Members of the Gambia Armed Forces (GAF)Missing For Months Families in Desperate Situation

(Foroyaa) - Reliable information gathered by Foroyaa has it that five detainees who were or are still are members of the Gambia Armed Forces (GAF) namely, Warrant Officer Class (WO2), Bai Lowe, Staff Sergeant Abdoulie Jallow (alias “Jalino”), Lance Corporal Sang Mendy, Lance Corporal Anthony Mendy and Ex-Lance Corporal Abdoulie Sarr, a former soldier are currently held in detention incommunicado at the Mile II Central Prison for almost a year without trial. All five men were reportedly arrested sometime in July 2010.
According to the Family of WO2 Bai Lowe, a native of Fass Njaga Choi, in the Lower Niumi District of North Bank Region, was permanently stationed at the Kanilai Military post as one of the heads of a Special Unit of GAF. The family said they last communicated with him in late June 2010, since then they have never heard any thing about him, until a couple of months ago when they heard that he is in detention at the Mile II Central Prison. They said they have tried all avenues to have access to him at Mile II Prison but to no avail. The family indicated that any time they visited Mile II Prison to have access to him the authorities there would tell them to visit at another time. The family said they are desperate to have official confirmation of his whereabouts and condition.
The family of Staff Sergeant Abdoulie Jallow (alias “Jalino”), who hails from Giboro Kuta, in the Kombo East District of West Coast Region, said he went missing since the summer of 2010. They said they only heard that he is being detained at the Mile II Central Prison. They stated that they have tried to have access to him at his place of detention, but their efforts bore no fruits as the authorities always denied custody of him. They said they are not aware of any charges against him in any court of law.
The family of Lance Corporal Sang Mendy, a native of Tumani Tenda, in the Kombo East District said he was reportedly missing from his guard post at Kanilai village since July 2010. They said they could not establish the reason for his disappearance, but later realised that he is in custody at Mile II Prison. The family indicated that they are not aware of any charges against him since his arrest.
According to the family of Lance Corporal Anthony Mendy, an indigene of Kandongu Village, in Foni Bintang District, they heard of his arrest and subsequent detention from his colleagues in the Force after a long search. The family said it took months before they could establish his whereabouts. They said they gathered information from some of his colleagues that he was arrested from Kanilai and is now being held at the Mile II Central Prison. They said they have visited the prison on several occasions to see him, but the prison authorities would not allow them access. They asserted that they could not also get any explanation from the prison authorities on the denial of access to him. They said they have constantly visited the prison to have access to him, but to no avail.
The family of ex-Lance Corporal Abdoulie Sarr, a native of Mbollet-Ba Village , in the Lower Niumi District of North Bank Region, said the dismissed soldier was arrested at his residence in Banjul at the early hours of 14 July 2010. The family said Sarr had joined the Army on 4 February 2001, and posted as State Guard up to 8 June 2010, when he was discharged from the Force. They said he has already acquired a job with Gam Petroleum Company and was to commence work a week before his arrest. The family indicated that the dismissed soldier received a phone call at around 1:30am, from an unknown person demanding to know his location. They said Sarr told the caller that he was at his residence in Banjul and within half an hour there was a knock on the door. They said upon opening the door, four armed men appeared in military uniform. They said they recognize the four men as members of State Guard Unit headed by one Lieutenant Buba Bojang. They said Lieutenant Bojang told Sarr that he was under arrest on the orders of the then State Guard Commander Brigadier General Lamin Bojang.
The family said he was told that the reason for his arrest was that his half brother Musa Sarr, also a soldier, had a problem at his guard post in Kanilai and could not be traced. The family said since that day they never set their eyes on him, but only heard that he is being detained at Mile II Central Prison. They indicated that they are not aware of any charges against him neither was he taken before any Court of Law. The family questioned how Sarr could be linked to the problem of his half brother. They said the run away soldier was staying with his family at a separate place from them and has not visited them since his brother was discharged from the army.
The families of all five men said they are not aware of any charges against their loved ones and pleaded with the concerned authorities to release them from custody.
The Position of the Army PRO
According to the GAF PRO, Lt Omar Bojang no army personnel is under detention at the Central Prison at Mile 2. He said the persons mentioned in the article are not current members of the Gambia Armed Forces.

