FARAFENNI
ATTACK TWO
Before getting back into my main theme, "THE FARAFENNI
ATTACH," I would like to take a moment to first salute
all those great activists of the G-L especially those
great allies who sent me welcome notes- K.B (Kebba
Dampha to be more precise), Ansumana Kujabi, Saul Khan
the dynamic MOVEMENT FOR RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACY IN
GAMBIA (NY) and the private senders.
I would however plead with all of you to give me some
time to finish this delicate subject before we
shifting into the question -and- answer mode. My time
is very limited at this moment another reason why I
may have to apologize for this delayed statement. But
at any rate I would do my best to come on line at
least once a week (most probably weekends). Anyway for
those important questions forwarded this time I will
try and respond to all of them first.
Of course there were the unimportant ones mainly sent
privately by Yaya's desperate loyalists who had
nothing to say about my central topic; but merely
forwarded lines of indecent arguments, very personal
indeed that were better ignored and deleted than given
the attention they least deserve. If they were made
public I probably may have just told them to go and
their hearts out.
However there was this lost soul, a victim of Yaya's
childish propaganda referring me to that joke of a
documentary produced by Ebou Waggeh of the GRTS in
July 1999. In that video showed on Gambia TV, Yaya was
seen at his State-House ranch sitting beside some
domestic animals and telling the world the most
inaccurate and ridiculous tale about his tough
confrontation with former President Abdou Joof during
the first days of the coup. For Yaya to allow that
piece of video shown on national TV totally beat my
imagination. Where he came up with all that junk about
his macho uncompromising stand against Joof was
absolutely delusional. He talked about the serious
warning he sent to Abdou Joof to immediately withdraw
the Senegalese troops reported to have been deployed
at Karang because of the coup; that the GNA soldiers
were angrier and had begged to be authorized to attack
Karang and teach the Senegalese forces lessons they
will never forget; that he even sent Colonel Sarr (god
knows which Colonel Sarr) to the Senegalese Ambassador
Muktarr Kebbeh to let Abdou Joof know that he Yaya was
running out of patience and would soon commence his
blitz-krieg operation from Karang to Kaulack; that Mr.
Kebbeh had to plead with him to be more patient while
he drew the attention of the Senegalese authorities to
the danger facing their troops  against Yaya's strike
force; that Abou Joof saved the Senegalese forces at
the last minute by ordering them into hasty withdrawal
from Karang.  Come on my friend, if you buy any of
that garbage documentary, then I've got some credit
cards I want to sell you. Take it from me, nothing in
that Waggeh- produced documentary contained an iota of
truth.
After all if the situation was that bad with Senegal
at that critical time, how come it was not highlighted
in the maiden speech delivered by Yaya at Radio
Gambia? I would think that it should certainly have
been the most important matter to reflect in that
speech. But instead Yaya made it crystal clear in that
speech that the AFPRC government was bent on
consolidating good bilateral ties with neighboring
countries, with Senegal being the first in those
nations identified. Only Nigeria was left out for
obvious reasons. (The Nigerians were in charge of the
command and control of the GNA up to 22nd July 1994,
the coup day).
Go to ARCH22, the whole speech is there on display.
However you may have to be careful of the impression
Yaya tried to portray there again. It is another
pitiful delusion from his midget mind, an analogy I
may borrow from KB. The speech on display hand-copied
by Yaya and laminated neatly. Some old antique table
and chair were scavenged from god knows where and used
in the ultimate hoax. Then the speech is placed on
that funny-looking table that stands beside the chair
in the museum at ARCH22. That's not all; for just
above and over this show-corner a statement is made to
the effect that the speech on display was the maiden
speech of the 22nd July revolution which was written
by Yaya sitting in that chair and on that table. The
speech is further explained to have been written by
Yaya well before the coup operation started.  It was
baloney but perfectly sellable to the gullible masses.
May god save the tourists on this one!
Let me tell you the real facts about that speech
today. It was one of the cardinal problems that
delayed the actual announcements after the late
Lieutenant Barrow and Captain Sonko made that first
unauthorized one at Radio FM the first day. To come up
with a good speech was honestly elusive. We really did
not know how to make one (Yaya knows we know that he
cannot write at all). In the end it was Captain Mamat
Cham who went with over a section of soldiers to Mr.
Swaibou Conateh's house and forced the journalist at
gunpoint to draft us some ideas for the speech. All
those nice ideas on domestic and foreign policy in
that speech originated from this poor fellow's brain,
Mr. Conateh.
