This is utter garbage and i strongly urge Colly to completely ignore this
gentleman. It is becoming an article of faith amongst some that Gambia-L
provides them with an outlet to settle past personal grudges with certain
individuals. The charges this gentleman filed against Colly are not only
risible but along the same wave-lenght of this deplorable trend of personal
vendettas Gambia-L is becoming accustomed. For instance, the gentleman
queried:

"When I first took issue with you, my central point of emphasis was two-fold
- one, the way and manner in which you went about mystifying the so-called
"impregnable" fortress of State House where your biggest demon still hides;
and secondly the brutality that the captured "mercenaries" were subjected to
by having their hands handcuffed together at their backs, and the signs of
merciless torture that was so naked on their bodies. Of course, you tried,
as much as you could, to portray me as an insensible hardcore saddist who
was not prepared to take cognisance of the brutal mutilation of those young
and innocent soldiers.

Sam, people in positions of authority, like you were, must never see
themselves as ordinary people. Your words are not also ordinary and
meaningless. You must understand that your every word carries weight and
authority to the ordinary mind, and can invoke passive influence, especially
if they are not enlightening words. This was the crux of my argument."

This is nonsense. If i recall properly, chief on the gentleman's previous
charge sheet was that: Colly, by virtue of his uncompromising statement that
State House security being impregnable, is culpable for the illicit
activities carried out against the Farafenni Attackers. I suppose the torture
these people underwent is part of the charge sheet??!! Where is the _ACTUAL
EVIDENCE_ that indicts Colly for such heinous crimes? The gentleman provides
none. The best he could come up with is guilt-by-association innuendoes and
self-righteous moralising. I have said before that i've watched the video the
gentleman tendered as part of his arsenal of evidence. The worst that could
have been said of Colly then was his stringent warning that the sovereignty
of the Gambian State will not be left untended to or compromised by attacks
from unsavoury bandits hell-bent on an anarchy along the lines of Sierra
Leone and Liberia. Is this not the reason why we have an Army in the first
place? To defend the soveriegnty of the Gambian State? Was Colly not then an
employee of the State? There is world of difference between working for the
State and carrying out your duties as a State employee - as Colly was - and
being loyal to the gov't of the day. Going by the gentleman's yardstick, each
and every State employee is part and parcel of the "nurturing" of the Jammeh
Mess. Has he cautiously paused to consider the logical implications of his
sweeping assertions? I implore people to do the decent thing to think through
their garbage before cluttering our mail boxes with the filth.

Nothing makes the gentleman more ridiculous where he plays a literary sleight
of hand  when he declared how he still holds Colly in "high esteem" - says
Colly is still his much admired "koto" - but didn't flinch from labelling him
a "tyrant"! Hold a "tyrant" in "high esteem"???!!! Silly stuff. Never mind
the euphemism and the latent hypocrisy inherent here. The intent and purpose
of the gentleman is laid bare in this graphic illustration of the contempt in
which he holds Colly:

"That you
Samsudeen Sarr, who have been educated from the tax money of the people; you
who have enjoyed all privileges as army commander by virtue of the tax money
of the ordinary Gambian person can stand in this public forum and abuse the
ordinary Gambian person so ruthlessly is beyond comprehension. These are the
paternalistic tendencies that you have always displayed. You have no respect
for decency and humility. You are just what you are - a tyrant; and as
always with tyrants, they are  brave when they are victors, but cowards when
they are vanquished.  You are the type who, after being born poor, grew up
to hate poverty and anybody who is poor. You are the type of military
saddists who will not hesitate to order the army to raze to the ground the
slumps of the ghetto people in the name of development."

I need not go any further to prove the real intentions of this gentleman;
i.e. to assault the integrity of Colly. Its an abject shame these days that
when you ride in town to point out these things, a self-styled group of
Ethical Commissioners on this forum wax indignant on an imagined "cabal" of
interest who tend to side with only one particular point of view. More's the
shame that our Ethical Commissioners are not as honourable in what they are
proseltising as they pretend to be. Their records speak for themselves.
Speaking for myself, i'm not only open-minded, but i'm fiercely
independent-minded. I have not only broken ranks with friends and family
during the Jawara era but went to support a party my dear father unkindly
calls "the party of the atheists" - he meant the PDOIS. Equally, the
positions i've staked out on Gambia-L are based on solid principles and a
genuine drive for what my conscience dictates to me as the right thing. I do
not defend simply because something has got to be defended. I defend only
because it is defensible. I will never defend the indefensible. The two
individuals i tend to ally with most of the time on this List are Brothers
Saul Khan and KB; and with each of these two, i've had my public
disagreements. The archives of Gambia-L are there for all to check the
relevant threads. I will never hesitate to condemn what in my mind appears as
injustice.

 I will just end this by reiterating my earlier position that anyone who was
a public figure or held public office - elective or non-elective - is a fair
game in our quest for justice for all Gambians. This includes every public
figure from Jawara to Jammeh. What is, however, unacceptable is to bring
unsubstantiated charges against individuals and labelling them either as
"tyrants" or "worst monsters". Even if i don't share the same convictions of
those unfairly labelled with such unsavoury epithets, i shan't hesitate to
defend them from such unfair assaults on their integrity.

Mean time i will patiently await our self-righteous Ethical Commissioners'
condemnations - direct or indirect.

Hamjatta Kanteh

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