COLLY:

Once again, your have registered another significant historic chapter into
our National Historic Archives. A historic chapter which vividly depicts the
severe and irreparable damage that these vermin have done to the fundamental
values of our culture and tradition; and this damage done will persist for
decades to come, for these imbeciles have caused severe EMOTIONAL and
SPIRITUAL damage to lives and all those things we rightly value as a Nation.
Each and every consecutive episode of yours plainly illustrated the evil
intentions of these nonentities. In addition, their imbecility,
verminousness and moronic treatment of CAPTAIN JOHNSON clearly demonstrated
their SOULLESSNESS, period.

Though, I am not familiar with Captain Johnson, but I knew someone who was a
very close friend of the Johnsons. According to this fellow, the Captain was
a SOLDIERS' SOLDIER; and I understand he was always TOUGH in the FIELD and
SOCIABLE in the MESS. As you have already mentioned, I was told that the
brother is some one who is WELL-COLLECTED, NATURED, DISCIPLINED and
UNBREAKABLE even in very tough conditions. According to this family friend
of the Johnson, they are a very religious, conservative family who love each
other dearly. But unfortunately, it is TRAGEDY upon TRAGEDY that broke the
fabric of their family collectedness. The Captain had devoted his entire
youth life in the Military, which was later marked by severe fatalities, and
upon all that, these vermin had also worsened that fatalities, despite the
Captain's innocence. This was some one who severed with honor and
distinction in Liberia, and yet HIS MEDAL(Captain johnson's) is being worn
by MORON JAMMEH, who has been boasting and lying to the whole country that
he was the only JAMBARR who went to Liberia and came with bags full of
medals of honor, whiles in actual fact he did not even participate in the
JANJANBURREH PEACE-KEEPING MISSION. What an imbecile he is. Colly, thank God
we have honest people like who knew who knew the TRUE SOLDIERS. If there
should be decorations and compensations for HEROISM, it should be brave
soldiers like Captain johnson who should be decorated and compensated for
their bravery, sacrifice and love for freedom. But it is better late than
never, some day, when these morons have arrested and our country is freed,
fine officers like Johnson will be decorated and compensated for putting
their lives on the line for the freedom of their beloved country. Colly, I
am absolutely delighted that you have extensively devoted a good piece on
this officer. He definitely needed this at this point in his life, so that
you his heart could be consoled. On that note, I will also extend to him my
profound condolence on the sudden death of his dear brother. To that end,
Colly, this is another master piece.

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: COUP IN THE GAMBIA NINE
>Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2001 16:35:18 -0700
>
>                                              COUP IN
>GAMBIA NINE
>To begin with I cannot but use a good part of this
>week's narrative by extending my heart-felt condolence
>to Captain James Johnson and family for the tragic
>death of Simon Johnson in Atlanta a couple of weeks
>ago. The sadness that struck me when I heard about the
>senseless killing of such a fine young man brought me
>back horrifying memories of the global nightmare that
>has hit this god-fearing family in the past seven
>years. For a fitting tribute to this special brother
>Simon, I would tell the sad story of Captain James
>Johnson, a brilliant soldier whose life was almost
>shattered to pieces from the very moment Yaya and his
>gang of criminals hijacked our country in 1994. So my
>readers have to bear with me with the understanding
>that only the soldiers could tell their own stories.
>And that Captain Johnson's story deserved to be
>documented and heard forever.
>Capt. Johnson's outstanding military career began to
>shine in the GNA when in 1996 in a class of robust
>young officers undergoing officer training course in
>Fort Benning, USA, the American training faculty
>singled him out as the best international student in
>that class. It was an achievement of high prestigious
>value bestowed to few foreign students in a school the
>Americans proudly designated "Home Of The Infantry".
>An infantry officer of Capt. Johnson's personality,
>both in ability and ethics, was the right stuff all
>commanders wished to build in a reliable combatant. .
>He was the kind of person anyone would want to
>associate with when it came to real military duties.
>Put him on the toughest terrain and give him orders to
>perform and his ingenuity and endurance would stun
>you. Hand him over any kind of modern assault weapon
>and point to him a target to shoot at, and he would
>hit it with a bull's eye. Put him on a running track
>and you would end up wondering whether the man was a
>machine or robot. Yet he was extremely discipline and
>had great respect for everybody, his peers, seniors
>and juniors all alike. His love for his friends and
>family added a considerable element of humanity in his
>simple world. And stay close to Capt. Johnson for a
>short moment and soon you would hear him sharing one
>or two of the numerous experiences he had shared with
>his loving wife Cicilia or brother Simon. That was how
>we all come to know about Simon in one way or the
>other. If we did not meet him physically, by Capt.
