COUP IN
GAMBIA THREE
KB Dampha, I am pleased but equally saddened that you
asked about Gibril Saye or Lieutenant Saye. Pleased in
the sense that his case needs to be told which I shall
attempt to do the way I understand it. But am also
quite sad to remember every thing about this fine
soldier who was too good to die the way he did.
Everything you mentioned about this soldier,
especially his devotion and love to promote sports in
the GNA-had a keen hand in football, basketball,
volleyball and everything-made him more so a victim to
be mourned and wept for until that day when his body
is exhumed from that toilet pit and given a decent
burial. We can classify Saye as the real soldier with
difference. He was nice, respectable and highly
competent. But above everything, the young man was
soft hearted, couldn't hurt a fly when it comes to
killer instincts that we saw among the ranks of the
army since 1994. The guy had conscience and would
rather die than see the truth twisted and remain
indifferent to it like so many APRC lackeys we see
today. One of the reasons I later learnt for the
AFPRC's decision to eliminate him was among other
things his constant challenge to all of them over our
detention at the central prisons without any credible
reason or explanation for it. I understand he had
openly and constantly protested to the council members
to try us if they had anything against us or set us
free. But death row at Mile Two prisons was not, as
far as he was concerned, a place for good officers
like us. He had even gone against all odds one day by
coming to the prisons to see us with encouraging words
to the effect that they were working hard for our
freedom. He had brought us provisions and toilet
articles as well. It was shocking to learn few days
later that Saye was dead.
So you were right Dampha in stating that the 11th
November event found me in jail. About thirty-five of
us were detained for nothing we did.  But I can still
remember how devastated Saye's family was over the
death of the man who solely provided for them. They
even had to send a secret inquirer at Mile-Two prison
to find out whether Saye was detained with us. His
father cannot still get over what he new was a murder
of his son, because he saw his son when he was leaving
for work the morning after the so-called abortive
counter coup. Soldiers who were present at the camp
that day also took the trouble to go to the family
house and explained to them what happened at Yundum
that weekend afternoon.
I personally conducted my private investigation over
the case and came out with the concrete evidence that
these men were murdered when they least expected it
from these cowards. A man like Saye would have never
dreamt about Sana Sabally taking a direct role in his
slaughtering. They were very close job associates,
sharing the same office where Saye was his deputy in
the heavy-weapons platoon. They were always together
in their small office by the fuel storeroom. Before
the coup one would easily mistaken them for brothers
given the way they used to hang closely together.
On the flip side however I think that was the reason
why Sabally freaked out after the 11th November
massacre. Killing a human being out of no justifiable
reason could be psychologically very traumatic to the
mind of the killer but when the relationship between
the killer and the victim was bonded by that human
factor bordering on friendship and love, the tragedy
turns into a clinical nightmare.
Anyway, that's another trivial story that I may come
back to in later discussions.
But as I said I started my investigation about 11th
November in the jail with special interest in Saye's
case. The first opportunity I had to know what exactly
happened was when in February surviving soldiers
arrested and accused of complicity in the counter coup
were brought to Mile-Two prisons under heavy armed
guard. The notorious Staff Sergeant Kanyi was part of
the guards. They had to be transferred from the Yundum
cells to death row at Mile Two. They were WO-2 A
Trawelleh, Sgt. N kabareh, Sgt. S. Manjang Cpl.
A.Jallow, Cpl. M. Saidykhan, L/CPL M.O. Njie, L/CPL K.
Kamara and PTE. B. Manneh.
When they were first brought in, they were so much
convinced of being lesser criminals than we were that
for a while they refused to say anything pertaining to
what bought them there. Every one of them thought his
arrest or detention was a mistake because, as far as
they were concerned, they did not have a clue about
any organized counter coup as such. As a result they
all thought sooner rather than later they were going
to go home.
Then on the22nd February, 1995, each of them received
a letter from Baboucarr Jatta's office (then army
commander) warning them to brace up for a general
court martial scheduled to start on 25th February
1995. That was to say that they had barely thirty
hours to face a court martial on charges of treason.
For their defense, they were not allowed to have any
representation from professional legal officers or
practitioners. The following officers' names were
forwarded to them as the only available persons they
could choose their legal representatives from: Captain
M.B. Sarr, Captain S. Fofana, Captain JP Jasseh and
Lt. Seckan. These were men who were big time legal
illiterates. For the prosecution however, Justice B.
Akamba a Ghanaian solicitor was the head of the team.
