Ebou,

Thanks for the info you're sharing with all of us.  In your part two, I look
forward to read about what you call,  "...the accidental role I played in
it..."

Regards

Essa


>From: ebou colly <[log in to unmask]>
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>Subject: COUP IN GAMBIA ONE
>Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 17:28:34 -0700
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>     COUP IN GAMBIA ONE
>
>A British military officer I once met in San Remo
>Italy asked me to put the reason why there was a coup
>in The Gambia in two words.
>"Command breakdown and government complacency," I gave
>it to him in five.
>The British officer who was very interested in the
>military history of The Gambia had been for the weeks
>we worked together curiously firing me all sorts of
>questions about what made it possible for the junior
>officers of the GNA to seized power in 1994.
>The story I explained to that gentleman is the one I
>wish to share with the G-L readers in this series
>entitled COUP IN GAMBIA. It is a story I intend to
>tell in the simplest form based on my personal
>experience of the coup in The Gambia on the 22nd July
>1994, the accidental role I played in it and most
>important of all the facts according to what exactly
>happened. I may also in this exercise attempt to
>periodically express my views or opinion about the
>special situations encountered.  Hearing about the
>general misconception developed by Gambians and
>non-Gambians alike, in the country or outside about
>the 1994 coup, coupled with the absolute silence from
>those who actually know the facts, compounded by
>mainly the lies Yaya and his lackeys have been
>peddling about the event, the coup in the final
>analysis has now been reduced to one shameless BIG
>lie. Those who should have been termed the actual
>heroes in that mutinous and criminal operation have
>long since been killed or reduced to subservient
>nonentities while the cowards who should have been
>permanently locked up behinds bars for their
>traitorous actions stole the center stage, supported
>by intellectual criminals and defended by armed
>bandits. However regardless of how strong or deep they
>may anchor their vessel of deceit in the divine sea of
>life, the wind of truth will someday blow away these
>floating evil doers to the shore of reality where the
>crew will be exposed in their naked images.  Those
>thinking that they could disguise themselves in this
>doom-bound vessel enjoying the loot of the
>bloodthirsty pirates, encouraging them to shed more
>blood for bigger treasure and then disappearing
>unnoticed at the final day of reckoning ought to think
>twice about that ungodly fate. If Gambians should
>think that they could get away with killing innocent
>armless children for anything in this world and then
>turn it into a political issue, manipulating the laws
>to exonerate the guilty murderers, some of them being
>so sick to make it a laughing matter in the heart of
>the nation then Gambians could as well exempt the
>existence of god and the dynamic laws of nature from
>life. These knuckleheads cannot learn from the common
>saying that no condition is constant except change
>itself.
>Lets remember Samuel Doe, Emperor Bukasa, Mengistu
>Haili Mariam, Edi Amin and Mobutu with their doomed
>followers. These leaders blatantly flouted all kinds
>of rules, secular and divine, with powers far greater
>than the ordinary or with powers which Yayas will
>never dream to acquire in this world; leaders who
>thought they could get away with any crimes, lies and
>deceit perpetrated towards their innocent subjects
>until the day of divine intervention dawned on them.
>Days that come without warning and often when things
>are at their sweetest. Days when the predators are
>caught happily licking their blood-dripping fingers
>from devouring the flesh of their unfortunate preys.
>Day that found them in festive moods when they the
>least suspected that the judgement day is indeed here.
>That day in the Gambia will soon come. The day Yaya
>and his callous follows will know that children in the
>kingdom of god are after all real angels and that no
>hoodlum would get away with killing them out of share
>madness.  Call it the big time day of reckoning.
>Having said that, I will now turn to my new topic,
>thanks to loony Paul. Evidently, if Gambians had
>developed the special tradition of recording and
>referring to their history as time and events unfold
>before us from period to another, we would have
>realized that the same situation that led to the
>abortive coup of 1981 more or less recurred in 1994.
>And perhaps that would have helped in averting the
>1994 calamity.
>For instance by the time Kukoi lured the Field Force
>into his nightmarish coup in 1981, it could be
>remembered that there was a total breakdown of command
>and control in Depot, Fajara Barracks. The late Eku
>Mahony was strangely shot and killed by the late
>constable Mustapha Danso the previous year 1980; also
>the late Commander Bojang was suspected of complicity
>in what was thought to be a deadly factional conflict
>among their subordinates leading to one of his men
>killing his command counterpart. Bojang was retired or
>weeded from the force but had refused to vacate his
>official residence when asked to do so by government.
