Dear Friends,

On this occasion of World Press Freedom Day, I am pleased to announce that 
my new small book, "Mandela's Other Children: The Diary of an African 
Journalist" is out. Attached is the cover template for the book. Signed 
copies can be purchased from the FreeGambia website at the following 
address:

http://www.freegambia.net/shop.html

The book may also be purchased directly from the publisher at:

http://www.wastelandpress.net/Mandela.html

I join all journalists in remembering our dear brother, father, uncle, 
mentor, and doyen, Deyda Hydara who was brutally murdered by gunmen on 
December 16, 2004.

Below are three of the book's forty-two chapters.

Baba



Chapter Nine

It’s been about three months since our absurd arrest over the Norwegian 
paint ad. I spent the past three days locked up incommunicado at NIA 
headquarters. Last Sunday morning, I arrived at our offices around 9:00am to 
oversee work on the Monday paper. As I walked through the gate, I noticed 
two cars packed outside and some men standing around. I recognized them 
immediately as NIA agents. The little guy wearing a black felt hat and dark 
glasses was Baba Saho, the guy who interrogated me and asked me to write a 
statement over the paint ad. I waved at them and proceeded upstairs to my 
office. Shortly after I closed the door behind me, I heard a knock and asked 
them to come in. Five men filed into the office. I exchanged greetings with 
them and asked them to sit down on the three available chairs. Three sat 
down and two leaned against the wall by the door, their hands folded on 
their chests, wearing the customary iron looks on their faces.

‘Well Mr. Jallow, we have a warrant for your arrest,’ Baba Saho said, 
looking across the desk at me behind his dark glasses.

‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘That’s interesting. And for what crime am I being 
arrested?’

Saho motioned to one of his men who stepped forward and handed me a yellow 
sheet of paper. As I read, I felt my eyes widening with disbelief. The 
warrant said I was suspected of trafficking in arms, ammunition, and drugs, 
and being in possession of dangerous documents. I could not help laughing 
out.

‘This is ridiculous,’ I said. ‘Suspected of trafficking in arms, ammunition, 
and drugs?’

‘Have you read the warrant, Mr. Jallow?’ Saho asked.

‘Yes I have,’ I said.

‘Please sign it,’ he added.

I signed the document and handed it back to him.

‘Can we search your office?’

‘Oh sure,’ I said, rising up from my desk and standing aside. Three of the 
men started rummaging the piles of paper on my desk, pulling out my drawers 
and shifting through their contents. After a while, they were through. Of 
course they did not find any arms, ammunition, or drugs.

‘Can you take us to your house, Mr. Jallow?’ Saho said.

‘No problem,’ I retorted. ‘Let me just tell my colleagues what’s going on.’

As I walked out of my office towards the newsroom, one of the men followed 
me, as if I was going to run away. I told everybody what had happened and 
asked them to make sure that the paper comes out on Monday. Then I locked my 
office and walked downstairs with the men. I was escorted into one of the 
cars, which started driving towards the city.

‘My house is in the other direction,’ I reminded Saho, who sat in the front 
seat with the driver.

‘It’s no longer necessary,’ he said. ‘We just received orders to take you 
straight to headquarters.’

I sat back in the backseat, sandwiched between two stone-faced agents. I had 
no idea why I was arrested. I knew the contents of the arrest warrant were 
simply ridiculous and not deserving of the slightest concern. And I could 
not think of any story or editorial or advertisement over the past week or 
so that could have led to my arrest. But then in our country, the NIA do not 
need any good reason to arrest somebody and lock them up for as long as they 
are asked to. Orders from above are a good enough reason to presume anyone 
guilty until proven innocent. I resolved to adopt a policy of wait and see. 
We drove in silence into the gloomy NIA headquarters.


Chapter Thirteen

Our worst fears are becoming a reality. Jammeh is not stepping down. He is 
going to stay on in power till God knows when. Over the past week, busloads 
of peasants from districts across the country have been going to State House 
to ‘beg’ Captain Jammeh to contest the forthcoming elections. Of course, it 
is all stage-managed. The so-called opinion leaders – illiterate village 
elders, religious leaders, and women - are literally rounded up by the 
regime's hordes of sycophants, given some money as ‘cola nut price,’ and 
brought to Banjul to beg the great leader to stay in power for the sake of 
God and of the country. The little money they receive, the prospect of a 
free bus ride to the capital city, a delicious meal at State House, and a 
rare opportunity to shake the hand of the head of state is more than enough 
bait to get these simple-minded folks to play along with an insidious plot 
by the military to hang on to power.