Having said that, I would turn to the question by the
great MOVEMENT in New York. They asked about the
involvement of Yaya in the Cassamance rebellion or to
be more exact, how deeply involved he is with
supporting the rebels? Frankly speaking if it comes to
the final answer I would say Yaya is 100% plus
involved in the MFDC Struggle for the independence of
Cassamance. His total support for the rebellion was
something he never hid from those close to him and I
was one of them.
 You see, I don't know for now but before, I mean up
to 1999, Yaya used to tell this story about why
Cassamance should have her independence from Senegal.
And I think this is the story behind the whole
fighting for independence in Cassamance. According to
Yaya, when Senegal got her independence from France in
1960. An agreement was made in writing between former
President Leopold Sedar Senghore and the French
Government stating that after 20 years of Senegalese
rule over the provinces, Cassamance was to be given
back to the Jolas she belonged to as an independent
nation of her own. He believes the late Emily Badjan a
Jola from Binjona and a former minister in Leopold
Sedar Senghore's government was a witness and a
signatory to that agreement.
However, still quoting Yaya, when it was time in 1980
for the realization of the said agreement, Senegal
refused to honor the deal. And that started the
justifiable struggle for independence for the Jolas in
Cassamance.
This mysterious story is somehow very hard to find a
French person to confirm it. I have personally asked
several French officials about the credibility of this
story but they all say the same thing that the
agreement never existed. These were generals and
colonels, ambassadors and their associates, in The
Gambia, in Bissau, at Bamako, Senegal, Paris, name it;
none of them know where such an agreement was written
or signed at. I think that is why the rebels including
Yaya now say that the French are in support of the
Senegalese for refusing make available the document to
the combatants.
Don't judge me wrong, I am not in anyway tribalistic;
Yaya instead is to the bottom of his heart. His
expressed faith in tribal segregation is so serious,
especially in the wake of the Cassamance crisis, that
he sees the whole struggle as being between the
wollof-speaking Senegalese of the north against the
Jola-speaking ones of the south. What is hard to put
in his small head is that the inter-tribal mixture in
Senegal has developed beyond where there could be an
acceptable separation as such. As a matter of fact
most of the Senegalese troops actively battling the
rebels are Jolas recruited from mainly Cassamance. We
were in the Confederal Army and we know the
composition of the Senegalese forces.
Invariably however, Yaya is not always the type of
person one could draw a final judgement on his true
faith with regards to some of his actions or
statements, the Cassamance issue being no exception.
Take for instance the case of the massacred children
last April (my heart and soul are with all those
mourners poised to remember that horrible event next
week). When it happened, people with conscience who
knew what happened exactly behind the scenes leaked
the information to the public that Yaya actually gave
the orders through telephone from Cuba. And his words
were to kill the kids and fill the mortuary with their
bodies. But what happened when he came back home?
Didn't he put up every kind of show and speech to
deceive the Gambians that he was not aware of what
happened? He then declared a week of national mourning
and tried to pay for the lives of the children he
killed with only $2000.00 per soul Some have bought
his tricks calling him a saint while those of us who
know better know that this is a devil cut for hell for
committing such a crime.
Also take a look at how evil he acted towards the dead
UDP MPs just to turn around later and offered to
sponsor their children's education. If it had not been
for the fact that he made his callous decision in the
public's eyes and ears at Yundum Airport, he would
have again tried shifting the blame on to Mr. Wadda or
Isatou Njie Saidy. And the blind followers these
people are, they would have happily taken the blame to
cover the devil's deeds.
Anyway the perfect example I can quote to answer your
question adequately was how he handled the Cassamance
issue with the Wadda government lately. Not too long
ago it was not a secret that Alexander Djiba, a
staunch MFDC propagandist was state lodged at the
Atlantic Hotel in Banjul and given state authority to
verbally attack the Wadda government every way he
desired. As a result, this man was even calling press
conferences in The Gambia demanding international
sanctions against Senegal while Yaya sat watch.
 Yaya also paraded the late General Manneh as a
renowned hero in the Gambia purely as a mockery to the
Senegalese for the so-called defeat their army
suffered in the hands of the general in Bissau with
the help of the MFDC combatants in 1998. Now after
Manneh was killed to the open jubilation of Senegal
and Alexander Djiba fired by Father Djamacone
Senghore, Yaya was recently heard in Senegal
shamelessly saying that he supported no rebellion in
Cassamaance because as a Pan-Africanist he would
rather see the continent united than divided. So how
do you judge such a dangerously erratic character on
anything he shows commitment? People with such taste
for double standards best suited for the gallows. And
believe in me that where they always end up hanging.
