> killers sped past the spot where Deyda slumped over his steering 
> wheel, his skull shattered, his chest punctured, drenched in his own 
> innocent blood. Deyda, who could not hurt a fly. Deyda, who stammered 
> and smoked and was ever so cheerful even when engaged in heated debate 
> over matters of principle. Deyda was also the Gambia correspondent for 
> Reporters Without Borders and the French news agency AFP.
>
> Who killed Deyda Hydara? Who wanted Deyda death? What could be the 
> motive for such cold-blooded murder of a 58-year old journalist who 
> had spent all his life trying to make ends meet and who ran a small 
> bi-weekly tabloid just mildly critical of the state? Clearly, as long 
> as this regime remains in power, we will never get an answer to these 
> questions. Investigations will be touted in the media for a while and 
> then all would be silence. Deyda’s last shroud would be like the 
> shroud of silence that still covers the gruesome murder and 
> incineration of Finance minister Ousman Koro Ceesay. Deyda’s last 
> shroud would be like the shroud of silence that surrounds the murder 
> by security forces of twelve students and one radio journalist on 
> April 10/11 2000. Deyda’s shroud will be like the shroud surrounding 
> the killing by security forces of Lt. Almamo Manneh, of an unknown 
> number of alleged coup plotters on the bloody night of November 11, 
> 1994. I am certain that Deyda’s murderer will never be brought to book 
> as long as the current regime is in power.
>
> Deyda was an uncompromising champion of press freedom and respect for 
> human rights. Over the past year, he had been at the forefront of the 
> Gambia Press Union’s fight against the promulgation of the media 
> commission that had more powers than the Supreme Court of the land. 
> That law was repealed only to be replaced by an even more draconian 
> piece of non-legislation that gave the state power to jail journalists 
> for a minimum of six months without the option of a fine for 
> publishing ‘untruths’. This new bill also increases the fee for the 
> registration of a newspaper from a whopping hundred thousand dalasi 
> (about $5,000) to an unbelievable five hundred thousand dalasi. Again, 
> Deyda was at the forefront of the press union’s fight against this 
> draconian bill. Clearly, the state had gotten tired of seeing Deyda 
> oppose any piece of unjust legislation in this country. And if that 
> indeed is the case, as many of us believe it is, then Deyda’s murderer 
> will never be brought to justice as long as the current regime is in 
> power, which could be for God knows how long.
>
> Deyda’s murder is a very good indicator of where we are as a nation. 
> It is a good indicator that yes, we were not mistaken in our 
> accusations of the authorities that there is absolutely no security 
> for the powerless in today’s Gambia. How could anyone claim the 
> existence of security in a country in which journalists could be 
> murdered with impunity, media houses set on fire with impunity, and 
> police and soldier-brutality perpetrated against innocent civilians 
> with impunity? Deyda's murder is a good indicator that in today’s 
> Gambia, the murder of government critics can be committed with blatant 
> impunity and no one would ever be arrested for it. Why? Because the 
> police are afraid to ask too many questions. Because the NIA can look 
> only so far. Because the police, the NIA and everyone else find 
> themselves emasculated and reduced to pretending that what they see is 
> really not what they see, and what they know is really not what they 
> know. They all know, or at least suspect very strongly that they know, 
> who killed Deyda Hydara. But they are blind and dumb to the truth 
> because the truth is too ugly to contemplate.
>
> Deyda’s murder is an act of terrorism. It is a good indicator that 
> terrorism does not have to be male, Arab, skinny, with an eagle nose 
> and long flowing beard; that terrorism could also be black, African, 
> Gambian, with a head like a square piece of dead wood. Deyda’s murder 
> is calculated to terrorize not only the Gambian media, but all 
> Gambians. It is calculated to stun and petrify the people, to say to 
> everyone that this is what happens to people who engage in activities 
> like those Deyda engaged in. It is a calculated attempt to repeat the 
> message that was sent out to the Gambian people on April 10 and 11, 
> 2000, when 12 innocent school children and one radio journalist were 
> murdered by security forces in broad daylight and no one was 
> prosecuted for the murders. The message that whoever dares make too 
> much unpleasant noise in The Gambia will go six feet deep, and nothing 
> will come out of it.
>
> But Deyda’s murder also represents a victory for the forces of truth 
> and justice in The Gambia. Death, Foucault would say, is the ultimate 
> defiance to state power; it is the point at which naked power is 
> rendered totally impotent. By his death Deyda has dealt a devastating 
> blow to the forces of evil in our country. He has exposed the shameful 
> cowardice of those who, because they have the guns, feel that they can 
> commit any crime and get away with it. He has, by his death, grown 
> larger than life in the global imagination and focused the world’s 
> attention on this small corner of the world where, for over ten years 
> now, a small group of tyrants have lorded it over the people and 
> broken every law in the book with ruthless impunity. If Deyda’s 
> murderers were hoping to stop him from exposing their evil deeds, the 
> ironic result is that by his death, Deyda has turned the full light of 
> international attention on his killers. They have achieved the exact 
> opposite of what, in their sick and jaundiced imaginations, they had 
> set out to achieve. Not only are the world’s curious searchlights now 
> fully focused on The Gambia, they will remain focused on The Gambia 
> until the truth about Deyda is known and the culprits brought to 
> justice in one way or the other. There is no doubt that one day, 
> someone will stand in front of the world and say with total certainty, 
> this is Deyda’s murderer. That day will come, and when it comes, those 
> who feel that they can commit such despicable crimes with impunity 
> shall be condemned to eternal damnation.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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