Samsudeen Sarr Urges Jammeh to forgive Detainees

By Col. Samsudeen Sarr, Newark, New Jersey

In celebration of the Muslim feast of Tobaski (Eid al Adha)”, I wish to join everyone with my sincere prayers and good wishes to the whole human family, Muslims, Non-Muslims, Gambians and Non-Gambians alike. I also wish to acknowledge the goodwill messages sent by all Muslims especially by my fellow Gambians in the spirit of the occasion.

 According to reports however, this week’s Tobaski in The Gambia was unfortunately preceded by sad arrests and detentions of former top military officers that reminded me of the same fate I had suffered fifteen years ago. Those familiar with my story may also have remembered that after the coup in 1994, the AFPRC military junta arrested and detained me at Mile Two Central Prisons for ten months without charges or trial. Then in 1995 they released and reinstated me back to my military position in The Gambia National Army (GNA) where I served to become the Army Commander before my premature retirement in 1999. In both cases, like in many more that affected numerous Gambians since President Jammeh seized power in the country, I believe that they were mistakes committed by the government. In the first incident, although the circumstances leading to my arrest were eventually explained as national security precautionary measures taken against over thirty-five of us, all military and police officers, the fact that we were all later released without charges or trial made it hard to justify. Some of us had to spend two years under detention only to be released and given back our jobs with a few appointed to higher positions. But it was that hot moment in the early days of the coup when arrests and detentions were the order of the day. In other countries such days in a coup-de-tat are characterized by arrests and executions of those considered security threats. But just imagine how exonerated we had felt when few months after our detention the hardliners who callously conducted most of the arrests and detentions that landed us at the Central Prisons came to join us as detainees of the junta as well. They blamed it on traitorous habits of people they trusted forgetting that they also betrayed the trust of a government they were sworn to protect as soldiers. Big mistake!

I also think it was a mistake by the government to retire me in 1999 on a report that I believe was not given the investigation it had deserved. Nevertheless, it taught me the lesson I needed to learn to finally understand how to survive the APRC government. The writings were clear in the wall that it was the manner the government was going to continue ruling the country, compelling me to immediately leave for the USA where I now live peacefully with my family.

I had to share the wisdom with a friend in exile when he asked me how best one could politically adapt in The Gambia under the APRC government. I got the principles of the 3F’s from another fellow American lieutenant I trained with at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1986. “If confronted with a situation that you don’t really understand”, he had continued, “and found it practically impossible to FIGHT or FLEE from, then learn how to FLOW with it.” In the Gambian situation, I admit to my friend that I am a FLEER after which we discussed the FIGHTERS who lost their lives in it and the FLOWERS who continue to live their normal lives in the country in the way many who didn’t accept the PPP government used to. Today, many Gambians at home have come to the realization that it is just the way the government does business in the country.

So when I read about the pre-Tobaski arrests and detentions of Yankuba Touray, General Tamba and the others, I simply concluded that the government was again doing what it has always done since the coup fifteen years ago and might as usual be caught up in another act of error if the detainees were not charged or tried soon. Hence releasing Mr. Touray barely 48 hours later makes it look like another one of those mistaken arrests and detentions often carried out by the special security agents of the government.

 I am not however in President Jammeh’s position to know exactly why he runs his government the way he does which sometimes leaves me baffled with several unanswered questions; but at the end of the day, I tell myself that if he could be doing the same thing for fifteen years as president of the country and continues to gain greater support from everybody then his strategy must be perfectly working for him. All I can say as of now is to wish that he will have a change of heart and like in the past forgive these detainees and allow them to go and join their families. Being locked up at Mile Two without charges or trial negates the beautiful spirit of compassion and empathy associated with the Muslim feast of Tobaski.  Contrary to what many critics seem to make out of the recent events by thinking that these were signs of his eroding power, I think President Jammeh’s command and control of the country remains stronger than ever.  So once again I say “Sabarry” to him in the spirit of the “Tobaski”.

