COLLY:

Once again, you have done a very brave and honorable job in eloquently
lamenting on and thoroughly explaining about what a LAWFUL MILITARY and LAW
ENFORCEMENT DUTIES mean within the context of your and Officer Chongan's
CONSTITUTIONAL DUTIES as Law enforcement Officers, who had risked their
lives in protecting the Constitution of our country. I always admire your
honesty, integrity and truth-telling. You always call it as you see it,
period. Your bluntness in explaining and narrating your stories and events
as they unfolded, whether favorable to you or not always strengthens my
confidence in you. I am really surprised to see some negative response from
people whom I have admiration for, such as Sister Jabou; but despite the
fact that we all strive to accomplish a common objective, sometimes fruitful
friendly criticisms may not be that bad. But stretching the envelop beyond
human decency is what others do, and consequently, those who often stretch
the envelop in criticizing fellow contributors tend to completely distort
the contributor's image and meaning of his/her writings. Further more,
distortion does not end there, instead, they even make it a habit of
becoming the KEBBA JOKE aka PA MODOU GASSAMA of their own struggle. I do
understand that every story needs to be winnowed in order to separate facts
from fictions, but stretching the envelop in winnowing may in actual fact,
discommode a realistic absorption of the true meaning of a writer's story or
narration. Frankly, I humbly discountenance the stretching of envelops,
period.

I am glad that you came to Officer Chongan's defense. Though, I am not
familiar with the Officer, but your clarifications and narrations have
helped me, enormously, in understanding the role Officer Chongan played in
putting his life and the lives of his men on the line in defending the
Constitution of our beloved country. This is what HEROISM is all about:
Exercising a Lawful Duty to defend your Constitution, property, lives and
all those things we rightly as a Nation. Colly, correct me I am wrong, what
I deduced from your comparison of your duties and that of Officer chongan,
though they may be different, but the duties are so intertwined that one
could not be divorced from the other. From a lame man's understanding, what
that means is that whiles it is the  Military's lawful duty to defend the
Nation from external aggression so that life can be serene and tranquil in a
democratic atmosphere and economic freedom, it is the lawful duty of
Officers like Chongan to enforce the laws of the Land in the serene,
tranquil and democratic atmosphere and economic freedom that Officers like
Colly have tirelessly fought to defend and protect. But what lame men like
us have to fully understand is that whiles FINE OFFICERS like Colly and
chongan were adamant about their lawful CIVIL/CIVIC DUTY, there were no risk
free responsibilities for them; their lives were always at risk, even whiles
they may be sleeping with their families in the middle of the Night. There
are no risk free undertakings, even when PEACE, TRANQUILITY, DEMOCRACY and
the RULE of LAW prevail. The above analyses and comparison thus underscored
the ESSENCE and MEANING of THE BIGGER PICTURE of what Colly has endeavored
to clearly and thoroughly explain to "YAHOOLESS" folks like Kujabi, period.
Therefore, before we have the Kujabis of this world take it upon themselves
to under-cut decent Officers like Colly and chongan, who had risked their
lives and the lives of their families just for the sake of performing their
Lawful Civil Duty honestly with integrity and total devotion, the Kujabis of
this World should have paid particular attention to understand and
consolidate the meaning of Civil Duty, and most important of all, what it
entails in terms of making split second judgment in responding to Duty call.
In order to state this more conveniently for folks like Kujabi to understand
what Military and Law Enforcement Duties comprise of, we need to re-visit
our College Philosophy Course 101: DUTY/MORAL PRISM, which plainly states
that: MEN OF INTEGRITY ALWAYS PERFORM THEIR CIVIL DUTY BASED ON MORAL
PRINCIPLE, AND NOT ON PASSION. And that is the right thing to do. But,
before dwelling on the issue of Moral Principle, I will first of all briefly
talk about WAR, a factor which often tremendously impinges on the issue of
Moral Principle and Civil Duty. Then, we should ask ourselves this stunning
question: WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF WAR? IN OTHER WORDS, WHY DO PEOPLE OR
SOLDIERS GO TO WAR? To put it in lame men term, WHY DID OFFICERS LIKE COLLY
FOILED BOTH THE FARAFENNI AND KARTONG ATTACKS? Was his actions(Colly's)
based on sheer passion or Moral Principles? This is what I have endeavored
to piece together here in few seconds.

