GPU-USA News Release

Chief Manneh Disappearance Continues to Agonize Family

As GPU-USA Sends $500 Family Support

By Cherno Baba Jallow


The continued disappearance of the Gambian journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh is
leaving his family in fear and worry, his father Sarjo Manneh, told the
GPU-USA recently. "I am really distressed...there are no supporters here,"
he complained. "I have been to many government offices, visited many
marabouts, but nothing has brought my son back." He said he and the entire
family had only met roadblocks and closed doors in seeking to know their
son's fate. "The entire family is pained by this," the elder Manneh decried,
adding that he had sometimes been laughed out of offices when he showed up
to ask about his son. "Some people think I have gone crazy for demanding to
know whatever has happened to my son."

The Jollof News reported recently that when news got out that his son had
been arrested and gone missing in 2006, Mr. Manneh visited his son's former
employer, the Daily Observer, soliciting some information. "When Chief
Manneh's father came to query about his son's whereabouts, nobody wanted to
talk," the paper reported.

The elder Manneh continues to search for his son. He told this reporter that
he had once gone to the Gambian Vice-president Isatou Njie Saidy's residence
seeking audience with her, but was told to meet with her at the State House
instead. He said he still hadn't called in on the Vice President because he
was feeling very helpless, and that nothing fruitful had come out of his
quest for his son's whereabouts. Also, he reported that a number of
prominent Gambians had urged him to lay low. "They have been very
sympathetic to me...but they want me to stay at home and leave matters in
God's hands and not to go on searching for my son all by myself. They are
very concerned about my personal safety and that of my family's," he
averred.


*Dead or Alive*


Plain-clothed security officers picked Chief Manneh up at the Observer on
July 7 in 2006. His arrest, some eye-witness accounts have allowed, was in
connection to a BBC article critical of the Jammeh Administration that he
was said to be working on for re-publication in the Observer. Other accounts
have also pointed that Manneh's trouble may be linked to his supposed
possession of some incriminating information about the 2005 Ghanaian
killings "in" The Gambia and which he allegedly may have passed on to the
Ghanaian authorities.

Public sightings have placed him in various parts of the country. Following
his arrest, Chief Manneh was driven to the Bakau Police Station and later
transferred to the headquarters of the National Intelligence Agency in
Banjul. Yaya Dampha, a former Foroyaa reporter and now living in exile,
wrote recently that his search for the missing journalist had led him to the
eastern Gambian town of Fatoto.

"When I reached Fatoto in December 2006," he reported, "I saw an officer
escort Manneh out of a cell and serve him food. I couldn't interview Manneh
and despite my paper's efforts, police officers wouldn't comment on the
sighting." Dampha also claimed that he saw Chief Manneh in April of 2007 at
the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) under police and prison warden's escort.
He believed the journalist was still being held in a secretive cell at the
Mile Two prison.

However, an anonymous police source attached to the Mile Two prison told the
Agence France-Presse (AFP) in 2009 that Chief Manneh was no longer alive.
The source, reported the French news agency, said he saw Manneh being
whisked away in the middle of the night by a police officer. "That was the
last day I set my eyes on him and to the best of my knowledge, Chief Manneh
is not alive."

Chief Manneh's mother also told the AFP that she believed her son would not
return alive. "Nothing can convince me that my breadwinner son is still
alive,"  she said.

Before she was fired from her job, the former Gambian Attorney General and
Justice Minister Marie Saine Firdaus announced to the international
community that Chief Manneh had never been in government custody. "The State
can only release a person from custody if he or she is in fact in the
custody of the State," she demurred. Last month, her successor Edu Gomez, in
his response to a query from the Jarra Central representative Hon. Pa Jallow
during a parliament sitting, also released a number of denials. President
Yahya Jammeh has also repeatedly denied that the missing journalist was in
his government's custody. The Gambian Government continues to disregard an
ECOWAS-court ruling demanding that Chief Manneh be released immediately and
be paid a $100, 000 compensatory fee.

"It is really difficult to get any information from the officials," Mohamed
Keita, the Africa Advocacy Coordinator for the New York-based press watchdog
Committee to Protect Journalists, told this reporter. "We have all the
eye-witness accounts, but since they are denying holding him, there is
nothing much to be done."

*Financial Help*


In the meantime, Chief Manneh's father has thanked the GPU-USA for sending
the family the sum of $500. "The money has been very helpful and your
support does come in times of need," he said, adding, "sometimes it has been
hard to provide food for the family." The remittances have provided an
alternative source of income for some of the Manneh family's domestic
expenses such as feeding and school fees for the kids.

This is the second year in a row that the US-based press union has been
lending a supporting hand to the Manneh family. Last year, it disbursed a
total of $1000; and this year, following a sustained fund-raising campaign,
a similar humanitarian effort is being undertaken for the missing
journalist's family. "We extend our profound appreciation to all those who
contributed in cash or kind towards helping the Manneh family," the GPU-USA
Secretary General Demba Baldeh remarked. He assured the Manneh family that
the Union wouldn't rest until Chief Manneh's captors were brought to book
and the family got some closure on his situation.

Last month, both Chief Manneh and the slain Point editor Deyda Hydara
received the Hero of African Journalism Award from The African Editors Forum
(TAEF). Wife Marie Piere Hydara and brother Musa Manneh received the awards
on behalf of the respective families. The ceremony took place in Bamako,
Mali.

Chief Ebrima Manneh was born in Lamin. He attended Nusrat High School. He
was Daily Observer's State House correspondent at the time of his
disappearance. "Chief was an ambitious, hardworking young man with
extraordinary talents," his former colleague and now GPU-USA's Treasurer
Lamin Jatta, wrote of him recently.


Cherno Baba Jallow is the Public Relations Officer of the Gambia Press
Union/USA. He can be reached at: [log in to unmask]

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