It was clear to all the accused that it was after all
a kangaroo court martial that awaited them and they
also knew that Baboucarr Jatta was a genius at it. It
was a lost course to all of them.
That was the time they really started talking. By the
time they were hastily tried, found guilty and all
sentenced to nine years imprisonment with hard labor,
they had told us everything they witnessed and knew
about the murder of their colleagues.
Most of them were arrested after Barrow, Faal and
Nyang were killed but well before Saye was arrested.
They were in the Yundum cells when Saye reported for
work the following morning and was placed under arrest
by the military police. Every clothes he was wearing
(he was in working uniform) was taken off him and was
left with only his underwear before the military
police forced him to join them in the cells. He was
stunned and tried to ask for explanation but was
simply told that the orders came from the council
members of the government. Who were they? Of course
the cowards: Yaya Jammeh, Sana Sabally, Edward
Singhateh, Sadibou Haidara and Yankuba Touray.
Anyway like all of them who were detained Saye had
felt that the error would be corrected and that he
would soon be set free.
Then the next day while Major Frazer Joof, commander
of the military police unit was taking their
statements at the military police office, they
received orders to stop the investigation and send
them back to the cells. They were informed that the
council members were at the officer's mess discussing
their fate. It was lunchtime, so they decided to have
their meals. Half way in their eating they heard some
strange movements out side. Then a voice they could
not recognized started calling for all those officers
arrested to come out now. Sorting out the officers
from the other ranks was, according to them, very
scary.
All the officers were handcuffed the moment they
stepped outside. Then they loaded them like sheep in
the back of an army Land Rover and covered them with
tarpaulin.
The windows of the cells at Yundum were not quite
high, so those in the cells could clearly view the
activities going on outside. It was from there that
they saw the convoy of council members departing with
the officers including Saye. Baboucarr Jatta was with
them too.
For two to three hours they sat in silence praying and
hoping that things were not really what they thought
they were, until they heard the convoy roaring back
into the camp with the green tarpaulins all soaked in
blood. They drove them back to the toilet area where
they stayed for another twenty to thirty minutes. Then
they came back and called for Sgt. E.M. Ceesay and
Sgt. Basiru Camara to follow them to the back. Few
minutes later they heard burst of automatic gunfire
twice. They were the last two to be murdered. It was a
nightmare of unprecedented proportion that shocked
every person with human emotion that evening.
The second part of my investigation, which filled in
the blank spaces left by the accused men, was
completed when I was freed from detention after ten
months. After being released and reinstated back to
the army, I eventually became very close to Baboucarr
Jatta who in his non-stop effort to clear himself of
any wrong doing that day told me the missing details.
Anyhow taking stock of what Jatta had in mind could be
extremely elusive. Sometimes he would echo as if Lt.
Barrow had really planned a coup; but at other time it
is as if, the AFPRC government, in order to eliminate
the officers and soldiers who felt they betrayed the
nation and the army, framed everybody. For example
when Lt. Barrow was arrested that night, Jatta's
explanation was that he had found him surrounded by
Sabally and his guards after he was severely beaten
up. He said that Sabally showed him a list of names of
government officials Barrow and his partners had
planned to execute if they had succeeded. His name
Jatta was on top of the list.
But he said upon scrutinizing the paper he had
discovered that the list was forged to justify their
desire to execute them. As a matter of fact, he
confirmed the forgery in the paper when he noticed
that his own name on top was quickly scribbled in
pencil while the whole list was in ink. He said he
took the list from Sabally and walked up to Barrow and
asked him why he wanted to kill him. But as soon as
Barrow started swearing that he did not mean to kill
anybody, Sabally turned around and hit him on the
mouth with the wooden butt of his AK47 rifle, breaking
all his front teeth.
"The torture they subjected Barrow and Faal to", Jatta
had said, "even if they were not shot and killed
finally, they would have most likely died from their
injuries".
Jatta also explained how all those arrested were later
taken to Mile-Two prisons first and then to Fajara
Barracks that night for execution during which a good
number of them took the risk and ran away into the
dark. Almost all of them escaped to Cassamance
including Lt. Minteh, Lt. Jarju Lt. Bah Lt. L.F.