When Mr. Lamin Waa Juwara, still my hero, made the remark that the APRC government was going to win the next elections in a landslide victory, there was no end of criticism about his statement from opposition militants who thought he didn’t know what he was talking about. As usual none of his critics gave us any good reasons why he didn’t sound credible or suggested a compelling idea of how he was going to be proven wrong in 2011. Yet, after reading one of the series of articles recently published by Mr. Mathew Jallow in this newspaper in which he illustrated the hopelessness of the opposition political parties in The Gambia and their “ineffective” leaders hoping to beat Jammeh in any polls, I thought he simply elaborated in a harsher tone on what Mr. Juwara was indirectly pointing at in a shorter political comment.  It was to say that those politically opposing Jammeh in The Gambia are too weak and lacked the vision to beat Jammeh, leaving him much stronger than before.  Why those critics, especially the militants itching to pounce on those trying to doubt the effectiveness of their leaders or parties never said a word against Mr. Jallow’s comments left me in serious doubt as to the rationality of the online debate.

In a follow up paper, Mr. Jallow lambasted the political shortcomings of the PPP government which I thought was also very sensitive, thought-provoking and therefore, a hot subject for discussion. He had portrayed the PPP as nothing but a political ruling party that was hinged on corruption, cronyism, tribalism, and all what not resulting to their incapability to build a durable pluralistic system of government in the country. He didn’t need to give examples of government funded projects designed from external loans or grants like “Jahalipatchar” or the Corporative Union, built to help the poor farmers that were bankrupted by corrupt officials appointed to manage them. It was clearly evident from the way these officials looted the public resources which they displayed and lavishly spent with the expectation that the rest of society should merely consider them luckier than the average person. If it was not luck, “good” marabout(s) were credited for their fortunes. To be a minister or top government official translated instantly into fortune and fame that even the most successful businessmen in the private sector couldn’t enjoy in the community. To name a few places, it was quick to get rich working for the Customs and Excise Department, The Gambia Produce Marketing Board (GPMB) and The Gambia Commercial and Development Bank (GCDB). Government officials didn’t only rob the nation’s resources but many were bold enough to quit their jobs and then used their stolen monies to build businesses that were patronized by government agents in broader corrupt schemes. Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Directors and accountants owned massive assets, lived big in Mansions that didn’t commensurate with their earnings.

Yet, nothing was extraordinary in the jobs they performed because the whole business of running public offices was and is still simple routine procedures easy to follow from records left by our bureaucratic forebears. And with the little money in the country collected from taxes, foreign loans and grants, the whole business is about routinely distributing and managing the funds for the upkeep of the country and its people.

In Mathew’s analysis, he also touched on the subject of tribalism, painting another picture from a Gambian Fullah’s point of view of what appeared more as a Mandinka-Wolof problem that gutted the political fabric of the society to its ultimate doom. He even mentioned names of senior Mandinka officials in the Jawara government that he believed exhibited unmasked traits of tribal biasness; again I thought it was an invitation for especially those mentioned to explain themselves in defense of such allegations. But I guess they know why they chose to disregard or ignore the comments. After all, nobody will consciously admit displaying biasness, whether it is tribal, religious, racial or so. Yet we all consciously or unconsciously suffer from its occasional influence on our behaviors or statements. In an effort to rationalize the origin of biasness as part of what constitutes human behavioral pattern, a Jewish Rabi traced it from the first common ancestor of the human family Adam. He said according to the Torah, Adam after being created and lived in the heavens among other animals for a long time, one day asked god for a partner that should look exactly like him. From there god used a part of him and created Eve his female partner that culminated in his separation from the rest of the animals in what was the first behavior of an animal against other God-created animals that were supposed to live together eternally. That, the Rabi concluded, was the first manifestation of the human tendency to favor his own kind that became part of our genes ever since.