>Johnson's good words about this brother, Simon was
>virtually part of all of us in the GNA.
>Anyway when the captain returned from training in the
>USA, further decorated with the medal of an
>outstanding parachutist who could jump from all kinds
>of troop-deploying-military planes, the Gambia Army
>rightly put him in charge of the overall local
>training of every new soldier. However before long the
>BATT officers handpicked him out of the pool of
>officers and gave him another job when the president's
>office demanded, on an urgent request, to have a good
>officer sent to the State House as ADC to Sir Dawda.
>There again, Captain Johnson for two years served the
>office of the president in a manner that boosted the
>image of the GNA officer corps in both his domestic
>and foreign performance.
>In 1990, the very year he completed his ADC tour of
>duty, the captain got orders to command "C" company
>that was first sent to Liberia as part of the ECOMOG
>peacekeeping force. He came back home with genuine
>ECOMOG medals earned in the heated center of the
>Liberian holocaust. This Captain did not shamelessly
>steal a medal and pin it on himself without meriting
>it. He never tried to deceive anyone with
>pseudo-gallantry image when in reality he was not. No,
>Capt. Johnson was the true believer and a genuine
>action-oriented officer whose actions merited every
>award thinkable for a dedicated, honest and hard
>working officer.
>Upon his return from ECOMOG, he was again appointed
>commandant of the GNA training school. But
>unfortunately for him in 1992, while traveling from
>Farafenni Barracks to Banjul, the jeep he was driving
>got a road accident. It was a rather fatal accident
>that took the life of another very good young officer
>Lieutenant Darbo Jarju of Kartong Village. Captain
>Johnson and Lieutenant K. Jaye sustained severe
>injuries that the doctors in The Gambia lacked the
>facilities to treat them. They were thus referred to
>more competent surgions in the United Kingdom. As for
>Lt. Jaye, his injuries had to eventually force him to
>opt for early medical retirement from military
>service. He was later re-deployed to the civil sector.
>As for Captain Johnson, despite the marked reduction
>of his performance level by his injuries, he chose to
>stay in the military profession he had loved so
>dearly. But medical advice put him on relatively light
>duties that basically made him an administrator. He
>was again like a genius in that area performing his
>duties efficiently and diligently. It was however said
>that on a follow-up treatment to London scheduled to
>have taken place by September 1994, the chances were
>there for him to regain the best part of the skills he
>had lost as a result of his injuries.
>Then came July 22nd, the day of calamity the robbers
>surfaced. The captain was on duty at Yundum that day.
>However, upon evaluating the situation at the very
>beginning and realizing that the Nigerians who were
>suppose to take charge had disappeared, he quietly
>walked out of the camp and went home to his family.
>Physically, his condition would not have allowed him
>to do anything otherwise or be caught up in a
>disruptive atmosphere that would simply render him a
>victim of nothing logical. And knowing the no-nonsense
>person he was, there was no way a young lieutenant
>would have tried to force him into taking any part in
>that mutiny.
>However, when the tension subsided, Captain Johnson
>went back to Yundum. He was immediately arrested and
>taken to Mile Two, accused of treasonable actions. On
>what, nobody could come up with a case. Even Fafa Mbye
>who was at the time arming the devils with all kinds
>of vindictive decrees could not fabricate a case
>against the innocent captain.
>In mile two however, nobody gave a consideration to
>the medical condition of the gentleman. Therefore
>within a short time, his condition drastically
>worsened. The hard wood we were all forced to sleep on
>as beds mainly contributed the problem. He was denied
>his recovery medicines. Hence, within few months, the
>captain's nervous system became badly affected, first
>immobilizing one of his legs, then the other. Doctors
>from the International Red Cross visited him in the
>prisons and left a strong recommendation to the AFPRC
>government that the captain must be evacuated to a
>hospital or face the possibility of suffering
>irreparable or permanent injuries to his body. By then
>Sabally and Haidara's orders forbidding sick detainees
>from being evacuated to a hospital to see a physician
>outside the prison was in full effect. And even after
>their welcomed detention on the 27th January the order
>remained the same.
>It was like those horror stories where an evil monster
>is hell bent on destroying anything that was deemed
>human and good.  It was pathetic to see Captain
>Johnson being dragged from his tiny concrete hole in
>that dungeon for him to have a simple shower in the
>morning. He was in pain that was totally
>heartbreaking. His legs were limp and powerless. Yet
>we could not do anything but sympathize and share the
>bitterness.
