All, below is a letter from Ebrima Samkareh to Tony.

Chi Jaama

Joe


5900 Timbercreek Ln.,
Raleigh, NC 27612
August 9, 2004.


Mr. Jammeh:
                              RE: Open Letter to President Yahya Jamus
Junkung Jammeh.

        As a concerned Gambian, I write this open letter suggesting that you
resign your post and call for fresh elections before it is too late. My
suggestion is premised on a number of factors some of which I will
explore in this text.
        Your human rights record is dismal. Ever since you and your band of four
hungry, ill educated and quasi-baked sublieutenants ousted Sir Dawda’s
government The Gambia has become the most unsafe and dangerous place to
live in the region. Your Finance minister, Ousman Koro Ceesay was
butchered and burnt to ashes in his official car in a macabre murder
scene that defies Pol Pot’s killing fields. To date, no credible inquiry
has been launched to investigate this cowardly act. Little later, your
own comrade and minister of Interior, Cpt. Saidibou Haidara died
mysteriously at your most notorious Mile Two Prisons and to date, mystery
shrouds that case. While your government wasted no time to tell the
nation that the late Cpt. died of high blood pressure, there was evidence
aplenty that in fact, Haidara underwent systemic torture at Mile Two. His
widow vehemently denied your explanation saying that her husband never
had high blood complications.
        Shortly before these deaths, your colleagues who allegedly sought to oust
you from power on November 11, 1994 were summarily executed in cold blood
at various locations in either Bakau, Yundum army Barracks or in some
cases, at the Brikama firing range. The misinformation, dis-information
and naked lies that raged testify to the deceptive nature of the regime
you were consolidating. For your information, no Gambian in his right
mind ever believed callous Captain Sabally when he said on Radio Gambia
that Barrow and co died during the skirmishes. Amazingly, non-of your so-
called heroes was hurt let alone die as though, the loyal butchers were
trained from a military camp on the gates of heaven. To believe Sabally’s
theory of events would have meant an invocation of the proverbial
ostrich, which buries its head pretending not to see reality. And since
this day, deception has become your regime’s most visible trademark. The
truth is Lieutenants: Abdoulie (Dot) Faal, Basirou Barrow, Gibril Seye,
Buba Jammeh, Modou L. Darboe, Modou Manneh, Cadet X.  Sillah, Sgt. Fafa
Nyang, Ebrima Ceesay, Abdoulie Bah, etc. etc. (about 32) were captured
and summarily executed. Captain Sana B. Sabally, Babucarr Jatta, Alagie
Kanjie, Edward and Peter Singhateh will be prosecution witnesses in the
Grand Trial of the Republic of The Gambia. Subsequent to these catalog of
human rights abuses were the slaughter of your buddy Almamo Manneh and
Dumbuya. Almamo, who named his son with Binta Jamba for you, must have
gone to his grave with a shock. That after all, dictators are not
friends, their only friend is power. That after all, Yahya Jamus Junkung
Jammeh loves only one person, and no one else, himself. What will you
tell Almamo’s child (little Yahya) if he comes of age and ask for an
explanation? You ponder! As a BBC reporter in the we days of the coup,
Almamo bragged to me several times while brandishing his once lethal
AK-47 that, “whoever wants to kill Jammeh, must kill me first.” Little
did he know that the man he had vowed to defend would deny his mutilated
body a descent family burial?
        Mr. Jammeh, the butchery reached a crescendo on April 10/11, 2000 when
agents of your army went on rampage killing enmass, poor school children
exercising their democratic right to assemble and protest. Instead of
apologizing to their parents and compensating the families, you and your
officials took matters in your own hands and exonerated all the criminals
in the saga. In so doing you and your legal experts, some of them
ex-felons, vindicated the ancient philosopher Anacharsis who postulated
that: laws were like cobwebs: strong enough to detain the weak and too
weak to hold the strong.
        Mr. Jammeh, ten years of your rule is a graphic simulacrum of
hopelessness and economic disaster. Being the walking paradox that you
are, you ousted Sir Dawda’s constitutional government with great rhetoric
about extravagant life styles and rampant corruption. That you and your
hispid comrades were out to fix our nation’s economic malaise and bring
about a sense of order to the state apparatus that you hijacked. Yet ten
years later, what we have in The Gambia can be summed up as the
proverbial broken train running towards a broken bridge. Today, more than
any time else; corruption is more rampant than you alleged on July 22,
1994. Today more than any time else; life styles are more extravagant
than you alleged on July 22, 1994. Today, more than any time else;