Jammeh, Sgt Jadama, Sgt. Joof and others. The dash for
freedom happened when the captives were forced in line
at the middle of the field and then ordering some
selected soldiers to open fire on them in a typical
military execution style. Three times the order was
given, and three time the soldiers aimed and fired
above the heads of the victims. Then Edward Singhateh
soon got frustrated with the firing team, walked up to
where Barrow was standing, held him by the wrist,
pulled him away from everyone and then fired two shots
at him. One bullet hit Barrow on the leg and the fatal
one went through his ribs. He fell down on the ground
kicking and moaning until his whole body was reduced
to weak involuntary twitching of his muscles here and
there.
"It was then that everybody woke up to the reality
that they were dealing with real killers", said Jatta.

There was total chaos. Some running for their lives
others dumb founded by Singhateh's action while most
of the soldiers suffered total shock. However, Faal
was unable to move because of the injuries he had
sustained that crippled him altogether. The bullet
that finished him was fired from the late Sadibou
Haidara's handgun. After that Staff Sergeant Kanyi was
left with his sadistic pleasure of pumping more brass
into poor Faal's body.
However let us not forget that in the heat of all this
commotion, Lt. Gibril Saye was at home perhaps helping
his wife nurse the three-week old son they just had.
So to even say that he was seen that night around
anywhere the coup was staged was ridiculous much more
being killed in a firefight that night as the cowards
tried to sell to the world. With the number of
soldiers supposedly killed in that single incident
that night, it is practically impossible or mind
boggling to imagine that it was a fire fight where all
the enemies were shot and killed while no one in the
friendly forces got a scratch on him. That must have
been the cause of the bitterness from Saye's family
members especially from his dad.
It should have also been a wake up call to the entire
Gambian population that the so-called soldiers of
difference were nothing but sadists with death. But as
Dampha rightly put it the civilian population in most
cases hardly show any interest in what happens in the
army or have little sympathy to the soldiers in active
service. The general concept is that they are all the
same, so whatever may happen among them good or bad is
their own business. On the contrary, most soldiers are
ordinary people, the typical Gambian type who sees his
work as a source of earning income. Although the
salary is very limited, the majority work hard to
manage their lives with it, get married, raise and
support good families hoping to survive the danger of
being killed in the job or avoid the evil of killing
unnecessarily until such time when they finish their
signed contracts and leave for something better.
However, talking about the summarily execution at
Yundum in which Saye was murdered Jatta had explained
it all in the way he experienced it. As it was
weekend, he said he was at home when he received a
call from an officer at Yundum Barracks reporting the
presence of the council members at the officers' mess.
And the way things appeared they did not seem to mean
any good towards the arrested officers and soldiers in
the cells. He immediately drove to the camp and found
them in the mess as reported. When he entered, they
instantly stopped talking. But after a short while
they informed him of their decision to execute
everybody in the cells for their role in trying to
overthrow their government.
According to Jatta, he tried to talk them against the
idea in every way to no avail. At one time he said he
almost got Sabally, the vice-chairman then, to
understand, but Singhateh called Yaya at the state
house to inform him about the situation. When
Singhateh returned from making the call at an office
close to the mess, he said that Yaya's decision was
final-death for all the officers.
That was when everybody moved out to get the officers
from the cells. It was lunchtime just like the
survivors inside the cells explained it later at Mile
Two.
Anyway everything was the same except that those in
the cells missed what happened in the killing process.
When the officers were handcuffed and covered with
tarpaulin in the back of the Land Rover, Staff
Sergeant Kanyi was ordered to ride with them at the
back.
By the time they arrived at the execution ground
behind Njamby Forest, Kanyi had severely hurt most of
them with bayonet stabs all over their bodies. He was
that instruction to Kanyi originated from Singhateh.
Jatta had claimed to have followed them all the way to
the killing field to put more pressure on them and to
still try to talk them out of it.  Well, he must have
done a perfectly disgusting job in convincing them not
to kill, anyway.
The officers were as soon as they arrived at the
ground lined up in a firing-squad formation to be
shot. It was another tense moment where it appeared as
if everyone was waiting for the other person to
commence the shooting. Then as if it was an accidental
discharge from Kanyi's weapon who was standing very
close to Singhateh, he fired straight at the officers
hitting Saye and killing him instantly. After that, it
was a matter of finishing the rest since one had
already died. It was the final green light for the
butchering orgy to start.
Jatta went on to explain how confused the council
members felt when the killing was all over. They were
altogether confused with what to do with the bodies.
They finally arrived at the stupid decision to have
their guards bury the corpse in the bushes somewhere.
Jatta said he talked them against that for fear that
people will soon find the bodies. That was how they
were eventually taken to Yundum Barracks, to the
toilets.
