Ebou,
I know you love writing and very good at it too, but please have some
consideration for those of us whose mental concentration capacity is
(1mb)very minimal,maybe one or two paragraphs of digestion. All you said is
true to the letter.

Leeman.


>From: ebou colly <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: FARAFENNI ATTACK TWO
>Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 07:43:09 -0700
>
>                                            FARAFENNI
>ATTACK TWO
>Before getting back into my main theme, "THE FARAFENNI
>ATTACH," I would like to take a moment to first salute
>all those great activists of the G-L especially those
>great allies who sent me welcome notes- K.B (Kebba
>Dampha to be more precise), Ansumana Kujabi, Saul Khan
>the dynamic MOVEMENT FOR RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACY IN
>GAMBIA (NY) and the private senders.
>I would however plead with all of you to give me some
>time to finish this delicate subject before we
>shifting into the question -and- answer mode. My time
>is very limited at this moment another reason why I
>may have to apologize for this delayed statement. But
>at any rate I would do my best to come on line at
>least once a week (most probably weekends). Anyway for
>those important questions forwarded this time I will
>try and respond to all of them first.
>Of course there were the unimportant ones mainly sent
>privately by Yaya's desperate loyalists who had
>nothing to say about my central topic; but merely
>forwarded lines of indecent arguments, very personal
>indeed that were better ignored and deleted than given
>the attention they least deserve. If they were made
>public I probably may have just told them to go and
>their hearts out.
>However there was this lost soul, a victim of Yaya's
>childish propaganda referring me to that joke of a
>documentary produced by Ebou Waggeh of the GRTS in
>July 1999. In that video showed on Gambia TV, Yaya was
>seen at his State-House ranch sitting beside some
>domestic animals and telling the world the most
>inaccurate and ridiculous tale about his tough
>confrontation with former President Abdou Joof during
>the first days of the coup. For Yaya to allow that
>piece of video shown on national TV totally beat my
>imagination. Where he came up with all that junk about
>his macho uncompromising stand against Joof was
>absolutely delusional. He talked about the serious
>warning he sent to Abdou Joof to immediately withdraw
>the Senegalese troops reported to have been deployed
>at Karang because of the coup; that the GNA soldiers
>were angrier and had begged to be authorized to attack
>Karang and teach the Senegalese forces lessons they
>will never forget; that he even sent Colonel Sarr (god
>knows which Colonel Sarr) to the Senegalese Ambassador
>Muktarr Kebbeh to let Abdou Joof know that he Yaya was
>running out of patience and would soon commence his
>blitz-krieg operation from Karang to Kaulack; that Mr.
>Kebbeh had to plead with him to be more patient while
>he drew the attention of the Senegalese authorities to
>the danger facing their troops  against Yaya's strike
>force; that Abou Joof saved the Senegalese forces at
>the last minute by ordering them into hasty withdrawal
>from Karang.  Come on my friend, if you buy any of
>that garbage documentary, then I've got some credit
>cards I want to sell you. Take it from me, nothing in
>that Waggeh- produced documentary contained an iota of
>truth.
>After all if the situation was that bad with Senegal
>at that critical time, how come it was not highlighted
>in the maiden speech delivered by Yaya at Radio
>Gambia? I would think that it should certainly have
>been the most important matter to reflect in that
>speech. But instead Yaya made it crystal clear in that
>speech that the AFPRC government was bent on
>consolidating good bilateral ties with neighboring
>countries, with Senegal being the first in those
>nations identified. Only Nigeria was left out for
>obvious reasons. (The Nigerians were in charge of the
>command and control of the GNA up to 22nd July 1994,
>the coup day).
>Go to ARCH22, the whole speech is there on display.
