By Lt. Col. Sheriff Samsudeen Sarr
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 27th 1994. I though restricting matters to my own problems would be fairer and perfectly reasonable. Perhaps asking him to explain to the Gambian people why he had to shoot at Dr. Corra's vehicle an MRC medical doctor driving to work and incidentally happened to be on the same highway as that of Vice Chairman Sabally's motorcade that morning would be interpreted by Mathew Jallow as being none of my business. Or asking Sabally why he had to punish and humiliate the religious leaders at Gambisarra would be viewed as not giving him chance to play his much needed role in the struggle to "oust Jammeh". I will also forget about the November 11 butchering and even the cruelty of the night of the terror, September 6, that were undoubtedly under his supervision but focus on the single incident that had tremendously impacted my life. I want to make it clear that it is not fair for me to treat Sana Sabally in the normal way his sympathizers want me to treat him while they wouldnt come to terms with my demand to know from him the simple truth I am asking in this case. Peddling the vague idea that Gambian dissidents need Saballys contribution to achieve success in their crusade to remove Jammeh out of power sooner rather than later, meriting him an unconditional forgiveness does not in anyway appeal to my faculties. For Sabally to even march with me in the same parade, civil or military, much more earn my trust again, he must do better than soliciting cyber protagonists gifted with indisputable writing skills to revamp his obnoxious character.
However reading Mr. Jallow's story this morning "Of Sana B. Sabally and the road ahead" caused me to think that he still doesn't get it despite the ceasefire counseling I thought he had equally received from you Mr. Sankareh as his co-editor. It was definitely annoying to see him write the following: "To not see the value of having Sana on our side is to be blinded by mental amnesia and objective paralysis; but when we talk of nurturing democracy in these forums, we are essentially talking about unrestricted inclusion of all potential actors. We cannot exercise parochialism in a democratic forum and expect our visions to survive the smell test or the test of time. By us precipitously shouting Sana Sabally down from the debate for the future of our country, we have invalidated our claims to the moral high ground, and in the process reduced our ownership claims to democracy to a mere meaningless rhetoric." With honesty Mr. Jallow, that is brilliant semantics with pure contextual beauty but falls short of its desired effect of impressing or disarming me today.
In the first instance I want to make it clear that eulogizing his dead colleague Haidara was not by any means my main reason for demanding an explanation for his monumental crimes; neither was I trying to steal Binneh Minteh's position as being "the first to break through the self-imposed wall of silence to vociferously criticize Jammeh and his criminal henchmen", like you put it. That was an ingenious way of driving a wedge between the honorable lieutenant and the rest of us.
However, the underlying reason for my response, if Jallow would allow me one last time to drill it in his head, was Sana's hypocritical bitching over how he was falsely accused, arrested and locked up for nine years. To me therefore, he must have forgotten my case and that of too many Gambians he had victimized in similar or worst techniques as Vice Chairman of the AFPRC government; or perhaps he had once again relied on his most outstanding talent, narrow-mindedness, by perhaps excluding some of us from the possible readers he had expected to access the paper.
In what ever way one may sum it up, I would always find it inconceivable to sit back and quietly swallow my pain and frustration over the case because people like Mathew Jallow think that there is something valuable about this retard lacking a single bone of decency in his body. As a matter of fact, I think I need to say this; if removing Jammeh from power depends on collaborating with Sana Bairo Sabally for success, I must share this warning with you from the onset that the campaign should be aborted before its commencement because of its imminent failure or the danger of leaping from the frying pan to the real fire. The absurd theory of thinking that achieving the end justifies any applicable means is, in my book, total rubbish.
I know that such statements would not resonate well with Mathew Jallow, but I have in his case concluded that he wouldn't get off his high horse and start taking some well needed growth medicine.
I don't know whether I had said this to Mathew before but in October 1994, three months after I was detained, the AFPRC government decided to release the first batch of officers at Mile Two. I had later learned that I was among those short listed until the paper was forwarded to Sabally for approval. But out of the list, I was the only one he had struck out that day for no reason. That was after being incarcerated in that hell house for three months without being informed anything about the reason for it.
I was at the time aware of the false rumors being spread around the country that I was involved in a foiled countercoup attempt and few morons bought the lies with one going as far as verbally insulting my wife at her work place for being a traitor's wife.
However, after being unconditionally released-thank God Sabally was by then dragged to jail- and offered a senior position in the army, the action finally dispelled all false accusations and rumors some Gambians had entertained against me.
Anyway, I was within the three years of my active service as senior officer able to meticulously investigate and document the issues surrounding the events and personalities behind the whole coup. Unfortunately, up to this day, I couldn't find it anywhere or from anybody to give me the exact reasons why Sabally and Haidara arrested and detained me. So I don't understand what I am doing wrong now by trying to get Sabally to at least give me the reason I have been desperately searching for since July 27th 1994. If he cannot, then let him stay quiet and know that I will continue to challenge any garbage he tries to spread here even if it is another eulogy coated with "suratul miliki nass".
Friends I spoke to recently have asked, if I could expand a little bit more over the subject of the Nigerians and Senegalese factors briefly mentioned in my last piece.
Anyway, starting from the Nigerians, I believe they could have at least done something similar to what the three British military officers in charge of training the army did in June 1991 when the GNA soldiers from ECOMOG Liberia held that scary demonstration for the delayed payment of their allowances. With over hundred soldiers poised to take over Yundum Barracks that morning, Colonel Jim Shaw and Sgt. Major Sellows selected a handful of Gambian officers, armed them to the teeth and coordinated with The Gambia National Gendarmerie at Fajara Barracks and challenged the mutineers with equally effective force. By the way, it would perhaps surprise many Gambians to learn that Jammeh, then the head of the Gendarmerie's Military Police in Bakau played a pivotal role in confronting the angry soldiers to the dead end. In the second demonstration as well, Colonel Shaw this time with the help of Chongan, Jammeh and the gendarme paramilitary force, took the lead and ensured that everyone who took part in the rebellion was arrested and locked up at Mile Two.
There were only three British officers; but because the government had entrusted them with the upkeep of the army they in turn honored the covenant by taking charge, regardless of the enormous risk, and apparently succeeded in stopping the soldiers with daring tactical operation.
The Nigerians were over forty in number empowered as generals, colonels, lieutenant colonels and majors who with the right courage could have done better than abandoning their command positions and went into hiding that morning, leaving the majority of the soldiers who were not a part of the rebellion no choice but to flow with what seemed logical to follow. And because the coup was swift and decisive in record time the crowd naturally rallied behind the new young leaders.
However, the arrival of the Nigerians in 1992 helped to dismantle two security pillars in the nation that I believe could have made the difference between the success and failure of the 1994 coup d' tat. One was the marginalization of the British trainers culminating in their decision to end their contract with the PPP government after eight years. And two, the dismantling of the gendarme counterforce built and insulated by the Senegalese for among other internal security duties, to deter coup d'tat by the army.
This was not differential equation. It was simple logic. Dismantling the gendarme force instead of adapting it to our security needs in The Gambia after the Senegalese left was a fatal miscalculation that significantly added to the takeover rapid success.
As for the Nigerians, I will finally give you this much; it was General Dada who twenty-four hours after the coup agreed to give the coup leaders all the necessary advice on what to do to consolidate their new government. I was there and could attest to the fact that without him, the situation may have turned differently.
But on the flip side, knowing that President Jawara finally had a change of heart and chose to return home to fraternize with the very government that toppled his regime leaves me with the troubling dilemma of whether dying for him would have actually worth it.