 Anyway as far as I am concerned he was only trying to
fool Wadda. My gut feeling told me that upon his
return to the Gambia he would have called the rebels
and pledged a fat contribution to their war funds. So
to cut a long story short, I know Yaya supports the
rebellion in Cassamance with everything he has but
will continue to pretend as if he does not.
Back to my main subject, the FARAFENNI ATTACK. I still
think of that disaster as an unforgivable blunder
caused by a dirty political game played by Yaya Jammeh
and Abdou Joof. Corporal Sidibeh of Farafenni Barracks
died leaving a pregnant wife who still cannot get over
the shock. Private Saidy was only nineteen and had
served in the GNA for only three months. The late Yaya
Drammeh confirmed killing the teenager as walked out
of his room in pajamas trying see what the strange
firing was all about in the camp. Yet the most
gruesome picture to me was the painful looks in Staff
Sergeant Jatta's eyes with his tongue badly bitten in
his dying moment. He still had his prayer beads in
hand. He was killed on his way to the mosque for dawn
prayers. It was too bad to tell all.
Any way back to that encounter between the GNA task
force and the attackers around Kerewan, it was up to
that moment thought that they were only five men who
attacked the camp and kidnapped Captain Biran Saine.
Evidently when sunlight broke into the camp that
morning all that people noticed were five men in
civilian clothes with six soldiers lying dead at
different spots in the camp. These were the five who
dashed for their lives northbound to Senegal under
serious volleys of machine guns and AK 47 fire from
the GNA troops.
What we did not know at the time was that they were
eight in total and that their own fire hit two of
their men at the first minutes of the attack.  Mballow
Kanteh was one of the two, severely injured on his
thigh. He could not run or walk, but he managed to
make it to the Farafenni clinic for help. He appeared
suspicious, so the medical personnel alerted the
police who arrested him and handed him over to the
NIA. Sulayman Sarr who later told us that he was
accidetally shot by Ablie Sonko managed to escape to
Kaulack, Senegal, where he was admitted at a hospital.
The Senegalese intelligence service picked him up from
his hospital bed. Famara Jibba an older man they said
was responsible for their spiritual protection
disappeared after Sulayman Sarr cried in the dark that
he was shot. He was never seen again.
However the other five who ran towards Senegal were
Ablie Sonko, his close assistant whose name I am still
trying to remember, John Dampha an ex-GNA soldier who
was a rebel trainer in Liberia, Essa Baldeh a
Senegalese from Kolda who fought in Liberia for more
than five years. He said he was promised the position
of Minister of finance in The Gambia after the
successful overthrow of the government. And last but
not the least was late Yaya Drammeh who died at Mile
Two Prison months later.
Yaya Drammeh was the second to be captured. He was not
familiar with the terrain, so instead of heading to
Senegal northward, he ran eastward staying in The
Gambia until fatigue crippled all his energy. Kids
playing from a Gambian village in the North Bank
Division found him sleeping under a tree. The children
woke him up and led him to their village where he was
hoping to get food and water that he desperately
needed. The villagers subdued him and handed him over
to the Farafenni police.
John Dampa and Essa Baldeh were captured in Dakar and
together with Sulayman Sarr, the Senegalese handed
them over to us.
We wanted to make a press release thanking Senegal for
their cooperation but Yaya rejected the idea
completely. That was why the Gambia never acknowledged
the extradition of those three men from Senegal.
By then however, Yaya was playing his pretentious
games again arguing that the Senegalese masterminded
the attack in the Gambia for no reason other than
their jealousy of his successful administration. He
acted as if he did not have a clue about who were
behind the attack, just like all of us felt at the
time.
But we also argued with him that there was no sense
for Senegal to be behind such a poorly executed
operation and then turn around and send us the
culprits they captured from their territory. And
beside, the captured men had come out plain confessing
that the Senegalese government had nothing to do with
the attack plan or execution. The NIA were however, on
Yaya's side in the Senegalese-backed-attack theory
adding that the Senegalese had more rebels preparing
to move in from Tambacunda. It was absolutely false
which we proved to Yaya with the evidence gathered so
far. But Yaya still kept on huffing and puffing,
swearing that Senegal must pay for the lives of the
Gambian soldiers killed.
Well Edward Singhateh who was completely kept in the
dark about the Kukoi affairs but was the vice-chairman
and the minister of defense took Yaya seriously.
