Brother Colly:

I am so proud of you my brother, for you have vividly demonstrated to your
critics that your very fine INTEGRITY and HONESTY is second to none, and
more fundamentally, you have also clearly illustrated to every Gambian and
the entire international community that your conscience was absolutely clear
in regards to the PIVOTAL role you have played in tirelessly trying to QUILL
the coup by putting your life on the line that day. Frankly, reading your
part 4, one could see that you are calling it as you saw it in the earlier
hours of the coup, no extras and no minuses, period. In that way, my
brother, you have polished your very fine integrity, further.

Furthermore, you have pinpointed to all of us that human beings are
sometimes very untrustworthy and difficult to do business with. As you have
plainly lamented in your piece, DEAD VULTURES and DISHONEST OFFICERS like
ANTUMAN SAHO were not the right officers to be entrusted with the ultimate
responsibility of defending and securing all the things we rightly value as
a nation. It was unfortunate that Tax Payer dollars had been expended on
TRAINING vultures like ANTUMAN SAHO, who had later betrayed the trust
bestowed on them. These Officers will some day be brought to justice for
their evil deeds.

My brother, I cannot conclude without lamenting on the SECURITY IMBALANCE
between the GENDARMERIE TSG and the ARMY. This was  a costly error on the
part of the JAWARA Security Advisory Team, who were solely in charge of
advising the former President. This Security Advisory Team too should also
take a share of the blame for the coup. This was due to the fact that they
created the IMBALANCE between the two forces. Consequently, the ARMY was
more equipped than the TSG which supposed to counter the activities of the
ARMY in the event of crisis. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Because of
lack of SECURITY IMBALANCE in countries like NIGERIA and GHANA, there used
to be easy military take over; unlike in most franco phone countries, for
instance Senegal, where the GENDARMERIE is even more equipped than the ARMY,
coups hardly come by, with the exception of Ivory Coast. I am not trying to
INSINUATE here that those countries where security imbalance is
non-existence, coups will never happen; no, that is not the idea I am
advancing. What I am trying to put across here is that if there had been no
imbalance between the TSG and the ARMY in the early hours of the coup at
DENTON BRIDGE, the TSG under COMMANDER CHONGAN's command could have halted
the ARMY'S advance at the juncture, but lack of heavy offensive weapons to
counter the ARMY made life difficult for COMMANDER CHONGAN's men, and as a
result, the TSG was over powered by the ARMY.

In conclusion, my brother, I do hope that after situations are normalized,
who ever takes charge of the country, MUST re-consider this SECURITY
IMBALANCE between the two forces, otherwise, our beautiful and innocent
country will soon experience another instability, which we do not want to
envisage. People who used to advise the former President on security matters
had failed us miserably. Stability is the central determinant of stable
economic growth and development in any country, whether powerful or not.
Even in the United states and Great Britain two of the powerful and
developed countries in the World, if instability crops in, they will very
soon loose all the things they rightly value as nations. Therefore, WE in
the Gambia too need PERSISTENT STABILITY, so that PEACE, TRANQUILITY,
DEMOCRACY, and PERSISTENT ECONOMIC GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT will have time to
flourish. On that note brother Colly, you have eloquently highlighted a
fundamental flaw in our country's security system. Once again, thanks for
another wonderful piece.

Ansuaman.




>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: COUP IN GAMBIA FOUR
>Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 14:56:21 -0700
>
>                                            COUP IN
>GAMBIA FOUR
>I want to briefly look at Kebba Jobe's statement on my
>last piece before proceeding to the next segment of my
>story. Kebba wrote:
>"On the alleged cold-blooded murder of some members of
>our security forces,
>The only tangible explanations given so far have been
>the official version
>and Ebou Colly's recent report. Now the question is
>which version is true?
>Why has Ebou Colly's version surfacing almost 6 years
>later? Could any of
>you have imagined that the picture he painted about
>this fateful day and
>the following day could have really taken place in the
>Gambia of all places?"
>Actually it seemed as if Dampha took most of the words
>I had in mind for Jobe's statement directly from my
>mouth. So I thank you Mr. Dampha very much for telling
>Jobe the facts. Without doubt I was going to ask Jobe
>where he was during that massacre to have missed the
>fact that several family members of the affected
>victims came forward to deny his government's
>"tangible explanation" that the soldiers were killed
>in a firefight. Gibril Saye's father walked to the
>Daily Observer's office to explain that his son was
>nowhere near a firefight at the stated time of
>fighting. Lieutenant (Nyancho) Manneh's wife openly
>refused to formally mourn his husband because as far
>as the facts were, her husband was in bed with her at
>the time of the so-called fighting. Lieutenant Bah's
>parents in Bakau explained to the world the details of
>how their child was arrested from his house  hours
>after the stated firefight.