There are THREE MAIN causes of War: FAILURE OF POLITICS, FAILURE OF
DIPLOMACY and PRINCIPLE. When a country or nation is led by Morons of all
Morons, Imbeciles of all Imbeciles and Vermin of all Vermin like President
Jammeh, whose Foreign Policy and International Affairs are solely based on
REBEL DIPLOMACY and YAHOOLESS AMBITIONS and DAY DREAMS, there will always be
conflicts looming that country, leading to either domestic or International
crisis or both; consequently, even political scientists and  Advisers would
not be able to rescue that country. This then becomes the total failure of
Politics, and when that happens, both local and external opponents of such
an administration will always keeping striking at the administration,
period. This is what doomed beautiful countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia,
Rwanda, Somalia etc. And they end up destroying innocent and precious lives,
property and all those things they rightly valued as nations, because their
well established Militaries and Security Forces did not act sooner on MORAL
PRINCIPLE. Instead, each of these respective Military acted solely on
PASSION and TRIBAL SENTIMENTS, period.

Second, Soldier go to War because of Failure of Diplomacy, that is when even
the KOFI ANNANS of this World could not tie the strings together, much more
an imbeciles of all imbeciles. Jammeh does not even understand what
Diplomacy is all about, especially when it involves Nations, and not two
morons fighting. President Jammeh's Diplomacy is solely based on Rebel
Diplomacy, which is a dismal failure. His worst records in his efforts to
Mediate between Senegal and MFDC, which seriously angered Senegal, is vivid
demonstration of how quickly total failure of Diplomacy could lead to
regional conflict.

Principles, on the other hand, has been fully explained above; that is to
say, Soldiers(good soldiers) go to war because they have been trained to
defend the constitution of their country. Not because they have an imbeciles
leading them, therefore, if there is an outside aggression against their
country, which they have no knowledge of; and further more, how could a
Senior Officer like Colly, who was in charge of the entire military
operations of defending the country, fold his hands and allow rebels and
vermin attach the country and kill innocent people? This is the kind of
situation fine Officers like Colly risked their precious lives to act on
Moral Principles in defending the Constitution. But they did not work away
on the basis that it is President Jammeh's Country, so therefore, who cared?
Acting on Moral Principle means that Colly HAD NO CHOICE, but to act and
defend innocent lives being wasted; then later if could, based on the Moral
Principle, he could have taken Jammeh out based on the fact that if he
continuous to run the country moronically, only disaster will loom us. That
would have been a Moral duty, because he(Colly) had acted to elevate mass
suffering. On that note, I think these brave Officers should be commended
for putting their lives on the line for us.

Ansumana.




>From: ebou colly <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: THE BIGGER PICTURE
>Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 13:52:14 -0700
>
>THE BIGGER PICTURE
>I have decided to shelve my eleventh article this week
>in order to participate in the ongoing debate about
>Major Chongan. No doubt I am affected as well.
>But before that, I would take a moment to commend Mr.
>Ousainou Darbo and the U.D.P. for their wonderful
>commitment recently by boldly announcing their party's
>inclination to constitutionally limit the term of
>future Gambian presidents in office to two terms of
>five years each. As far as I am concerned I strongly
>think that the ultimate solution to the political
>turmoil of modern African countries might never be
>realized without seriously committing elected
>governments to such a regulation. Apart from the fact
>that this would condition our leaders to be mindful of
>the recklessness, waste and maddening attributes
>reminiscent of the hopeless "Mannsa"-style presidency,
>it would for the good of all decisively eliminate the
>pathetic culture of sycophancy and "juju" or oracle
>dependent leadership. It would be the only political
>dynamics that would finally awaken the poor masses to
>understand that presidents are servants to the people
>and that anyone of them who would not perform his/her
>role according to expectation would be changed for the
>right person. In that case "dirmo" presidents who
>think they could amass wealth in any means
>possible-crookedly in most cases- and then use their
>filthy resources to buy their seats forever would find
>something more positive to do for posterity during
>their tenure. And once the president is affected, it
>is apparent that all other relevant institutions
>endangered or corruptible by power monopolization
>would somehow be insulated to adopt the same
>principle. With votes' cards still purchasable for
>mere D25.00, there is little hope of effectively
>educating the Gambian masses on the importance of
>universal suffrage. We can't blame them much; poverty
>should.
