Ebrima,

This e-mail was sent to Mississippi senators: Bennie Turner, Terry Burton,
Videt Carmichael, and Hullman Frazier, and copied to Rust College's Alumni
Association.

DEAR SENATOR!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR AUDIENCE.

REPORTS THAT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE NATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENT
LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (NAASLC) AT RUST COLLEGE DR. A.J. STOVALL HAS EXTENDED
AN INVITATION TO GAMBIA GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS; YANKUBA TOURAY AND TOMBONG
SAIDY TO SPEAK TO STUDENTS IN THE COLLEGE'S SOCIAL SCIENCE SCHOOL IS AT BEST
TROUBLING, BORDERING ON MORAL BANKRUPTCY AND INTELLECTUAL FAMINE OF BRAILLIC
PROPORTIONS.

DR STOVALL VISITED GAMBIA WITH A GROUP OF HIS STUDY ABROAD STUDENTS AND THEY
WERE APPARENTLY WELL RECEIVED BY THE APRC GOVERNMENT. APPARENTLY, MR.
STOVALL IS ENDEAVORING TO RETURN THE FAVOR BY INADVERTENTLY LEGITIMIZING THE
VERMIN OF A GOVERNMENT. CONSIDERING THAT ONE IS A HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT AND A
MURDERER, AND THE OTHER NONE FOR THE BETTER, THE GAMBIAN COMMUNITY IN THE
GREAT STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, AND THE U.S. IN GENERAL BELIEVES THAT THE
GESTURE, ALBEIT PERSONAL, IS ILL-ADVISED.

THE ATTACHED LETTER FROM A HIGHLY REGARDED GAMBIAN SPEAKS TO OUR SENTIMENTS
AND FACTS. FURTHERMORE, I REFER YOU TO THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT'S COUNTRY
REPORTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES-AFRICA-GAMBIA-1998/99. IN EFFECT, BECAUSE
THE GAMBIA'S JUDICIARY'S INDEPENDENCE IS HELD HOSTAGE BY THE ARMED MILITIA
GOVERNMENT, DR. STOVALL'S GUESTS ARE FUGITIVES OF LAW, BIDING TIME TO ANSWER
TO CHARGES OF MURDER, TORTURE, BLOOD DIAMOND SMUGGLING, AND LIBYAN-COERCED
TERRORISM.

I THEREFORE HUMBLY REQUEST THAT YOU PREVAIL UPON AMBASSADOR HALEY IN GAMBIA
TO DENY THE TWO U.S. ENTRY VISAS. WE ARE CONSULTING WITH OUR RESPECTIVE
SENATORS AND THE STATE DEPARTMENT ON OBTAINING ARREST WARRANTS IF THEY SET
FOOT ON THE CONTIGUOUS U.S. TERRITORY.

I REMAIN-RESPECTFULLY-HARUNA DARBO.


Dr A.J. Stovall,

Division of Social Science,

Rust College,

Holly Springs,

Mississippi.


Dear Dr Stovall,

Let me please introduce myself to you. I am a Gambian Journalist (formerly
an Editor of the Gambia’s Daily Observer newspaper). I am currently
undertaking Post Graduate Research at the Centre of West African Studies at
the University of Birmingham, UK. My research interests lie in Third World
politics, development issues in Africa, and the African military and
democratisation on the continent. Specifically, I am researching
democratisation in The Gambia under Yayha Jammeh. I have been living and
working in the UK since I left The Gambia in December 1996, after two years
of harassment at the hands of the AFPRC regime of Yahya Jammeh.
During the coup period and until the time that I left The Gambia, I was also
the BBC Gambia Correspondent. I provided daily reporting and analysis of
political, economic and social events as they unfolded in The Gambia.

I am not giving you these biographical details to impress you or other
readers of this letter: rather to present my credentials and qualifications
which equip me to write to you about the issue of Yankuba Touray and Tombong
Saidy who are due to make a presentation to students at Rust College on
January 12-13th.
I note that the Mission Statement of the National African American Student
Leadership Conference reads:

“To address issues of liberation, and provide analysis of progressive
African
leadership models, past and present, and outline revolutionary leadership
paradigms of the future.”
Since the Alex Haley book “ROOTS” was published, African Americans have
developed a huge interest in Africa in general, West Africa more
specifically and The Gambia in particular, since this was the country to
which Haley apparently traced his ancestors. For African Americans to return
to the African continent in order to trace their own roots and to build up
kinship ties on the continent, has become a deeply significant act.