>My friend you may be right to ask why it took Colly
>6years to tell this story, but to ignore the
>challenging versions to the official one given by the
>Jammeh government on that event tantamount to
>evasiveness.  For it was not six years, not six
>months, six weeks or six days, but less than six hours
>after the massacre, that affected Gambian families
>started telling their version of what happened which
>of course totally contradicted the official one. Were
>you not aware of any of those family members' protest
>or you just decided not to include them in your
>selection of "tangible explanations"?  The only thing
>that would make sense to me would be perhaps if you
>could say that you were not in the country then. And
>if that is the case, that you were actually not in the
>country at the time, then I am afraid to say that we
>in the opposition in the G-L are dealing with a rather
>snaky character here. What kind of a person would be
>so confident in the way you projected your self by
>stating that sweeping generalization without having a
>clue on the subject matter? In cases like yours I am
>just left baffled beyond reasoning. By the way, before
>I forget, tell me honestly Mr. Jobe, you were pulling
>our legs about madam's weeping on the massacre,
>weren't you? Responding in the affirmative will again
>make more sense to me than otherwise.
>  Mr. Jobe, the trouble is that so many people who
>could have helped in putting things in their right
>perspective had chosen at the time to ignore the facts
>or were blinded by self preservation, individual
>interests, or still perhaps by fear and shock. But Mr.
>Jobe you know how small The Gambia is and how
>incidents like this, despite their intended secrecy
>could spread rapidly from one mouth to another until
>the whole truth comes to the open. Anyway I think you
>have made a brilliant try in casting some doubt in the
>minds of some of my readers despite the twisted
>argument you presented. I can't believe that for the
>past six years since the government came up with their
>"tangible explanation" that this is the first time you
>ever heard about a contradicting version.  As a matter
>of fact my story simply elaborated on the gruesome
>details but the opposing views were there to every
>statement forwarded about the phony coup plot from day
>one.
>But Jobe let's say that it was after all a fair battle
>between your forces and that of the victims in which
>everyone in the latter group was killed while all your
>men survived without a scratch on their bodies. What's
>the point in dumping their bodies in toilet pits
>instead of letting their families recover the corpses
>and burying them in regular graveyards. Or was there a
>more "tangible explanation" you could share with us
>from the government's side about what they did with
>those mangled bodies? There is another point that we
>could zoom under the microscope in Sabally's first
>statement at radio Gambia the morning after the
>killing of Barrow and Faal. It might help a bit in our
>reasoning pattern here. Did you know that the only
>persons Sabally mentioned that day as the men killed
>were Barrow and Faal? Did you ever ask why he did not
>mention the rest?  It's a simple answer my friend,
>because up to that moment, only those two were killed.
>Hello! Are you with me?
>I was going to further ask you how you again missed
>the comprehensive story I wrote about this massacre
>last year when Almamo Manneh and Dumbuya were killed;
>but then I quickly figured that the name Kebba Jobe
>did not exist in the List then.  That would have at
>least reduced it to less than 5 instead of the 6-
>year-waiting period you tried to castigate me for. .
>Anyway let me try to answer that question of what took
>me so long- 6 years. I have been collecting every
>piece of information about the coup in The Gambia
>since July 22nd 1994 for one special purpose, to tell
>it. If you were to find out from my fellow officers
>they would have told you that I was one person who
>constantly told them that this story, by one way or
>the other, must be heard by everybody reachable in the
>future. I even made mention of my present efforts to
>publish my memoirs in the form of a book which I am
>still working on.  Anyway I only hope ten years from
>now, if my book is published it would not fail Jobe's
>historical test of time in Yaya's political
>phenomenon. And the one satisfying thing about this
>entire thing is that I am one singular soldier blessed
>with the ability and means of telling the truth. You
>may not, but as for me, I believe in life beyond the
>grave. So I think up there wherever they are, the
>souls of Barrow, Faal, Saye, Manneh, Bah and others
>are appreciative of my efforts in letting the world
>know. When sanity returned to The Gambia some day
>soon, perhaps you will be there to see their bodies
>exhumed in separate pieces of bones. I am strongly
>convinced that if it had not been for these great
>souls we the detainees may have never left the jail
>alive. It was because of these men's protests and open
>disagreement to the regime's desire to harm us that we
>were saved in the end. They actually died for us. We
>were marked for execution on Captain Valentine
>Strasser's advice.  This is serious, Strasser the then
>military leader in Sierra Leone had advised the
>council members to do to us what he did to his
>detainees in Freetown-shoot us all. And they had
>almost done so, thanks to those soldiers who showed
>them that the evil idea was unacceptable. Jobe, you
>don't know what in this world you are toying with. But
>let's just remember that no condition is permanent
>except change it self.