>However you may have to be careful of the impression
>Yaya tried to portray there again. It is another
>pitiful delusion from his midget mind, an analogy I
>may borrow from KB. The speech on display hand-copied
>by Yaya and laminated neatly. Some old antique table
>and chair were scavenged from god knows where and used
>in the ultimate hoax. Then the speech is placed on
>that funny-looking table that stands beside the chair
>in the museum at ARCH22. That's not all; for just
>above and over this show-corner a statement is made to
>the effect that the speech on display was the maiden
>speech of the 22nd July revolution which was written
>by Yaya sitting in that chair and on that table. The
>speech is further explained to have been written by
>Yaya well before the coup operation started.  It was
>baloney but perfectly sellable to the gullible masses.
>May god save the tourists on this one!
>Let me tell you the real facts about that speech
>today. It was one of the cardinal problems that
>delayed the actual announcements after the late
>Lieutenant Barrow and Captain Sonko made that first
>unauthorized one at Radio FM the first day. To come up
>with a good speech was honestly elusive. We really did
>not know how to make one (Yaya knows we know that he
>cannot write at all). In the end it was Captain Mamat
>Cham who went with over a section of soldiers to Mr.
>Swaibou Conateh's house and forced the journalist at
>gunpoint to draft us some ideas for the speech. All
>those nice ideas on domestic and foreign policy in
>that speech originated from this poor fellow's brain,
>Mr. Conateh.
>Having said that, I would turn to the question by the
>great MOVEMENT in New York. They asked about the
>involvement of Yaya in the Cassamance rebellion or to
>be more exact, how deeply involved he is with
>supporting the rebels? Frankly speaking if it comes to
>the final answer I would say Yaya is 100% plus
>involved in the MFDC Struggle for the independence of
>Cassamance. His total support for the rebellion was
>something he never hid from those close to him and I
>was one of them.
>  You see, I don't know for now but before, I mean up
>to 1999, Yaya used to tell this story about why
>Cassamance should have her independence from Senegal.
>And I think this is the story behind the whole
>fighting for independence in Cassamance. According to
>Yaya, when Senegal got her independence from France in
>1960. An agreement was made in writing between former
>President Leopold Sedar Senghore and the French
>Government stating that after 20 years of Senegalese
>rule over the provinces, Cassamance was to be given
>back to the Jolas she belonged to as an independent
>nation of her own. He believes the late Emily Badjan a
>Jola from Binjona and a former minister in Leopold
>Sedar Senghore's government was a witness and a
>signatory to that agreement.
>However, still quoting Yaya, when it was time in 1980
>for the realization of the said agreement, Senegal
>refused to honor the deal. And that started the
>justifiable struggle for independence for the Jolas in
>Cassamance.
>This mysterious story is somehow very hard to find a
>French person to confirm it. I have personally asked
>several French officials about the credibility of this
>story but they all say the same thing that the
>agreement never existed. These were generals and
>colonels, ambassadors and their associates, in The
>Gambia, in Bissau, at Bamako, Senegal, Paris, name it;
>none of them know where such an agreement was written
>or signed at. I think that is why the rebels including
>Yaya now say that the French are in support of the
>Senegalese for refusing make available the document to
>the combatants.
>Don't judge me wrong, I am not in anyway tribalistic;
>Yaya instead is to the bottom of his heart. His
>expressed faith in tribal segregation is so serious,
>especially in the wake of the Cassamance crisis, that
>he sees the whole struggle as being between the
>wollof-speaking Senegalese of the north against the
>Jola-speaking ones of the south. What is hard to put
>in his small head is that the inter-tribal mixture in
>Senegal has developed beyond where there could be an
>acceptable separation as such. As a matter of fact
>most of the Senegalese troops actively battling the
>rebels are Jolas recruited from mainly Cassamance. We
>were in the Confederal Army and we know the
>composition of the Senegalese forces.
>Invariably however, Yaya is not always the type of
>person one could draw a final judgement on his true
>faith with regards to some of his actions or
>statements, the Cassamance issue being no exception.
