BROTHER EBOU COLLY:

A superb job once again Mr. Colly, Sir. Frankly, I have the utmost
admiration and respect for you, and in my book, you top the list of men with
fine integrity. You have completely silenced your critics; and your vivid
narration of events and alibi is a clear illustration of your honest
commitment to put the records straight so that every Gambian would
understand what had really happened on July 22, 1994. There have been
numerous misrepresentations out there which accused the Americans of being
the principal facilitators of the coup, but your sequence of events and
alibi analyses have now vindicated the Americans and showed that their
conscience was clear. As you put it plainly, after 30 years of DEMOCRACY,
PEACE, TRANQUILITY and SERENITY in The Gambia, when we were thinking about
making Gambia to become the Singapore of the sub-region, what did SIR DAWDA
JAWARA do to the Americans which will make them feel so bad that the United
States government could no longer accepted JAWARA and even opted to replace
him with no body, but except with a MORON like YAYA JAMMEH. My goodness, I
could not swallow that. With all those fine officers in Army who had been
trained in the United States and at Sandhurst, whose educational level,
comportment, personality, decency and international connections were far
ahead of YAYA, the Americans could not have put a MORON on top of their
scale of preference. Mr. Colly, I would even bet that since you were also
trained in the United States and more advanced intellectually, and far more
civilized than the moronic brain, if the Americans wanted someone there,
they could have certainly opted for someone like you or another decent
officer, rather than to invest into to a VULTURE like Yaya. Therefore, you
clarification about the innocence of the Americans in the coup is certainly
welcome at this juncture.

With regards to the concerns of the fellow who dispatched you a private mail
to justify JAWARA's alibi, I think the fellow thinks that you were putting
the failure of security squarely on the shoulders of the former President. I
think the fellow misread you presentations. Frankly, I am not a military
man, but what I have deduced from your analyses, this was not about JAWARA's
overseas trip; it was far more than that. We are talking about total
NATIONAL SECURITY FAILURE here. The entire security apparatus of our country
was in total disarray and turmoil. Commanders who were in command of various
agencies have failed not only the President, but also the entire Gambian
people, which put all the things we rightly value as a nation at risk.
Though the President was the Commander-in-Chief(C-IN-C) of all the security
agencies, but he too is human, and ENTRUSTED and DELEGATED the country's
security and defense to his trusted Commanders: Army Commander, Commission
of Police, Commander of Gendarmerie, Commander of Marine, Director of
National Intelligence Services etc. These were the people who supposed to
constantly brief and advise the President on all national security matters.
And if I get you right, the coup was leaked out to these Commanders who were
themselves involved in humiliating these coup plotters at the Airport before
the President was due to arrive. The NSS Director, Kebba Ceesay was even at
the Airport inspecting these soldiers, and yet no action was taken that day
to put all these soldiers behind bars. Now how could one put the blame on
JAWARA? It was the NAÏVETÉ of these Commanders which let to coup the
following day. They did not take the country's security seriously, perhaps,
they did not know what the heck they were doing. Could you image such a
situation would happen in Senegal and yet the Senegalese security commanders
doing zip about it? Give me a break. The worst of all, the same silly
mistake of security lapse that happened in 1981, had repeated itself; and we
are now paying dearly. The only blame on JAWARA was the fact that he
entrusted commanders with security of the nation who did not fully
comprehend the repercussions of security lapse, or perhaps, they were
deceived by the innocence of the average Gambian soldier. But history had
taught us a lesson already, but instead of learning from those crucial
lessons, JAWARA's entrusted Commanders ignored their significance; I think
those Commanders were guilty of treason as well as the coup plotters. Our
commanders have failed us.

In fact, talking to someone who was in the military, the same naïveté and
lousy security arrangements existed even amongst the security details of
JAWARA. There was total negligence in providing the former President with
the best qualified and honest security details, officers who could put their
lives on the line for in defending the President were not attached to the
former President. No wonder why there was no single officer resisting bunch
of fools like Jammeh. There was total betrayal of the President. The
significance of this lesson is that who ever became President, he MUST not
take security for granted, and proper screening and vetting must be done
before detailing a Presidential security, for that is where our country's
internal stability stems from. But FOOLS RUSH IN WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD.