>God I wish you are the person people think you are. A
>lot of people think you are Sarjor Jallow. I really
>don't know about that. But let's say you are not, how
>would you feel about Sarjor falling victim of your own
>crimes tomorrow? Will you be able to live with that?
>People without conscience or lack the faith in god
>shall never see what I am driving at here.
>If your curiosity however gets into you that bad to
>where you want to obsessively know everything about
>this massacre from Baboucarr Jatta in particular, I
>got some tips for you. Find a good steak restaurant
>and invite the voracious army boss to dinner with
>enough meat and bread to feed half a dozen men and
>then probe him for any secret of the AFPRC/APRC
>government. He would spill his guts on every drop of
>saliva that flows from his mouth. The Senegalese
>military officers were fully aware of this secret
>weakness about the gluttonous chief-of staff and had
>used it on several occasions to collect classified
>information from the buffoon. Yaya himself knows about
>this in his main man, but as a Jola and a minimal
>threat to him anything goes with Jatta.
>Anyway Mr. Jobe you know why I can relate to your
>views or personality?  You remind me of people who
>have long since died and while alive never wavered
>from their conviction that NAZI Germany never
>persecuted any Jews and that Adolf Hitler was the
>greatest leader in the world.  So you may carry on,
>god is watching.
>Back to the events of 22nd July 1994, I was on my
>journey from the marine unit in Banjul via Bond Road
>to Yundum Barracks after Major Antouman Saho would not
>buy my hasty tactical blueprint. It was about 10.00 am
>and the first sign I read to indicate that things had
>totally gone wrong was the eerie manner in which the
>Banjul-Kombo highway was virtually deserted at that
>time.  Not a single  thing was in motion on the road
>except my car. It was an absolute sign of trouble
>ahead. I was in goose pimples from head to toe not
>knowing what the heck was ahead.
>Then I arrived at Denton Bridge. There I realized why
>the road was so quiet. The TSG had closed the bridge
>in the same way they did two years ago when they
>successfully stopped the demonstrating ECOMOG soldiers
>from entering Banjul. It looked like they were in two
>defensive positions. A detachment had dug in under the
>supervision of Major Swareh (a captain at the time) at
>the foot of the bridge on the Kombo end facing the
>advancing GNA troops who were about two hundred meters
>away. The second detachment was positioned at what was
>very close to the center of the bridge, under Major
>Chongan's command.
>I had to park my car at the foot of the bridge on the
>Banjul end and ran to Major Chongan without even
>taking the keys or closing the door.
>The major was in total rage with the GNA. His words
>were sharp and uncompromising. He put it to me that
>their tolerance for the army's misbehavior had been
>exhausted and that the bridge was closed with a final
>warning to any GNA personnel to risk being shot if
>anyone attempted to cross it, especially with arms.
>Despite his inferior weapons, I could sense that he
>was prepared to battle it out with the soldiers.
>At that moment I did not know that a short while
>before my arrival the major had already fired warning
>shots to the soldiers at the other end to show them
>that he meant business.
>Anyway I was able to reason with him to allow me to go
>and talk to the soldiers before any fighting was
>started. The men around him did not trust me.He later
>confessed to me that they had recommended that he
>allowed them to arrest me if I tried to cross the
>bridge. But I appealed to Major Chongan telling him
>the odds in winning a battle against the GNA with the
>light weapons they had at their disposal.
>My appearance, i.e. the number two office uniform I
>was wearing might have helped in convincing him that I
>was not part of anything close to the GNA coup
>operation. Soldiers ready for combat would usually
>wear battle-dressed uniforms (BDU). I was in full
>office uniform that day.
>I warned him to go back to Banjul and try to get the
>weapons at the marine unit. "I was there", I told him,
>"but I couldn't convince Major Saho to get them out".
>Beside, they knew that I was determined to cross the
>bridge, come what may.
>When I took off with all those weapons pointed at my
>back, I prayed to god aloud to help me survive the
>crazy situation.
>Chongan, I later understand, immediately returned to
>Banjul and was able to go to the Marine Unit with the
>Nigerian military adviser, Kebba Ceesay, Director
>General then NSS and now in the same position as D.G.
>NIA and Lamin Kabba Bajo the commander of the
>presidential guard at the time. According to Chongan,
>Saho refused to see them when they sought to meet him.
