More Reactions To B.B’s Interview

Dear Editor: Karamba Touray deserves my high regards because he has expressed true and very lucid commentary that I believe BB will continue to ponder for the rest of his life. I had no foresight to tell BB at the time he made this decision but I can categorically recall telling him as my cousin not to even consider it. However, he seemed to have thought it over, and made a terrible error in judgment. Not only in the junta but history of coups in Africa.

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By Mathew K. Jallow. 

The B.B. Darboe Factor

        The B.B. Dabo interview was interesting and generally insightful, however, for me, the last part had more draw because it responded to issues I raised in a previous article. In the interview, Mr. Dabo went to considerable lengths to refute the allegations I made with regard to the systemic Mandinkanisation of our Civil Service, and I agree only to the extent that the practice was not a matter of government or ruling party policy.

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Echo Exclusive

By Ebrima G. Sankareh & Mathew K. Jallow

In the coming days, we will unravel the graphic details of how eight Gambians, seven men and a lady, Ms. Sarjo Kunjang Sanneh of Brikama were rounded up from the Santanba Cinema, detained at the Brikama Police Station and then taken to the NIA Headquarters on Marena Parade, Banjul. The only lady Sarjo and Dodou Sanyang (a. k.a Dodou Taylor) later succumbed to death following severe internal hemorrhaging.

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By Bubacarr Sankanu, Berlin, Germany

Happy Birthday President Dr. Jammeh 

Now that you are 42 years younger, I feel like dropping our First Birthday Kid some thought-provoking lines. I would have loved to deliver these glad tidings personally but my schedule won’t allow me. Nonetheless, the ultima ratio of this letter is to exchange ideas on how to make life in The Gambia

beautiful and sexy for our people.

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Vice President B.B. Dabo Breaks Silence

By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-in-Chief

Ever since Vice President Bakary Bunja Dabo left his native Gambia that was reeling in the aftermath of a brutally suppressed military coup on November 11^th. 1994, he has virtually maintained monastic silence except for the notable reflections he shared, back in 1995, with West Africa Magazine’s legendary editor, Kaye Whietman, in which he warned of the looming crises and uncertainty in our country

Vice President B.B.Dabo

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By Adama Hawa

Once again, Gambians are being mobilized to celebrate Yahya Jammeh’s birthday in a very big way. It is now quite common that every time the day comes, he would organize a grand event to coincide with it, consuming millions of Dalasis of public money and resources and mobilizing all government employees to leave all their work and concentrate on the event. Last year and the year before, it was the so-called Kanilai and African International Cultural Festival. This year, it is a bogus Miss Black USA, which has absolutely no relevance to The Gambia.

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Blood oozing profusely from Sheriff Minteh’s Pelvis

Mr.President: As my eyes gazed at the ruins of a community in France known as Oradour-Sur-Glane, which was burnt by the blind forces of Nazi repression, my heart could not but speak the language of torment and outrage while I wondered how human beings with flesh and blood could pursue women and children to a church and set it ablaze and reduce their bodies to ashes. 

                    Hon. Halifa Sallah

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                   By Pa Musa Jallow Nottingham, UK

Dear Editor: I want to respond quickly to the fine article by Mr. Omar Saidy-Khan reacting to Mr. Mathew K. Jallow's essay on Sana Sabally. I believe this was a very fine article and both being "domm bayys" - i.e. my father's children since I am a Jallow and Jallow and Khan are the same - in fact the proper name is Khan-Jallow, I am keenly enjoying the discourse and tend to be agreeing with most of Mr. Saidy-Khan's argument on Sana Sabally but disagree and want to query him on the economic carnage of The Gambia Cooperative Union starting with coinage of the Two Jallows-MM and MBO.l

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Dear Editor: Allow me to amend that-my dear brother Sankareh after reading your editorial response to Mr. Sankanu's latest piece last night, I went to bed with positive consideration of the truce you had called for over the on-going discussion about Sabally. In it, you had further mentioned that you actually spoke to Mr. Mathew K. Jallow, your Associate Editor on the same effort to stop the negative confrontation. I was going to accept the cease fire but on certain conditions; that I would not stop my quest for answers until Sabally at least gives me the reason(s)-good or bad-for arresting and detaining me on July 27^{th 1994.}

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By Mathew K. Jallow

That an innocent tribute to a friend has the capacity to draw the wrath and vengeance of a few does not surprise me, but to suck more leverage than is necessary out of Sana Sabally’s simple eulogy to a dead friend, tantamount without a doubt to a zealous overkill. While Sabally may not be an angel by any stretch of the imagination, the ubiquitous calls of vindictiveness carried in certain newspapers, is quite simply grounded on unadulterated malice and the characteristic ignorance that has come to typify junk journalism at its worst. No one is attempting to absolve Sabally of any wrongdoing here, but it should truly be in our natures to protect underdogs from subjective reasoning and deduction that has the potential for unnecessary vilification and character assassination.

