c) AFTER THE 1997 ELECTIONS.

After the elections were over and Yahya declared the winner, Hamat Bah
congratulated him at state house and Ousainou Darbo refused to acknowledge
defeat, saying that the elections were neither free nor fair. He cited
amongst other things, the monopolization of the public media, the use of
civil servants such as the divisional commissioners and chiefs, the high
level of harassment his supporters were subjected to, intimidation of voters
etc, etc. The APRC accused the UDP of being bad losers and that people did
not vote for them because they campaigned on tribal lines, insults, that
they had no agenda for the development of the country, that their only
agenda was to restore the corrupt regime of deposed Sir Dawda, that they
wanted to destabilize the country etc, etc.

These polarized supporters of both parties and the tension and enmity
between them grew. The security forces, particularly the NIA, continued to
harass the UDP, the police often unjustifiably refused them permits to hold
their rallies. The UDP often defied these permit refusals by the police and
this often resulted in fights between the rival militants of the two parties
with the security forces often siding with the APRC militants. Lest I
forget, these APRC militants were mostly members of the July 22nd movement
who went about harassing people with impunity.

The Security forces especially those stationed at Denton bridge really
wrecked havoc on peoples’ lives. People were harassed over stupid ID cards
on the pretext of screening people to see if there were any rebels from
Sierra Leone, Liberia or Cassamance. This harassement continued until the
former Interioer secretary of state, Major Bojang was kicked out of office.
Explaining his dismissal, a government press release intimated that Bojang
was harassing people unnecessarily to inflame peoples’ minds to compel them
to riot. The July 22 nd movement was also banned.

Meanwhile immigration officers kept continuous vigil at the offices of the
Daily observer and its journalist, especially foreign ones were often
deported on the slightest mistake on their part. Citizen Fm was raided and
closed havibg been accused operating a radio station without a license. The
proprietor, Baboucar Gaye, and his reporters were arrested, detained and
finally taken to court. At the end of the trial, the proprietor was found
guilty and the trial judge ordered the forfeiture of the station and all
equipment to the state. Almost everyone expressed outrage over the heavy
handedness of the judgement accusing the government of picking on Citizen Fm
for political reasons, The government was accused of not liking Citizen Fm’s
reading of newspaper articles in the local languages, as the local private
papers did not feed the public with the one-sided and often boring stories
of government’s activities. The fact that the independent media gave the
other side of the story did not go down well with government.

More to come later.

Have a good day and bye 4Now, KB Jobe.
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