Mr. Colly, another great piece and a fitting tribute to a fine soldier and
his family. I hope your words help to assuage the pain of this family.
KB


>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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>
>
>__________________________________________________
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