>The atmosphere was as a result charged with heavy
>gossip of a coup planning at the depot, yet government
>by its actions showed little concern about the
>potential explosion facing the nation. Nothing was
>more important at that critical time in government's
>agenda than the security crisis in the Depot that
>required immediate and total attention. Whether there
>was even a national security crisis management organ
>in the country for such unexpected emergencies was
>another thing we may never know. However if there was
>one, I don't think it was official or effective or
>even known to the Gambians. Historians may one day
>have to help us with this one. Anyway I still think
>that the government was rather complacent with the
>situation until Kukoi stuck, surprised and shocked the
>whole world. A civilian taking command of the county's
>major security force using its personnel in a coup
>attempt was unimaginable and disgraceful. Thank god
>there was foreign intervention to stop Kukoi;
>otherwise the crisis that had erupted could have
>pretty well degenerated into full-blown civil war. And
>I still firmly believe that what The Gambia escaped in
>Kukoi 's failure in 1981 was the exact leadership we
>got in Yaya's success in 1994. In other words, I think
>Kukoi in 1981 was going to be what we got in Yaya in
>1994. But it was still possible that Kukoi might have
>been a little more genuine. Nothing could be like
>Yaya.
>Another critical factor often neglected but very
>important in command stability but was and is still
>lacking in The Gambia's security institutions is the
>personality and caliber of persons recruited and
>entrusted with the defense of the nation. The
>westerners that introduced modern military concepts in
>The Gambia built their own forces from men and women
>committed to the fundamental course of defending their
>national sovereignty because of the stake they have in
>the society. They are generally well cultured,
>properly educated and tested to meet the set
>standards; they have self-esteem and definitely
>understand that the country equally belong to them in
>the very way it belongs to any president. None of
>these virtues prevailed in the Field Force where the
>service men were literally social outcasts in terms of
>origin, education, social status, family background
>and self-esteem.. So instead of having fine warriors
>prepared to lay their lives for the defense of their
>nation, we ended up grooming angry jealous armed men
>full of hate and destructive tendencies ready to
>follow any deviant or criminal into a path of national
>destruction. Rebellious soldiers in uniform or
>civilian bandits, whose ultimate target is to destroy
>rather than construct, often are the organizers of
>coups. The Field Force behind Kukoi was without doubt
>armed men madly inclined to help destroy The Gambia
>they had no stake in building or protecting.
>A similar situation was re-created in the GNA in 1994.
>There was a command break down when the late General
>Abubacarr Dada was sent a successor from Nigeria
>Colonel Gwadebeh to command the Gambia Army and the
>former refused to hand over the seat to the latter.
>That conflict was what actually undermined all the
>credibility and respects the GNA officers had for
>their Nigerian mentors. The Nigerians who came and
>started an impressive and very good work in the
>beginning, making all of us to believe that their army
>and serving men were superior to us in every way of a
>military establishment suddenly started acting like
>desperate men ready to go after each others jugular
>veins in order to stay in The Gambia rather than go
>back home. Everything they taught us about ethical
>standards, moral values, esprit de corps, decency,
>integrity and military courage were violated one after
>the order by the feuding commanders and their divided
>allies with no regards to its effect on those of us
>looking up to them as role models.
>The situation was so hopeless that in the end one
>could sense the irreparable damage the Nigerians had
>done to their command and control powers over the GNA
>officers. Even if there had been no coup, the
>Nigerians would not have had it the easy way they did
>with the GNA officers before.
>The actual problem started around March or April 1994
>when the Point News paper (always the Point) quoted a
>Nigerian newspaper that had published an identified
>successor for General Dada. It was stated that the
>late General Sani Abacha had already chosen the man.
>Dada was very furious about the Point's publication
>demanding that government should punish the Point
>publishers for the wrong information they published.
>By General Dada who was appointed by General Babangida
>when the latter was still in power, his contract made
>appointment  permanent commander of the GNA.