prostitution is more rampant than you alleged on July 22, 1994. Today
more than any time else; Gambians are poorer, much more dehumanized,
deprived and oppressed than you alleged on July 22, 1994. In fact, the
average Gambian citizen has become the Jean Val Jean of his society. Yet
paradoxically, by a concommitant twist of irony, today Yahya Jamus
Junkung Jammeh a raw lieutenant who entered the political stage with
cracked lips in searched of a balanced diet, is much richer than Sir
Dawda Kairaba Jawara, the statesman who presided over the Gambian nation
for 30 years. In sum, mutatismutandis, our sickness as a nation has
metastasized.
        Mr. Jammeh, being the excellent prevaricator that you are, you have told
us several stories about your riches purportedly taken from Allah’s Bank.
What is revealing is that you are so rich, that even your grand kids will
never be poor. It follows from this that you are the exact antithesis of
Thomas Sankara who died with no money left behind. If any thing, one of
your greatest legacies, is that you are a Robin Hood who takes from the
rich and keeps for himself. In the process, you create temporal friends
like the Babanding Sisohos, the Baba Jobes, the Amadou Sambas, the Tarik
Mousas, the Lang Contehs, the Mohammed Khraffis etc. And once they
outlive their usefulness, you jettison them into murky waters where some
will drown and others swim to eternal submission and quiet. This is why
the on-going Commission is a façade in the eyes of all-genuine men and
women. The rationale is that charity begins at home. How come you are not
forth coming in declaring your assets. Suspicious of the sincerity in
your numerous pronouncements in 1994, I asked you in a State House press
conference, whether you have entered into a plea bargain with sir Dawda
such that he will not face your Kangaroo Commissions. Drumming your thin
chest then, your answer was an emphatic no, that in fact “every body will
face the Commissions including myself (chairman Jammeh).” Well, sir Dawda
was tried in absentia and numerous frivolous sanctions taken against him
but once you consolidated your grip on power, the gospel of
accountability, transparency and probity nose-dived. Today, these words
are hardly heard in Banjul and the kombos. What changed your mind? Where
did you really get your riches from? These and similar questions should
continue to exercise your mind as we approach the next elections when you
will be democratically ousted from State House. The recent elections in
Jarra and Bakau are a withering indictment of your regime. They are the
beginning of an end; the finale of a sordid chapter in our checkered
history. Because you must account for every butut that you have earned
since your easy rise to power. Your extravagant life style in the midst
of our nation’s grim economic landscape is a mockery of transparency and
accountability. Your carte blanche attitude towards government property
is a far cry from probity. In fact, contrary to what a colleague wrote
recently, I would argue that you are a real Mansa. What you are not, is
President. You are a Mansa because you think like Sumanguru, Sundiata,
Soni Ali, Musa and Askia Mohammed Toure. Like these ancient rulers, you
have no respect for peoples’ and human rights. You do not subscribe to
the principles of the Rule of Law nor the concept of the Separation of
Powers. You reign not rule, and since coming to power, The Gambia has
transitioned from a teething democratic state, to a full bloom
Kakistocratic ghetto. And this is where your Mansa attributes end because
valour and heroism are anathema to your being. You possess neither of the
two. Again, contrary to another colleague, I would argue forcefully that
you possess neither heroism nor valour and nor did your forebears as he
claimed. The basic O’Level History that you read or mis-read at The
Gambia High School should have exposed you to the Jihadist movement in
ancient Sene-gambia. For any writer to infer that your forebears were
heroes, tantamount to mere anachronism. Fode Kaba Dumbuya, Fode Sillah,
Musa Molloh Baldeh, Sait Matty and Maba Jahu Bah forcibly converted
pagans to Muslim in the fierce battles, called the Sonike-Marabout Wars.
The pagans with all the perceived supernatural powers of their oracles
(Jalangs) were doomed, once the jihadists advanced into their fortresses.
So many oracle consultants took refuge in the thick mangrove swamps. If
any of these jihadists is your great grand parent then Mr. Jammeh you are
a descendent of Islamic warriors. Otherwise, forget it. The
Sonike-Marabout wars aside, the naked truth is that in the wake up to
Gambia’s independence no body pulled a trigger. In fact comparatively,
The Gambia unlike Ghana, Nigeria and Guinea-Bissau was granted
independence on a silver platter. So the heroism that you attached to