>However, without doubt the armed forces would be among
>those critical institutions that ought to be
>immediately affected. Chiefs of Staff, by all
>standards, are responsibilities dangerously abused if
>their holders see no limit to the time they should
>occupy their positions. It breeds low morale and job
>apathy, a sure catalyst for mutiny or even coups.
>  Coups in Africa, to be frank, have in most incidents
>been attributed to power monopolization by governments
>shooting their way to office or perfecting all the
>election tricks that could always vote them back to
>their positions. Such leaders-Yaya being no exception-
>could never wake up to the reality that there would
>one day come that regrettable turning point that never
>fails. Anyway to save a future Gambian president and
>the other unsuspecting victims who might unnecessarily
>suffer the unfortunate consequence of the ultimate
>downfall, I think Mr. Darbo and his party militants
>should be commended and encouraged to stick by this
>desire all the way to the successful end.
>My next commendation goes to Major Chongan. Your
>courage and determination to come forward and air out
>your flawless views here as former Gambian service
>personnel is awesome. The attacks launched on you from
>different sources on your past record are ridiculous
>but quite normal. You must however remember that there
>is a bigger picture that most of these people could
>never perceive. But before highlighting the key
>elements in that picture I would want to draw your
>attention to a simple but hard fact. We are pioneering
>a military tradition here that we must continue by all
>means. This is the first time in the history of modern
>African militarism for active service members to come
>forward and discuss what they actually experienced in
>one of the several coups that had happened in the
>continent. We are talking about a continental agenda
>here, not Gambia alone. So with the positive private
>mails I have been receiving from different parts of
>the world, I am now convinced that we are doing an
>honorable job, something that may have helped save the
>continent from numerous past coup traumas, if soldiers
>who had experienced them in other countries had done
>the same. Who would have known or heard the true
>stories if we had not volunteered our time, energy and
>resources to do so? Not a civilian anyway. I think the
>only internationally published work about the coup in
>the Gambia originated from a Ghanaian whose work is
>acceptable but rather inadequate. It is however a
>widely read authority in the subject, now used by
>scholars in their research on modern Gambian matters.
>We have also shattered that stereotype concept that
>soldiers are generally gun-toting-dumb fools who did
>not know what they were doing or saying. Most of those
>angry expressions originate from funny people
>disappointed that we still prevail after they had
>perhaps once, in the past, concluded in their shallow
>minds that we were headed for purgatory without
>failure. Some of these people were the very ones glad
>that we were detained at Mile Two Prisons in the first
>place and would have happily booked for front seats if
>the AFPRC government, for our public execution by
>firing squad, had distributed invitations. Certainly
>they had made various statements about why we were
>arrested without having a clue about what transpired.
>Some of them had even fabricated their own stories
>about some imagined power struggles that took place
>between Yaya the macho man and us the weaklings,
>leading to our well deserved demise in 1994. Most
>likely they had also naively spread around their
>wishes with demonic expectation that death would be
>our ultimate fate. So just try to imagine how these
>hate elements were reduced to victims of their own
>activities when out of the blue they saw us, one by
>one, coming back to our meaningful lives, fit and
>well, but above all, proven totally innocent. The
>abuse of human rights they are trying to slam against
>your past records, as a former law-enforcement officer
>would have certainly denied you the asylum status you
>had been granted in Britain years ago. Perhaps these
>people lack the common knowledge that western
>countries willing to offer political asylum to victims
>like you are thoroughly investigated to see whether
>they had committed any identical sins that could
>disqualify them. Therefore if you, Sir Dawda, Bakary
>Darbo or me were the demons some of these ignorant
>bums are trying to make out of us then the British or
>American government would have long since thrown us
>out of their country or even forced us to face the
>justice we deserved. Now if these funny critics think
>they know better than those who conduct such
>investigations, then all I could say is that we are
>dealing with dreamers. All we could do about "them
>folks" is to ignore them and leave them with another
>future judgement of time. When Yaya is thrown out of
>office, I am sure that as usual some of them would
>some day in the future be punished again by their own
>conscience-if they have any at all.