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Breaking News: Kukoi S. Sanyang, Sheriffba Jobe & Mohammed Sowe Escape Death

By Ebrima G. Sankareh Editor In-Chief

According to highly placed sources at the UNHCR Bureau in Guinea Bissau, Messrs: Kukoi Samba Sanyang, Sheriffba Jobe and Mohammed Sowe have escaped from prison in Guinea Bissau after almost one year in maximum military detention. It can be recalled that before the 2006 presidential elections in The Gambia, the trio were apprehended by the Bissau authorities and subsequently detained at the Masuang Military Camp in the interior of the impoverished West African State.

 Guinea Bissau's Nino Viera and The Gambia's Yahya Jammeh

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By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

                        Manneh and Fofana

It has become an all too familiar story; arrest and detention of innocent Gambians without cause, followed by detention beyond the legal limit, then the days turn into weeks, and the weeks turn into months, and finally the months turn into years. Today, The Gambian National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and The Gambian Judiciary have become the most repressive government agencies in existence in the West African

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By Lt. Colonel Sheriff Samsudeen Sarr, Rtd. Commander Gambia National Army

My decision to write this piece was made out of a compulsive obligation to first commend Mr. Foday Njie of Kansas for his special courage to step forward out of the silent or indifferent masses and cried foul in the face of intellectual dishonesty crafted by our own kind and to secondly share with him a little of the specifics and relevant facts in my diary surrounding some events of the July 22^nd coup d’tat.

Sir Dawda K. Jawara Ousted by July Coup

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By Omar Saidy-Khan, Louisville Kentucky

"Sana Sabally came and was determined to end it all". I wonder who gave Sabally that mandate? How would any body know? This self-adulating, seemingly religious zealot who has been portraying nothing but criminal arrogance has again enamored Mathew. The idea that peoples' gripe with Sana Sabally's tribute to Hydara can be excused by the acts of irresponsible driving shows the bankruptcy and the tenuous stretch Mathew has been habitually engaged in.

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Breaking News: Reports Of Imminent Attack On The Gambia, Bajinka’s Wife Detained & Stripped Naked At Amdalaye, Iran Opens Clandestine Military School At Kanilai, Edward Singhateh Weds Second Wife-An Echo Special Report 

By Ebrima G. Sankareh

Highly placed sources at The Gambia’s most notorious and all too pervasive National Intelligence Agency (NIA) reveal that the entire state apparatus is in heightened alert following reports by Interior Minister Ousman Sonko and the NIA Deputy Director General Malamin Jarjou that Senegal was planning to invade the mini-West African state. According to our NIA report, numerous counter intelligence agents have been planted at all border posts since Friday May 4, and there has been increased troop movement along the nation’s porous borders.

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                   Dear Editor:

I am disheartened by your May 05, 2007 publication regarding unfounded issues about me during my tenure as 2ice (second-in- command) at the State Guard Battalion. Your source intimidated that my former Commanding Officer (CO) Captain Sonko now SOS for Interior confessed to an investigation initiated by the NIA that I shared the alleged stolen amount of one hundred and forty thousands Dalalasis (D140.000),

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By Lt. Col. Rtd. Sheriff Samsudeen M. Sarr

Mr. Jallow for your information I am a habitual reader of all the on-line-Gambian newspapers including specifically those frequent stories you often write for the Echo. That is to start by letting you know that I have read several of your opinions in the past; and despite my admiration of your style of writing and the dept at which you argue to consolidate your view, I have also long ago concluded that your perception of Sana Sabally’s character and leadership is totally flawed, or better put, outrageously bias

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 By Lt. Colonel Samsudeen M.Sarr (rtd.),Former commander GNA

Mr. Jallow my decision to respond to your article is partly predicated on my conclusion-rightly or wrongly-that you are an honest person with a genuine desire to help set the records straight. I also think you believe in forgiving those that are willing to come clean on their sins especially, those committed by pure mistake. However, on this particular case I think you are besieged by the troubling conflict of reconciling how to characterize the seemingly repentant personality of Sabally the refugee today and the little you might have known about his demonic past as Vice Chairman of the AFPRC government.