>At one time his condition got so bad that the prison
>officials had no choice but to take him to the RVH for
>doctors to look at the helpless man. I think it was
>Dr. Jones who examined him with alarming prognosis. He
>literally had to plead with the bandits to have mercy
>on the captain. After all there was charge brought
>against the man who was unnecessarily suffering in
>death row.
>So after spending over eighteen harrowing months at
>Mile Two, Captain Johnson was finally allowed to have
>a bed at the RVH where prison guards sat by his
>bedside everyday, twenty-four hours round the clock.
>Still there were no charges brought against him for
>the treasonable action he was accused of.
>It was not until shortly before the 1996 presidential
>elections when a new constitution was expected to come
>in effect that the devils finally released him on what
>they said was for humanitarian reasons. Humanitarian
>reasons my foot!
>Captain Johnson had to immediately arrange for medical
>treatment abroad and thanks to the Americans his
>health was perfectly restored. It was said that he
>came along with Simon. Since then they had been
>working hard in the USA but not forgetting that back
>in The Gambia, the place they used to call home there
>were dangerous monsters and vampires who could suck
>your blood in broad daylight and got away with it. The
>family understood that Yaya could have ordered the
>execution of the captain in the name of defending his
>monstrous empire against his enemies; yet many
>Gambians would care less, perhaps with most of them
>cynically seeing it as another soldier's tragedy of
>little importance. And may be if I had not taken this
>time to talk about these hidden crimes, nobody would
>ever have heard about them. Men like Captain Johnson
>have long since given up their hopes of going back
>home where most people could not differentiate truth
>from false.  But the James Johnson sad story was a
>painful phenomenon that led from one thing to another
>up to where Simon was gunned down in the streets of
>Atlanta.
>It is definitely sad that it was common criminals who
>prematurely terminated the life of young Simon.
>Nonetheless the consolation is that the US government
>would relentlessly search for the murderer(s) using
>everything at their disposal to ensure that justice is
>served. It would not be a blank statement from the
>perpetrators deceptively promising that no stones
>would be left unturned to solve the mystery just to
>around asking for the public  to come forward with
>clues that could help the investigators started.
>But before closing this subject Captain James Johnson,
>accept my sincere sympathy once again for the tragic
>death of our brother Simon whom I know is resting in a
>comfortable, peaceful and permanent place in the
>kingdom of god. The day of reckoning will soon be
>here, when we would all look back and thank god for
>his wonderful guidance.
>Having said that, I would now like to return to my
>usual going back to exactly the day we were arrested
>and locked up at Mile Two Prisons. But before getting
>into that I would like to discuss the current state of
>registration of voters in The GambiaI understand it is
>now ove.
>I have been informed from reliable sources that a lot
>of Guinea-Bissau nationals have been registered with
>voter's cards issued to them through the help of
>Nyemasata Sanneh Bojang. She's the female version of
>Buba Baldeh. Low-life political opportunists capable
>of doing anything, from licking the dirtiest boots to
>even murdering their parents to fulfil their selfish
>earthly desires.  To these people, reputation
>conscience or god, the most important things in life
>mean nothing to them. And I can bet that, these are
>the very creatures god created for one reason only, to
>fill up his hell house with them at the day of
>judgement.
>The way I see it now, the election has already been
>rigged. There are already enough illegally registered
>foreigners to make Yaya win the October election. But
>to justify that these votes came from actual Gambians,
>he ismethodically using his blood-diamond money to buy
>few prominent Gambians here and there, parading them
>before the media to pledge their support to the APRC.
>By the time October is here we would be counting more
>of the Sahou Ceesays, Oustash Bayes, UDP, NRP enticed
>converts here and there and even some so-called PDOIS
>loyalists. Yaya will try to impress to the world that
>it was the cross-carpeting or change of loyalty that
>gave him his victory and not the Cassamance
>refugees/rebels or the Guinea Bissua aliens (most of
>them are maids) who actually would do it for him. But
>in reality the APRC government has registered so many
>foreigners that if the Gambians do not find an
>alternative means of countering the open rigging, they
>might as well give it up for a free and fair
>elections.
>After all we are the ones kidding with our selves, but
>with the crimes committed by Yaya since he hijacked
>the nation in 1994, it is practically impossible for
>him to peacefully relinquish power, even if he were to
>admittedly lose the elections. The kind of mad leader
>Yaya is, he would rather be slaughtered than walk out
>of the State House without incident. So the Gambian
>people must be ready for the ultimate action plan that
>will ravage his evil empire and finish him up. If
>necessary come out in the streets in massive numbers
>like the Ivorian confrontation that rid them of their
>tyrant. This is the last opportunity to risk
>everything for the freedom of The Gambia. If the
>mistake is made to allow this imbecile to stay for
>another week after October, I am afraid The Gambia
>would soon be plunged into a crisis of unprecedented
>proportion. This is a matter of evil versus good. The
>devil is on their side while the almighty god is on
>yours. You only have to galvanize the courage and
>would be amazed by how easy good can prevail over
>evil.