Therefore, Edward called Baboucarr Jatta the Army
Commander then warning him to alert the GNA for a
possible attack into Senegal. Kaulack was supposed to
be the target. He was not joking and we all knew it.
It would also have been the suicidal operation of the
millenium, but Edward would have given the order
anyway. Whether it would have been executed was
another matter thinkable.
Anyhow at the next briefing we had with Yaya in his
office (Edward was absent) he finally produced the
paper from the right-side drawer of the table. It was
the document from the Senegalese about Kukoi's attack
plan handed over to him three months ago. He had
chickened out after seeing that Edward was not playing
with his attack ideas on Kaulack.
He explained his simple version of the matter saying
that it was the Senegalese who offered to mediate for
the return of Kukoi. He said that things went well in
the beginning until Kukoi came to Senegal where a
small problem emerged. Kukoi wanted to come and form a
political party, which he rejected for the reason that
political parties were by decree banned in the country
at the time. He said that it was after he told the
Senegalese that Kukoi could only be allowed into the
country as a normal private citizen and nothing more
that they brought him the attack plan.
Senegal had arrested Kukoi together with his men at
Tambacunda and wanted to know what to do with him.
Yaya said he told them to deal with him but also
warned them not to allow him to attack The Gambia from
Senegal. I found that very hard to believe.
Yaya also said that at the time he received the paper,
he brought the attention of its contents to Yankuba
Touray, Lamin Kabba Bajo, Samba Bah and Baboucarr
Jatta. Why he left Edward out, his vice chairman and
minister of defense, he never explained. Samba Bah and
Baboucarr Jatta who were present at the briefing swore
before Yaya that they were never informed. I believe
Jatta was telling the truth. I did not know about
Samba Bah who was the director general of the NIA.
History will tell some day. As for Yankuba and Bajo,
Yaya said that they had all dismissed the Senegalese
paper as nonsense. They were not present at the
briefing.
Anyway by the very nature of the secrecy at which the
negotiation was conducted between General Wane and
Yaya Jammeh, only the NIA perhaps could have picked up
something about the deadly deal. If they were better
tuned up with their national security responsibilities
instead of building an agency full of legalized
extortionists, they would have trail Kukoi after the
Point News Paper came up with the Gambian-Liberian
rebels captured in Tambacunda in 1996.
One Mr. John was their representative in Dakar who
until even after the attack did not know what
happened. As expected however, he was made the
scapegoat. Salmina Drammeh was sent to replace him
without notice.
Another person who could have stolen some vital
information from the secret negotiation was Baboucarr
Jatta. Throughout the period and the numerous trips
made by General Wane from Senegal to meet Yaya, only
Baboucarr Jatta was allowed to escort him from the
airport to Yaya's office and back. It was usually a
few hours meeting during which Jatta sat outside
waiting. After the meeting Jatta would escort the
General back to his special plane at the airport.
 Being the most senior Army officer in the country
Jatta should have been able through open discussions
to get something from the General on his strange
confidential missions.
But unfortunately for Baboucarr Jatta, I think
subjected to a psychiatric evaluation, he will most
likely come out with prognosis of a person suffering
from acute -job -identity crisis. For instead of
taking himself as a top military asset of the nation
best cut for defense policies and national strategy
matters, Jatta believes that he is a naturally born
architect, a master brick layer and a hardened
laborer. Spend a brief moment with the man and before
you know it he is showing you the contour of his palms
and how they are hardened from the manual work he
constantly does for the erection of his fence and
building his house at his private homes in Bakoteh and
Kotu.  He is dangerously incompetent. Just recently I
read in The Gambian papers that he was at the beach
physically arresting sand miners, a job everyone knows
should be a police constable's. A whole chief of
staffs a nation's armed forces arresting sand miners?
That must be something tangential to bad command. And
let us not forget it was mainly bad command that
caused the second lieutenants to overthrow the PPP
government in 1994.
But Jatta is Yaya's number one man, do not be fooled.
He is a genius in flattery an effective weapons for
simple-headed leaders like Yaya.
In my next piece however, I will try to end this topic
with the version of the captured attackers and how
those from Tambacunda were extradited to the Gambia in
1997 and not 1996. I will also explain the role played
by Samsideen Sarr and Sankung Badjie in the
extradition process. As for the torturing they
suffered as reported by the Independent Paper, I
suggest they talk to Swanding Camara whom they said
was a free man now. He should be able to tell them who
brutalized or tortured. I definitely do not know
anything about that. Anyway one thing is also certain;
these men are not as innocent as portrayed. Till next
week, I signed off.


Ebou Colly



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