THE FARAFENNI DEADLY
ATTACK- THE ACTORS

It was about 9.00 am Greenwich mean time on the 6th of
November 1996 when I first got the shocking news that
Farafenni Barracks was attacked, captured and occupied
by armed rebels on a mission to overthrow the AFPRC
government. The whole thing did not make much sense to
me because on a reasonable note no Gambian in his
right mind would want to start with attacking and
occupying Farafenni military Barracks on an operation
to overthrow the Gambia government that was basically
entrenched far away in Banjul.
I was actually in Brussels that morning as part of a
government delegation that flew from a mission in
North Korea via Moscow on our way home. Edward
Singhateh was still the Minister of Defense of the
AFPRC and the head of our six-man delegation on that
trip. He was also devastated by the surprising
information.
Harry Sambou was the Deputy Director General of the
NIA at the time and was the very person who phoned us
at Brussels about the attack. At that moment, Harry
did not know what the heck had really happened at
Farafenni Barracks but as typical of the NIA they had
already started reporting an inaccurate story that the
attackers were Sheriff Gomez (ex-lieutenant GNA) and
the few security detainees who were recently released
from Mile Two Prisons. After all these poor men were
with their families after spending almost two years in
jail for nothing wrong they had done.
However it was when we landed at Leopold Sedar
Senghore's Airport in Dakar that evening, that Mr.
Njogou Bah the former Gambian ambassador in Senegal
told us what began to sound sensible about the real
attack and the attackers. The NIA had lied about
Sheriff Gomez and co as being behind the attack.
According to Mr. Bah, the little they had gathered
about them revealed that they were Gambians okay, but
who throughout spoke English, Mandinka but mostly
Arabic. They attacked the camp that dawn in an unknown
number. However they had struck with a murderous
instinct shooting and killing six unsuspecting
soldiers and wounding about an equal number before
finally trying to leave with all the weapons and
ammunition in the battalion. A combined force composed
of men from Yundum Barracks and the State Guard were
deployed through the North Bank Division to go and
dislodge the attackers. They met them around Kerewan.
The GNA troops opened fire on the attackers who were
holding the commanding officer Captain Biran Saine
hostage. But instead of fighting, they ran northbound
crossing the border to Senegal. Mr. Bah had assured us
that the Senegalese government had promised to assist
the Gambia in every way possible to capture those
attackers who fled into their territory.
By the time we touched down at Yundum Airport, the
whole military activities surrounding the seemingly
meaningless attack and killing was over. Normalcy was
restored at Farafenni Barracks but we were left with
corpse of six young fine soldiers who perhaps died not
understanding what had gone wrong that day. The only
thing they may have noticed was the strange presence
of armed civilians running around their camp shooting
and killing anyone on sight.
What nobody knew about at that time was that only Yaya
Jammeh, Abdou Joof and General Wane had something to
do with that surprise attack at Farafenni camp. The
whole operational order mapped out by Kukoi Samba
Sanyang, Yaya's one time hero was sitting in a drawer
at the State House with Farafenni being the first
target. The Senegalese authorities had handed over the
documents to Yaya about three months before when the
political game they were toying with between Yaya and
Kukoi backfired in their hands. Yaya could not deal
with it; so he decided to sit on the national security
secret document thinking as he usually does that the
whole embarrassing matter will quietly fade out.
If he had acted with a little more commonsense which
he fatally lacks in this case, he would have warned
the GNA to be aware of the possible attack. That would
have put the Farafenni soldiers on a better alert
footing than how they were found that dawn. But Yaya
alone knew in The Gambia and kept it to himself.
For everybody to get the entire implications of that
political blunder I must take you stage by stage on
the investigation results that exposed every element
of it.
A brief flashback into the early days of the AFPRC
government might help to refresh our memories on the
cardinal cause of the political game played between
former President Abdou Joof and Yaya Jammeh that
resulted in that disaster. In those early days when
Yaya began his political rallies aimed at justifying
the overthrow of the PPP government, his keynote
speeches were strongly punctuated with
pro-kukoi-anti-Senegal rhetoric. Yaya had hammered it
over and over from one platform to another -in Banjul,
The Kombos, and The Fonis all across the length and
breath of the nation- that it was the Senegalese who
actually brought mass graves in The Gambia. That they,
the Senegalese armed forces in particular had no right
to intervene in the 1981 abortive coup staged by Kukoi
Samba Sanyang. That Senegal unlawfully sent their
troops to rescue the already illegitimatized PPP
government in which innocent Gambians resisting the
occupying forces were murdered in uncountable numbers
and buried in mass graves. Yaya's antagonistic posture
against Senegal at that time was a major concern to
those who understood the dent that it could cause to
the peaceful coexistence of Senegalo-Gambian political
relationship.
Actually by then, Abdou Joof in a lengthy telephone
conversation he had had with Yaya through the efforts
of the then Senegalese Ambassador in The Gambia
Mucktarr Kebbeh assured him that Senegal would have
nothing to do with the coup against Jawara this time.
That was three days after the coup when word was going
round that Senegal was planning to intervene as they
had done in 1981. That telephone chat between Yaya and
Abdou that day which lasted for about 25 minutes was
the friendliest conversation one could imagine between
the two. Perhaps historians would one day lay their
hands on that tape because I was positive from the way
the Senegalese put us through the line that they were
recording every sentence uttered between Yaya and
Abdou. It was the  first time Abdou Joof and Yaya
spoke.
However Yaya all from the blue soon seemed to forget
about the nice things he had said to Abdou Joof on how
the new military government was inclined to forge a
far better relationship between the two sister states
than Jawara cared to do. It was literally telling
Abdou Joof all the great things he wanted to hear
about himself and the entire bad thing he also wanted
to hear about Jawara and the PPP government. But Yaya
later started an anti -Senegalese campaign linking
Abdou Joof to almost all the crimes committed by the
Jawara government especially the role he played in
coming to the military aid of the PPP government in
1981. Those days cannot be forgotten. Yaya gave it to
Abdou hard and cold on every platform.
However in early 1996, Yaya suddenly stopped attacking
the Senegalese and the role they played in the 1981
abortive coup by Kukoi (let us not forget about the
part played by Mr. Sorry Cheyassin in that coup).
Effective journalism may have been able to relate that
moment to exactly that period when General Wane, Abdou
Joof's one time most trusted officer, started
shuttling back and forth from Senegal for special
undisclosed meetings with Yaya.  Those special
undisclosed meetings between Yaya and General Wane
were the deadly secret negotiations Senegal had
volunteered to initiate to ensure that Kukoi Samba
Sanyang was pardoned for all the crimes he had been
accused of committing and allowing him to come back
home to The Gambia.
Yaya was thrilled about it. You may remember when Yaya
announced that Kukoi and all his accomplices in the
1981 coup were officially pardoned and could come back
home to help in the new nation building? That was the
peak of the secret fatalistic moment. Even Yaya's
closest associates then, for example Edward Singhateh
the vice-chairman and minister of defense at the time,
did not know.
The next thing that happened was Kukoi being invited
to Senegal where the political game finally backfired
in their hands.
CHECK FOR MY NEXT PIECE FOR MORE FACTS.

Ebou Colly.






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