He talked about how Sgt. E.M.Ceesay and Sgt. Basirou
Camara were also killed that day. He could
particularly remember Lance Corporal Batch Jallow,
Singhateh's driver at the time pulling the trigger on
those two.
He further gave the gruesome details of how Saye's
long legs (he was about 6ft. 8ins. tall) could not fit
in the ditch together with the others and how Kanyi
and co used a machete to cut off his legs before
force-fitting the body in the mass grave. It was the
mother of all evil that I know the culprits will
account for someday. It is hard to comprehend how
brutal these demons were on people who did not hurt
anyone in their existence. Why was it impossible for
anyone among them to stand up and say that this must
stop, for it is all-wrong? Where was god in the hearts
of these GAMBIANS?
Jatta said Saye's father made a final attempt to know
about the fate of his son after Sana Sabally and
Sadibou Haidara fell victims of their own creation on
the 27th of January 1995. He had gone to the ministry
of defense to ask Singhateh but the old man was
referred to his office at the army headquarters. All
that the father wanted to know was whether his son was
dead or alive. He said he frankly told him to give it
up in ever seeing his son alive again because he was
really dead.
The old man, he said, thanked him for the information
and left with high emotions.
Now back to where I stopped in my last piece COUP IN
GAMBIA.
For a brief flashback, I was part of the team of the
American guests visiting the vice president's office
when a GNA officer at the state house told me about
the soldiers at Yundum Barracks on their way to Banjul
to overthrow the PPP government. However, because of
my duty that day to escort the guests upstairs to Mr.
Sahou Sabally's office, I tried to calmly perform it
without raising any alarms. Yet I was very worried.
The whole thing was really scary.
Upstairs, Mr. Sabally welcomed the team in few nice
words and then said. "Gentlemen, I am afraid to inform
you that we just received a report that the soldiers
at Yundum Barracks were on a rampage again".
He had sounded as if the matter was a familiar thing
that may die out soon. It was pretty much possible
that Mr. Sabally had thought that it was one of those
demonstrations from Yundum again which the TSG could
stop like they did before. Whether Mr. Sabally
understood the imbalance of power between the two
forces caused by the Nigerians lately could be
anyone's guess. Whatever he was thinking at that
moment, he appeared very calm about the matter.
Anyway Mr. Winters the ambassador before stepping into
the office immediately asked whether it was not better
for them to go back to the ship until the situation
was under control then they come back. The vice
president insisted that there was no need for that. He
told them to stay indicating that it was possible that
their help may be needed. While they stepped into the
office, I took permission to go and find out what was
going on. It was granted.
Downstairs, the same officer who first announced the
trouble at Yundum was still at the spot I left him. I
wanted him to tell me more about what he had heard and
whether it was not mistaken for the exercise rehearsal
the GNA was supposed to hold with the American marines
that morning.
It was not a rehearsal or anything like that. The way
they got the report, the soldiers had broken into the
armory sharing all the weapons among them and were
coming down to Banjul. Asked whether names of any
leaders were mention in the report, he said no. I did
not know whether it was only the other ranks again
like the past two demonstrations before or whether the
officers were part it this time.
I looked at the state house environment again
especially the security situation and felt very
insecure there. I had my office there and had been
working there for almost two years but the officers
and other ranks of the presidential guards were like
clowns. These people never trained, did not understand
section, company or battalion battle drills. They did
not know the difference between camouflage and
concealment in the language of battlefield tactic.
Combat fitness did not exist in their vocabulary. They
were overfed, better paid than all the security forces
in the country, spoiled and generally very rude
towards GNA officers. Their only reserved powers were
linked to the crazy "jujus" they carried in abundance
making think that they were bulletproof charms. The
charms were only for bluffing, because if they had
strongly believed in those powers the majority would
not have thrown their weapons at the last minute and
jumped over the tall state house fence and disappeared
into Banjul. Those who remained, Musa Jammeh and
others, simply opened the gates and surrendered. But
how could we blame them if their main commander who
should have taken charge of the critical situation
Captain Lamin Kaba Bajo chose to abandon the camp and
joined former president Jawara on board the USS Lamour
County? What was there to protect in a president who
had lost his nation? Perhaps if he had stayed the
majority of his men would not have had the nerve to
run away with their tails between their legs. What
else would you expect from such men, anyway? I knew
that staying with the state guard was unwise or even
suicidal. Beside, they only had AK47 rifles and most
of them hardly used their weapons for training or
anything.