>Take for instance the case of the massacred children
>last April (my heart and soul are with all those
>mourners poised to remember that horrible event next
>week). When it happened, people with conscience who
>knew what happened exactly behind the scenes leaked
>the information to the public that Yaya actually gave
>the orders through telephone from Cuba. And his words
>were to kill the kids and fill the mortuary with their
>bodies. But what happened when he came back home?
>Didn't he put up every kind of show and speech to
>deceive the Gambians that he was not aware of what
>happened? He then declared a week of national mourning
>and tried to pay for the lives of the children he
>killed with only $2000.00 per soul Some have bought
>his tricks calling him a saint while those of us who
>know better know that this is a devil cut for hell for
>committing such a crime.
>Also take a look at how evil he acted towards the dead
>UDP MPs just to turn around later and offered to
>sponsor their children's education. If it had not been
>for the fact that he made his callous decision in the
>public's eyes and ears at Yundum Airport, he would
>have again tried shifting the blame on to Mr. Wadda or
>Isatou Njie Saidy. And the blind followers these
>people are, they would have happily taken the blame to
>cover the devil's deeds.
>Anyway the perfect example I can quote to answer your
>question adequately was how he handled the Cassamance
>issue with the Wadda government lately. Not too long
>ago it was not a secret that Alexander Djiba, a
>staunch MFDC propagandist was state lodged at the
>Atlantic Hotel in Banjul and given state authority to
>verbally attack the Wadda government every way he
>desired. As a result, this man was even calling press
>conferences in The Gambia demanding international
>sanctions against Senegal while Yaya sat watch.
>  Yaya also paraded the late General Manneh as a
>renowned hero in the Gambia purely as a mockery to the
>Senegalese for the so-called defeat their army
>suffered in the hands of the general in Bissau with
>the help of the MFDC combatants in 1998. Now after
>Manneh was killed to the open jubilation of Senegal
>and Alexander Djiba fired by Father Djamacone
>Senghore, Yaya was recently heard in Senegal
>shamelessly saying that he supported no rebellion in
>Cassamaance because as a Pan-Africanist he would
>rather see the continent united than divided. So how
>do you judge such a dangerously erratic character on
>anything he shows commitment? People with such taste
>for double standards best suited for the gallows. And
>believe in me that where they always end up hanging.
>  Anyway as far as I am concerned he was only trying to
>fool Wadda. My gut feeling told me that upon his
>return to the Gambia he would have called the rebels
>and pledged a fat contribution to their war funds. So
>to cut a long story short, I know Yaya supports the
>rebellion in Cassamance with everything he has but
>will continue to pretend as if he does not.
>Back to my main subject, the FARAFENNI ATTACK. I still
>think of that disaster as an unforgivable blunder
>caused by a dirty political game played by Yaya Jammeh
>and Abdou Joof. Corporal Sidibeh of Farafenni Barracks
>died leaving a pregnant wife who still cannot get over
>the shock. Private Saidy was only nineteen and had
>served in the GNA for only three months. The late Yaya
>Drammeh confirmed killing the teenager as walked out
>of his room in pajamas trying see what the strange
>firing was all about in the camp. Yet the most
>gruesome picture to me was the painful looks in Staff
>Sergeant Jatta's eyes with his tongue badly bitten in
>his dying moment. He still had his prayer beads in
>hand. He was killed on his way to the mosque for dawn
>prayers. It was too bad to tell all.
>Any way back to that encounter between the GNA task
>force and the attackers around Kerewan, it was up to
>that moment thought that they were only five men who
>attacked the camp and kidnapped Captain Biran Saine.
>Evidently when sunlight broke into the camp that
>morning all that people noticed were five men in
>civilian clothes with six soldiers lying dead at
>different spots in the camp. These were the five who
>dashed for their lives northbound to Senegal under
>serious volleys of machine guns and AK 47 fire from
>the GNA troops.