your ancestry is not found in our history books and to claim it, is to
wallow in deception.
        However, if your ouster of the P.P.P government is what you attribute to
heroism, you have lost it all together. As a Head Boy at Nusrat High
School, I challenged Sir Dawda’s government as undemocratic and wanting
in so many things. My principal M.M. Iqbal rose from the podium to seize
my paper but the Vice President asked that I continue my speech. (If it
were your government, I would have been executed). The following day, I
was rusticated from Nusrat. Your speech on July 22, 1994 was less than
what I delivered as a valedictorian in school uniform. For your
information, when sanity returned to Iqbal’s brains he asked that I
return and sit the O’levels. I did and climaxed to the sixth form. Upon
completion, I was headed to Yundum Barracks. My mom vowed that she would
disown me if I enlisted. I wished, I had joined the army. You would have
met your match in every aspect of the word. The only exception would have
been your heavy handedness and propensity towards riches.  The story I am
telling you is not new to you. Your one time Chief protocol officer
hinted you following our encounter in your maiden press conference. For
your information, I remain the same and never wavered nor will I ever
waver when it comes to The Gambia. I love my sweet country with its
beautiful flag of red symbolizing the sun up in the sky; blue being the
gently flowing River Gambia; green being the crops growing high and white
for peace and unity. The Gambia my great nation!
        Mr. Jammeh, one reason why the African Center for Human Rights is
headquartered in The Gambia was Jawara’s impressive human rights record,
particularly, the free press, respect for the Rule of Law and
independence of the judiciary among a number of attributes. Under your
watch, newspaper houses have been closed, journalists have been deported,
and attempts have been made to burn both news media houses and their
proprietors. Omar Barrow a radio journalist was killed in a grizzly
murder scene along side our school kids. Political opponents, real or
perceived have been and continue to be detained for years with no access
to due process. A case in point is the Dumo Saho et alia legal saga, that
dragged for four years while these, your fellow citizens were vegetating
behind iron bars. Paradoxically, the principal witness in a Gambian
treason case was Francisco Caso a man with dubious credentials. Just
because Caso is European, claiming to be an expert in counter-terrorism,
you gave him access to your office such that he could recommend your
people for the gallows while he enjoyed the beaches of Bakau. I wonder if
Caso is not a Nazi sympathizer who came to see black people sent to the
gallows? Going by the definition of terror, your soldiers who butchered
our school kids are the real terrorists and nothing came out of it. Being
the genocidal liar that he is, Caso could not even distinguish a Captain
from a Major. If ever a man deserves the gallows, he is Francisco Caso. I
commend Justice Mohammed Belgore for his tenacity and commitment to
balance the scales of justice. If all justices were as steadfast and
law-abiding as Justice Belgore (at least in this case), then there is
hope in the judiciary. Mr. Jammeh, even though the Justice had cleared
all six of wrong doing, you still decided to defy the court’s verdict and
instructed your booty hunters to re-arrest Dumo and friends. This move is
a glaring reflection of your recklessness when it comes to human rights
and human life punctuated further by lawyer Ousman Sillah’s cowardly
shooting. Lawyer Sillah, a man of impeachable credentials with a beaming
majesty of zeal and patriotism in every fiber of his body was shot at,
only because he was defending Baba Jobe, a criminal of your own design.
Mr. Jammeh, the Irish poet Alexander Pope was damn right when he wrote
thus: “a little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep or taste not of
the Pierian spring. There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and
drinking largely sobers us again.” Your bellicose speeches and childish
demeanor in the wake of Baba Jobe’s incarceration punctuate every
scintilla of rumor to your disadvantage. Particularly, allegations that
Sillah’s assassins were the Francisco Casos of The Gambia. Caso here is a
lethal metaphor for Yahya Jammeh’s operatives. With this letter, I urge
you to leave office before it is too late. You have failed your comrades,
you have failed your friends, you have collectively failed all Gambians
and you possess no character, no moral fiber nor the requisite
wherewithal to handle our ship of state. So leave….
        Your fellow citizen,
             Ebrima G. Sankareh.
              Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.




--
Chi Jaama
Joe Sambou

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