>So Mr. Chongan, hang-in there, tough as a nail and
>keep up the struggle. The ratcheted-up rhetoric should
>never make you waver. Always remember that you were
>the only senior law-enforcement officer in 1994 to
>boldly come out and challenge the gang of bandits
>whose seizure of our country is the worse to ever have
>happened in our history. Your name would positively be
>remembered in history, regardless of what. Centuries
>from now when Gambians ask about who you were records
>would show that you were a gallant son of the nation.
>Remember that futile efforts were made from all angles
>to batter me into silence since I surfaced in this
>forum and I still expect more from these losers who
>are probably searching ferociously for more tarnishing
>lies that could have maximum effect on my reputation.
>Anyway instead of reducing my faith or commitment to
>this course, they often help to boost my morale,
>especially when it comes from nonentities whose
>existence would only be remembered in history by the
>epitaphs on their graves tomorrow and perhaps by the
>historical accident that we had once reluctantly
>mentioned their names in this G-L.
>What we should focus on now is to encourage more
>soldiers at home and in other parts of the African
>continent to break out of that shell of regimental
>silence and start telling the world the implication of
>coups experienced in our various countries. With the
>important development of the information super highway
>it is now very possible for soldiers to bring to the
>attention of the world the crimes of Gen. Sani Abacha,
>FLT Jerry Rawlence, Gen. Ayadema, Samuel Doe Valentine
>Strasser Blaise Campaore and all those coup makers who
>had once abused power especially on their fellow
>service men. It could be a way of warning or
>discouraging potential coup makers about the terrible
>ramifications of the mutinous act that had plagued the
>continent for so long. That is what we should be
>focusing our attention on Mr. Chongan and not on
>meaningless remarks made by meaningless creatures from
>meaningless streets of Half-Die, Soldier-Town,
>Latrikunda, Serrekunda, Bundung, Farafenni or Koina.
>Just take for instance the chap who the other day was
>trying to equate me with Cheyassin Secka. That one
>saddened me a little because of the indecency he
>showed by dishonoring me that low. At least he could
>have compared me with my fellow soldiers rather than
>that wasted whore who does not worth a dime.
>  This guy had it all wrong but he still made the
>attempt to drag me down. In glorifying the profiles of
>the Farafenni attackers in 1996, he thought he could
>rally more idiots to castigate me on my past records.
>But thanks to Hamjatta, some degree of sense was
>injected in his knucklehead. Anyhow I still think it
>necessary to elaborate on that issue. He did not tell
>the truth but was successful in poisoning some minds.
>As a result someone even made the outrageous statement
>that anyone who had worked for the Jammeh government
>is guilty of a crime. I was just glad that the person
>was a new nonentity who may soon quit like the others
>we had seen before. If you know what I mean!
>But on this Farafenni attack, it was not pomposity or
>arrogance that you saw in me my friend when I appeared
>on TV narrating what happened. It was share anger and
>frustration. Witnessing the bullet-riddled body of
>nineteen year old private Saidy who died with a pain
>so severe that he nearly severed his bitten tongue out
>of his mouth was enough to make me look like anything.
>The boy was only nineteen, the eldest son of his
>father (a poor farmer), had joined the GNA for only
>three months and had walked out of bed that dawn to
>check out the commotion outside when Yaya Drammeh
>gunned him down in cold blood. Corporal Sidibeh's
>pregnant wife could never recover from the trauma of
>sleeping with her dear husband at one moment and at
>the next moment turning to see him lifeless, cold and
>stiff in a pool of blood. Staff Sergeant Badjie,
>slaughtered with his prayer beads hanging over his
>neck as he was going to perform his dawn prayer was
>something else.
