Dr. Saine,

Regarding your research on Sir Dawda, I wonder if you've tried old African
magazines (from the late 60s to the 80s?) And the reason I ask is, I have a
personal recollection of some stories on the PPP govt in some old magazines.
To be specific, there was a "West Africa" magazine edition from 1975 (I'm
95% sure it was September, 1975) that had a cover story on Jawara. The title
was "Prez Jawara talks tough on corruption." On the cover was a picture of
Jawara wearing a white Kaunda suit, and holding a mike. Contrary to the
impression one may get from your exchanges with the Old Pa, he was in fact
declaring war on indiscipline/corruption in his govt back in '75! He
actually used words like "mal-contents" to describe some of his underlings.
So, you may have to ask what happened between '75 and '94.

I remember this mainly because of sentimental reasons. That magazine,
together with numerous others were given to me by my dad's younger brother,
who was the first in our family to have any real education. He died in 1979.
Long story, but though I was in the junior classes in Primary School at the
time, he would bet me ten Bututs to read a paragraph in the magazine. Or
he'd make me read a story before he gave me the magazine. Of course, he had
to explain to me what words like "mal-content" means. I kept most of those
magazines thru High School reading them intermittently. But, in any case,
you may be really surprised how much you can learn from those old stories.
After reading your work last week, I thought about digging
at the Library of Congress for those old papers, but I simply don't have the
time these days. Or maybe, as an African scholar, you may have some strings
to pull at some of those papers. I'll be most interested in reading a
thorough analysis of that stage of our history.

Regarding Kukoi, I'll go with what both yourself and Kabir agreed to: wait
for more substantive evidence. In honesty, my sentiments are more in line
with Kabir's.

From what I recall about the  Kukoi coup, he and his boys left Tallinding at
2:00am in the morning that fateful day in July '81. Some stories said, they
only had a single pistol. Others believed they had no guns at all. In any
case, they over-powered the un-suspecting guards at the Field Force Depot in
Bakau, and took their Self Loading Rifles (SLRs.) Two -I believe was the
number. Then, they got those two guards to take them to Sgt. Major Kikala
Baldeh's apartment. The short, chubby Baldeh kept the key to the armory at
the time. From reports, Kikala, when woken up, thought Kukoi and his boys
were joking when they asked for the key to the armory. He tried to tell them
off, even after they threatened to shoot him. As it turned out, officer
Baldeh became the first casualty of the Kukoi fracas because he simply
failed to grasp the seriousness of that band of rogues. So, they killed
Kikala Baldeh, seized the key to the armory, woke up the whole Depot, and
distributed the guns. A few hours later, that small country woke up to the
dreadful "Long Live the Revolution" speech. In short, Kukoi used what the
Field Force had at the Depot to hold the nation to ransom for one week in
'81. So, the point here is, where were the Libyan arms, or money? Kukoi
himself had no military training, neither did Jerreh Kolley, Simon Talibo
Sanneh, Junkung Saho, Apai Jatta or the others. (Junkung and Jerreh were
police officers at the time. Saho was the only Council member killed a few
days later.) So, any evidence you can gather to buttress what Jawara said
would help us better understand Ghadafi's role -other than his moral support
for anti-Jawara forces. Until I see such evidence, I'm in Kabir's camp.
Unless we're missing something here.

I thank you for your inquiry into this national episode, and I await your
findings with alacrity.

Saul.


>Kabir:
>
>Many thanks for your well argued response.  The concerns you raised are
>important.  However, the very nature of the issue under
>discussion(covert military activity) does not lend > that Kukoi indeed
>received no training, logistical or financial support from
> > Libya. It is however interesting to learn that Jawara has said that
>"Gaddafi
> > jokingly admitted to having engineered the foiled

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