Gambian Commanders took security for granted, but today, Yaya Jammeh even
though he is a MORON, his mosquito brain cells could not absorb nothing, but
SECURITY. He has FORTIFIED and CENTRALIZED his personal security details. At
least, if you want to attack him right now, you will surely face bunkered
resistance, which was not the case during Jawara's time. But I hope, being
DARBO, BAH, or who ever becomes President, the first thing he needs to do is
to put the country's security in order, before tackling any other important
issue, otherwise a similar thing could happen again. On that note, Mr.
Colly, thanks again for another magnificent piece.

Ansumana.




>From: ebou colly <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: COUP IN GAMBIA TWO
>Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 19:02:41 -0700
>
>                                                  COUP
>IN GAMBIA TWO
>
>I could not wait for the weekend to come to get into
>the second part of my coup series. Different readers
>asked some questions, but I realized that answering
>them up front could derail the gradual consistency I
>intend to maintain in this narrative. Anyway I just
>want to assure you that nothing will be left out by
>the time I am through with everything. If by then
>however people feel there are still some gray areas
>not well understood, then we could treat those
>together.
>However, if it comes to doubts over what I already
>wrote about, or immediate clarifications needed on
>certain dubious statements, or still, on characters,
>events dates or activities inaccurately mentioned, I
>would be glad to handle those issues right away.
>One of such observations I received privately from a
>gentleman was his disagreement with the statement I
>made about Sir Dawda Jawara's absence from the country
>when the GNA was faced with its command crisis in
>1994. The gentleman demanded that I withdrew my
>statement that Sir Dawda was on leave in London,
>because it was an insinuation from me that the
>president abandoned the nation at the heat of the
>crisis just for a holiday. He then added that the
>president actually had left the Gambia to attend an
>OAU meeting in Algeria. After that he had had series
>of engagements in London among which was a meeting he
>had attended with the "Siemens" regarding the new
>airport project at Yundum. Then he had to attend a
>dinner-meeting by Charter 150; he was also the guest
>of honor at the Royal Agricultural show where he
>delivered the key note address and finally had to
>attend a tourism-promotion meeting.
>Certainly I did not know all about that and I wish to
>urge everybody to disregard my former statement in
>that particular paragraph and replace it with the real
>truth as indicated by this gentleman. I was going to
>forward the text openly but I think I know the person
>and would not have been fair with him by doing so.
>That mail was meant to be private and so did I treat
>it as one.
>Nevertheless, I want to go on records in saying that
>where Sir Dawda had been or how important or
>unimportant his mission abroad was at the time was not
>the concern I tried to raise in my article. After all
>every hard working man like Sir Dawda used to be known
>for deserve to take an occasional break and rest his
>nerves at a place of his choice. There was nothing
>wrong therefore in Sir Dawda taking his leave and
>spending it at London if he was due for one. To crown
>it all I was insinuating nothing after all.
>  My simple argument was derived from the
>1981-Kukoi-historical event juxtaposed against that of
>Yaya's in 1994 which left me baffled by how similar
>the two events were and how the same mistake was
>committed twice by the PPP government. If, let us say,
>Sir Dawda was somehow aware of the security threat in
>the country in 1981 but had chosen to attend the royal
>wedding of Prince Charles and the late Lady Diane in
>London until kukoi struck during his absence, one
>could for the sake of first time human error, brush it
>aside as an unexpected phenomenon but preventable in
>the future by all means. So when the same signs and
>symptoms reappeared again signaling command crisis in
>the security forces in 1994, the president should have
>been given an honest briefing of the fragile
>situation, warning him to know that there was no
>presidential engagement more important at the time, in
>the country or abroad, than giving the problem top
>priority. It should have been made crystal to the
>president that what had happened in 1981 could again
>happen if the situation was not addressed promptly I
>don't think Sir Dawda would have moved an inch out of
>the country if he had been given the true picture.
