Gambia News:Detention without Trial, Disappearances without Trace

FOROYAA -The Gambia -Foroyaa continues to monitor the long detention without trial and the disappearances without trace of Gambian citizens. Many of these family heads were said to have been picked up by men in plain clothes. According to some families, they are yet to establish the whereabouts of their loved ones since they were whisked away some years ago.
Mrs. Masireh (Marcie) Jammeh, Mr. Harunah Jammeh, Corporal Alfusainey Jammeh, a Prison warden, all natives of Kanilai in Foni in the Western Region of the Gambia and Mr. Jasarja (Sarja) Kujabi, a native of Foni Dobong, went missing since 14 July 2005.
The family of Masireh and Haruna Jammeh said their family heads were taken away in their presence and since then they have not set their eyes on them or heard of their whereabouts. Jasarja Kujabie’s family said he was arrested on his farm and was escorted to his home to change his farming clothes and was later taken away. The family said they have done all what they could do to get information about him but to no avail.
The family of Prison warden, Corporal Alfusainey Jammeh said he was stationed as guard at the compound of the Director General of The Gambia Prisons Service, Mr. David Colley for some time. They said he was called to report to Police Headquarters in Banjul, but he never returned home. The family said he later called to inform them that he was being detained, but did not give any reason for his detention.
The ex- District Chief of Foni Kansala, Alhagie Momodou Lamin Nyassi and his two close friends, Alhagie Buba Sanyang (alias Bubai Sanyang) and Ndongo Mboob, all natives of Foni Bwiam, went missing on the same day. Their families said the three friends were picked up by men in plain clothes on board a numberless white pickup vehicle on the evening of 4 April 2006, as the trio was seeing each other off after a visit from the house of Sanyang. The families said since then they have never heard or traced their whereabouts, even though they tried all avenues accessible to them.
Journalist Ebrima Manneh (alias Chief Manneh), a State House reporter for the Daily Observer Newspaper went missing since 7th July 2006. His family said he left for work on that day and never returned home. The father said he approached all the concerned authorities and influential personalities within the country for them to intervene to help in the search of his son, but his efforts did not yield any fruits. He said he had visited all the known prisons and numerous police stations across the country in search of his lost son but the authorities never allowed him access to the installations.
His colleagues at work said he was picked up by a man in plain clothes. They said he was later seen on board a white car heading towards Banjul and never returned to work.
The Media Foundation of West Africa (MFWA) took the matter to the Community Court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja for The Gambia government to release him. The Gambian authorities never appeared before the Court even though the Court made it known that they were served with summon of the suit against them. After a long legal debate without Gambian government appearing in any sitting, the ECOWAS Court delivered judgment and asked the Banjul authorities to release him and to also compensate him an amount of US 100,000. Eight months after the Court’s order the Government made an official comment that Journalist Manneh had never been in their custody. Since then the matter was left like that.
Mr. Kanyiba Kanyi, an employee of the Christian Children Fund (CCF) said to be an opposition sympathizer, went missing since 18th September 2006. His family said he was arrested by men in plain clothes on board a cab at his house in Bonto village in Kombo East, while they looked on. They said his junior brother was later arrested on the same evening and detained over night at the Serious Crime Unit at Police Headquarters in Banjul.
His family said they took Lawyer Ousainou Darboe who filed a “Habeas Corpus” at the High Court for the state to produce him but to no avail. They said the matter has been in court for almost four years and no progress is forthcoming. They added that they do not even know where the case stands as at now. The family said they are completely devastated.
Major Wally Nyang of The Gambia Armed Forces is said to be in detention at the Mile II Central Prison since early March 2010. His family said he was arrested at his house at the Yundum Barracks shortly after he closed from work.
Mr. Abdoulie Njie and Alieu Lowe, both residents of Fagi Kunda are being detained at the Mile II prison since 27 March 2006. The duo were arrested in connection with the 21 March 2006 abortive coup plot. Their families said they have never heard charges preferred against them since their arrest. The family said they are allowed to visit them some times, but not at all times.
Mr. Ebou Jarju, a former Steward at State House, who was first arrested on 20 March 2008, in the presence of his family and held at Banjul Police station up to 11 January 2009, when he was released without any charges, only to be re-arrested a week later is still in custody. His family said he is currently being held at the Mile II Central Prison. They said they could not have access to him since then. The family said he was last seen two weeks ago at the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital under the escort of Prison officers. They said he appeared drained.

The Twilight of Tyranny?

By John Feffer, March 1, 2011

Back in 2005, Congress considered a bill to remove two dictators a year for the next 20 years. "Some people think a world without tyrants is utopian," former U.S. ambassador to Hungary Mark Palmer told me that year. "And they think it's more utopian to have a deadline." Palmer, whose book Breaking the Real Axis of Evil inspired the ADVANCE Democracy Act of 2005, continued: "we're down to a limited number of dictators, and it's entirely feasible to get the rest of them out. Most are pretty creaky and won't even live until 2025!"

The ADVANCE Democracy Act picked up only 17 co-sponsors in the House and died in committee in 2007. That same year, President George W. Bush's pledge to support "democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," was no more successful. Democracy promotion was fatally weakened by the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. economic and military support for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and several other authoritarian regimes over the years – a double-strength double standard – dealt this philosophy a death blow.

But today, pundits on both the left and the right are again dreaming of a world without tyrants. For them, a 2025 deadline is far too generous deadline.