We who are African born, and those of African heritage born in the Diaspora
share powerful connecting links, and there is much we can do together for
the betterment of our black people hood in general – through education,
trade, health, culture, sports etc.
In those centuries when our black ancestors were forcibly taken from their
homeland as slaves, the immediate, physical links with “home” might have
been severed, but those deeper links of ancestry, blood lines and kinship
bonds remain to this day and into the future. There is therefore a genuine
case to be made for fostering mutual understanding, discussion and other
links with each other: we are still truly brothers and sisters. The NAASL
Conference has a duty to foster these connections and to do all in its power
to forge meaningful bonds between black people wherever they may have been
born.

But it has to be said though that Africa has produced many tyrants who have,
through force of arms, become our leaders. These tyrants have nothing to
offer their people except violence, intimidation, fear and repression. They
have even less to offer to our African American brothers and sisters. Some
of these African leaders are as repressive as the white slave masters of
old. Diasporan-born Africans should cement their links with continental born
Africans, BUT they have to be discriminating in the links they wish to
foster.
Now, specifically on Gambian issues: one of the most repressive and
draconian regimes to be found today in the whole of Africa lies in the tiny
nation of The Gambia. A recent study cited the regime of Yayha Jammeh in The
Gambia as one of the six most repressive in Africa, along with Sudan and
Liberia. There are also many other international reports and studies which
detail the levels of repression evident in today’s Gambia (the independent
country reports of both Amnesty International, and of the US State
Department make powerful and disturbing reading).

Dr Stovall, Yahya Jammeh’s Pan Africanism is based on opportunistic
rhetoric: he lacks sincerity in all that he says and does. This is the man
who during his rule has so far deported more than 60 West Africans, the
majority of whom are educationists, journalists or human rights activists.
This is the man who just last month deported six Senegalese brothers (people
who share our language, our cultural heritage and kinship ties).
This is the man who deported the Sierra Leonean journalist, Cherno Ojuku
Ceesay, who had fled to exile from his home country to The Gambia, back into
the hands of his military opponents in Sierra Leone, in gross violation of
International Law. This is the man who deported Kenneth Best, one of
Africa’s most respected journalists, back to his war torn country of Liberia
(Mr Best took me personally under his tutelage in The Gambia and he is my
Mentor).

Today, the Jammeh regime represents all that is bad in politics. Six years
have elapsed since Jammeh seized power, and our wonderful nation is now a
travesty of its former self: murder, repression, fear, violence, violation
of human rights and freedoms, kidnap, detention incommunicado without charge
or trial, greed and injustice are the order of the day. Levels of poverty,
of maternal and infant mortality, of unemployment and of crime rates are all
escalating out of control.
The regime uses its “secret police”, the National Intelligence Agency, to
arrest without warrant, to detain without charge, to harass and persecute
and even to murder. This is a regime where the Minister of the Interior has
been given the power through Decree to detain any person for as is wished
and to do so without reason. This is a regime which has arbitrarily sacked
civil servants who have given sterling service over the years. This is the
regime which has exiled, either directly or indirectly, more than 5000
Gambians. This is a regime which makes its civil and legislative
appointments on the basis of nepotism and favouritism.

This is a regime whose greed is naked: it takes reserves directly from the
Central Bank of The Gambia whensoever it chooses. Within six short years,
Jammeh has transformed himself on the backs of the struggling Gambian
citizenship, into a multi-millionaire with bank accounts in Dubai and
Switzerland. The man now owns and runs a private jet, and is on record as
having boasted that he, his children and his grandchildren will never suffer
in life because of the wealth he has accumulated. This is a regime which has
interfered with the judiciary to the extent that its independence is now
totally compromised.
This is a regime which for no just reason, deliberately and cold-bloodedly
killed 14 peacefully-demonstrating students on the streets of Serrekunda on
April 10th/11th this year. No one has been brought to justice, nor are they
likely to be, for these awful murders of young innocents (one a child of
three years old, and another a Red Cross worker/journalist struggling to
bring first aid and comfort to dying kids on Red Cross premises).

This is a regime which represses the independent media, even now threatening
to deport true Gambian-born editors of the Independent Newspaper. Citizen FM
radio station was summarily closed down for two years for carrying reports
critical of Jammeh and his regime (and even when the Courts ordered
restoration to the owners, the regime prevaricated). Radio One FM, which has
earned the reputation of being an important independent voice in the Gambia,
has recently had its staff attacked and its premises burned.
Just last week, the United Nations issued a damning report, citing The
Gambia in the involvement of the “blood diamond” trafficking, and of illegal
arms dealing in the sub-region. The Gambia’s role in the illegal hard drugs
trade and of being a hard drugs haven is growing and investigations will
surely soon follow the accusations.

