Gambia-L:
Please read below the explanatory e-mail I sent to Dr A. J Stovall, in connection with Yankuba Touray’s and Tombong Saidy’s forthcoming visit to Rust College.Ebrima Ceesay
Birmingham, UK __________________________________________________________________________
Dr A.J. Stovall,
Division of Social Science,
Rust College,
Holly Springs,
Mississippi.
Dear Dr Stovall,
Let me please introduce myself to you. I am a Gambian Journalist (formerly an Editor of the Gambia’s Daily Observer newspaper). I am currently undertaking Post Graduate Research at the Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. My research interests lie in Third World politics, development issues in Africa, and the African military and democratisation on the continent. Specifically, I am researching democratisation in The Gambia under Yayha Jammeh. I have been living and working in the UK since I left The Gambia in December 1996, after two years of harassment at the hands of the AFPRC regime of Yahya Jammeh.During the coup period and until the time that I left The Gambia, I was also the BBC Gambia Correspondent. I provided daily reporting and analysis of political, economic and social events as they unfolded in The Gambia.
I am not giving you these biographical details to impress you or other readers of this letter: rather to present my credentials and qualifications which equip me to write to you about the issue of Yankuba Touray and Tombong Saidy who are due to make a presentation to students at Rust College on January 12-13th.I note that the Mission Statement of the National African American Student Leadership Conference reads:
“To address issues of liberation, and provide analysis of progressive African leadership models, past and present, and outline revolutionary leadership paradigms of the future.”Since the Alex Haley book “ROOTS” was published, African Americans have developed a huge interest in Africa in general, West Africa more specifically and The Gambia in particular, since this was the country to which Haley apparently traced his ancestors. For African Americans to return to the African continent in order to trace their own roots and to build up kinship ties on the continent, has become a deeply significant act.
We who are African born, and those of African heritage born in the Diaspora share powerful connecting links, and there is much we can do together for the betterment of our black people hood in general – through education, trade, health, culture, sports etc.In those centuries when our black ancestors were forcibly taken from their homeland as slaves, the immediate, physical links with “home” might have been severed, but those deeper links of ancestry, blood lines and kinship bonds remain to this day and into the future. There is therefore a genuine case to be made for fostering mutual understanding, discussion and other links with each other: we are still truly brothers and sisters. The NAASL Conference has a duty to foster these connections and to do all in its power to forge meaningful bonds between black people wherever they may have been born.
But it has to be said though that Africa has produced many tyrants who have, through force of arms, become our leaders. These tyrants have nothing to offer their people except violence, intimidation, fear and repression. They have even less to offer to our African American brothers and sisters. Some of these African leaders are as repressive as the white slave masters of old. Diasporan-born Africans should cement their links with continental born Africans, BUT they have to be discriminating in the links they wish to foster.Now, specifically on Gambian issues: one of the most repressive and draconian regimes to be found today in the whole of Africa lies in the tiny nation of The Gambia. A recent study cited the regime of Yayha Jammeh in The Gambia as one of the six most repressive in Africa, along with Sudan and Liberia. There are also many other international reports and studies which detail the levels of repression evident in today’s Gambia (the independent country reports of both Amnesty International, and of the US State Department make powerful and disturbing reading).
Dr Stovall, Yahya Jammeh’s Pan Africanism is based on opportunistic rhetoric: he lacks sincerity in all that he says and does. This is the man who during his rule has so far deported more than 60 West Africans, the majority of whom are educationists, journalists or human rights activists. This is the man who just last month deported six Senegalese brothers (people who share our language, our cultural heritage and kinship ties).This is the man who deported the Sierra Leonean journalist, Cherno Ojuku Ceesay, who had fled to exile from his home country to The Gambia, back into the hands of his military opponents in Sierra Leone, in gross violation of International Law. This is the man who deported Kenneth Best, one of Africa’s most respected journalists, back to his war torn country of Liberia (Mr Best took me personally under his tutelage in The Gambia and he is my Mentor).
Today, the Jammeh regime represents all that is bad in politics. Six years have elapsed since Jammeh seized power, and our wonderful nation is now a travesty of its former self: murder, repression, fear, violence, violation of human rights and freedoms, kidnap, detention incommunicado without charge or trial, greed and injustice are the order of the day. Levels of poverty, of maternal and infant mortality, of unemployment and of crime rates are all escalating out of control.The regime uses its “secret police”, the National Intelligence Agency, to arrest without warrant, to detain without charge, to harass and persecute and even to murder. This is a regime where the Minister of the Interior has been given the power through Decree to detain any person for as is wished and to do so without reason. This is a regime which has arbitrarily sacked civil servants who have given sterling service over the years. This is the regime which has exiled, either directly or indirectly, more than 5000 Gambians. This is a regime which makes its civil and legislative appointments on the basis of nepotism and favouritism.
This is a regime whose greed is naked: it takes reserves directly from the Central Bank of The Gambia whensoever it chooses. Within six short years, Jammeh has transformed himself on the backs of the struggling Gambian citizenship, into a multi-millionaire with bank accounts in Dubai and Switzerland. The man now owns and runs a private jet, and is on record as having boasted that he, his children and his grandchildren will never suffer in life because of the wealth he has accumulated. This is a regime which has interfered with the judiciary to the extent that its independence is now totally compromised.This is a regime which for no just reason, deliberately and cold-bloodedly killed 14 peacefully-demonstrating students on the streets of Serrekunda on April 10th/11th this year. No one has been brought to justice, nor are they likely to be, for these awful murders of young innocents (one a child of three years old, and another a Red Cross worker/journalist struggling to bring first aid and comfort to dying kids on Red Cross premises).