>My man when you stare in the eyes of a murdered young
>man whose life is wasted for nothing, or six of them
>lying side by side as what we saw that day, the world
>turns into a different setting where pomposity and
>arrogance would be the last thing to possess your
>spirit. Perhaps you just did not like me because in
>your book I had always looked pompous and arrogant to
>you. Yet you don't seem to find any other person
>looking at me the same way. In fact if you read Lamin
>Ceesay, he tends to come from the flip side of your
>judgement; he thinks I am nothing but a coward and a
>crying baby. Can you see what is wrong here? You may
>not. This is what's called PREJUDICE OR HATE. Be
>careful, it often kills its host.
>Anyway lets go back and look at those murderers who
>attacked Farafenni-your heroes. Let's look at some of
>them still in captivity. Mballow Kanteh, who for ten
>years had disappeared from his home in Jarra until his
>family members thought he had died, suddenly
>re-appeared in The Gambia in 1996 from the jungles of
>Liberia as one of Charles Taylor's worse mass
>murderers. I understand that his family members broke
>into tears of joy when they saw him walking into the
>house after being considered dead long time ago. He
>told them that he was in Europe and had just arrived
>in Dakar with some second hand cars that he could not
>clear out of the Senegalese ports because of money
>shortage. The poor family sold the few cattle they had
>and gave him the money to go for the cars. They used
>that money to acquire the weapons used in the initial
>stage of the attack. Essa Baldeh, a citizen of Kolda
>Senegal was another seasoned killer, very notorious in
>Liberia for raping and killing captured women. He
>could neither read nor write any language. Asked why
>he joined the attackers, he confessed that apart from
>being promised a reward of one million Dalasis after
>the final victory, he was to be appointed finance
>minister of the government that they had planned to
>form. John Dampha was an ex-GNA soldier who was
>recruited by Taylor as a trainer in one of his
>training camps. He was also transformed into a vicious
>animal that could kill anybody and sleep at ease.  The
>late Yaya Drammeh who shot and killed four of the six
>who died had a killer instinct that was marked all
>over his face. Sulayman Sarr, known as striker, was
>another angel of death feared and detested by many
>Liberians. These were the mercenaries being termed
>humbled now. It is very likely that this chap, like
>his kinds, had jubilated over the death of those
>innocent soldiers for no reason other than the fact
>that they were Gambians who looked too pompous and
>arrogant to him.
>Those monstrous mercenaries after cold-bloodedly
>butchering six unsuspecting soldiers and critically
>wounding six others collected all the weapons in the
>Farafenni armory and tried to distribute them among
>the youth in the town to start a civil war. Every
>single youth they had tried to offer a weapon
>declined. That was when Sonko their leader advised
>them to move to the Baddibus where he thought they
>could recruit devils like them to start a
>Liberia-style civil war. Sonko who was never
>apprehended was later identified to have come from
>Berending Village. These were the sick murderers being
>paraded now as helpless victims of my brutality and
>torture. I still praise all those soldiers who took
>part in chasing them out of the country. And I further
>commend the Republic of Senegal with all my heart for
>capturing and extraditing Sulayman Sarr, John Dampha
>and Essa Baldeh when they fled into their territory. I
>am seriously glad to have played the active role I did
>to put the puzzle together and finally drew an
>understandable conclusion from the incident. For
>deviants to come on the G-L classifying me, as another
>serial torturer means nothing other than character
>assassination from shameless sources. What a
>misleading statement to allege that I had taken part,
>condoned or encouraged the torture of any of these men
>under detention without a single evidence to that
>allegation. I have said this before and I will say it
>emphatically again. I have never in my military career
>carried out any illegal order, never given one to any
>of my subordinates and never unlawfully arrested,
>detained, tortured or killed any person in that
>country, Gambian or foreigner. So for those attempting
>to label me as so, I would advice them to find
>something better to do with their ungodly lives than
>continuing to spin garbage here.