>That was the point I was rubbing in.
>This brings back the importance of a national security
>crisis management organ that I believe should have
>been in place to deal with such emergencies. In that
>case if one or two officials could not muster the
>courage to put it to the president honestly and
>sincerely then the organ (or board) will do it on
>perhaps constitutional guidelines. But leaving matters
>of national security in the hands of few men who did
>not know "A" from "Z" about what they were doing was
>at best treasonable.
>In the first instance, it was a pity that men like
>Kebba Ceesay the Director General of the National
>Security Service (NSS), now the same Director General
>of the NIA was primarily responsible for the nation's
>top intelligence service. And the same devils and
>extortionists like Foday Barry were the top agents
>around him fabricating lies upon lies just to keep
>their agency alive. Is that not what these same fools
>are doing today for the APRC government? It's a
>fantastic sign for some of us who know better where
>they are dragging Yaya's tail to.
>Likewise the main national security adviser was one
>civilian Nigerian who had no clue about the Field
>Force and Kukoi. This man whose name I will try to
>remember later had no idea about what it should take
>to stabilize or defend the country. He was very close
>to the Nigerian military officers in the army and
>therefore could not have in anyway honestly advice the
>government against what they were doing wrong in the
>country. There was no way this man could for example
>raise the alarm to the president about the negative
>alteration of the balance of power caused by the
>Nigerian training team between the GNA and the
>Gendarmarie/ Tactical Support Group (TSG). That
>tactical error was in fact the cardinal factor behind
>the success of the coup.
>  It could be remembered that in the last demonstration
>of soldiers from Liberia demanding the payment of
>their last allowances, it was the TSG that took over
>Denton Bridge before the soldiers on rampage traveled
>from Yundum to Banjul with their weapons. The creation
>of that force by the Senegalese, insulating it by all
>standards to march the GNA technically and tactically
>was a perfect deterrent to coups organized by either
>forces. That was one strategic secret the Senegalese
>left us and should have never been compromised in
>anyway, even by military advisers from planet Mars.
>The Senegalese may have been lousy in many ways during
>the confederation; we could label them annoying,
>arrogant, difficult or too complicated for our
>understanding; but hey, lets give the devil his due.
>When it comes to modern security arrangement for
>national stability, they are awesome and second to
>none in the sub-region.
>Anyhow the Nigerians came and changed that secret
>formation, right before every one's eyes. Within a
>short time after their arrival, the GNA got sufficient
>supplies of certain heavy arsenals far superior to
>what the TSG had in their armory, a dangerous reality
>that left some of us wondering why the government
>allowed it. Many top government officials were aware
>of it but showed nothing to indicate that it even
>bothered them. But again let us not forget that Kebba
>Ceesay the current Director General of Yaya's
>notorious NIA was the main National security anchor of
>the PPP government.
>You see, I think we should document all these facts
>somewhere for posterity especially with regards to the
>country's future security arrangements which was and
>is still not up to satisfactory standard.
>Bad security arrangement is without doubt the greatest
>threat to its people and government that it is built
>to protect. And it is equally or even more destructive
>to its own active serving personnel. Good armies do
>not have room for its soldiers to even think about
>demonstrations let alone coups.
>Generally speaking on a wider horizon I have always
>maintained that if African soldiers were to come
>forward and tell the hidden truth about their
>senseless suffering in the form of arbitrary arrests,
>torture, killing and other terrible things associated
>with coups, then our soldiers would have long since
>done away with the thought of the misadventure by
>simply reading the madness it constitutes. But is it
>not something that the GNA even never had a library?