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By Omar Saidy-Khan, Louisville, Kentucky

A day or two ago I was heartened by Jambang's outstanding demand that his colleague Sankanu explain his article which I criticized afore. However; Abdoulie Saine’s succinct and lucid question, "Where did we gone wrong...?"Woke me up. Abdoulie, I wonder over and over again. What I have been reading, hearing, I am at a lost where the source of the ability to foster coupled with the ability to inflict such cruelty on another human comes from. While in The Gambia I encountered unjustified, and unmitigated violent attacks from complete strangers who heard me say how I felt about the conditions prevailing in The Gambia

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Following the recent illegal arrest, detention and subsequent trial of journalist Fatou Jaw Manneh, Gambian high brow academic Dr.Abdoulaye Saine of the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, petitioned both the State Department and the US Embassy in Banjul to ensure that Yahya Jammeh's Government does not harm Fatou Jaw Manneh.Below we reproduce verbatim, the letter written to Dr. Saine by Secretary Rice through her Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights & Labour, Barry F. Lowenkron.

United States Department of State
Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, & Labor
Washington, D.C 20520-7802
April 24, 2007

Dear Professor Saine:

US Secretary Of State Dr. Rice & Dr. A. Saine

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By Professor Abdoulaye Saine, Oxford OH.

Mr. Editor: Many thanks for publishing Mr. Sam Sarr's letter in response to former Captain Sabally's article. I could not agree more with Sam's position. I was also happy that Sam revealed Sabally's alleged role in the brutal deaths of Barrow and Faal. I was shocked by the way Fall was allegedly killed by Sadibou as well. While I do not know Sabally, I have heard about his alleged use of force and violence against innocent Gambians while he was in power as vice-Chairman. Therefore, to come to this forum and present himself as a born-again Muslim is troubling.

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By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

My plans for last week were to write a story based exclusively on the fates of our two missing compatriots: journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh and schoolteacher Tamba Fofana. Unfortunately, a series of articles posted by some contributors torpedoed my plans, mainly because these contributions are crying out loud for a sober response

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By Sheriff Samsudeen Sarr Rtd. Lt.Colonel & Commander of The Gambia National Army

Just as in the past, reading through Sabally’s latest article, this time paying a tribute to his buddy the late Sadibou Haidara once again drove my emotions on a rollercoaster of disbelief, anger and excruciating resistance to respond. Anyhow I couldn’t bear it this time.

 I have always asked myself what in the world has Sabally been smoking to be coming here trying to project his image and that of his collaborators as being victims of an evil conspiracy that has ultimately turned them into believable preachers and saints. Punctuating his language with

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By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-in-Chief

 

 

Breaking News: The True Story About Lawyer Sillah’s Shooting, The Plan To Assassinate Journalist D.A. Jawo, Hon.Baba Jobe &The Independent Newspaper Attack

Interior Minister Ousman Sonko, The Most Brutal Man In The Gambia

Ever since hails of lethal bullets were fired at veteran Gambian lawyer Ousman M.E. Sillah on that fateful Boxing Day December 25, 2003 (just after mid-night) numerous stories, speculations and endless innuendo were peddled in trying to unlock this mysterious yet withering indictment of both the judicial and political systems under President Yahya Jammeh’s harrowing authoritarianism. Today, as promised, we at The Echo are privileged with the eerily chilling circumstances leading up to lawyer Sillah’s cowardly shooting.

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By Tijan Nimaga, New York 

Watching from the balcony of the Department of Education, Youth, Sports & Culture, a few minutes walk from Albert Market overlooking MacCarthy Square, was the last place I saw Mr. Omar Jallow. On that memorable morning, a handsome, famous, strong energetic young man stepped out from a black Mercedes benze and majestically walked his way towards the platform built for the nation’s

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By Captain Sana B. Sabally

WISDOM IS KNOWING WHEN TO SPEAK YOUR MIND AND WHEN TO MIND YOUR SPEECH. And there is a famous saying: “Speech is silvery but silence is golden.”

“Bismillah-ir--Rahman-ir--Raheem,  Al-Hamdu  Lillahi  Rabbil-‘Alamin.

Allah!-Laa ilaaha illa Huwa (none has the right to be worshipped but He), the Lord of the Supreme Throne!”

“As-Salaamu ‘Alaikum WA Rahmatullah WA Barakaatuhu,

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By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-in-Chief

Mr. David Cole (a.k.a. Pa Cole) a Sierra Leonean refugee in Louisville, Kentucky, is in critical condition at the University of Louisville Hospital after four unidentified black men allegedly assaulted and severely tortured him to unconsciousness. Cole in his mid-50s, about 5ft. and 3ins. tall and weights about 150bs reportedly suffers from a swollen brain, a severely battered face following what our correspondent calls intense pummeling by four angry black men.

President Ahmed Tijan Kabah, S/Leone

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