>As for the Kartong attack in 1997, I still stand by
>the very actions I took to normalize the situation in
>that crisis where our young soldiers were murdered
>again for no justifiable reasons. It would perhaps
>help to wake some of you up that even the opposition
>parties sent their official message of condolence to
>the army headquarters sympathizing with the families
>of the murdered soldiers in both attacks. These people
>as normal Gambians had realized that the GNA missions
>in both attacks were not about Yaya or the APRC
>government but the territorial integrity of the entire
>nation at stake. They knew that when the soldiers left
>their barracks to quell those potential national
>disasters they went all out, risking everything to
>protect the country.
>  When a military commander is awoken from bed at
>around 4:00 a.m. and informed that one of his highly
>strategic border posts had been overrun by
>unidentified attackers who seemed to have infiltrated
>the area from a neighboring state affected by a bloody
>civil war, politics, government, presidents, or even
>individual families become secondary matters until
>that situation is put under control. That is the very
>kind of situation we were faced with when Kartong was
>attacked by men who appeared to have come from
>Cassamance that morning and took over the camp from
>the platoon deployed there. Our fear at first was that
>the attackers might have been Cassamance rebels whom a
>very short while before had attacked a Senegalese
>Gendermarie post in Douloulung village but had failed
>in their effort to steal arms from that armory. And
>our suspicion was further heightened when we were
>informed by 5:00 a.m. that the culprits had taken
>every weapon in the armory, loaded them on a stolen
>truck and headed towards Gunjure village. Hoping that
>we might be able to intercept them on the Sifo-Gunjure
>road before they branched off to Cassamance, we
>dispatched our first fighting unit on that road.
>Anyway after the departure of the troops, we received
>another call from Gunjure stating that the attackers
>had been at the village clinic and had seized the only
>ambulance there, transferred the weapons in it and
>headed towards the Gunjure-Sukuta road. We later
>discovered that they were heading to Mile Two prisons
>where they had planned to break the prisons open and
>recruit gunmen who could help them topple the regime.
>They might have taken their dressing from the RUF
>invasion of Freetown those days when the rebels broke
>into the state prison and freed all the criminals who
>joined them in that carnage.
>  Anyway by pure chance the ambulance ran into one of
>our nightly patrols which was on routine duties and
>were not at the time aware of the problem in Kartong.
>The recklessness at which they drove the ambulance was
>the main reason why the patrol stopped them to check
>out what was going on. The patrol guards even argued
>among themselves as to whether it was not going to put
>them in trouble for stopping and searching an
>ambulance. In the end the majority decided to go for
>the search. The corporal who walked to the ambulance
>and peeped into the vehicle was shot in the head at
>point range. And before the other soldiers could
>figure out what had happened, the attackers had
>alighted and stated spraying them with bullets
>everywhere. Another soldier was fatally hit. The
>soldiers returned fire and hit one of them. They fled
>into the bush abandoning the weapons and ammunitions.
>A well-coordinated search was soon launched into the
>Kombo forest where all the attackers were captured
>except one. They were identified as the remnant of GNA
>officers who survived the 11th November massacre, and
>had fled to Cassaamance where they were being
>processed for political asylum in foreign countries of
>their choices.
>Yes we paraded them before GAMTV and explained every
>detail of what happened to the Gambian people. They
>were later handed over to the police who prosecuted
>them for their crimes. All of them are still well and
>alive, although they were found guilty of first-degree
>murder plus other crimes. Would they have freed Sana
>Sabally to help them? Only god knows. Their actions
>were irresponsible and dangerous and could have
>plunged the country into a crisis of unparalleled
>magnitude. I was again proud to be a party to those
>who stopped these men and put them behind bars.
>As for some of you I don't think you would ever
>understand what it means physically and mentally to do
>the job we were doing as soldiers, anticipating death
>by the day, occasionally being reminded of our
>vulnerability when our colleagues are suddenly
>murdered in a wasteful manner and always being forced
>into missions of life and death whenever the situation
>demanded. Yet with all these traumatizing factors, we
>tried in every way we could to maintain our sanity,
>living normal lives, raising normal families and
>sometimes acting as if everything was perfect in our
>world. With all the grilling on me, the thing is that
>whenever attackers hatch their plans there was a
>consensus in their blueprint stating that all senior
>officers had to be arrested or executed. The Farafenni
>attackers in particular wrote in their diary that we
>must die. That made it ever more so important for us
>to promptly go out there and fight our enemies
>whenever they surface.