>But just imagine for example if a well informed
>Burkinabe soldiers had written the uncensored story of
>the late Captain Sankara, a one time coup hero and a
>highly decorated soldier who ended being executed by
>his most trusted friends and buried in an unmarked
>mass grave. What about General Mutala Muhamed of
>Nigeria another coup hero shot and killed by aimless
>drunken soldiers who were few days later shot by
>firing squad; General Achempong of Ghana summarily
>executed by Rawlings and his gang of coup makers;
>Captain Valentine Strasser killing more innocent
>soldiers and police officers than the RUF did in the
>battlefield and then ending up in irreparable
>destitution. He was more loaded with diamond money
>than any one could imagine. Although Yaya thinks
>looted money is meat to stay forever. We will see.
>What about Samuel Doe who was fond of telling his men
>that nothing could kill him and the way he was
>horribly mutilated after about eighty of his men were
>all killed in cold blood at one location.  And with
>Yaya now assessed to be a very close carbon copy of
>Doe tells his foolish subjects that an African
>president cannot be killed in power, giving Nino
>Vierra of Bissau as his only example. Despite the
>latest killings of Mainasara and Kabila (one time
>heroes taking power by the gun), Yaya still tells his
>idiotic followers that a president cannot be killed in
>office to the cheering and jubilation of all of them.
>Think about all these stories printed and circulated
>in military institutions for soldiers of all ranks,
>young or old to read and understand. Don't you thing
>it could in finding a cure to the coup insanity in the
>continent?
>However the fact that coups have been continuing to
>happen despite its disastrous consequences to its
>organizers and their followers tells me that the
>necessary positive measures to stop them is yet to be
>found and put in place. It is therefore the
>responsibility of civilians and soldiers alike to do
>everything possible to free society of this cancerous
>nightmare. Among the positive first steps in my
>shortlist I think we should start from the
>documentation of every coup that had happened and how
>it affected the people in every way.
>  The madness is unimaginable. Soldiers who on the
>ordinary are nothing but cowards, sadists, and losers
>taking over from the good ones is the worst kind of
>command disaster. Bad soldiers killing good soldiers
>like dogs and nothing coming out of it underscores the
>horrors of coup. The poor civilians also suffer it in
>the worst way.  Yaya butchered Gambian soldiers and
>buried them in toilet ditches while their family
>members still wish they could get the remains of their
>loved ones and give them decent burials. Yaya killed
>Koro Ceesay; Almamo Manneh and Corporal Dumbuya; and
>then ordered the shooting and killing of 14 armless
>young Gambians; and Yaya is still hell bent to shed
>more Gambian blood. But it is time to let him know
>that enough is enough. God is not sleeping.
>Anyhow what I see in the Gambia today tells me that
>Yaya's best bet is to pray for the October general
>elections to find him there; in that way he could
>easily find an exit to avoid becoming victim of his
>own creation. Rigging an election, one way or the
>other, be it in the form of his latest trick to
>re-register new voters with a master plan to include
>the Cassamance rebels/refugees or denying opposition
>members their registration rights will only make
>things worst for him. (It is today an open secret in
>The Gambia that Ablie Kujabi's (NIA number two man)
>house in Bakau has been transformed into an office
>issuing Gambian I.D. cards to Cassamance
>rebel/refugees. When the Director of immigration
>Faburay was asked about why Gambian I.D. cards were
>issued in private homes, he said there was nothing
>wrong with that.). However Samuel Doe at one time
>during the Liberian conflict was offered a helicopter
>passage by the Americans to leave the country when
>there was still an opportunity for escape, but he
>defied every offer, blinded by his satanic mind and
>evil followers. I am today putting it to Yaya to take
>the helicopter now and leave while there is still
>time; otherwise, otherwise, otherwise … There will be
>no running or hiding and most of his terrible
>followers will perish with him.
