FARAFENNI
ATTACH THREE
 In my life, April was once one of the best months in
the year until last year when the most unimaginable
horror descended on the children of the land where I
grew to love this month so much. I will not attempt to
delve into the syntax of what made April so wonderful
to me in the past, because as we all understand it;
the month is now a sacred period for mourning and
hurting. It should be shaded red in all calendars to
represent the horrible pools of blood wasted from
armless Gambian children. Children whose lives were
prematurely and unjustifiably terminated by creatures
who are sill walking freely and defiantly unrepentant.
So while we all try to identify and sympathize with
the families and survivors of this sad event, we must
bear in mind that we owe it to history to continue
finding ways of bringing the culprits to book. I am
therefore encouraged and very hopeful with the noble
efforts of the Human Rights Organization in The
Gambia. They are commendable in the pursuance of their
duty to tackle the issue where the government
blatantly refused to act. The desire to heal the
affected hearts can only be realized after the
necessary actions are taken against the perpetrators
with their unconditional repentance seen, which must
include everybody who had associated with them.
Killing unarmed children is unimaginably diabolical
but when the state shamelessly lie about it, it truly
epitomizes the root of all evil.
It may take time and cost a lot of moral and emotional
pain especially when the wriggling to step above and
move ahead keeps on sinking every step deeper instead.
But if it cannot be now it would definitely come
later. I have no doubt in my mind that good people
will someday be in charge and would address this
lingering problem to the satisfaction of every
concerned person. The criminals will be tried in The
Gambia's court of law and meted the appropriate
punishment. And for the healing process, memorial
structures will be erected as reminders and preventive
warning-symbols.  Perhaps it would be a colossal wall
with distinct inscriptions of every dead child's name
guaranteed to withstand the effects of time and
weather.
Let us however continue to pray for the souls of these
murdered kids which may still be restless from the
insanity that descended in The Gambia, April 10-11
2000. May god give them the special reception they
deserve in his great heavenly kingdom where there is
eternal peace and love. Amen.
Having said that tribute, I would have preferred going
straight to the conclusion of my main topic, as I
expected to do this weekend. But the case of Mr. Paul
Gomez is relatively important to be over looked. After
a thorough scrutiny of the man's mindset, I almost
fell for the temptation of treating him as Hamjatta
did; provide him with a shrink's web site and ignore
him for good. But considering his rascality, Gomez
easily reminded me of the Wollof maxim that rascals
may not tell the truth but can definitely poison
minds.
As a result, instead of leaving Gomez to continue
making senseless remarks all over the place I decided
to walk him step by step through the maddening things
he writes thinking that he is on top of everybody.
Another typical loony's habit. But I still have my
doubts over the effectiveness of my approach
considering the fact that it is simple English I am
writing again. The chap's reading and comprehension
ability is either below average or he does not read
everything he tries to understand in an article. I
wish I could have a way to communicate with him in
Wollof or Mandinka. Perhaps that would have helped him
understand better. I will however address his case in
the third person with the hope that some kind reader
who knows this bimbo will help him with the conceptual
meaning of this text. I do not want him to come back
confusing the sun from the moon or the trees from the
trucks in the streets.
Anyway in Gomeze's opening statement he started by
talking about his special tool and how he wisely used
it to decorticate the shell that revealed to him the
secret of my identity, childishly boasting of the
first to know that Ebou Colly is Samsudeen or Colonel
Samsudeen Sarr. I have no problem with that. I think I
can work with the guy on those parameters. After all
if I were not Ebou Colly I would have definitely
preferred being Colonel Samsudeen Sarr.
Anyway before dealing with the actual points raised in
his writing, I first want Gomez to reexamine his
heading properly which seemed to have no bearing to
what I wrote about.  He wrote, Ebou Colly "justifies
the rebellion he condemned months back…" What made
this man to conclude that my article had anything to
even closely justify the terrible actions of those
rebel killers at Farafenni barracks was the first
signal to warn me of the dangerous mind behind the
story. Sister Jabou tried to draw his attention to his
misconception or misunderstanding of what I wrote, but
as an average loony, he reacted in the best way they
usually do, with absolute malice.  She was as patient
as trying to illustrate the reason behind my story not
knowing that this man-by all indications can be
perfectly termed an angry fool very deficient in
understanding what he reads. I wonder whether he still
knows anything about the story in the Independent
NewsPaper a couple of weeks ago that triggered all
this discussion. Or perhaps it was another story he
read but could not understand. With the foolish
character Sister Jabou may have finally observed in
him, she probably is also searching for some medical
web sites that help freaks and loonies.