>The soldiers, I am positive, have woken up to the
>reality of the moment. Yaya will not be able to use
>them against the armless civilians in anyway again.
>They are part of the common people with the majority
>among them totally disoriented with this embarrassing
>incompetent government. Therefore if the people
>seriously decide to take up the defiant stand with an
>organized posture of an uncompromising civil
>disobedience, limited only within Banjul, Bakau,
>Serrekunda and Brikama, pretty soon events would force
>the APRC to capitulate or face the wrath of the
>masses. After that we could book some of them express
>tickets to The Hague. No need to tell for what.
>On another note, reading about Baba Jobe's case in the
>Gambian papers left me very much satisfied with how
>much the Gambian people know about this blood-diamond
>scandal. The irony is that last year, the APRC
>government organized a television program highlighting
>the atrocities being committed by the RUF rebels on
>innocent civilians including women and children. It
>was, according to what I learnt, a warning message to
>potential troublemakers to be mindful of the horrible
>consequences of civil wars in Africa generally, and
>Sierra Leone in particular. That was in the year 2000,
>the very year the UN marked as the period when Baba
>Jobe, for the crimes specified, was using Yaya's
>private plane to commit them. What are we trying to
>say? That Baba Jobe was on these secret criminal
>missions funding the senseless amputation of human
>limbs, wasting innocent lives in war-torn Sierra Leone
>without Yaya being aware? Give us a break, the real
>culprit is the big demon whose time will soon come.
>It is another kind of those freewheel-government
>positions where the public knows exactly what had
>happened but chooses to circle around the facts just
>to make a point. The journalists fully well know that
>with the level of involvement of Baba in this case,
>nobody but Yaya is culpable.
>It's like the Koro Ceesay crime mystery. Almost every
>living Gambian now knows what exactly happened to the
>poor fellow. How he was murdered, who murdered him,
>where and when; but even the voice of his father is
>still restricted, by fear or something, to why
>investigations have still not yet been seriously
>conducted on the case of his dead son. As a father of
>his age he has nothing to loose by making his voice
>heard loud and clears on what everyone has been saying
>about those who murdered his son. Anyway that is not
>my point of contention at this time.
>To cap it all, come October, there would be no need to
>beat about the bush on how to go about it. Yaya will
>rig the presidential election big time; and the
>solution to that enigma would be to openly chase him
>and his apologist out of power. Anything short of that
>would sink the country to that abyss of  absolute
>doom.
>Now back to Mile Two Central Prison. It was real hell
>in the beginning. The most frightening part was the
>disregarded rules applicable to new inmates. We were
>not documented to show our time of arrival, neither
>were we given any cautionary statements as to the
>charges that warranted our arrest and detention.
>But outside, I later came to understand that no public
>announcement was made about our situation. For days
>our ministerial positions were left vacant until Yaya
>finally appointed his Uncle John P. Bojang in the
>Trade and Industry Ministry. Captain Cham's ministry
>of information and tourism position was given to
>another relative of Yaya, Susan Waffa Orgu.
>For three good days my family could not understand
>what happened to me. They went to the State House's
>main gate to inquire from the guards, but were told
>two different stories. Some said I was busy inside
>having a meeting with special guests while others told
>them that I left for Dakar for a special mission.
>Anyway it was Gambia, where secret or "kan Kan" news
>could throw a lot of light on hidden facts. The prison
>guards were also talking outside about who and who
>were in detention at death row.
>By the middle of the second week, we started to get
>feed backs on what was being said about us outside.
>Anyway the only official statement made by the AFPRC
>government about our arrest was the response Yaya gave
>to the Senegalese press when he visited Dakar in those
>early days of the coup. When asked what became of Cham
>and I after being announced ministers in his
>government, million viewers of the Senegalese national
>television that night heard him saying that I was
>arrested for trying to conspire with a superpower
>nation to sabotage the coup and that I was the sole
>cause of the delay to his maiden speech that was
>lately read.
>That statement according to Captain Alagie Kantek who
>was at the time the newly appointed AFPRC spokesman
>compelled Mr. Andrew Winter to walk to the State House
>for Yaya to clarify which superpower he was talking
>about. The coward swore to the ambassador that he was
>not referring to the USA but another superpower he
>could not disclose. The ambassador warned him to be
>careful of his wild statement, especially when they
>were coated in dubious contexts.