>Going back to July 1994 let us first look at the role
>of the Americans. The training program that was
>supposed to take place between the GNA and the
>Americans was going to be the third of its kind since
>it was started in 1990. Yes it was a biannual exercise
>between the American Navy and the GNA first held
>around Yundum and Lamin villages in 1990, the second
>one in Yundum area again in 1992 and this was going to
>be the third, scheduled for the 23rd of July 1994 from
>the Kombos to Denton Bridge. The rehearsal day was
>Friday 22nd July. We even wrote a press release about
>the training exercise in which Gambians were advised
>not to be alarmed when soldiers were seen in unusual
>appearance and outfits in the urban streets.
>That press release announced over radio Gambia for at
>least two to three days before the set date and was in
>all news papers, helped the country a great deal from
>being hit by the same crime wave that erupted in 1981
>when the criminals learnt about kukoi's coup attempt.
>And most likely 1994 would have been worst considering
>the fact that there were more hardened criminals in
>the country with all sorts of rebels from Liberia,
>Sierra Leone to Cassamance. At that broad day light if
>it was suspected that a coup and not an exercise was
>in progress, the country would have never recovered
>from those animals unleashed on her people and
>resources.
>Yet the retarded Yaya is often heard boasting about
>the skills he applied to ensure that the coup was
>bloodless. All are bunch of lies.
>The American Navy called their visiting exercise the
>West-African-Training Cruise (WAT-C). In 1994, their
>program involved Senegal, The Gambia and Bissau. All
>three countries were donated new fast patrol boats for
>maritime policing against foreign poachers in their
>territorial waters. Senegal had two. The Gambia and
>Bissau got one each.  But when the boats were
>delivered months before, some of its components were
>missing including spare parts communication equipment
>and mountable weaponry. The huge battleship, the USS
>Lamour County brought along some of those equipment
>and weapons. As part of the program therefore, they
>came with instructors to also train the African crew
>in how to use the new equipment and maintain them
>properly.
>All the countries had to send a naval officer to the
>USA to join the Ship from its departing dock. The
>travel time to West Africa was roughly one month. The
>GNA's representative was Lieutenant Commander Mahmoud
>Sarr, the present commander of the Gambia Navy.
>When they arrived on the 21st of July around 4.00
>p.m., I was at the Banjul Port to welcome them
>together with James Knight the political officer at
>the US Embassy in The Gambia and Major McClain the US
>military attaché for Senegal, Bissau and the Gambia.
>After being introduced to Captain Bookhart the ship's
>captain Mr. Knight briefed the visitors in a hall-like
>place in the lower deck telling them how peaceful the
>country was and how it is rated one of the most stable
>places in Africa.
>The Americans contrary to what people had been saying
>about the negative role they played in the coup were
>the most disappointed and frustrated by its success.
>Mr. Knight said it all to the visitors when he told
>them that apart from its seasoned democratic policy in
>a continent plague by coups and civil wars, The Gambia
>was a model state in terms of social stability,
>friendliness among its people and reasonable in cost
>of living. The American crew could not wait to go on
>shore after the briefing. There was among them a
>platoon of marines all excited about the exercise we
>were to hold with them.
>By the way it is important to know that Captain
>Bookhart was an African American, very humble and
>gentle. To think about that person involving himself
>in anything as stupid as a conspiracy to topple the
>PPP government for Yaya and his fellow criminals to
>come to power borders to absolute insanity.
>Yaya the master liar has been trying to sell some
>craps about the Americans making him a citizen in a
>bid to deceive the Gambians into thinking that the US
>supported the coup.
>Let me tell you where he manufactured that foolish
>idea. This is not only about Gambia, but also as a US
>training policy for every foreigner attending any
>military institution in an American state. Upon the
>student's arrival in the US and few weeks after
>registration and orientation, the person is awarded an
>honorary citizenship to that particular state. That
>did not necessarily qualify any one as US citizen per
>se. But its Yaya we are dealing with. Give him an
>honorary degree in law and the next thing you know he
>is claiming to be a barrister, magistrate and high
>court judge rolled in one; give him an honorary
>peacekeeping medal and he claims to be a war hero who
>conquered the unconquerable; so it is no surprise that
>the honorary citizenship awarded from different states
>to over a dozen GNA officers including my very self
>for training in the US means US citizenship to funny
>Yaya.