What an embarrassment that this guy is claiming to be
a soldier.
Anyhow I still think he is more of an asset to us than
a liability. Most of the abstract and seemingly crazy
statements he makes end up giving me interest new
ideas about Yaya's regrettable administration. He has
now flooded me with so many ideas that I am afraid I
would have to be around for a while to tell all, after
completing the Farafenni-attack-topic.
You see, I think he was the very person in another
name who privately challenged me by referring to that
Waggeh-produced documentary where Yaya from start to
end lied about his confrontation with Senegal. Was it
not good that I clarified that issue which I might
have otherwise ignored? I thought he was going to come
back denying what I said about the documentary or tell
me that Swaibou Conateh was never put at gunpoint to
draft that speech for us and so on and so forth. But
no, it was Samsudeen Sarr the coward, Samsudeen Sarr
with the dreaming grandmother, Samsudeen Sarr the
minister and prisoner and then Samsudeen Sarr's
personal diary. Perfect tips for more revelations.
Now let's look at the points raised by Paul in a bid
to character assassinate Colonel Samsudeen Sarr.
But first I want to tackle his low-
reading-and-understanding standard. He wanted to know
"If intelligence report from Abdou Joof was so why
Sarr (the rebel) accused their boss of failing to pay
them and they were planning to eliminate him?" Too
abstract to understand by the ordinary reader. However
I could figure out what he was alluding to. He was
asking for an explanation of the conflicting ideas I
said was presented by Yaya on why he rejected Kukoi's
come-back- home efforts for political reasons and that
of the rebel's reasons as narrated by Sulayman Sarr,
one of the attackers extradited from Senegal. He may
have heard about the rebel's version on GAMTV during
that opened press conference at the Army Headquarters
Banjul. The cassette is in mass distribution all over
the world, easily accessible from many Gambians in the
USA and Europe. It is clear in that cassette that
Samsudeen Sarr was the chairman of the
Army-Public-Relation team, which conducted the
interview. I mentioned that press conference briefly.
But I further stated in my closing statements that I
was going to conclude my story next week by bringing
the version of the rebels after revealing that of
Yaya's. That mess caused by Yaya was top secret never
told in the open as I did last week. Was that another
line Paul read and misunderstood again? Is Paul not
something to really wonder about? Up to this moment I
could swear that Paul is entertaining the belief that
Ebou Colly was defending the rebels or justifying
their actions in the "THE FARAFENNI ATTACK" series. No
this guy is not Essa Sey, Alieu Keita, Kebba Jobe or
any of the Jammeh protagonists I read in the past.
This is loony Paul, out to cause more damage in the
Yaya camp than thinkable. You never know, he may be on
our side for maximum effect. Essay Sey will seriously
feel ashamed that people are comparing him with Paul.
 However to deal with Paul's next point I would have
to flip back the pages of the Gambia Army's
peacekeeping-history book in the West African
sub-region. There is a line of relevance in it to what
Paul vaguely stated again. Peacekeeping missions were
two that required full operational participation of
GNA troops in the size of company contingents, the
first one deployed in Liberia in 1990 and the second
and last one in Guinea Bissau in 1999. Mark you, I am
talking about the time when Samsudeen Sarr was in
active service in the GNA. He was unceremoniously
gotten rid of by Yaya in June 1999. Paul might come
back next time bothering me to explain why Yaya got
rid of Colonel Samsudeen Sarr as commander of GNA.
Let's wait and see.
Mr. Loony asked about Samsudeen Sarr: "Is it correct
for a colonel to shoot himself in order to be able to
escape leading a peacekeeping mission to war-ridden
area in West Africa?"
On May 4th, 1988, while in command of a confederal
platoon in Kartong village, Samsudeen Sarr, a second
lieutenant then, accidentally shot his right thigh at
close range with a 9mm French Pistol. The Senegalese
Airforce evacuated him to Dakar in a military aircraft
where he was hospitalized and treated for four month.
He was okay and returned to Kartong where he remained
until the end of the confederation in 1998.
Charles Taylor invaded Liberia to start their civil
war in 1989.
Former President Jawara was ECOWAS chairman in 1990
making Gambia the country ECOMOG was formed to help
bring back peace in Liberia. The GNA for the first
time was to go for peacekeeping in West Africa as part
of this joint military venture.