In front of TV cameras, the so-called opinion leaders, one after the other, 
stand up and praise the sterling qualities of the great leader and beg him 
to contest the elections. He and his great soldiers have sacrificed their 
lives to free The Gambia from the clutches of ex-president Dawda Jawara and 
his gang of corrupt politicians. They must not abandon their 
responsibilities. Some of them likened Jammeh to the Prophet Moses, sent by 
God to deliver his people from the evil pharaoh and lead them on to the 
Promised Land. Every day, another group of so-called opinion leaders from a 
different corner of the country is driven to State House to utter their 
ignorant nonsense. The nonsense is then relayed over national radio and 
television: The people love and trust Jammeh so much that they are all 
begging him to stay in power. The lie gets bigger by the day. It is repeated 
so often that it begins to sound like truth. Rumors are circulated by his 
cronies that the great leader himself really does not want to stay in power. 
But the people are begging him to do so. Since the voice of the people is 
the voice of God, he really has no choice. They add their voices to the 
universal cry for Jammeh to stay. It is clear that the plot to hold the 
Gambian people hostage is going to succeed. This is exactly what is going to 
happen: The busloads of ‘opinion leaders’ will continue to come to Banjul to 
beg Jammeh to stay in power. After ‘opinion leaders’ from across the country 
have been herded like cattle to Banjul to beg the great savior to stay in 
power, Jammeh will then declare that well, he has no choice but to abide by 
the will of the Gambian people; for the will of the people is the will of 
God. That he feels truly humbled by the great trust reposed in him by the 
Gambian people. That in accordance with the wishes of the people, he is 
going to retire from the army and become a true servant of the people. This 
is a well-beaten path for Africa's military depots.

Mr. Jammeh and his colleagues in the military think that they are being 
clever by engineering this fake show of universal support. But they are not 
being clever. They are being selfish and greedy. They are being disloyal to 
the nation. They are sealing their betrayal of the trust of the enlightened 
forces in this country. They are exploiting the political ignorance and 
simple-mindedness of the people to legitimize their hijacking of our 
country. And they are being seen in all their ugly nakedness. The emperor 
has absolutely no clothes! These outrages shall not go unpublished, now or 
in the future. They shall not go unexposed to the big wide world. And Jammeh 
and his cohorts shall one day be dragged before the uncompromising court of 
history. And they shall be judged and sentenced according to their crimes. 
‘Mr. Jammeh, you stand accused of forging a counterfeit sovereignty, of 
using the law to break the law, of embezzling millions of dollars of public 
resources . . .’


Chapter Thirty-One

December 24, 2004. Deyda Hydara, 58, Editor and co-founder of The Point 
newspaper has been brutally murdered. Deyda was gunned down last night, 
around 11:00pm, as he drove home from his office. It was the thirteenth 
anniversary of The Point and Deyda and his colleagues had spent the day 
celebrating. But for Deyda, the meal he had that day was his last. Among the 
guests at his office, chatting and talking, showing teeth hiding streams of 
hot blood, or just waiting nearby outside his office, were some men who knew 
that Deyda would not see the light of the day tomorrow. As he drove home, an 
unmarked taxi cab overtook him, drove adjacent him, and a man in the front 
passenger seat pumped two bullets into an unwary Deyda’s head and one into 
his chest. He lost control of the car, which swerved into a ditch. He died 
on the spot. His passengers, two young ladies, members of his staff he had 
offered a ride home, suffered gunshot wounds to the legs. The killers sped 
past the spot where Deyda slumped over his steering wheel, his skull 
shattered, his chest punctured, drenched in his own innocent blood. Deyda, 
who could not hurt a fly. Deyda, who stammered and smoked and was ever so 
cheerful even when engaged in heated debate over matters of principle. Deyda 
was also the Gambia correspondent for Reporters Without Borders and the 
French news agency AFP.

Who killed Deyda Hydara? Who wanted Deyda death? What could be the motive 
for such cold-blooded murder of a 58-year old journalist who had spent all 
his life trying to make ends meet and who ran a small bi-weekly tabloid just 
mildly critical of the state? Clearly, as long as this regime remains in 
power, we will never get an answer to these questions. Investigations will 
be touted in the media for a while and then all would be silence. Deyda’s 
last shroud would be like the shroud of silence that still covers the 
gruesome murder and incineration of Finance minister Ousman Koro Ceesay. 
Deyda’s last shroud would be like the shroud of silence that surrounds the 
murder by security forces of twelve students and one radio journalist on 
April 10/11 2000. Deyda’s shroud will be like the shroud surrounding the 
killing by security forces of Lt. Almamo Manneh, of an unknown number of 
alleged coup plotters on the bloody night of November 11, 1994. I am certain 
that Deyda’s murderer will never be brought to book as long as the current 
regime is in power.