>Anyhow it was around 6.00 p.m. when I left the port to
>go home that day. The program of events on the visit
>was in my hands slated to commence 9.00 a.m. the
>following morning. It was to start with a courtesy
>call to the vice president's office by the ship's
>captain and his top officials. From there they were to
>visit the mayor of Banjul, James Gomez, then the
>inspector general of police Pa Sallah Jagne and then
>to the army headquarters where Colonel Akojie the
>third in command among the Nigerians was playing the
>role of commander and trying to make the situation as
>normal as he could.
>In the mean time however, what I did not know at the
>time was that at Yundum Airport that same evening,
>21st July the same Colonel Akojie had made another
>serious blunder which gave Edward Singhateh and Sana
>Sabally the final weapon they wanted to mobilize the
>GNA troops at Yundum for the coup the next morning.
>When the GNA soldiers assembled at the Airport for the
>guard of honor usually given to the president on his
>departure or arrival, Colonel Akojie in consultation
>with Kebba Ceesay unnecessarily humiliated all the
>soldiers and officers at the airport tarmac by
>searching all of them one by one to see whether they
>were concealing ammunitions they may use against the
>president. That was very embarrassing while the
>diplomats who came to welcome the president stood
>watching.  Not only that but they also deployed the
>TSG troops all over the area to frighten the GNA
>soldiers with their ordinary AK47 rifles. Every
>soldier searched that afternoon was automatically
>tagged a suspect making that person vulnerable to the
>final dirty trick pulled on them by Sana and Edward
>the following morning. Hence when the soldiers
>reported to work the next day hoping to go for the
>exercise rehearsal with the US troops, Sana and Edward
>scared  them by saying that the Nigerians were
>planning to arrest all of them for being suspects of a
>coup plot. That fired up most soldiers into a
>do-or-die mood. It therefore turned into either taking
>part in whatever rampage was necessary or faced the
>risk of being arrested by the Nigerians who should be
>forced to leave the country anyway.
>There were a lot of them who did not want to take
>part. The late Lieutenant Gibril Saye was one of them
>and they knew they could not have done much without
>his support. He was the best when it came to
>assembling, loading and operating the heavy weapons.
>So they first put him in the cells, but when they
>realized that he was indispensable, they took him out
>and pleaded with him to help assemble the weapons
>only. He refused to join them when they started moving
>out for the operation.
>There was no doubt that if the soldiers were not
>subjected to that humiliation at the airport tarmac
>the coup would have never been possible. The original
>planners had withdrawn from the agreement. Some
>soldiers I later understood had even reported it to
>the Nigerians, the police and some top civil servants.
>As a matter of fact the Nigerians and Kebba Ceesay the
>joke were the people left with the investigation. I
>guess they thought all the GNA officers were suspects.
>However on a frank note, none of us the Gambian senior
>officers knew what was happening. But let me amend
>that. Instead I should say that I was never aware of a
>coup until that morning of the 22nd July at about
>9.00a.m. I did not even know about the tension created
>at the airport until well after the coup.
>But as it happened Captain Bookhart and his team
>accompanied by Mr. Andrew Winters the US ambassador in
>the Gambia at the time, Mr. Knight, Major McClain (he
>is a colonel now) and I just arrived at the State
>House for the first event of the program of visit when
>an officer called me aside and inform me of the Yundum
>soldiers on their way to Banjul to topple the
>government. For a split moment I thought it was all a
>dream and wished I would soon wake up and make a fun
>of the worries that hit me.
>Anyway I had to tell the officer to allow me some time
>to escort the guests upstairs to the vice president's
>office.
>Mr. Saihou Sabally with the permanent secretary for
>defense was waiting for us at the door of the office.
>He first welcomed the guests and told them what was
>going on.
>
>We will deal with that next week.
>
>Ebou Colly.
>.
>
>
>__________________________________________________
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