Now what is the sense in Samsudeen Sarr shooting
himself in 1988 not to go for peacekeeping in a
war-ridden West African nation in 1990? Was that
another dream from his grandfather in 1988 that caused
him to shoot himself to avoid going to Liberia two
years later? Who can explain Paul's reasoning here?
Talking about reasoning and dreams Paul again came up
with Sarr's grandmother's dreams. If his grandmother
had dreamt about Yaya becoming the best president in
the Gambia three months before the coup then I think
we could credit and discredit the old woman
simultaneously. Yes Yaya has become the president of
The Gambia-a credit for her dream -come true. But Yaya
has also become the worst president ever imagined to
surface in modern times. Killing soldiers and burying
them in mass graves behind toilet facilities,
betraying his friends, murdering innocent armless
Gambians, adults and children alike, stealing private
and public properties, lying about everything under
the sun, tribalistic, nepotistic name it, he is every
bad thing. A darn discredit for his grandmother's
regrettable dream. I wish he could permanently sedate
her together  to sleep until she wakes up with another
dream that Yaya was finally ejected from the Gambia's
political history forever.
Paul also talked about calls Sarr tried to make at the
State House signal office through one Ismaila Jammeh
to put him through Yaya so that he will be reinstated
as the Army commander. That would be the worst step
Samsudeen Sarr would take in finding a job. I don't
think Yaya would even want to talk to him much more
give him his job back. But don't you think that Yaya
would have known and would have tried his own dirty
tricks like he did on Ebou Jallow when the latter
tried to confront him during his visit to Washington
D.C.?
I think Paul was in his highest nutty spirit he talked
about Sarr believing that Jatta cast some spell on him
causing him to leave his job involuntarily. Let
someone try Jatta for the true reason behind Sarr's
departure. He would tell you something far from black
magic or spell casting.
Paul's so-called personal diary of Samsudeen Sarr is
another thing. Let's be honest with each other. Do you
think a low-life deranged person like Paul madly
obsessed with bringing Samsudeen Sarr's name down will
have a shadow of conscience asking for clearance to
publish those "incriminating verses" if he had any at
hand?  I don't even want to discuss that loony claim.
He finally broke down Samsudeen's career history into
calling him minister of information, prisoner, Army
Commander, etceteras.
Upon finishing this article, I intend to get into
those details of what happened on the 22nd July 1994.
I will explain where the coup was first planned, who
were the planners, those who executed the operation,
how Yaya became the chosen leader, how Samsudeen Sarr
and Captain Mamat Cham were appointed Minister of
Tourism and Industry and Minister of Information and
Broadcasting respectively.  And also how they were
both arrested twenty four hours after their
appointments and replaced by John P. Bojang, Yaya's
uncle and Susan Waffa Ogu another close relative of
Yaya.
Samsudeen Sarr was however released after ten months
at death row, Mile Two Central prisons. Captain Mamat
Cham was released after two years. They were never
charged of any crime neither were they tried or
convicted.
I think Captain Mamat Cham was the worst victim of
AFPRC abuse and brutality. In my next article I might
be able to tell the story of this poor fellow . How he
search for ideas during the coup when the so-called
organizers did not know what to do. The way he
implemented the ideas he received and  the trust he
had for Yaya, just to be arrested when the fluid
situation was stabilized.
I do not know where the name Paul come from but he
claims to be a soldier and certainly one of those who
were not victims of the wave of arrests and detention
that affected almost 90% of the GNA officer corps,
especially the senior ones. In that case Paul was
either a junior officer or a senior officer who may
one day be called upon to account for what happened to
Lieutenant Barrow, Saye, Bah, Jammeh and all those
butchered soldiers in November 1994. Such officers
should be able to tell the world how Koro Ceesay was
killed.
Paul may know more.
Let us now pick it up where I left off the Farafenni
Attack story.
