The Ghosts of April 2000- Echo Editorial

By Mathew K Jallow, Associate Editor

 

VP Njie-Saidy & Jammeh Gambia's Twins of Evil, ordered massacre

For us, it was the day of infamy. A day forever etched in our long memories. On that day nine years ago today, 16 young lives were cut short by gunfire. But this was not the Congo; and not even Liberia. It was The Gambia. It was a side of The Gambian that we had never before seen. On that fateful day so long ago, The Gambia lost its innocence at the hands of its own military and security forces. With the massacre of the 16 young innocent lives, sixteen distraught Gambian families and a nation were left to wonder what went wrong and how it went so awfully wrong. And for Yahya Jammeh’s regime, it was a moment for which there can never be redemption. The despicable acts of barbarity were unmatched in the annals of our history, more so, because the young victims were school children exercising their democratic right to protest. This became an atrocity, which the regime could never explain away and have never explained to anyone’s full satisfaction. Today nine years later, it has become yet one more albatross around the neck of a regime that has become known for its brutal repression and endemic corruption.

For the first ten years of this regime’s brutal reign, Gambians both at home and abroad, were thrown into disarray, partly out of the inability to determine in which direction the military regime will go, and partly because Gambians were consumed by a fear for their lives. But today, things are changing. Overseas, the future of The Gambia’s independent media has taken root and is solidly grounded in purposes that pursue the objectives of a free society. Civil societies organizations that will help shape the future of our country are sprouting up around the globe, and Gambians it seems, are beginning to snap out of their fear-induced daze. For the last five years, Gambians have remembered and honored our countrymen who have died at the hands of this regime, and the tradition has gotten stronger and better organized each year. Because from the assassinations of Finance Minister Ousman Koro Ceesay and journalist Deyda Hydara and the students’ massacre of April 10^th. 2000, to those Gambians who having been arrested by the regime’s security agents, have never been seen alive again, Gambians have a lot of reasons to mourn and plenty to remember and honor about their fellow countrymen who gave up their lives for us all.

While those dead each died for different reasons, their lives and their deaths have taken on roles of significant importance in our daily struggle to re-gain our country. For Koro Ceesay, the unshakable commitment to a transparent government; a government that was answerable and accountable to the citizens became his death sentence. To him, we will forever be indebted. Deyda Hydara died in defense of press freedom and for freedoms that each of us is endowed with by virtue of divine power and our Constitution. His memory will live on till eternity. On April 10^th. 2000, over a dozen young high school students were moved down by gun fire, the worst mass murder of Gambian civilians as they exercised their Constitutional right to protest the cold-blooded murder of a fellow student Ebrima Barry at the hands of the police in Kombo Brikama. The students died showing Gambia the way democracy works by peacefully taking their grievances to the government. As we remember them today, their selflessness and the young lives they sacrificed so the rest of us can see the path to freedom and democracy, their memories will remain etched in our memories till the end of time.

April 10^th. 2000 victims of Yahya Jammeh and Isatou Njie Saidy’s Massacre.

 In Memoriam