If it was true that the soldiers had actually broken
into the armory, I thought, and were bent on taking
the country by force, there was no force that could
challenge them in the country. The GNA armory was jam
packed with super deadly weapons such as the RPG-7s,
AAMGs, 81MM and 60MM mortars that excluded the medium
range machine guns and the Chinese-type LMGs.
Truthfully the GNA was not quite trained on how to
employ these weapons in combat, but I know by merely
firing them at the direction of any enemy force not
exposed to even the sound that comes out of their
barrels was enough to chase them away or make them
surrender.
I therefore told the officer what I believed could
have been a possible way of pulling something. The
Gambia Marine, commanded by Major Antouman Saho had
new 50 Caliber machine guns delivered by the Americans
that very morning for the patrol boat. The firepower
of those weapons were enough to make the soldiers from
Yundum to listen if fired back to them out of
necessity. The ballistics of their projectiles has the
capability of piercing six inches of homogeneous steel
and was meant to kill armor in battlefields. They are
so deadly that there in an international law
forbidding anyone from shooting it directly at humans.
With the men at the Gambia Marine who had some pretty
good experience with similar weapons of the Chinese
type mounted on some of their other patrol boats, it
was possible to assemble a counter force that could
challenge the soldiers from Yundum.
The gentleman agreed with my analogy; hence I took off
to the Marine Unit base.
Major Saho was there, but he would not buy my idea. He
was in his office and was fully aware of what was
going on but had put it to me that he did not even
want his men to know about the coup situation because
he did not trust them.  " I don't want to have
anything to do with this trouble", he had continued.
"Was it not the Nigerians who were being paid fat
salaries to defend the country? Let's leave things
with them to solve."
Nothing was going to make him involve himself in the
problem or his men or weapons for that matter.
Anyway when I heard him talking to the concerned
citizens calling him from various offices in the
country asking to know what was going on, and he kept
on assuring them that special plans were underway to
arrest the situation, then I realized that I was at
the wrong place. Banjul was an island and the last
thing I wanted was to be cornered in the city in an
armed conflict. After all most of our family members
were at the other side of the bridge. I decided to
drive alone via Bond Road towards Yundum. I had had no
reason to fear any soldier from there. As for the
officers, leaving the Nigerians out, there were Major
Davis, second in command of the battalion, Captain
Badjie (now colonel) commanding "C" company, Captain
Sonko Commanding "B" company, Captain Johnson, AHQ
Camp, Captain Dibba Band, the late Captain Baldeh
Band, Lt. Ndure Cham (now major) engineering section,
late Lt. Barrow MT section, Lt. Sheriff Gomez,
battalion adjutant, Lt. Yaya Jammeh MP commander, Lt.
Mbye platoon commander, 2LT Haidara platoon commander
and 2lt Singhateh, platoon commander. 2Lt Sabally was
supposed to be at Farafenni at his new parent unit.
Going by anything in the past present or even future,
I could not see what I could have done wrong to any
soldiers or officers for me to be treated otherwise
than with respect and understanding. Terrible thinking
in a coup situation, as I learnt later.
In the first place, I was later made to understand
that Major Antouman Saho had reported me to all the
council members that I went to the marine unit to get
his weapons to counter the coup but that he drove me
away because the coup was an absolute necessity. That,
I suspect, contributed to my arrest and detention four
days later. Betrayal by people you trust is another
coup malady. So in trying to draw some basic
principles for any soldier caught in a coup situation,
my first ones will include this one: NEVER TRUST ANY
PERSON IN UNIFORM AROUND YOU.
However, my trip to Yundum stopped at Denton Bridge,
where the TSG commanded on the ground by Majors
Chongan and Swareh were making frantic efforts to
prevent the soldiers from crossing over.
I will deal with that crucial encounter next week.
In the mean time I want to commend all of you in the
struggle for your tireless efforts to liberate the
Gambia. This is a fight for freedom, and I know that
we are winning one battle after another but the war is
yet to be finished. Dampha, Saul, Kujabi, Hamjatta,
Jabou, Conteh, Joe, Ebrima, edrissa, Jobe, the
Movements in NY and Uk and all those combatants in the
front line, I salute you for your diligence and
endurance to sustain the struggle. I also want to take
a special moment to welcome an impressive new member,
abdou touray, whose contribution is so far fantastic.
Keep up the great work. We shall win.

Ebou Colly





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