Certainly Senegal was quite willing to cooperate with
our Gambian investigating team in following the
problem to its deepest roots. Three of their
intelligence officers were sent to the NIA
headquarters in Banjul to work with us. They were
really enthusiastic in the beginning until they began
to notice the unnecessary hostility shown by their
Gambian counterparts. Some NIA elements were still
bent on thinking that Senegal masterminded the attack
to destabilize Yaya's government. The few of us who
knew the actual truth were not telling anyway for fear
that the soldiers may hear about it and do something
detrimental to the state. The Senegalese realized that
despite all the efforts they took in bringing Sulayman
Sarr, John Dampha and Essa Baldeh, the Gambia never
thanked them for the trouble. But the worst one was
when one NIA officer Thirteen Badgie and a GNA
intelligence officer Sergeant Sambou (Zainab Jammeh's
former bodyguard) were sent to Dakar to interview
Swanding Camara and his group at "San Meter" Central
Prison. They came after a day accusing the Senegalese
of unfairness and guilt. According to Badjie, they
tried to interview the rebels in Mandinka, which they
thought the Senegalese did not understand. But half
way through the interview the Senegalese stopped it
and asked them to leave. Only god knows what Badjie
tried to ask the rebels that day. Thinking that they
could conduct an interview in a Senegalese
intelligence office in a language not understood by
their hosts was the dumbest action they did. The
Senegalese however ceased to treat them like VIPs
making their stay in Dakar so miserable that they had
to leave prematurely.
All they had to say when they returned was the bad way
the Senegalese treated them when they started
interrogating the captives. But they confirmed meeting
Swanding Camara and all those mentioned in the
Independent Newspaper.
Every one of them virtually said the same thing about
their past although one could see how Kukoi deceived
them in the end. Kukoi recruited almost all of them in
Libya in the 80's as part of a guerilla force that was
formed to come and overthrow the PPP government. They
underwent intensive training in Libya on guerilla
warfare and terrorism. After finishing their training
instead of the anticipated insurgency to The Gambia,
Kukoi, put them on a contract to fight for Charles
Tailor. The contract also included a clause assuring
them Tailor's total material and moral support in
their future invasion of The Gambia after the
overthrow of the Samuel Doe government.
Anyway what they thought was going to take weeks or
few months at most to finish, the Liberian war dragged
on until the PPP government was overthrown in 1994. By
then, given the nature of the civil war some of them
had died, others got respectable positions among
Tailor's elite guards; almost all of them got Liberian
wives children and names, but the majority were poor,
miserable and had lost all their self esteem.
Then one day they called for a meeting to reevaluate
their situation to see what they should do next. For
those who felt comfortable with their lives in
Tailor's government; for example, Yankuba Samateh a
general and close bodyguard to Tailor, Sheriff Jobe,
Baba Jobe's brother, and a good number of them called
their mission to the Gambia quits. They put it to
their friends that they were after Jawara and since
Jawara was gone they would rather find a way of
working with Yaya or leaving him alone. Seventeen of
them however decided differently. They would consult
Kukoi the person who brought them to Liberia and ask
for their pay for the decade or more they fought in
Liberia without salary.
When asked how they survived for so long they did not
hesitate to disclose the banditry and crude survival
techniques that characterized the rebel's world. John
Dampha the ex-GNA officer had personally confessed to
me that they used to feed on human organs-kidneys and
livers-when things turned too bad in the jungle.
It was Ablie Sonko and Yaya Drammeh who went looking
for Kukoi in a refugee village in Ivory Coast. They
were also looking for what they said should equal to
$2million Tailor should have paid Kukoi for their
service. Kukoi was eventually found who seemed to be
smarter than all of them.
He gave them the impression that he was looking for
them too for the final operation they were preparing
for all these years, the attack to overthrow The
Gambia government. He identified with all of them in
their quest to overthrow any government of the day in
The Gambia, Jawara's or Jammeh's. Then he gave them
the perfect news they never dreamt of. That Senegal
was going to finance and support the attack in The
Gambia.
This is where the rebel's story became conflicting
with that of Yaya's. It however seemed that Kukoi drew
an intelligent plan which end up eliminating all those
nuisance but dangerous rebels he trained and did not
know what to do with them. Since they were asking for
their pay, which Kukoi could not afford in anyway, he
dragged them to Senegal where he got rid of almost all
of them.
 At the middle of May 1996, all seventeen of them
abandoned their wives, kids and fighting teams in
Liberia and headed to Senegal via Mali.  At
Tambacounda, they split up leaving some of them in a
small hotel in the town. Another group was left at
Sokone village and kukoi stayed in Wokam Dakar.
