THE MFDC TRIAL IN THE GAMBIA

By Lt. Col. Samsudeen Sarr

I am sorry if I sound like an obsolete record but I will keep on reiterating what I think is a legitimate concern over the Cassamance-MFDC rebel presence and trial show in The Gambia. The trial of the so-called rebel spies and would-be saboteurs in Gambian courts makes me more confused every time I look deeper into the charges and pieces of evidence presented by the prosecutor and the witnesses. I would therefore very much welcome anyone who understands the case better to please enlighten me on what exactly is going on. It certainly confuses me when I read one of the several charges stating that the rebels were arrested planning to carry out terrorist acts against Senegal while another charge indicates that they were secretly taking pictures of key installations and strategic locations in The Gambia. Why they were taking pictures of those unspecified areas was never explained although, one would assume that it was also for the intent to carry out sabotage in The Gambia. Why the rebels would want to attack The Gambia doesn’t appeal to my sense of logic. But since nothing of that sort was mentioned, I would for now leave it at. It is also not at all helpful to learn that the very government (Senegalese) they were allegedly planning to terrorize was paying them allowances to carry out their clandestine activities in The Gambia. One of my greatest surprises however, is the inclusion of Alexander Gibba who in the past was known to have been hosted by Jammeh at the Banjul Atlantic hotel where constantly denounced Senegal for denying Cassamance her independence. Yet Alexander as we now see, falls among this captured group categorized as rebels in support of the Senegalese government opposing the hard liners like Salifu Sarjo.

Besides, reading through the list of those being tried, all of them by their last names are Jolas the only way I know how to differentiate members of different ethnic groups in the region.

I thought of bringing this ethnic issue given it seriousness in the Cassamance rebellion. In 1997, the prison guards around Mile Two Central Prisons stopped a suspicious-looking man. It was about 2:00 am and the man was seen walking alone. He wasn’t carrying any form of ID but when questioned by the guards he responded with all frankness that he was an MFDC fighter in search of a job in The Gambia. Asked why he was walking around the prison in the wee hours of the morning, he said he lived in the Kombos and was walking back home because he couldn’t afford the fare from Banjul to Serra Kunda. The guards handed him over to the police for further investigation, but IGP F.R.I. Jammeh who headed the police force then, informed the army and NIA about the case. He thought the case was of a wider national security dimension. I could still remember that Sunday when we met at the erstwhile police Chief’s office in Banjul for the interrogation of the man called Mr. Sarjo. I could clearly remember his last but not first name. He was certainly something… Sarjo. Salifu Sarjo was then a name we vaguely knew among the Cassamance combatant but the man was definitely no Salifu.

During the interrogation, conducted more like an interview than anything else, the man told us that he was a thirty-six year old rebel who for six years fought in the “Mandinka” wing of the MFDC. What that meant according to him was that the Mandinkas of Cassamance, who had felt the same sense of belonging to the region as the Jolas, did not want to sit by and allow any tribe to monopolize the government to be formed after Cassamance was liberated.

“If a government in Cassamance is headed by a Jola”, he went on, “he must be deputized by a Mandinka or the fight will continue”.

I think it was the NIA representative or Mr. F.R.I. Jammeh who asked him what then he was up to in coming to The Gambia to find a job.

“Because”, he said, “the war is not winnable.” He was convinced that the rebels were militarily too inferior to defeat the Senegalese army and that too many of his colleagues had been killed without any progress realized. Now what he wanted was to find a peaceful place where he could secure any kind of job, get a wife and raise a family. At thirty-six, he thought it was becoming too late in pursing that dream of his.

To cut to the chase, Mr. Sarjor was finally released on the basis that he was not a threat to anybody in The Gambia at a time when The Gambia’s position in the separatist war in the south was not clearly defined. But it was revealing to hear about the Mandinka Vs. Jola struggle in the war.

It was then that I came to the conclusion that independence for Cassamance would merely create more trouble for the region than many people would bargain for. Salifu Sarjor as a Mandinka has been an ally of Jammeh for a while now. He is also proven to be the leading element among the most lethal rebel factions bent on fighting for total independence in Cassamance.  How Jammeh the proud Jola he always claims to be happened to come in one hand to prosecuting the Jola rebels but on the other providing save heaven for the Mandinka rebels totally beat my imagination. Or is Salifu’s presence in the country predicated to a contract or deal he has made with Jammeh to provide him with a secret private army after the group was chased out of Guinea Bissau last year? If so, then the Gambians should be warned of the danger they are living with by having these demons in their midst capable of wrecking the country if forced to the task.

However, the Senegalese government’s silence over the whole matter is also worth bothering about. The trial to me is unnecessarily risky given the potential danger for these rival groups who had bitterly fought against each other in Bissau and Cassamance drawing a new battleground in The Gambia. This to me is what the trial encourages.

The crimes the Jola rebels have been accused of committing against both The Gambia and Senegal, if well studied, appear to be a case that Senegalese should prosecute and not Gambians. Didn’t President Wade before the beginning of the trial send an envoy pleading for the release of the captives in which, as reported, Jammeh made demands to first have the Gambian dissidents in Senegal extradited. That’s another big baffler. Why prosecute them for crimes mainly aimed at causing harm to Senegal when the Senegalese are begging for their release? Nothing seems to make sense to me other than the fact that the Senegalese government for reasons known to them is now saying nothing to the disturbing trial in The Gambia. In the past and I think up to this moment, Senegalese have maintained that the Cassamance problem is purely an internal matter that should exclude any international intervention in finding a solution for it. But given what has been going on around the region, it is obvious that The Gambia and Guinea Bissau have been part of the struggle in a way that makes it a transnational problem requiring the Senegalese to change their dogmatic position over the limits of the conflict. 

That should be followed by an aggressive and honest effort to form an inclusive task force of Senegalese, Gambian and Guinea Bissau officials to work together towards finding a permanent solution to the conflict.

And unless a peace program is permanently implemented in that pluralistic approach not aimed at temporarily transferring the showdown, from let’s say Bissau to Banjul and perhaps later back to Ziguinchor, stability and progress will continue to be elusive in the region.

Military training schools have always referred to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs when forecasting the political, social and economic development of a given state. The theory however is that after social beings are fed, the most fundamental need in human existence, the next important thing would be the health and security of the people.