Deyda was an uncompromising champion of press freedom and respect for human 
rights. Over the past year, he had been at the forefront of the Gambia Press 
Union’s fight against the promulgation of the media commission that had more 
powers than the Supreme Court of the land. That law was repealed only to be 
replaced by an even more draconian piece of non-legislation that gave the 
state power to jail journalists for a minimum of six months without the 
option of a fine for publishing ‘untruths’. This new bill also increases the 
fee for the registration of a newspaper from a whopping hundred thousand 
dalasi (about $5,000) to an unbelievable five hundred thousand dalasi. 
Again, Deyda was at the forefront of the press union’s fight against this 
draconian bill. Clearly, the state had gotten tired of seeing Deyda oppose 
any piece of unjust legislation in this country. And if that indeed is the 
case, as many of us believe it is, then Deyda’s murderer will never be 
brought to justice as long as the current regime is in power, which could be 
for God knows how long.

Deyda’s murder is a very good indicator of where we are as a nation. It is a 
good indicator that yes, we were not mistaken in our accusations of the 
authorities that there is absolutely no security for the powerless in 
today’s Gambia. How could anyone claim the existence of security in a 
country in which journalists could be murdered with impunity, media houses 
set on fire with impunity, and police and soldier-brutality perpetrated 
against innocent civilians with impunity? Deyda's murder is a good indicator 
that in today’s Gambia, the murder of government critics can be committed 
with blatant impunity and no one would ever be arrested for it. Why? Because 
the police are afraid to ask too many questions. Because the NIA can look 
only so far. Because the police, the NIA and everyone else find themselves 
emasculated and reduced to pretending that what they see is really not what 
they see, and what they know is really not what they know. They all know, or 
at least suspect very strongly that they know, who killed Deyda Hydara. But 
they are blind and dumb to the truth because the truth is too ugly to 
contemplate.

Deyda’s murder is an act of terrorism. It is a good indicator that terrorism 
does not have to be male, Arab, skinny, with an eagle nose and long flowing 
beard; that terrorism could also be black, African, Gambian, with a head 
like a square piece of dead wood. Deyda’s murder is calculated to terrorize 
not only the Gambian media, but all Gambians. It is calculated to stun and 
petrify the people, to say to everyone that this is what happens to people 
who engage in activities like those Deyda engaged in. It is a calculated 
attempt to repeat the message that was sent out to the Gambian people on 
April 10 and 11, 2000, when 12 innocent school children and one radio 
journalist were murdered by security forces in broad daylight and no one was 
prosecuted for the murders. The message that whoever dares make too much 
unpleasant noise in The Gambia will go six feet deep, and nothing will come 
out of it.

But Deyda’s murder also represents a victory for the forces of truth and 
justice in The Gambia. Death, Foucault would say, is the ultimate defiance 
to state power; it is the point at which naked power is rendered totally 
impotent. By his death Deyda has dealt a devastating blow to the forces of 
evil in our country. He has exposed the shameful cowardice of those who, 
because they have the guns, feel that they can commit any crime and get away 
with it. He has, by his death, grown larger than life in the global 
imagination and focused the world’s attention on this small corner of the 
world where, for over ten years now, a small group of tyrants have lorded it 
over the people and broken every law in the book with ruthless impunity. If 
Deyda’s murderers were hoping to stop him from exposing their evil deeds, 
the ironic result is that by his death, Deyda has turned the full light of 
international attention on his killers. They have achieved the exact 
opposite of what, in their sick and jaundiced imaginations, they had set out 
to achieve. Not only are the world’s curious searchlights now fully focused 
on The Gambia, they will remain focused on The Gambia until the truth about 
Deyda is known and the culprits brought to justice in one way or the other. 
There is no doubt that one day, someone will stand in front of the world and 
say with total certainty, this is Deyda’s murderer. That day will come, and 
when it comes, those who feel that they can commit such despicable crimes 
with impunity shall be condemned to eternal damnation.

_________________________________________________________________
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