Editor´s Note
The law is clear. No one should be detained for more than 72 hours without appearing before the courts or be released. Charge them or release otherwise the government will continue to be accused of flouting the constitution and the laws of the land. 

Gambia Fails in Freezing So-called Ghadafi’s Assets (#Libya)

(Daily News) - Gambia government’s decision to close down so-called assets of embattled Libyan leader, Ghadafi has failed. Business is instead bustling at Jerma Hotel, Laico Hotel and Dream Park, The Daily News confirmed from official sources.
Gambia government had on Friday, Aril 22, pronounced the freezing of all assets owned by Ghadafi in the country. Laico Hotel, formerly known as Atlantic Hotel, Jerma Hotel, and Dream Park are said to be part of Ghadafi’s assets and therefore freezed with effect from April 22. Over a week on, business is as usual at these places.
The Daily News has confirmed that none of the said investments are owned by Ghadafi. All the three investments are owned by private Libyan citizens.
Gambia’s Tourism Minister has also confirmed that the said investments are neither freezed nor closed down yet.
“I don’t think we can close them down like that,” an unnamed senior government official told The Daily News. “What we can do is to appoint an administrator to oversee the operation of the businesses.”
Eugen Dielthelm is the general manager of Laico Hotel. He stared in astonishment when informed by a The Daily News reporter, who went to him for interview about the development. But he said he wasn’t aware. This was the sixth day after the pronouncement. “It’s a surprise,” he spoke softly, “When was that announcement made?”
“Can I see the press release?” he enquired further, this time looking worried. He logged onto the State house website: www.statehouse.gm to be assured. He then telephoned a person, he said, was the tourism minister, Fatou Mass Jobe.
“Fatou,” he said on the telephone, “I am with a journalist and he told me that my hotel is to be closed-down by the Gambia government.”
After a brief conversation, he looked positive. “My hotel is not closing down,” he said. “If Gambia government is having issues with the Ghadafi’s government that is not my problem and that should not affect my hotel.”
He added: “I am the general manager and I am still the general manager, nothing has changed here as far as I am concerned.”
Mr Muhammed, proprietor of Jerma Hotel, was however aware of the development. But he declined to comment any further after saying the issue has been cleared up with the ministry.
“I can tell you that this [Jerma] hotel is a private investment,” a man who prefered to be anonymous has said. “Yes, the owner is a Libyan, but the ownership has nothing to do with the Libyan government or Ghadifi.”

Author: Lamin Jahateh

Gambia:Yahya Jammeh organizes Prayer Fest to ward-off political unrest in The Gambia

By Mathew K Jallow

In what can only be described as unprecedented and unconventional, Yahya Jammeh over the weekend ordered the Gambia Supreme Islamic Council to hold a two-day prayer vigil in the town of Gunjur 30 miles south of Banjul. According to our sources, the objective of the two days of prayer is to help ward off the turmoil and political upheavals that are ravaging North Africa, the Middle East, Kenya, Zimbabwe and most recently, Burkina Faso.

The prayer vigil, which was performed by over 400 hired Islamic scholars, mobilized from around The Gambia and neighboring Senegal, who each received a cash payment of 1000 dalasis and a bag of rice, and attended by hundreds, were tasked to pray throughout the day and all night for Allah to prevent what is dubbed the “spring of discontent” from taking hold on Gambian shores.

As a benediction of the prayer fest, twelve bulls were slaughtered as sacrifice to the “gods” and two trucks filled with rice were also donated for distribution by the highly superstitious Yahya Jammeh, whose brand of religion combines traditional Islam and primitive African idol worship.

A section of beach where a mosque and a shrine are located was ordered closed to the public, and residents of a nearby beach-side motel were evacuated and relocated. It can be recalled that nearly five years ago, Yahya Jammeh banned pilgrimages and offering of sacrifice at the same mosque and shrine, which were built as a dedication to Shiek Umar Futuyou, a famous 19th Century Islamic cleric from Senegal, whose name the locals attribute to miracles, only to reverse that ban a year later.

