All!
A very touching narrative indeed, one which should serve as a reminder to
all that our peaceful.small Gambia needs to be de-militarized and set in the
path to viable democracy. This is a considerable food for thought for all
Gambians but especially for NADD and UDP/NRP who should redouble their
efforts to remove this monsterous regime.
Alhaji
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kebba Dibba" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 9:19 PM
Subject: Brothers and sisters remember our beloved friend, husband, brother
and son Gibril Saye
> Again we are withness Yahya Jammeh leveling the ground to murder our
> brothers and sisters
> We are equally saddened 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 defence, 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 labour, 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 times 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
> follow 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 defence 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 armoury 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 armoury, I
> thought, and was bent on taking the country by force, there was no force
> that could challenge them in the country. The GNA armoury 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 was 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 armour in
> battlefields. They are so deadly that they're 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.
>
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