Katim,
l for one do not believe that you should roll over and play dead on this one.
l support everything you are doing to put an end to this psychopath's
efforts.As for his threats of writing to St. Johh's, l think someone should
remind him that this is a free country, we are free to criticise even the
President of the Unites States on this list without being thrown in jail or
pistle whipped, because this is a democracy.Likewise, if some of us feel that
we have some criticisms to level at the present government in the Gambia, and
indeed we are supplied with much evidence almost daily, we can criticise them
without fear of being removed by our host.
Jabou Joh
Hi folks,
I'm writing again to update you on an issue that's been simmering in the
background, known only to a few people who have been unfortunate to suffer
the
wrath of Matarr Njie whenever he sees fit.
First, a backgrounder. Or a lack thereof. I do not know Matarr from eve.
In
a prior exchange of e-mail messages, a number of months ago, when I wrote to
ask whether he was a Matarr Njie that I knew at the Dept. of Livestock
Services
(Abuko), he told me that he wasn't. Rather he was a friend of a friend of
mine, and that we had indeed met before. I told him that I did not remember,
and I still do not remember meeting him. And that was that.
As most of you now know, I removed one Burama Manjang from Gambia-L when it
was
hosted at the University of Washington, Seattle (UW). The reason I did that
was Burama Manjang's posting had strayed into the vulgar, and uncouth, and
totally underserving of being tolerated on the list.
Furthermore, you'll recall that I posted the results of my investigation into
the identity of Burama Manjang, and it turned out that the circumstantial
evidence was strongly in favor of the case that Matarr Njie was in indeed
passing himself off as Burama Manjang. To help the case even more, Matarr
(and
Burama, I might add) could not provide any respectable evidence to establish
that the two names and e-mail accounts referred to different and seperate
persons.
Upon my removal of Burama Manjang from Gambia-L, Matarr Njie embarked on a
campaign of insults against me and my parents, both on the list, and in
private
e-mail messages. You will recall that besides removing Burama from
Gambia-L, I
also initiated efforts to expel Matarr Njie from Gambia-L on the basis of
rules
that were voted on, Matarr was asked and volunteered to tally the votes, and
later turned against because he thought they were unrepresentative of the
sentiments of the majority of Gambia-L subscribers.
Matarr, according to his e-mail messages to me, also claimed to have
launched a
campaign at UW to stop them from continuing to host Gambia-L. While I never
thought much of such efforts, the need to be protective of the livelihood of
Mr. Anthony Loum, under whose auspices Gambia-L was being hosted at UW, was
paramount. Furthermore, indications were that UW has been re-assessing the
use
of their e-mail facilities, and all these factors resulted in a final move of
Gambia-L to St. Johns University in New York City, USA.
You might also recall that I copied an e-mail message I wrote to Rebekah
Skiver
of UW advising her of our move to St. Johns Unversity. Well, immediately
after
that posting was distributed, I got an e-mail from Matarr Njie to the effect
that there was no such person as Rebekah, and that they were making efforts
to
alert St. Johns University to the use of Gambia-L as an anti-Jammeh
administration tool.
Needless to say I have, since I received that e-mail from Matarr, begun to
wonder whether Matarr is sane or not. But that's besides the point. Suffice
it
is to say that I got an e-mail from Rebekah the other day, and contrary to
what
Matarr and his cohorts, if there indeed are such people, will have you
believe
our management of Gambia-L at UW would have stood up to scrutiny. I am
forwarding Rebekahs e-mail message under seperate cover.
Having been removed from Gambia-L, Matarr embarked on a campaign of sending
me,
and other people private and insulting e-mail messages. He not only has sent
me insults in private e-mail, but he has often copied them to other people.
In
the same vein, he has also copied me insults he's sent to a number of people.
Clearly, he wants to make sure that I'm kept abreast of his rudeness.
All this would have been a matter for me to deal with on my own had it not
been
for the fact that Matarr's e-mail messages are often prompted by people
sending
postings to Gambia-L. He has informed me that he is still subscribed to
Gambia-L, under an address(es) different from his previous one(s), and for
this
reason gets copies of postings on the list.
Not only does he get copies of Gambia-L postings, he has taken his tirades
off
the list because he is coward enough not to want to expose his e-mail address
by sending his responses to the list. This practice has created an
atmosphere
where almost anyone who says something that is critical of the present
Gambian
government is bound to hear some insults from Matarr. And therein lies the
problem.
I don't know about you, but I am not going to stand for Matarr or anyone for
that matter intimidating people for speaking out on the issues. I would like
to point out that Gambia-L is an un-moderated list, and anyone can send any
thing to the list as long as it is not insulting of others, and is language
that conforms to the norms of civil discourse. Judging from the numerous and
varied postings we have (and are now publicly available online), it is clear
that there is a great variety of opinion on issues tabled on the list.
Further, each and every side has as much opportunity as any other to express
their opinions, and in an unfettered manner.
I wrote to the list a few weeks ago asking for help in getting information
about Matarr Njie to enable me build a case against him, and his abuse of
both
the Malaysian computer network he uses, and also his HotMail accounts. I
have
preceeded that posting with a private e-mail to Tombong Saidy (since he is
one
known government employee on Gambia) seeking his help in getting information
about Matarr. For your information, I sent Matarr a copy of the message I
sent
Tombong.
I must say that I have not had ONE person send me any information about
Matarr.
Which is just fine by me. I should also say that the private messages I
received from Gambia-L subscribers in response to my search for information
on
Matarr were to the effect that I should just ignore him. In other words, I
should roll over and play dead.
While it might be fine with some people to bury their heads in the sand, and
not bother to open mail from Matarr, I am not going to do that. I have
continued my efforts in private to put a stop to the intimidating and
insulting
behavior from Matarr. Indeed, it was because of this that I was driven to
redouble my efforts, after receiving a copy of his response to Ebrima Ceesay
who had commented on the purchase of the "Observer" newspaper by Amadou
Samba.
I should say here that I do not know Ebrima from Adam, and so saw no reason
for
Matarr to send me a copy of his private e-mail to Ebrima. I'm glad that he
forwarded the e-mail to the list, for everyone's information, and also to put
it in the public record.
I wrote earlier this morning (Thursday, May 27) to the JARING Network
Operations Center in Malaysia, and to HotMail to file a complaint about
Matarr's abusive e-mail messages. I also followed up the e-mail message to
Malaysia with a phone call a few minutes later, and talked to the person on
duty. He informed me that he would talk to their Manager, and indeed did
because I received an e-mail from the Manager. He told me that the IP Number
Matarr was writing from was assigned to an organization, and he had forwarded
my complaint to them. He also wants me to send him more details about
Matarr,
and I will do so shortly.
I also received a reply from HotMail to the effect that they want full,
unedited e-mail messages, and I will be sending them a few. Furthermore, I
will be calling them to follow-up on it as soon as it is business hours out
in
California. For your information, and if you care to write or call either
JARING and/or HotMail, here are their contacts:
JARING Network Operations Center, Abuse complaints:
[log in to unmask]
Phone: 60-3-966-1900
Please note that 60 is the International access code for Malaysia, and 3 is
the
city code for Kuala Lumpur.
For HotMail, their address is:
[log in to unmask]
Phone: (408) 222-7000
Again, please note that HotMail is in California, and the Pacific time zone.
That's about all for now. And by the way, in case this resembles a contempt
of
my previous posting not to bad-mouth Mr. Njie after taking him off the list,
I
would like to say that he said he gets copies of Gambia-L postings. So I'm
fully aware that he's going to get this e-mail.
Have a great weekend, and best wishes.
Katim
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