>Furthermore, he had believed that the men he brought
>along to run the Gambia Army, about eighty of them,
>were directly under his charge, meaning that he could
>change or even recommend their dismissal whenever he
>wanted. But for him, he was untouchable and should
>only leave the Gambia Army after the Nigeria-Gambia
>contract to train the GNA was over. It was a two-year
>contract that should have been completed in 1994,
>although the Nigerians had succeeded in convincing the
>government that the officers in the army were too
>incompetent to be handed over the command after two
>years only. It was another story most of us could not
>understand.
>Anyhow when government put it to Dada that they were
>not aware of any successor identified in Nigeria but
>that they could not do anything to the Point
>Publishers either because they were private or
>committed nothing illegally, Dada relented but would
>not forget.
>In May, the official letter from Nigeria for the
>replacement of General Dada by Colonel Gwadebeh
>arrived at the ministry of defense. Dada could not
>understand it and expected the Gambia government to
>stand by his side and disallow the colonel from
>replacing him. But government made it clear to him
>that the changes effected from Nigeria was beyond
>their means to alter. Dada felt betrayed by the
>government for their indifference to his problem. He
>also realized that his most trusted men brought to the
>Gambia to help him, men he painstakingly picked from
>the Nigerian armed forces and provided them with pay
>ten or more times than their earnings at home had also
>shifted their loyalty to the new commander.
>Colonel Gwadebe came anyway.
>Devastated altogether, Dada partially accepted defeat
>but insisted that he would not leave the Gambia until
>he had audience with former President Jawara. That was
>more or less refusing to hand over to Gwadebe unless
>he was allowed to meet the president.
>Government officials especially at the ministry of
>defense felt Dada should not be allowed to meet the
>president when the vice president who was the minister
>of defense was available. Dada would not settle for
>anything other than what he wanted-meet the president.
>Gwadebe on the other hand was lodged at Kairaba Hotel
>waiting for Dada to hand over before he could assume
>the command position. That is standard army procedure.
>One could not succeed another person under normal
>circumstances without a formal handing and taking over
>process completed.
>By the middle of May however, it was clear to all GNA
>officers and most other ranks that the Nigerian
>command fabric had crumbled and the government did not
>seem to take its danger very seriously.
>Like in the past, it should have been the most
>important issue in the government national agenda,
>needing immediate and total attention. But I think Sir
>Dawda at the heat of things took his annual leave and
>left for Britain to spend about a month there.
>Dada decided to wait for his return. There was no
>serious commander anymore.
>In the mean time however, the Nigerians, were still
>trying to make things appear as much normal as they
>could make the situation look in the army. An exercise
>was organized at Kudang area, code named operation
>"Nying Doekuo". The whole army was involved in an
>exercise of tactical planning and operation of various
>combat missions.
>It was there that the junior officers first met to
>discuss the need to get rid of the Nigerians from the
>country. Yes it was all about organizing a
>demonstration against the Nigerians to leave and go
>back home.
>Those present at that meeting were the late Lieutenant
>Basiru Barrow, Captain Alagie Kanteh (second
>lieutenant then), Captain Alpha Kinteh (second
>lieutenant then) Captain Edward Singhateh (second
>lieutenant then) and Captain Sana Sabally (second
>lieutenant then). Anyway before the meeting ended,
>Alagie Kanteh came up with the proposal of a coup
>instead of a demonstration. They all agreed, electing
>Barrow to be the leader. Both Kanteh and Singhateh had
>told this story to several soldiers after the coup.
>Captain Singhateh in fact put it to all the men
>present at state house on the 22nd July that these
>five men were the actual planners of the coup and that
>even Yaya and Sadibou Haidara were not part of it, but
>were invited to join them when three of the original
>conspirators withdrew their membership at the last
>minutes. These three were Barrow, Kanteh and Kinteh.
>According to the original plan, former president
>Jawara was to be arrested with his cabinet ministers
>at Yundum Airport on the day he was to return from his
>leave in England. Army officers of the rank of captain
>and above were all to be arrested and executed by
>firing squad together with all government ministers.
>That may have been the reason why the first team
>cracked. Barrow, Kinteh and Kanteh perhaps were not
>prepared to go that extreme. Anyway according to
>Barrow who explained himself after Singhateh accused
>the three of them of betraying the course, he had
>given his reason of withdrawal as being inadequate
>timing. Barrow said he wanted more time for better
>planning preferably January 1995 instead of July 1994.
