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.
But before elaborating on that argument, I believe it critical to furnish you with a brief but important profile of Sabally before the July 1994 coup. My first encounter with Mr. Sabally was in September 1990 when he was a Corporal at Yundum Barracks serving as a clerk in the only battalion office in the GNA. Physically he was an unusually small man in size and height, coupled with a shy demeanor that had deceived a lot of his superiors including me to view him as too frail and needed special protection. Secondly, in addition to his indisputable credit at the time for being absolutely polite and discipline, he was religiously very pious in a way that could have earned him the position of Imam in the camp. Don't get me wrong. Those were all pretentious behavior.
I was however, literally his guardian angel in the barracks because of my admiration of his unique character that I had regrettably fallen for especially, after he was commissioned as officer.
Anyway within the short period he had served as Second Lieutenant, the British Army Training Team (BATT) commanding officer, Colonel Jim Shaw had twice attempted to get rid of him from the army for his failure to properly perform certain military duties at Kudang and Yundum Camps; in both cases I had relentlessly spearheaded the team of officers who came to his defense and successfully got Col. Shaw to spare him his wrathful charges and recommended court martial. As far as the British commander was concerned ,Sabally didn't have a place in the army under any capacity. Yet we thought it was mere prejudice on somebody whose character was by all the superficial indications highly exemplary.
But on July 22nd 1994 after the curtains of the coup d'tat theatre were raised and Sabally assumed the center stage of a principal actor, instead of performing his duties with those godly principles that we had believed were in him, and could have guided his thoughts and actions through the struggle, he instead shamelessly adopted a very satanic approach towards the mission. With Sadibu Haidara by his side and the AK 47 rifles, the grenade launchers and M60 machineguns in their hands, Sabally was possessed by an immoderate zeal that had totally restricted his range of human understanding and God's demanded mercy on all his subjects.
Mr. Jallow, you might settle with your honest conviction that Sabally and Haidara were betrayed by their comrades, Jammeh and Singhateh, but to those of us and of course our family members who were victims of their evil activities, that so-called betrayal of having them chained and locked up on January 27, 1995, was the greatest miracle from the Supreme Being.
I have briefly mentioned my arrest and detention by the two thugs and assassins on July 27, 1994 and also tried to illustrate their torturous and murderous footprints on November 11 1994; but I think I had left out the clear view of the stupidity and callousness in which their actions were conducted. For instance you may find this hard to swallow but on that notorious torture morning of September 6, as the helpless victims screamed for mercy all we could hear in that atmosphere of terror was Sabally's piercing voice threatening them to say their last prayers for the last time in this world.
You see Mr. Jallow, while Sabally and Haidara never gave us the reasons for arresting me and my fellow officers-obviously there was none whatsoever-most of us still believe that if they were not grounded, we would have most likely remained in jail for a very, very long time, or even died there. Invariably, if Lieutenant Minteh was captured that November day of 1994 when Haidara and Peter Singhateh had gone to his home to arrest him, without doubt, his remains would have been decomposing among the heap of executed officers buried in a latrine pit at Yundum Barracks.
Sabally, you must understand, is not only living in denial of all the things he had done wrong with Haidara but has once again shamelessly put on his human cloak of religious deception waiting for the appropriate moment to remove it for his true heart of a Gestapo.
Anyway Mr. Jallow, I wouldn't mind compromising with you over your fair proposal to give Sabally another chance if he is willing to come out frankly and confess to his past action with a commitment to ask for forgiveness. My only doubt over the whole issue is whether Sabally will ever heed that proposal and discard his frequent poppycock writing laced with religious preaching merely to camouflage his guilt.
Anyhow offer him that challenge and use it as a yardstick of measuring the level of his sincerity on the subject. If he wouldn't come clean and confess to the truth, then you know with absolute certainty that he is not a changed man; but if he does, then be rest assured that I will come back and praise you for redeeming a lost soul. I'll consider it a deal between you and me.
If he doesn't know where to start from, I could certainly jump start him with this question that family members of his victims are still dying to know from him: Where are the remains of the men executed on November 11, 1994, and why were their corpses not handed over to their family members for proper burial in proper cemeteries? Extra-judicial execution of any human being is an unacceptable crime, but burying them in latrine pit is gross.
Mr. Jallow please accept my sincere apology if any of my statements conveyed above offend you in any way or means.
Lieutenant Colonel Samsudeen M.Sarr (rtd)
Former commander GNA