>It took about a good two hundred meters or more of
>running before I reached the soldiers on the other
>side. I also learnt from them that the only thing that
>saved me from being shot when they saw me galloping
>towards them was that some soldiers recognized me,
>plus I was not carrying any weapon. But after
>Chongan's warning shot and then suddenly they saw
>someone running towards them, they thought it was an
>assault from the TSG and had almost opened fire on me.
>Anyway to be very frank, I was never prepared for what
>I saw when the soldiers started emerging from their
>hideouts in the mangroves. I was shock to see officers
>and not ordinary soldiers as I expected. There were
>Captain Momodou Lamin Sonko, officer commanding "Bravo
>Company", Lieutenant Yaya Jammeh officer commanding
>the military police unit and Second Lieutenant Edward
>Singhateh platoon commander "Charlie Company".
>I asked them what was going on and Captain Sonko
>responded, yelling at me that it was a coup operation
>and whether I liked it or not I must join them or die.
>While verbally threatening me, Sonko kept on hitting
>me with his 9mm pistol on my chest. I was afraid it
>was going to explode and kill me. 9mm pistols are
>taboos to me because a good chunk of the bullet that
>hit me in 1988 is still lodged in my thighbone.
>Doctors had long since given up trying to remove it
>and I have now learnt to live with it. They are messy
>and very deadly.
>I was worried but I could still think straight. I told
>Sonko that I could not join in a coup that I couldn't
>understand its head or tail. Then I slammed him with
>my own threat too. I told him that the American troops
>in Banjul, twice their size in strength having all
>sorts of modern weapons including amphibious tanks
>were waiting for them. I told them that they would all
>be wiped out if they tried anything stupid.
>There Sonko lowered his weapon for the first time and
>turned to look at Yaya who was carrying more "jujus"
>than ammunition. He also loosened up in what I thought
>was a marked change of heart. Both Sonko and Yaya now
>turned to Singhateh to hear from him.
>  Amazingly throughout that encounter at the bridge,
>Yaya never said a word. But find the clown lately in
>his periodical state of delusion and he would tell you
>a lie so big about what he said or did that day that
>you would think that he alone toppled the government
>without anyone's help.
>Yet everything was Singhateh. Singhateh fired back to
>me saying that they did not care about the Americans.
>Their mission was to overthrow the PPP government and
>if the Americans decided to interfere on the
>government's side they would all die fighting them to
>the last man.
>Singhateh's bold remark and defiant position told me
>an important thing-that he was actually in charge and
>he was not prepared to give it up.. I could not reason
>out what was going on but I at least knew who the main
>person was. So I focused on him.
>I told him how unnecessary it was to start a war with
>the Americans when all they needed to do was to go
>back perhaps to Radio Gambia and announce to the
>country that their problem was not with the Americans
>but the PPP government. In that case the Americans who
>were preparing for an exercise until they were
>informed that their would-be-training partners were
>actually bent on to assaulting them would leave the
>ground back to their boat.
>Sonko tried to yell at me again but Singhateh yell
>back at him to shut up. The captain obeyed instantly.
>That brings me to principle number two of a coup
>situation. EXPECT THE COMMAND STRUCTURE TO TURN UPSIDE
>DOWN. By all indication the second lieutenant was in
>charge of both the first lieutenant and the captain.
>It was pitiful.
>Singhateh started negotiating. He wanted me to go back
>and inform the TSG personnel to stop firing and get
>out of their way or else they would open fire on them.
>
>If they had opened fire on the TSG, something I later
>realized Singhateh to have the capability of doing,
>then I am afraid the country would have never
>recovered from that crisis. And I don't think those
>sadists cared much about the preservation of the
>country's peace and stability that day.
>I agreed to go back. Sonko insisted that I must take
>along a weapon. I refused to take one. One of the
>reasons why I survived coming from that end without
>being shot at was because I was not carrying arms;
>therefore going back there armed would be totally
>suicidal.
>Singhateh agreed to my request to go back unarmed.
>It was all frightening. In the first place I could not
>imagine what happened at Yundum Barracks that morning.
>Most of the soldiers I spotted around were members of
>"C" company. Captain Badjie (now a colonel) was the de
>facto and de jure commander. Captain Sonko was the
>company commander of "B' company. Yaya was the
>commander of the MP unit, the main company responsible
>for enforcing law and order within the military
>establishment. Yet there they were, Captain Badgie was
>nowhere to be seen. What happened to the men under
>Sonko and Yaya was anybody's guess. What about the
>Nigerian battalion commander, Colonel Audu or the
>deputy commander Major Davis and all those Nigerians
>in the Barracks?  The Nigerian acting army commander
>Colonel Akoji had also disappeared with all the other
>Gambian senior officers working with him at the
>headquarters. I later learnt that most of those
>officers were locked up together with Colonel Akoji at
>his house in Kotu.  Baboucarr Jatta was  number one
>among the lot.