>What we did not know at the time was that they were
>eight in total and that their own fire hit two of
>their men at the first minutes of the attack.  Mballow
>Kanteh was one of the two, severely injured on his
>thigh. He could not run or walk, but he managed to
>make it to the Farafenni clinic for help. He appeared
>suspicious, so the medical personnel alerted the
>police who arrested him and handed him over to the
>NIA. Sulayman Sarr who later told us that he was
>accidetally shot by Ablie Sonko managed to escape to
>Kaulack, Senegal, where he was admitted at a hospital.
>The Senegalese intelligence service picked him up from
>his hospital bed. Famara Jibba an older man they said
>was responsible for their spiritual protection
>disappeared after Sulayman Sarr cried in the dark that
>he was shot. He was never seen again.
>However the other five who ran towards Senegal were
>Ablie Sonko, his close assistant whose name I am still
>trying to remember, John Dampha an ex-GNA soldier who
>was a rebel trainer in Liberia, Essa Baldeh a
>Senegalese from Kolda who fought in Liberia for more
>than five years. He said he was promised the position
>of Minister of finance in The Gambia after the
>successful overthrow of the government. And last but
>not the least was late Yaya Drammeh who died at Mile
>Two Prison months later.
>Yaya Drammeh was the second to be captured. He was not
>familiar with the terrain, so instead of heading to
>Senegal northward, he ran eastward staying in The
>Gambia until fatigue crippled all his energy. Kids
>playing from a Gambian village in the North Bank
>Division found him sleeping under a tree. The children
>woke him up and led him to their village where he was
>hoping to get food and water that he desperately
>needed. The villagers subdued him and handed him over
>to the Farafenni police.
>John Dampa and Essa Baldeh were captured in Dakar and
>together with Sulayman Sarr, the Senegalese handed
>them over to us.
>We wanted to make a press release thanking Senegal for
>their cooperation but Yaya rejected the idea
>completely. That was why the Gambia never acknowledged
>the extradition of those three men from Senegal.
>By then however, Yaya was playing his pretentious
>games again arguing that the Senegalese masterminded
>the attack in the Gambia for no reason other than
>their jealousy of his successful administration. He
>acted as if he did not have a clue about who were
>behind the attack, just like all of us felt at the
>time.
>But we also argued with him that there was no sense
>for Senegal to be behind such a poorly executed
>operation and then turn around and send us the
>culprits they captured from their territory. And
>beside, the captured men had come out plain confessing
>that the Senegalese government had nothing to do with
>the attack plan or execution. The NIA were however, on
>Yaya's side in the Senegalese-backed-attack theory
>adding that the Senegalese had more rebels preparing
>to move in from Tambacunda. It was absolutely false
>which we proved to Yaya with the evidence gathered so
>far. But Yaya still kept on huffing and puffing,
>swearing that Senegal must pay for the lives of the
>Gambian soldiers killed.
>Well Edward Singhateh who was completely kept in the
>dark about the Kukoi affairs but was the vice-chairman
>and the minister of defense took Yaya seriously.
>Therefore, Edward called Baboucarr Jatta the Army
>Commander then warning him to alert the GNA for a
>possible attack into Senegal. Kaulack was supposed to
>be the target. He was not joking and we all knew it.
>It would also have been the suicidal operation of the
>millenium, but Edward would have given the order
>anyway. Whether it would have been executed was
>another matter thinkable.
>Anyhow at the next briefing we had with Yaya in his
>office (Edward was absent) he finally produced the
>paper from the right-side drawer of the table. It was
>the document from the Senegalese about Kukoi's attack
>plan handed over to him three months ago. He had
>chickened out after seeing that Edward was not playing
>with his attack ideas on Kaulack.
>He explained his simple version of the matter saying
>that it was the Senegalese who offered to mediate for
>the return of Kukoi. He said that things went well in
>the beginning until Kukoi came to Senegal where a
>small problem emerged. Kukoi wanted to come and form a
>political party, which he rejected for the reason that
>political parties were by decree banned in the country
>at the time. He said that it was after he told the
>Senegalese that Kukoi could only be allowed into the
>country as a normal private citizen and nothing more
>that they brought him the attack plan.