>Coming back to Major Chongan's case, I would first
>thank Kebba Dampha, Ansumana Kujabi , Hamjatta and all
>those comrades who came out to support him with
>genuine sincerity.
>I was very surprised to hear some critics comparing my
>records as a former military officer with that of Mr.
>Chongan's, a former para-military officer. Our
>responsibilities were totally different which by all
>indications showed that those critics did not know
>what they were talking about.  Mr. Chongan was a
>law-enforcement agent while I was an infantry
>combatant, period. And it is important for us to
>remember the national security mess created in The
>Gambia in the wake of the unexpected and unilateral
>withdrawal of the Senegalese forces in 1989. We may
>find it hard to believe, but I could go on records
>stating that the sudden departure of the Senegalese
>forces from The Gambia was what accelerated the
>subsequent security problems faced by both countries.
>The Gambia was as a result faced with the national
>threat of its own forces, while the Senegalese for the
>first time started encountering more sophisticated and
>organized battles from the MFDC combatants. It was a
>situation that eventually hurt both Sir Dawda and
>Abdou Joof.
>However Jawara and Joof are not the issues here but
>Chongan. After the departure of the Senegalese, the
>Gendermarie unit they had formed but was still young
>in experience and age was given to Pa Sallah Jagne who
>had had no idea about law-enforcement duties. Mr.
>Jagne was an army officer catapulted to that top seat
>on strange circumstance. Jagne however depended
>heavily on Chongan's knowledge, making him literally
>the person in charge of the operational duties of the
>establishment, the heart of the force.
>It was also a time when the police force was no longer
>too credible in the eyes of the public because of
>their poor resources and corrupt tendencies. The
>country was ravaged with terrible crimes that needed
>absolute toughness that the police lacked. Common
>criminals were known to have successfully resisted
>arrests from frail police officers who had had no
>basic self-defense skills and were not allowed to
>carry arms like the Gendermaries.. And even with the
>armed Gendermaries, some Gambians with their crazy
>beliefs in bullet-poof "jujus" would periodically
>confront an armed guard with a suicidal attitude to
>physically fight him to the end.
>As a matter of fact I even had my dose of the vicious
>crime wave in the country at the time. A gang of
>thieves had broken into my house in an attempt to
>steal my entertainment sets and I bumped into them. By
>pure accident Ijust walked out of my bedroom and found
>them almost ready to move out with the loot. When I
>confronted them they all ran away except their leader
>who drew out a knife and attacked me without warning.
>It took me over twenty minutes before I could subdue
>the freak. Of course he was able to stab me three
>times. My injuries were not too bad. The bad one was
>the cut on my left hand that had to be stitched to
>save my thumb. When the neighbors arrived and saw my
>injuries they all felt that the man should be beaten
>to death instead of being taken to the police station.
>I insisted on taking him to the police where I later
>claimed him and handed him over to the Gendermarie.It
>was a perfect opportunity for a bloodthirsty person to
>take a life and justify it. But I suppose if I had
>condoned the public's desire, and allowed them to kill
>the chap, the incident would have now been brought
>forward as a crime I had committed against humanity
>during the PPP era.
>Anyway the Gambia Police Force in reality were not
>pleased with the dominating role given to the new
>Gendermarie force that was branded as Senegalese in
>form and substance with little experience in police
>duties. It was another troubling issue that put the
>police and the Gendermarie into an unhealthy state of
>antagonism. The police were therefore known to have
>acted in numerous cases to ensure that the work of the
>Gendermaries was a dismal failure. It triggered an
>atmosphere of confrontation between them that was so
>bad that around 1992 the situation almost exploded.
>Perhaps some of you could remember when a squad of
>Gendermaries guards attacked the police station in
>Bakau for a fight that left the station officer Bojang
>with a stab wound from a bayonet or knife. And guess
>who was charged with masterminding and leading the
>raid to the police station? Yaya of course!