This is a regime which represses the independent media, even now threatening to deport true Gambian-born editors of the Independent Newspaper. Citizen FM radio station was summarily closed down for two years for carrying reports critical of Jammeh and his regime (and even when the Courts ordered restoration to the owners, the regime prevaricated). Radio One FM, which has earned the reputation of being an important independent voice in the Gambia, has recently had its staff attacked and its premises burned.Just last week, the United Nations issued a damning report, citing The Gambia in the involvement of the “blood diamond” trafficking, and of illegal arms dealing in the sub-region. The Gambia’s role in the illegal hard drugs trade and of being a hard drugs haven is growing and investigations will surely soon follow the accusations.
The name and reputation of The Gambia as a country of reasonable Human and Civil Rights protection for the whole of West Africa and indeed, the Continent, have been brought into such international disrepute: the country is now derided and has become a laughing stock on the world stage.Both Yankuba Touray and Tombong Saidy are active players in and beneficiaries of this awful regime. They are directly (or indirectly) implicated and involved in the repression, the illegality, the tyranny.
Yankuba Touray is a man of limited educational background and intellectual capacity. Gambians at home and abroad will wonder why this man has been asked to speak about African culture, and its theory and practice. Calling this man a “distinguished” Gambian is an affront to his fellow countrymen.This is the man who on the even of the 1996 Presidential Election in The Gambia directly gave orders to the security forces to beat up and torture Opposition supporters (mainly from the United Democratic Party) at Denton Bridge on the outskirts of Banjul. 36 people were injured and hospitalised, and 3 of these later died (including a pregnant woman). This is the man who openly boasts that the regime of Yahya Jammeh will never be ousted from power, not even by democratic electoral process.
This is a man with a reputation for liking “young girls”: for searching them out and using them for his own purposes. This is a man who was among Council Members who gave direct orders that some 30 soldiers implicated in an alleged coup attempt on November 11th 1994, be put to death without pity or recourse to the law. This is the man who is the most vocal of the current regime: known as Jammeh’s “praise-singer”. This is the man who has grown rich, and now owns many of the properties seized from former PPP officials and ministers.Yankuba Touray is no-one’s role model: particularly, he is not one for young African Americans wanting to learn something of their continent of origin.
As for Tombong Saidy, he runs one of the most repressive and one-sided media outfits in the history of Africa. His Gambia Radio and Television Service (GRTS) is the mouthpiece for this murderous regime, and Tombong heads it up in true Jammeh-regime style. He is dictatorial, and appoints and promotes only on nepotistic/favouritism bases. Many of the fine young journalists and broadcasters have left already because of his leadership style.Tombong Saidy was The Gambia’s Charge d’Affairs to the USA in the transition period, but was declared personal non-grata by the American government after he severely beat up his own wife. He was then transferred to the UK, but the British government after some lobbying by Gambians in the UK, asked him to return back to The Gambia, where he was then chosen to head up the GRTS.
Neither Touray nor Saidy have anything of worth to offer the student body at Rust College. By associating yourself and the NAASLC with men of this ilk, you are not only violating the principles of your charter, you are also tacitly aiding and abetting the oppressive Gambian regime of Yahya Jammeh. This will be a betrayal of all that you stand for and what African Americans have fought for and stood up for over the years: that is, freedom from oppression, civil liberties and justice.History now asks that you and Rust College disassociate itself from these members of a tyrannical and murderous regime.
I urge you to take the following measures:1. Sever or cut all links with the Jammeh regime in The Gambia
2. Cancel the visit of Yankuba Touray and Tombong Saidy3. Retract your statement referring to these two men as “distinguished” Gambians
4. Prevail upon Yahya Jammeh to improve his record on human rights, and to ensure free and fair elections in 20015. Lobby all African Americans to inform them of the true nature of the Gambian regime
6. Work with progressive Gambians who have the country’s best interests at heart. There are many competent Gambians who would be pleased to be invited to speak to your student body about Gambian and African culture.Contact Professor Sulayman Nyang at Howard University in Washington DC or Professor Abdoulaye Saine at Miami University in Ohio. Both these men are distinguished Gambian scholars and fine speakers.
I also ask you to research further information on The Gambia since the 1994 coup in order to substantiate the contents of my letter. See:John Wiseman, “Military Rule in The Gambia: an interim assessment” in Third World Quarterly Vol 17 1996
John Wiseman, “The Gambia: From Coup to Elections” in Journal of Democracy Vol 9 No 2 April 1998John Wiseman, “The July 1994 Coup d’Etat in The Gambia – the end of an era” in Round Table Journal 1995
Abdoulaye Saine, “The Military’s Managed Transition to Civilian Rule in The Gambia”. Journal of Political and Military Sociology. No 26 Winter 1998Arnold Hughes, “Democratisation under the Military in The Gambia 1994-2000,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. November 2000-12-27
I am also working on a pamphlet myself entitled “The Case Against Jammeh and his regime” and shall send this to you upon completion early in January.Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.
Yours sincerely,Ebrima Ceesay
Birmingham, UK
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