The name and reputation of The Gambia as a country of reasonable Human and
Civil Rights protection for the whole of West Africa and indeed, the
Continent, have been brought into such international disrepute: the country
is now derided and has become a laughing stock on the world stage.
Both Yankuba Touray and Tombong Saidy are active players in and
beneficiaries of this awful regime. They are directly (or indirectly)
implicated and involved in the repression, the illegality, the tyranny.

Yankuba Touray is a man of limited educational background and intellectual
capacity. Gambians at home and abroad will wonder why this man has been
asked to speak about African culture, and its theory and practice. Calling
this man a “distinguished” Gambian is an affront to his fellow countrymen.
This is the man who on the even of the 1996 Presidential Election in The
Gambia directly gave orders to the security forces to beat up and torture
Opposition supporters (mainly from the United Democratic Party) at Denton
Bridge on the outskirts of Banjul. 36 people were injured and hospitalised,
and 3 of these later died (including a pregnant woman). This is the man who
openly boasts that the regime of Yahya Jammeh will never be ousted from
power, not even by democratic electoral process.

This is a man with a reputation for liking “young girls”: for searching them
out and using them for his own purposes. This is a man who was among Council
Members who gave direct orders that some 30 soldiers implicated in an
alleged coup attempt on November 11th 1994, be put to death without pity or
recourse to the law. This is the man who is the most vocal of the current
regime: known as Jammeh’s “praise-singer”. This is the man who has grown
rich, and now owns many of the properties seized from former PPP officials
and ministers.
Yankuba Touray is no-one’s role model: particularly, he is not one for young
African Americans wanting to learn something of their continent of origin.

As for Tombong Saidy, he runs one of the most repressive and one-sided media
outfits in the history of Africa. His Gambia Radio and Television Service
(GRTS) is the mouthpiece for this murderous regime, and Tombong heads it up
in true Jammeh-regime style. He is dictatorial, and appoints and promotes
only on nepotistic/favouritism bases. Many of the fine young journalists and
broadcasters have left already because of his leadership style.
Tombong Saidy was The Gambia’s Charge d’Affairs to the USA in the transition
period, but was declared personal non-grata by the American government after
he severely beat up his own wife. He was then transferred to the UK, but the
British government after some lobbying by Gambians in the UK, asked him to
return back to The Gambia, where he was then chosen to head up the GRTS.

Neither Touray nor Saidy have anything of worth to offer the student body at
Rust College. By associating yourself and the NAASLC with men of this ilk,
you are not only violating the principles of your charter, you are also
tacitly aiding and abetting the oppressive Gambian regime of Yahya Jammeh.
This will be a betrayal of all that you stand for and what African Americans
have fought for and stood up for over the years: that is, freedom from
oppression, civil liberties and justice.
History now asks that you and Rust College disassociate itself from these
members of a tyrannical and murderous regime.

I urge you to take the following measures:
1. Sever or cut all links with the Jammeh regime in The Gambia

2. Cancel the visit of Yankuba Touray and Tombong Saidy
3. Retract your statement referring to these two men as “distinguished”
Gambians

4. Prevail upon Yahya Jammeh to improve his record on human rights, and to
ensure free and fair elections in 2001
5. Lobby all African Americans to inform them of the true nature of the
Gambian regime

6. Work with progressive Gambians who have the country’s best interests at
heart. There are many competent Gambians who would be pleased to be invited
to speak to your student body about Gambian and African culture.
Contact Professor Sulayman Nyang at Howard University in Washington DC or
Professor Abdoulaye Saine at Miami University in Ohio. Both these men are
distinguished Gambian scholars and fine speakers.

I also ask you to research further information on The Gambia since the 1994
coup in order to substantiate the contents of my letter. See:
John Wiseman, “Military Rule in The Gambia: an interim assessment” in Third
World Quarterly Vol 17 1996

John Wiseman, “The Gambia: From Coup to Elections” in Journal of Democracy
Vol 9 No 2 April 1998
John Wiseman, “The July 1994 Coup d’Etat in The Gambia – the end of an era”
in Round Table Journal 1995

Abdoulaye Saine, “The Military’s Managed Transition to Civilian Rule in The
Gambia”. Journal of Political and Military Sociology. No 26 Winter 1998
Arnold Hughes, “Democratisation under the Military in The Gambia 1994-2000,”
Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. November 2000-12-27

I am also working on a pamphlet myself entitled “The Case Against Jammeh and
his regime” and shall send this to you upon completion early in January.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Yours sincerely,
Ebrima Ceesay

Birmingham, UK

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