According to the rebels, Kukoi regularly visited
General Wane's office in Dakar often accompanied by
Yaya Drammeh and Swanding Camara. But Yaya Drammeh had
also made it clear that they had never been allowed to
attend the one to one meeting between General Wane and
Kukoi. That they had always waited at the lobby
downstairs while Kukoi was escorted alone upstairs. At
the end of their meeting Kukoi would come down, gave
them their feeding allowances which he said was from
the general and told them to return to Sokone.
In the meantime those at Tambacounda were looking for
weapons in the wrong place, at the Senegalese military
camp in town. They got in touch with a corporal who
was working in the camp's armory. They were introduced
to this man through a marabou. For a machine gun they
were asked to pay five hundred thousand CFA. One of
them went to Dakar and told Kukoi about it. Kukoi
offered three hundred thousand, which the corporal
accepted after tough negotiations.
Anyway at the last moment to consummate the deal with
the corporal the Senegalese secret agents surprisingly
appeared and arrested all of them.
Yaya Drammeh who was monitoring the activities of
those at Tambacounda brought the matter to the
attention of Kukoi.
For a while they did not know what to do but the
visits to General Wane's office ended immediately.
Few days after however Kukoi proposed to them a
terrorist plan to hijack a train in Senegal and ask
for the release of their friends as conditions of
freeing it and any hostages they may capture.
Or as an alternative plan they could attack Farafenni
Barracks seize the camp and call the international
community to mediate for the release of their friends
in Senegal. They went for the last.
In September 1996, Kukoi provided them with gas
sprays, and two or three small .22 caliber handguns.
They came up to Farafenni one night but decided to
abort the mission on the pretext of the poor fighting
equipment at their disposal.
They went back to Senegal just to realize that Kukoi
had packed up all his belongings and was about to
leave finally.  Kukoi told them that Taylor called him
to go and get some money and equipment for the attack
to The Gambia. He gave them a telephone number where
he could be reached after his arrival. Three days
later, they tried the number. It never existed.
Swanding Camara decided to take the bull by the horns
by going to General Wane's office to find out what was
going on. As soon as he was announced, he got arrested
and taken straight to "San Meter"  where he was locked
up until his extradition in 1997.
There were only eight of them left in a land they now
viewed as enemy territory. They met and decided to
vote Kukoi out as their leader, electing Ablie Sonko
in his position. The blueprints on the attack to
Farafenni were redrafted for November 8, 1996. The
original copy was in Yaya's drawer at the state house.
Six innocent soldiers were waiting to be murdered
senselessly.
The press conference following the capture of the
rebels is quite detail. The videocassette should be
available at GRTS. And as I said earlier many people
have it in their home collections.  It should be able
to help anyone searching for extra information on this
subject. I also strongly recommend it to the
Independent News publishers for reference on this
issue.
However, July 21st, 1997, former GNA soldiers who had
been living in Cassamance since that November 11, 1994
so-called counter coup incident also attacked Kartong
camp.
Two GNA soldiers were killed in that attack.  Three of
the four attackers were captured and interrogated
before being handed over to the police for trial. They
had been living in a Senegalese military camp as
refugees for that whole period where international
humanitarian groups assisted most of their friends. A
good number of them were given refugee status in
western countries of their choices. But four of
them-Lieutenants Bah, Jarju and Jammeh and Sergeant
Joof decided to attack Kartong camp. The Senegalese
government had no prior knowledge of the attack but
they were genuinely embarrassed this time.
The following week, Yaya one day invited all the
members of his top security advisers in his office and
announced that Abdou Joof had offered to hand over the
rebels arrested in Tambacouda in 1996.
As far as I was concerned there was no longer any
importance about this men since it was a case that
Yaya did not want to deal with in anyway. Samsudeen
Sarr was then a major and the deputy army commander.
Sankung Badjie was the deputy inspector general of
police. Both men volunteered to lead the troops going
for the rebels who were considered highly dangerous.
At 4.00 am the next morning, the task force drove to
Dakar and came back with the men at dusk the same day.
They were six in number. Two were missing. The
Senegalese said those two were Senegalese nationals.
As soon as they arrived at the ferry terminal the men
were handed over to the Interior Ministry who took
them to Mile Two prison. That was the last time they
were seen or heard about until recently when they
started causing political confusion, thanks to the
crazy Jammeh administration.. They were well treated
on the way, given food and spoken to freely.
The prison system is run differently.  I might
highlight our experiences there and the torture we
suffered there.
I hope I was a fairly good source of information to
the Independent Reporters!


Ebou Colly






__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------