Spearheading the prayer vigil was the President of Gambia Supreme Islamic Council, Imam Momodou Lamin Touray, who my sources describe as “Jammeh’s errand Boy. The Gambia Supreme Islamic Council, which consists of 50 Islamic scholars, has over many years acted as a political arm of the Gambian dictatorship, in the process benefitting and regularly accepting large sums of bribe money and vehicles from Dictator Yahya Jammeh. As it is, the political turmoil that began in Tunisia early this year has toppled or are on the verge of toppling many decades-long dictatorships across North Africa and the Middle East, have only recently turned south towards Sub-Saharan Africa. In the West African, Burkina Faso, the first causality of black Africa’s “spring of discontent,” spontaneous and violent uprising demanding an end to the twenty-three year dictatorship of Blaise Campoare, who took over power in a military coup back in 1987, have flared up throughout most regions of that country.

The two day prayer vigil, which according to our sources brought unwanted attention to the seaside town of Gunjur, was marked by Yahya Jammeh’s usual pomp and pageantry, designed to deflect people’s attention from their miseries, if only while it lasts. Ironically, however, the two day prayer fest was marred by one tragedy and mishap after another.

The weekend prayer vigil began with the tragic death of a child, whose life was cut short by Yahya Jammeh’s “presidential” motorcade. Without coming off as insanely conspiratorial as the mad Glen Beck, this fifth child whose death was caused by Yahya Jammeh’s motorcades in as many years, is beginning to look more like “child sacrifice” as practiced by primitive African cultures.

This is not far-fetched for the deeply superstitious Yahya Jammeh, considering that in the early years of his reign in the 1990s, he was known to have fed the corpses of his victims to the crocodiles in his “personal zoo” located in his native village of Kanilai about 90 miles south of the capital Banjul. In another instance, a man carrying a bag of rice was seriously injured after he fell into a well as villagers scrambled and jostled for the rice Yahya Jammeh ordered distributed to Gunjur villagers.

Yet another man was also seriously injured in the process of slaughtering one of the twelve bulls Yahya Jammeh brought as sacrifice to his animist “gods.” But the attention grabber of the weekend’s prayer pomp and pageantry was not Yahya Jammeh, who has become stale news everywhere he travels in and outside the country, but a brave young man who hurled insults at Yahya Jammeh, blaming him for the dire economic and social problems the country has faced throughout the years of his dictatorship.

It goes without saying, the young Gunjur man, whose name is still to be released, was seen being arrested and taken away by Yahya Jammeh’s retinue of bodyguards and security personnel. The weekend prayer vigil itself symptomatic Yahya Jammeh’s fear of the widespread discontent in The Gambia, not just the harsh economic conditions Gambians find themselves living under, but the gross human rights abuses, which over the nearly two decades, have included extra-judicial executions, murders, and disappearances of citizens, tortures, arbitrary arrests and detentions and harsh conditions of incarcerations of political dissidents and members of the military and security forces.

But for now, whether Allah will answer to the town of Gunjur’s weekend prayer fest and immune Yahya Jammeh’s military dictatorship from the spreading political upheavals that have consumed Yahya Jammeh’s friend and next door neighbor, military dictator Blaise Campoare of Burkina Faso, will remain to be seen. But one thing is clear, conditions for a violent uprising in The Gambia are rife, and it may well be only a matter of time before the genie is pulled out of the bottle.

As it is, Yahya Jammeh’s prayers seem sixteen years too late; sixteen years that not even Allah is unwilling to sweep under the rug just for a little prayer and a little blood sacrifice.

Gambia News:Statement by Pamela Ann White, U.S Ambassador to The Gambia on World Press Freedom Day(#WPFD)

The Point -Social media users are playing a starring role in the drama unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa. In many countries in the region - including Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria - the Internet is serving as a catalyst for journalists, activities, and citizens alike to connect with each other and share their stories and calls for change with the world.

"We were unplugged for five days, no Internet connection no mobile devices. We were like in a big prison in Egypt," says Egyptian Blogger Dalia Ziada, in explaining what it felt like when former President Hosni Mubarak's regime switched off the power to the Internet and blocked mobile phone communications in an attempt to stifle press freedom and the freedoms of citizens to access information and assemble peacefully.

But the dark did not stop people from gathering in the streets to demand change.

"The civil rights movement is not new," Ziada explained, "but it did not succeed until the Internet appeared and social networks like Facebook and Twitter attracted larger number of Egyptians."

The Internet is the global gate which has amplified demands for freedom of expression, facilitated vibrant and open discussions on a wide range of topics and connected citizens with each other around the world. Indeed, access to information has been profoundly altered with the arrival of the digital age.

As Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said earlier this year: "The Internet has become the public space of the 21st century-the world's town square, classroom, marketplace, coffeehouse and night club.  We all shape and are shaped by what happens there, all 2 billion of us and counting."

In this new public space crowded with news and chatter, journalists play an essential role in searching for truth, analyzing trends, maintaining credibility, and providing reports to serve the public good. Undoubtedly, the arrival of the digital age - the evolution of the Internet, the emergence of new forms of media and the rise of online social networks - has sparked debate as to what it means to be a journalist, what role bloggers play, and what the effect of a blurring of lines between citizen journalists and professionals will be on the media of today and tomorrow. These imperative debates can be highlighted and further discussed through press related initiatives such as World Press Freedom Day.

World Press Freedom Day, observed annually across the world on May 3rd, was established by the United Nations to celebrate the principle of press freedom and commemorate those who died in trying to exercise them. For these reasons, the United States has partnered with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to hold the official global commemoration of World Press Freedom Day for the first time.

This year's theme could not be more prescient: "21st Century Media - New Media, New Barriers." The establishment and fostering of an independent, pluralistic, and free press is essential to the development of civil societies and democracies across the globe.  

"When a free media is in jeopardy," Secretary Hillary Clinton has said, "all other human rights are also threatened. So in that spirit, let us continue to champion those who stand for media freedom - and expose those who would deny it.  And let us always work toward a world where the free flow of information and ideas remains a powerful force for progress."

We are facing a critical transformative moment in our history. Around the world people are calling out for freedom, transparency, and self-determination. New digital tools are supporting this cause in a way that is faster and more widespread than ever before, and journalists are playing a central role in this effort.  Unfortunately, many of them have been killed or injured as they've sought to report on the grave challenges facing our world today. It is up to each of us to honor their legacy and do all we can - both virtually and in reality - to support press freedom as a fundamental right to be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. 

Much closer to home, there has been an explosion in mobile phone ownership and internet usage, over the last few years. There has also been an increase in the number of new radio stations and newspaper companies. Gambians, in particular the youth, now have a great opportunity to explore and communicate effectively with their peers across the world through these new flagship mediums. The opportunities presented by the current communication climate are great, especially in supporting press freedom nationally and civic engagement.

Gambia News:Veteran Politician Questions President Jammeh’s Source of Wealth

Daily News -The national president of the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), Dembo Bojang alias Dembo By Force questioned Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s source of wealth.
The veteran politician says President Jammeh dishes out money and other forms of gesture to students, musicians, military personnel and others like a benevolent king without disclosing to Gambians his source of wealth. 
President Jammeh came to power in 1994 through a military coup when he was a Lieutenant with a monthly income of less than D2000.00. But he appears to have amassed enough wealth during his 16-year rule. He once responded to such queries by saying that his source of wealth is God.

However, Dembo is not convinced by this explaination. Addressing a mass political rally at Tallinding on Saturday, Bojang said, President Jammeh should disclose his source of wealth and to make a declaration of his bank account.
According to him, Jammeh is fond of dishing out money to people and delivering vehicles as personal gift, noting that it is about time that President Jammeh tell Gambian where he gets the money he is dishing out. 
“We don’t mind President Jammeh’s enjoyment of his presidential privileges but let the wealth of the nation not be squandered by him,” he cautioned.
Dembo By Force said, Gambian currency has suffered a long depreciation under the Jammeh regime coupled with skyrocketing of prices of daily commodities. 
He said they bear no hatred for President Jammeh, but rather, his system as a result of his comportment towards governance of the country that, he said, leaves much to be desired.
He described Jammeh as the Alpha and Omega of the Gambia who is enjoying all privileges of his position, while the economic situation of Gambians is worsening.
He stated that the president is ‘fooling Gambian’ women by making himself a champion of women empowerment.
“The women that he claimed to have empowered are those adding the numbers of people in his propaganda by involving them in march passes, providing them with “ashobi” (uniforms) just to hoodwink them,” Dembo said.
“I want to tell women that Jammeh is selling all what they (women gardeners) are selling, ranging from vegetables like cabbages and other garden and farm produces and still he claims to be empowering you,” he alleged.
He alleged that landlords and bread winners of families are missing, jailed and others fled the country, stressing the country cannot afford to be governed in such a manner.
He called on Gambians to throw their weight behind UDP to effect, as he puts it, “the desirable change to salvage the country from its present predicament.”

Author: Baboucarr Ceesay