>Senegal had arrested Kukoi together with his men at
>Tambacunda and wanted to know what to do with him.
>Yaya said he told them to deal with him but also
>warned them not to allow him to attack The Gambia from
>Senegal. I found that very hard to believe.
>Yaya also said that at the time he received the paper,
>he brought the attention of its contents to Yankuba
>Touray, Lamin Kabba Bajo, Samba Bah and Baboucarr
>Jatta. Why he left Edward out, his vice chairman and
>minister of defense, he never explained. Samba Bah and
>Baboucarr Jatta who were present at the briefing swore
>before Yaya that they were never informed. I believe
>Jatta was telling the truth. I did not know about
>Samba Bah who was the director general of the NIA.
>History will tell some day. As for Yankuba and Bajo,
>Yaya said that they had all dismissed the Senegalese
>paper as nonsense. They were not present at the
>briefing.
>Anyway by the very nature of the secrecy at which the
>negotiation was conducted between General Wane and
>Yaya Jammeh, only the NIA perhaps could have picked up
>something about the deadly deal. If they were better
>tuned up with their national security responsibilities
>instead of building an agency full of legalized
>extortionists, they would have trail Kukoi after the
>Point News Paper came up with the Gambian-Liberian
>rebels captured in Tambacunda in 1996.
>One Mr. John was their representative in Dakar who
>until even after the attack did not know what
>happened. As expected however, he was made the
>scapegoat. Salmina Drammeh was sent to replace him
>without notice.
>Another person who could have stolen some vital
>information from the secret negotiation was Baboucarr
>Jatta. Throughout the period and the numerous trips
>made by General Wane from Senegal to meet Yaya, only
>Baboucarr Jatta was allowed to escort him from the
>airport to Yaya's office and back. It was usually a
>few hours meeting during which Jatta sat outside
>waiting. After the meeting Jatta would escort the
>General back to his special plane at the airport.
>  Being the most senior Army officer in the country
>Jatta should have been able through open discussions
>to get something from the General on his strange
>confidential missions.
>But unfortunately for Baboucarr Jatta, I think
>subjected to a psychiatric evaluation, he will most
>likely come out with prognosis of a person suffering
>from acute -job -identity crisis. For instead of
>taking himself as a top military asset of the nation
>best cut for defense policies and national strategy
>matters, Jatta believes that he is a naturally born
>architect, a master brick layer and a hardened
>laborer. Spend a brief moment with the man and before
>you know it he is showing you the contour of his palms
>and how they are hardened from the manual work he
>constantly does for the erection of his fence and
>building his house at his private homes in Bakoteh and
>Kotu.  He is dangerously incompetent. Just recently I
>read in The Gambian papers that he was at the beach
>physically arresting sand miners, a job everyone knows
>should be a police constable's. A whole chief of
>staffs a nation's armed forces arresting sand miners?
>That must be something tangential to bad command. And
>let us not forget it was mainly bad command that
>caused the second lieutenants to overthrow the PPP
>government in 1994.
>But Jatta is Yaya's number one man, do not be fooled.
>He is a genius in flattery an effective weapons for
>simple-headed leaders like Yaya.
>In my next piece however, I will try to end this topic
>with the version of the captured attackers and how
>those from Tambacunda were extradited to the Gambia in
>1997 and not 1996. I will also explain the role played
>by Samsideen Sarr and Sankung Badjie in the
>extradition process. As for the torturing they
>suffered as reported by the Independent Paper, I
>suggest they talk to Swanding Camara whom they said
>was a free man now. He should be able to tell them who
>brutalized or tortured. I definitely do not know
>anything about that. Anyway one thing is also certain;
>these men are not as innocent as portrayed. Till next
>week, I signed off.
>
>
>Ebou Colly
>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
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