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali are now gone. Libya's Muammar Gaddafi commands a dwindling number of supporters. Ali Abdullah Saleh is facing daily protests in Yemen. Paul Biya in Cameroon and Omar Bongo of Gabon might be in the next hot seats. Protests in China and Cuba, though small and immediately squelched, have drawn inspiration from the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Dictators everywhere are calling their Swiss bankers and readying their escape jets. Perhaps North Korea's Kim Jong Il is reserving one of Robert Mugabe's villas in Zimbabwe, where he and his family might join Gaddafi in the last refuge for scoundrels.

Are we seeing the beginning of the end of an era that stretches back to the very origins of human political organization? And will Bush and his neoconservative advisors go down in history as philosopher-kings who, however unwittingly, set the wrecking ball in motion against the entire edifice of tyranny – rather than just targeting the tyrants not on our payroll?

To answer these questions, pundits are digging into history to find the most appropriate parallel to the current uprisings: the "springtime of nations" in 1848 when popular revolts spread throughout Europe and as far away as Brazil; the transformations in World War I's wake, the Russian revolution, and Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points; and the victories for self-determination during the decolonization that followed World War II.

Perhaps the best comparison is the end of last century’s cataclysmic change. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, authoritarianism in South Korea, and apartheid in South Africa. "In 1991 alone, over 30 African countries were rocked by pro-democracy revolts," writes Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Francis Njubi Nesbitt in A Middle Eastern Dream Deferred? "Millions turned out for peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations.  Military dictatorships fell like dominos. Between 1985 and 1989 only five countries held competitive elections – Botswana, Gambia, Mauritius, Senegal, and Zimbabwe. From 1990-1994, more than 38 countries held truly competitive elections of which 29 openly challenged dictators." 

So far, the uprisings haven't been quite as influential. Nor are they achieving systemic change. Egypt's and Tunisia's military brass and political elite remain in charge. But it's early in the game. If public protests persist – as they have in Tunisia, resulting in the departure of the prime minister and two other ministers from the previous regime – some form of democracy might prevail, with real political parties and contested elections.

One conventional explanation for why democracy will eventually win out is that, whatever its virtues or flaws, it's the political system perfectly matched to the technology of our times. Tyrants can't compete against Twitter, WikiLeaks, and blogging. One-person rule requires control of the mass media. North Korea's Kim Il Sung, by using films as a principal mode of propaganda, understood the importance of controlling the message. But YouTube and DVDs of South Korean soap operas have eroded that monopoly. These technologies are the equivalent of arming the population. It equips them with the means of linking and friending movements into existence.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have supported the use of these technologies as public diplomacy tools for promoting democracy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently noted that: "We are also supporting the development of new tools that enable citizens to exercise their rights of free expression by circumventing politically motivated censorship. We are providing funds to groups around the world to make sure that those tools get to the people who need them in local languages, and with the training they need to access the internet safely." But this contention that technology is the mother of revolution – and the United States the midwife of this revolution – doesn't fully explain why we're experiencing the twilight of tyranny.

Here's why advocates of democracy promotion may well be right about tyranny's end – but not about how we will get there.

First, the events taking place in the Middle East aren't happening because of U.S. policy but despite it. Washington favors stability above all, because the status quois both predictable and favorable to the United States. This explains the double standard of supporting democracy in Iraq but not Saudi Arabia – a position many conservatives uphold in their lamentations over Mubarak's fall, as FPIF contributor M. Junaid Levesque-Alam points out in Focal Points. It also explains why the Obama administration hesitated to support the uprisings until it became clear that the status quo was no longer tenable. Even then, as FPIF contributor Fouad Pervez explains in Democracy Doesn't Equal Instability, "the Obama administration backed a transition to Omar Suleiman in the interests of preserving 'stability,' or more appropriately, existing conditions. If the army opts to implement some reforms but still tries to maintain much of the status quo, will Washington protest?"

Second, neocons assumed that new democracies would be pro-American, much as Eastern Europe backed U.S. foreign policy during the Bush years when "old Europe" equivocated. But new democracies like Indonesia and South Africa have proven rather independent in their global perspectives and favor a more equitable distribution of power in the international system. A democratic Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran will likely make geopolitics harder – not easier – for the United States (at least for those who hang on to the notion of U.S. economic and military supremacy). Democracy is more unpredictable than the House of Saud.

Finally, the uprisings were a response to economic injustice: the rise in food prices, exasperation over corruption, and the lack of jobs for 20-somethings. This injustice isn't merely a function of local conditions. As the UN University's World Institute for Development Economics Research discovered several years ago, the richest 10 percent of the world own 85 percent of all global assets, while the poorest 50 percent own a mere one percent. This gap is growing. The division of the world into rich and poor, what Citigroup describes as a “plutonomy and everyone else,” worries even big financial services companies like Allianz.

The tyrants are gone or on their way out the door. The bankers and plutocrats are worried that their turn is next. Whether in Egypt or in Wisconsin, democracy is not an end in itself – but a means to challenge economic tyranny. Those protesting in the Arab world don't just want to live in truth, like Vaclav Havel: they want to live in justice. Perhaps one day soon, Congress will debate a bill called the ADVANCE Economic Democracy Act that promotes fair trade, strong protections for workers and the environment, a financial transactions tax, and other ways of bridging the ruinous, destabilizing, and fundamentally undemocratic gap between rich and poor. Only then will night fall on tyranny.