Nothing illustrates  the relentless cruelty and repression of the Jammeh
regime than the tacit collusion between the Police, the district chiefs and
the divisional commissioners. Together, these three entities are engaged in
an insidious campaign of humiliation, harassment, abduction and torture of
innocent people in their jurisdictions. The victims are always active or
perceived members of the opposition whose only purported crimes are their
steadfast refusal to be part of this murderous regime. Typically the innocent
victims would wake up one day to find that their simple routine of normal
village life ensnared in a web of conspiracy designed, executed and overseen
by these three. It begins with thugs in the village who are in all cases
affiliated with the July 22 Movement conjuring up lies about opponents of the
government. Sometimes it is as trivial as use of such village owned amenities
as the well or milling machine. Mostly it is just outright fabrications.
These thugs who through government support and encouragement see and conduct
themselves as vigilante enforcers of their own whims, run to the imposed
Alkalo or chief in the district (most of the current Alkalos and chiefs are
unelected) to initiate the official part of the harassment. The chief
furthers the conspiracy by essentially forwarding it to the divisional
Commissioner who over the years has become the equivalent of a Gestapo
officer in the Nazi era. What follows is what is at the heart of our current
national tragedy in that the divisional commissioner would then use the
police to effect an illegal arrest of people who have committed no crimes.
The police are at the beck and call of the commissioners and have long cast
aside the laws of the Gambia and aren't interested in enforcing even the
basic tenet of equal protection under the law. These poor people are then
hauled off to dingy police cells and humiliated infront of their families as
way to sap their morale. After languishing in jail for the period that the
conspirators want them to, they are further punished by requiring them to
report to the police stations regularly for an indefinite period. One such
group are in the Badibou village of Suwareh Kunda. They have been at the
receiving end of one of the most terrible forms of repression. The government
through commissioner Sulayman Keita and his goons at the village and the
police in Kerewan have set about destroying the lives of innocent people.
Frequently jailing them and forcing them to make the long trek to report to
the police regularly, disrupting their farming and saddling them with
transportation fares of D40 each per trip. This is money they don't have but
they risk arrest and a far worse fate if they don't report to the station.
When a native son Abdoulie Suwareh(A metro DC lawyer) on a visit attempted to
persuade the commissioner to leave these innocent people alone, he was hauled
off to jail too. It is intolerable that ordinary people are literally
enslaved in their own country. If the Police have become outright instruments
of repression by willingly and consistently going after innocent people and
failing to protect victims of vicious and overt crimes, the people would have
to resort to their God given right to defend themselves. The ensuing problems
emanating from the organized terrorism they are perpetrating would be theirs
alone. In the two weeks left of this tyrannical regime, Gambians have to be
steadfastly vigilant and be in a position to meet terrorism with overwhelming
resolve. It is upto the Police to change their ways and go after the real
criminals. The office of the Commissioners is a good place to start.
Karamba

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