That narrative will not however resonate too well among agnostics; yet I must admit my guilt over exhibiting periodical bias tendencies in almost everything I do or say as a human being. At home, at work, in sports, national and international events, religion, politics, race or even creed, name it, as humans our sentiments usually tend to lean on the side that we best identify with or find comfortable to deal with. Let’s take as an example the reasons we support the football teams we support even if it is clear that their performance level is inferior to the opposing team they play. In The Gambia, the fans of a losing team can be as possessed by their bias habits as laying all blames of their defeat to supernatural spells cast on their players by Juju makers rather than admitting their inferior performance.

 Whites thinking that they are smarter than blacks and blacks constantly accusing them of practicing institutionalized racism in industrialized countries, women challenging men for asserting their superiority over them, Muslims or Christians supporting members of their religions in fanatical actions that border on criminality, and in extreme cases of prejudice, tribesmen like Hutus committing mass genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda, all go to demonstrate our sometimes treacherous bias habits. But biasness is not a problem until its carriers become fanatical and worse of, when they organize into mobs to hurt others; and deadlier when mobilized into political zealots for a rampage. Thank god The Gambia has been spared such levels of bias extremes. We have never lost our sense of tolerance for each other’s difference to the point where we wanted to hurt each other.

In Mr. Jallow’s story however, he argued about the decadence of The Gambia under the PPP where the officials who looted the nation’s treasures for their selfish ends seemed to have used some of their resources in political fights against each other perpetrated under the guise of tribalism or regionalism. In the end it became apparent that it helped to crash down the system for President Yaya Jammeh a soldier never considered in the leadership equation to take over who now rules the country.

 So one could conclude that all that badly earned wealth, only went on to lubricate the wheels of tribal animosity among people who shared more in common in needs and deeds than they were able to understand and protect each other for their mutual survival. We always talk about the so-called Mandinka Terrikafo and the Banjul Wollof Mafia that dominated the political theatre in those days when in reality all of them had lived and operated in and around Banjul like all Banjulians. Yes the whole issue of political tribalism was more pronounced in Banjul and surrounding, the ground zero for the looting and displaying of government resources by corrupt officials than anywhere else in the country. Basse, Soma, Farafenni, Brikama, Gunjur, and other major towns and regions never had such powerful political rival groups playing with the tribal emotions of the masses.  In fact, I was expecting Mr. Mathew Jallow to name a few of the members of the so-called Banjul Wollof Mafia in the way he did with the Mandinka Terrikafo, but I’m afraid he didn’t. I probably would have scrutinized that list to show him how they were not necessarily Wolof if tribal origin is still identified by our paternal names. From the little I knew about them, the most powerful among these Wolof mafia were not at all Wolof but indeed Fullahs, Mandinkas and other tribe members whose parents happened to have settled in Banjul long enough to be identified as Banjulians.

It has been a common mistake for people to brand everyone in Banjul and surrounding who spoke the Wolof dialect fluently as belonging to the Wolof tribe. That is why when Mr. Ebrima Chongan in his paper made an attempt to distance his heritage from the Banjul Wolofs by claiming to be a Fullah, critics criticized him as a Wolof once favored by the Banjul Wollof Mafia. I was born and raised in Serekunda where as kids we grew up with friends and neighbors who by tribal origin were Jolas, Mandinkas, Fulas, Manjagos and all sorts of tribes. But we all spoke Wolof because it was the dominant language in the urban area. We therefore, didn’t notice anything terribly wrong about speaking Wolof until the politicians started making a case out of it. In the schools, playfields, movie theatres, social gatherings we only spoke Wolof.

The only other language more important than Wolof was English which apart from being the only language readable and writable in schools, was the official language of the country. I have known Mr. Chongan for a long time but didn’t even for once thought of him as the typical Fullah man Mathew Jallow is.  The gentleman to me always spoke and sounded Wolof with no inclination to place too much importance to his Fulani roots. And I don’t believe he would have gone this far if it had not been about this political debate.

As for Mr. Mathew Jallow I have never met or seen him, but for the few times I spoke to him over the phone in Wolof, his accent alone told me that he was a typical Fullah. Since then however, I have also noticed his bias side towards members of his tribe, especially when he tried to justify the actions of the former AFPRC Vice Chairman Sana Sabally whose legacy as a military leader was not at all pretty. Mathew, I think couldn’t see the faults of Sabally because they both belong to the Fullah Tribe. If I am wrong, I hope he will accept my sincere apology.