>He had lied to Senegalese press after writing the
>speech, I stole it from them and hid for three days.
>He said nothing about why Captain Cham was arrested.
>Certainly, I did not at the time know that the drafted
>speech by Swaebou Conateh that we painstakingly
>polished and coached him after to read it over and
>over before he could fairly understand the contents
>was eventually going to be claimed by Yaya as his
>personal efforts. Shame to this clown still having the
>text on exhibition at the ARCH 22 museum with his name
>stamped on it as the author. Swaebou Conateh is a
>no-nonsense person and he is still there active and
>sound. Let the Point or Independent news publishers
>him whether those words were not his original ideas
>written at gunpoint. Or try Capt. Mamat Cham and see.
>The captain may be afraid to talk, because as a
>one-time soldier, he could be accused of plotting a
>coup and slaughtered with nothing coming out of it
>except vampires being heard again trivializing it as
>another tragic soldier's story.
>Among the funny stories spread at the early stage of
>my detention also was that Yaya made me a minister and
>I refused to accept the appointment on the pretext
>that it was too low a position. Hence I tried to seize
>the presidential position from Yaya.
>That's been perhaps where the other joke sprang. A
>loser got it from the streets and walked up to my
>mother's house to tell her that in my effort to
>organize a counter coup against Yaya I shot him with
>my weapon five times but the bullets simply hit him
>and fell on the floor. Yaya then grab me by one hand
>and threw me on the floor before the guards arrived
>and took me to jail. Piles of garbage were spread the
>entire place on the reason for my arrest and
>detention; but nothing on Capt. Cham.
>Behind bars, despite the presence of the prison guards
>whose jurisdiction it was the AFPRC still placed us
>under the close watch of some GNA and TSG soldiers.
>One Sergeant Jadama was the first NCO to be placed in
>command of the soldiers guarding us. There was general
>hostility towards us from every unit of guards sent to
>watch over us.
>In the second week however, a German International Red
>Cross representative by the name Hans visited us. It
>was a welcomed silver lining in the dark clouds. For
>the first time we were all documented by name and date
>of detention. He was not interested in any political
>issues on especially why we were arrested. He however
>raised his concern over the sub-human living
>conditions of the dungeon. He was disgusted by
>everything from the poor sanitation to the inadequate
>ventilation, right down to the food and bedding. He
>promised us that he was going to talk to Sabally about
>the dangerous and unacceptable detention conditions
>that day.
>The next day we were allowed to have showers. We also
>got supplies of toilet facilities including toothpaste
>and brushes. We were also allowed 30minutes everyday
>to come out to the open for air and to feel the heat
>of the sun. Anyway, we were still not allowed to read
>or write anything, while radios were absolutely
>taboos.
>Sergeant Jadama soon began to wonder why we were
>arrested because after asking Sabally many times
>without straight answers he began to loosen up the
>rules. He even started smuggling newspapers for us to
>read the current affairs of the day. Other soldiers
>also began to cooperate with us. Some even went to the
>point of taking and bringing messages to and from our
>families.
>After a short while, Sergeant Jadama was transferred
>from the prisons to be replaced by an idiotic TSG
>fellow who treated us like common criminals. Sergeant
>Jadama disappeared during the 11th November incident.
>No one could tell whether he died or lived.
>By the middle of August the last officer was arrested.
>The officers under detention were:
>IGP Pa Sallah Jagne
>Major. Malick Njie
>Major Chongan
>Major Sheriff Mbye
>Major Jawneh
>Captain James Johnson
>Captain Mamat Cham
>Captain Samsudeen Sarr
>Captain Momodou Sonko
>Captain Benjamin Wilson
>Captain Ndure Cham
>Captain A. Ndure
>Lieutenant E. Cambi
>Lieutenant Sheriff Gomez
>Lieutenant Momodou Sonko
>Lieutenant Momodou Dibba
>Second Lieutenant Alagie Kanteh
>Second Lieutenant Alpha Kinteh
>Second Lieutenant Yankuba Drammeh
>ASP Abubacarr Jeng
>For The NCO's:
>RSM Baboucarr Jeng
>RSM Algie Faye
>Sgt. Faraba Sabally
>Cpl. Njie
>Civilians:
>Mr. Kebba Ceesay (NSS/NIA Boss)
>Momodou Camara.
>It is however important to note that Major Davis and
>Lieutenant O.B. Mbye were released on the very day we
>got arrested, 27th July 1994. The major was retired
>from the army while the lieutenant was reabsorbed into
>the command.
>I will leave it here till next time.
>
>Ebou Colly
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
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