>Anyway the frightening thing about the whole situation
>was that Edward Singhateh a second lieutenant was in
>total command of "C" company with two other company
>commanders of different units following his command to
>the letter.
>In the end, my only thought was to get out of that
>wacky situation alive where by their looks everyone
>seemed to be under the influence of some kind of
>drugs. Yundum Barracks was then a high-narcotics-
>consuming center.
>But I kept on hammering it to them that the reason why
>the country was still in order was because everybody
>thought the GNA was on exercise. So if they were
>foolish enough to start shooting and killing people,
>it would automatically invite the criminals into an
>explosive wave of crime that they would regret ever
>started. The Americans will also be forced to defend
>themselves with everything they had if from nowhere
>they noticed their personnel on exercise expectation
>being shot at by the GNA.
>I think that, in effect, saved the day from the
>irresponsible, murderous and suicidal orders Singhateh
>would have given. When I later met him that afternoon
>he bitterly expressed his dissatisfaction to me for
>telling them that the Americans were poised to
>intervene. He said he had asked Major MacClain  as to
>why the Americans wanted to intervene but the military
>attaché denied any American involvement. Singhateh was
>upset that no fighting occurred for some lives to be
>wasted before victory. It would have been totally
>different from what he expected and might have been
>the first to die or the only one for that matter. Some
>soldiers were already mapping out looting operation.
>Some of them were arrested in Brikama taking money
>from Mauritanian shopkeepers at gunpoint.  Almost all
>of them were robbing people of their cars. Now fancy
>if the killing and dying had started until the
>criminals actively joined in the chaos.
>Anyhow that issue about the Americans intervening
>played a great part in my arrest and detention also.
>Because on the 6th of September 1994 at around 2.00am,
>am saying two months after our arrest and detention,
>the council members woke us up in our detention beds
>at Mile Two prisons for an orgy of torture. I will
>come to that horrible day later but while the beating,
>kicking and hitting with rifle butts were taking
>place, Singhateh for a moment stopped at my cell to
>give me every kind of verbal abuse he could think
>about. And every insult he uttered was punctuated with
>calling me a liar for telling them at the bridge that
>the Americans had intended to stop them. I dared not
>say a word, because with all the distance between us,
>about six to ten feet away, I could sense the heavy
>smell of alcohol from his breath. As drunk as he was
>with a klasnikov in hand, I knew better. I think from
>my cell he went to Captain Sonko's where he slapped
>him so viciously that for three days his hands were
>marked on the captain's face. That story will come at
>the right time.
>However after I started moving back to the TSG
>positions at the bridge with a deadline of 20 minutes
>from Singhateh to allow them to cross to Banjul or
>risk being fired at, I turned back and saw the
>soldiers advancing right behind me. To be honest I
>thought I was going to die. Any shot fired by mistake
>or intent would have triggered volleys of shells from
>both ends. But thank god there was no firing at all.
>However by the time I reached the bridge, Chongan had
>left for the marine unit for the arms I told him
>about. That made it easy to talk to his men who were
>under the command of Major Swareh (a captain then).
>The TSG personnel were very few, just about a section.
>It was easy to make them understand that it was better
>to talk the problem out rather than fight it out.
>Sonko still insisted that I should join them on their
>march to Banjul. There was no way I could join them on
>their way to Banjul.
>Singhateh then accepted my earlier proposal to go to
>radio Gambia and announce that the GNA was on a coup
>operation against the PPP government and that they had
>nothing to do with the Americans. It was a mission I
>readily took keeping me away from their adventure. I
>was however to be escorted by some soldiers. Six of
>them volunteered.  We took the mini-bus that brought
>the TSG to the bridge that morning.
>I spent the rest of the operation period at Radio
>Gambia with these six soldiers who were totally lost
>in what they were lured to do. They helped me a lot in
>understanding what had happened at Yundum Barracks
>that morning.  They also told me what happened to the
>Nigerian and other Gambian officers, the actual
>leaders of the coup and many more missing things.
>Next time, I will take it up from here. But next
>weekend may be too busy for me. So if you don't see
>part FIVE, expect it the following week. But it is
>possible that I may find the time to write it anyway.
>On a final note, I must commend Hamjatta on his piece
>A Dissent on Affirmative Action and Feminism.  But I
>could not have said it better than Makaveli did. Keep
>it up. You are fantastic.
>
>
>Ebou Colly
>
>
>
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>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
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>
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