>Apart from the hardened criminals and the
>uncooperative police force causing serious challenges
>to the smooth operational plans of the new force, the
>Gendermarie command was further faced with all kinds
>of internal problems. Some officers thought Press
>Jagne was not competent enough to command them and
>that he had given Mr. Chongan powers that should have
>been given to officers who were by date of recruitment
>his senior. Some of you again might have heard of the
>command crisis that was in the Depot between Captain
>Ndure and Pa Sallah Jagne on one hand and Major
>Chongan and Major Sheriff Mbye on the other.
>Mr. Chongan therefore encountered all kinds of
>obstacles from every corner just to prove him a
>failure in the eyes of the public who without doubt
>had suddenly begun to appreciate and respect the work
>of the Gendermarie as being far better than any of its
>rival forces, thanks to Chongan's competence and
>diligence. As a matter of fact the Gendermarie was so
>popular with the public that the government in the end
>had no choice but to merge it with the police force
>and gave Pa Sallah Jagne the I.G.P. seat again. Jagne
>by then had come to know fully well that without
>Chongan his field operations would not work well. He
>therefore dragged Chongan out of Fajara Barracks and
>made him his D.I.G operations, a position he had held
>until the coup in 1994. He was by virtue of his age
>still very young to hold such a big responsibility,
>but ask the Senegalese about the officer and they
>would tell you that he was the best among the officers
>they had trained in the Gambia National Gendermarie.
>But the average Gambian civilian who perhaps had known
>Mr. Chongan as another kid once in the block thought
>he should be treated in no different way from how he
>was measured before. Even in a very serious setting
>where there was zero tolerance for jokes or nonsense,
>some Gambian "kotor Kehs" would deliberately try to
>reduce him to a little "sumaracka" that could
>radically undermine his authority in the presence of
>his juniors. That "sumaracka" attitude from very
>backward "kotors" has no place in barracks atmosphere.
>Even that authority entitled to parents over their son
>commanders is conditioned to limits where serious
>operations are concerned. Mr. Chongan was therefore no
>longer that "sumaracka" or that " regular ataya vous
>member" or that ordinary schoolmate or  Yandeh's
>childhood boyfriend. He was a high-ranking officer
>entrusted with a huge responsibility that was usually
>handled by people twice his age with decades of
>experience on the job. Ordinarily he should not have
>even walked in the streets without guards around him
>to protect him from all possible harms. So for those
>who had trouble understanding or accepting that, they
>thought Chongan was a pompous devil that tortured
>people who called him "sumaracka" only.
>I was in the army but I had encountered similar kinds
>of disrespect from people I knew and those I did not.
>There was even a police officer I once manhandled
>around Churchill's town for constantly harassing me. I
>was almost charged and taken to court for that
>behavior. And "maan" the cop could lie. He had twisted
>the story behind our confrontation so convincingly
>that my commander thought I deserved to be punished
>without mercy. The only thing that saved me was that I
>once wrote a petition to the I.G.P. copied to the
>commander complaining about the hell the police
>officer was trying to give me in Serrekunda, my home
>town.
>I could also remember the case of Kebba Keita and
>Colonel Ndow Njie. When Ndow was newly appointed
>commander of the GNA, Kebba never wanted to bring
>himself to accept that the man was no longer a
>teammate in a soccer team. Even when Ndow was very
>serious, Kebba thought he could ridicule him with old
>jokes in public or private. Ndow had to put him
>through a grilling mock arrest and detention at Yundum
>Barracks before he woke up to the reality that enough
>was enough.
>  Someone who just wanted to test his prowess at a time
>when the officer was the second highest-ranking man in
>the GNA also assaulted Major Maba Jobe at a bar.
>I could give out example after another of cases where
>young officers were treated with total disrespect and
>sometimes subjected to serious provocation and
>humiliation by idiots out to reduce them to nothing.
>Just recently I read in the Gambian papers the serious
>beating of the army P.R.O. Lieutenant Gano by two
>civilians. I think he was even hospitalized for his
>injuries and the matter is in the courts now. With the
>nature of a soldier's job, beating us by civilians is
>the last thing we want to carry on our shoulders while
>still in the service. So I would perfectly understand
>it if someone should tell m
>
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