>
>However the bottom line is that Edward Singhateh and
>Sana Sabally actually spearheaded the coup from start
>to end. They were also the operational leaders, Sana
>taking Bravo Company from Captain Sonko who was forced
>to join Charlie Company and Singhateh taking the
>leadership of that unit-Charlie Company. Colonel
>Badjie was the company commander of Charlie Company,
>although when they took it from him they spared him
>the trauma and ordeal they subjected Captain Sonko in
>throughout the operation.
>Yaya did not mean much to them, the very naivete in
>Sana and Singhateh that allowed Jammeh to join them
>and eventually stole the show from their hands They
>probably felt that Jammeh the Gendarmerie officer
>entrusted by the Nigerians to police the army as the
>head of the military police wing was nothing but a
>boastful wimp. Jammeh was never seen firing a shot as
>a soldier, never seen running in any exercise, was
>below average in written and verbal communication, did
>not know how to write or interpret operation orders
>and lacked everything that characterized a true
>officer or soldier. All that could be associate with
>Yaya in uniform was the pistol he always carried (and
>most certainly could not use it properly) and his
>endurance to carry various horns, roots cowries and
>animal skins all over his body in the name of "jujus".
>(I think I once explained to you that Yaya shamelessly
>decorated himself at McCarthy Square Banjul with
>ECOMOG medals as if he had served in Liberia's
>peacekeeping mission.  Some of us startled by the
>ceremony thought the joke was accepting the medal as
>an honorary award until he appeared on GAMTV in
>Kaninlai explaining to some school children his
>peacekeeping role in Liberia. The guy is so sick in
>fabricating lies that sometimes I see his metal
>maturity as that of a six-year old.)
>The fact that he was the head of the military police
>and the young officers planned the coup without
>serious regards to his unit or presence was indicative
>of how much they disrespected him. It was a matter of
>telling him to join them or get his butt whipped. He
>knew better.
>I don't know what he had lied to the Nigerians to
>accept his transfer from the Gendemarie to the GNA in
>1992, but they must have selected the wrong person to
>police the army for them. It was a major mistake from
>Dada.
>However that same disrespect they had for Yaya was
>what led Sana and Singhateh to vote him as their
>leader on the 24th July 1994 in the presence of
>Captain Mamat Cham. Again they thought he could be put
>there as a ceremonial leader while they run the show
>in the background. As for Sana, up the day he was
>framed and bundled up to jail with Haidara, he had
>treated Yaya with contempt and less importance.
>But with tact and treachery, the rule of the game at
>the time, Yaya played the two heavy weights against
>each other allying with Edward to destroy Sana and
>Haidara. That catapulted Edward from the number four
>positions to the vice-chairman's seat. He did not know
>that the master of treachery was on his tail next.
>I hope my readers are also evaluating the
>personalities in the drama. While doing so please
>consider the Field Force and the characters in the
>Depot- men with low self-esteem, dehumanized by
>poverty and greed and transformed into treacherous and
>destructiveness souls.
>Anyway by the time the transition was over, Yaya had
>disintegrated the foundation of the original coup team
>except in the case of Singhateh. But Singhateh's turn
>was in the making.
>It was Landing Sanneh and the late Almamo Manneh who
>one day challenged Edward at the state house on Yaya's
>orders to shoot him if he tried to enter the building
>again armed. The vice chairman could not understand it
>but soon realized that it was the final signal to show
>him that the game of playing equals with Yaya was
>over. He knew better. Before long the high-speed
>champion of the coup was reduced to a nodding follower
>of Yaya endorsing his lies, ignoring his faults,
>treating him like the saint who led them, the lost
>souls, into the coup crusade and all what not.
>Almamo Manneh is now lying six feet deep thanks to
>Yaya. Landing Sanneh is still in jail waiting to be
>tried for almost a year now after being accused of
>coup attempt with Almamo Manneh.
>The current survivors are ordinary followers, praise
>singers and boot-lickers sometimes claiming to be the
>warriors in 1994. Sir Dawda Jawara's closest
>bodyguards like Musa Jammeh are today Yaya's worst hit
>men. The vicious circle of dogs eating dogs continue
>to prevail. That's coup in the Gambia parts one.
>
>We will look at part two next week.
>
>
>Ebou Colly
>
>
>__________________________________________________
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