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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