He was not the Omar Jallow (OJ) of Serekunda kind of Fullah, Domique Mendy type of Manjago, Malang Badjie kind of Jola, Foday Camara type of Mandinka, Kebba Keita or Saul Sidibeh, who all hailed from Banjul and Serekunda and spoke no other local dialect in public other than Wolof. I don’t even think these men could speak their indigenous tribal languages and never attributed much importance to it anyway. They were married to Wolof-speaking women, not necessarily Wolof by tribal origin, and raised children who didn’t know anything different from what they found in the Serekunda community which was diversity, understanding and mutual respect for all. In the end, I think it boils down to an evolutionary process that will eventually meld everyone together.

However, what Mr. Mathew Jallow also ended illustrating was how the politicians and power grabbers exploited the leadership of former President Jawara who gave all the Gambians their rights to free speech and association in an exemplary democratic setting once hailed as the best in Africa by playing with the tribal sentiments of the gullible masses. He therefore, blamed them for giving cause to Jammeh to seize power and denied the Gambian people the freedom they used to enjoy. At any rate, I think Mr. Jallow also unintentionally told us that Jawara being the tolerant democratic leader he was who respected human rights to the extent of allowing government officials to do what they wanted- and they mostly did badly -was what motivated President Jammeh to come and overthrow his government and dismantled what was both good and bad. That in essence means that with the coup in The Gambia we did lose a democratic leader, the bad thing but with the good result of disintegrating a decadent government plagued by corrupt officials who dangerously toyed with tribalism. May be former President Jawara needed a little bit of the toughness in President Jammeh to avoid the gross abuse of power on his watch. And President Jammeh may also need a little bit of Jawara’s tolerance and pluralistic tendencies for his government to be viewed more tolerant and not dictatorial. But what do I know? Only Jawara and Jammeh who ever occupied that seat since the British handed over the country in 1965 know why they governed the way they did. All I know is that President Jawara is today sheltered by Jammeh in a protection plan that allows him to live a quiet fulfilled life with no headache about Terri Kafo, the Banjul Mafia or powerful lobby groups or individuals fighting for political or social dominance among tribes that are perfectly harmonious. Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Department heads, Custom officers and all those heavyweights we used to know in the country don’t have it anymore. Funds disbursed to departments for roadwork or any form of development projects are no long shared by contractors and government officials leaving the plan to fail. Anything of that sort, buys one a ticket to Mile Two Central Prisons.  And without such ill-gotten wealth, Wolofs, Mandinkas, Fullahs, Jolas, Manjagos, etc, no longer bother about their differences in the way they used to.

As for when the political situation will change for another government or leader different from Jammeh to rule The Gambia, only god knows about that. I don’t have a crystal ball to know that. Though I believe in what Mathew Jallow said about the hopelessness of the opposition political parties to win presidential elections that will unseat Jammeh. Plus I think Mr. Lamin Waa Juwara was right on the money for saying that the APRC will sweep the polls in the next presidential election slated for 2011.

The UDP considered the opposition party with the biggest majority is going through the test of their political determination that will show their strength in the ongoing defiance posture they took against the government. The case of the unauthorized rally is however not developing well in their favor. Magistrate Ikpala has denied them their request to take the matter to the Supreme Court where they had hoped to make it a civil rights case. The magistrate said it was criminal, period. Are they going to continue on fighting the case on such criminal charges or try something else? I will continue to wait. By the way is the second defiant rally slated for the Saturday after Tobaski still on schedule? Considering that Tobaski is celebrated for three days, Saturday 27^th, the day after was ruled out as that Saturday. So it must be Saturday, December 5^th 2009. May I therefore, please ask whether it is still on? If so, Mr. Sankareh, please, kindly dispatch your able reporter Njie Khakatarr to cover events of the rally.