Thanks Boss Coach. Mang sa ganaw rek!!

Baba


>From: pasamba jow <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list              
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Now Out: Mandela's Other Children
>Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 11:25:31 -0700
>
>Baba,
>   Congratulations. i will definitely get a copy. Keep up the good work.
>   Coach
>
>Baba Galleh Jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>   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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