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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~