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. _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