The Gambia: The reluctant but willing warrior paradox; Dr. Amadou Scattred Janneh

By Mathew K Jallow

Precisely three months before his politically motivated arrest, Dr. Amadou Scattred Janneh confided in me his post-Yahya Jammeh’s regime’s ambition. “I would like to teach a class in Human Rights at the Gambia University.” It was a defining moment in our relations; a moment that completely altered my view of our fledging Coalition for Change Gambia (CCG). In him, I met another Gambian of academic stature with whom I shared the same worldviews. Dr. Amadou S. Janneh easily won me over with the modesty of his ambition, just as he was impressed with my persistent drumbeat calling for democracy and the rule of law in The Gambia. Ours was, therefore, a match made in Heaven. Dr. Janneh a former Radio Gambia and The Knoxville Journal, Tennessee, news reporter is no stranger to journalism and the world of politics. In1989, as a doctoral student and University of Tennessee political science professor, he founded the “Anti-apartheid Coalition of Tennessee,” a testament to his commitment to the issues of justice and fairness in politics. Earlier in his life, the native of Gunjur, a town located thirty miles south of the capital city Banjul, saw firsthand the struggles of daily life Gambians in the rural hinterland were faced with. It was a humbling experience that opened his eyes to the social and economic inequalities that surrounded him. The experience helped mould his character.

Dr. Amadou Janneh is an accomplished business entrepreneur committed to the creation of opportunities for every Gambian to succeed to help them climb out of the wretched economic conditions that have bedeviled our country for so long. In that regard alone, Dr. Janneh has proven to be the consummate capitalist with the heart of gold. But this is only a small snapshot of the character of the American-educated academic and political activist. The University of Tennessee where he studied and later taught, played an important role in his formative years; giving him the opportunity to blossom both in the sphere of academics as well as in his own personal life as a man unapologetically committed to equality and justice for all. Following the military coup in The Gambia in 1994, Dr. Janneh saw a role for himself helping pull our country out of the economic and political doldrums that had plagued us for so long. He made the fateful decision to leave the comfort of America and took an emotional journey back home after so many years. After a brief stint as Political and Economics Assistant at the United States Embassy in Banjul, Gambia, he was appointed Information and Technology minister in the Yahya Jammeh regime. But Dr. Janneh never really fit into the rhythm of the system, and before long, his high hopes for The Gambian came crashing down in cloud of disappointment and frustration. As quickly as he was appointed minister, he was fired, not a moment too soon for the Jammeh regime; and not to the surprise of everyone else.

But Dr. Janneh did not despair; on the contrary, he challenged himself to create opportunities for himself within the restricted political and economic space that Gambia’s adversarial political system afforded him. His brief stint as Information and Technology minister taught him a valuable life lesson which would carry over to his future endeavors. But it did not take long before Dr. Janneh was arrested and charged with the high crimes of treason sedition. His arrest was not unexpected; rather, it was the natural progression of the way things work in The Gambia, as many victims of the regime can rightly testify; hire, fire, arrest, trial and incarceration. But this time around Dr. Janneh’s case was different from the rest; a lot different. The uneasiness of living in a country with restricted freedoms and civil liberties did not matchup with Dr. Janneh’s expectations, and he soon set out to do something about it in defiance of the forces and the powers that be. It took only a couple of public lectures and presentations which culminated with his famous Africa Liberation Day speech at the Gambia University to court the uneasy attention of the regime, but even that was no deterrent to a person who is unapologetically democratic to the core. Today, five months after his arrest, Dr. Janneh still remains in jail, charged along with seven other CCGmembers of attempting to overthrow Yahya Jammeh’s regime. In one of his court appearances last week, Dr. Janneh protested loudly to a judge about the unsanitary conditions prisoners in Mile 2 Prison live and die in. His court protestation was typical of the way Dr. Janneh has functioned throughout his adult life; a man who will challenge and seek redress to injustice whenever and wherever he sees them.

Dr. Janneh’s emersion in the struggles to free South Africa back in the 1980s typify the character of a man who would not, under any circumstance, be intimidated or reduced to a heap of fear and self-pity. And if Dr. Janneh was concerned enough about injustices in South Africa more than five thousand miles from his native Gambia, he would never shy away from calling for political change in his own country when that need arises. And when theCoalition for Change Gambia (CCG)was founded, it was in the same spirit with which Dr. Amadou Janneh founded the Anti-apartheid Coalition of Tennessee more than two decades earlier. Dr. Janneh and his codefendants’ arrest and charges with treason and sedition is a watershed moment that showcases the regime’s predatory history, but theCoalition for Change Gambia, the civil society organization to which Dr. Amadou Janneh and his fellow defendants belong, remains committed to its goals of political freedom and the rule of law in The Gambia. As determined as the CCG members at home and abroad are to the greater good of The Gambia, the sight of Dr. Amadou S. Janneh in leg shackles and hands cuffed to his back being lifted off the ground onto the back of a military police truck by armed military police, rained tears of anger and outrage down the cheeks of many Gambians. It is unimaginable that a person, who has committed no crime, can be treated with such callousness and cruelty. But this is The Gambia where the rule of law is extinct and where justice is like a commodity in short supply.

And now, like it or not, under the climate of fear that pervades Gambian society, Dr. Amadou S. Janneh, the one who refused to be afraid, has set an example for other Gambians to follow. For now, the frivolous treason and sedition case against him and other CCGmembers, supporters and contracted workers, has attracted broad attention of the international community even though no politician at home has yet raised their voices to condemn his arrest and continued detention. To add insult to injury, Dr. Janneh is still denied access to members of his family, an act of vengeance that has turned every known law and international convention on its head. By victimizing Dr. Janneh, Yahya Jammeh will inadvertently turn him into a hero among Gambia’s increasingly vocal population and communities of dissidents at home and abroad. Ironically, Gambians and the world may perhaps just be witnessing history being made; the trial by fire of The Gambia’s next Head of State. For even though Dr. Janneh has limited is ambition to teaching a course in Human Rights at the Gambia University, after this ordeal or as a result of it, Gambians may be willing to reward him with the mantle of Gambia’s presidency if he chooses to seek it. For now, in my opinion, he is only one of few Gambian who combines the necessary qualifications to lead The Gambia to its new rebirth. And maybe, just maybe, that is precisely the reason the establishment politicians have remained mute about his arrest, detention and trial. But Dr. Janneh who has become a symbol of resistance to many Gambians, does not need any establishment politician to raise his profile or give credibility to his name. For, he more than any establishment politician in The Gambia today, has the courage, political philosophy and sobriety to lead The Gambia as its head of state post Yahya Jammeh.

But for now, to think the simple act of printing, wearing and distribution of T-shirts bearing the political statement: “Coalition for Change Gambia. End Dictatorship Now”is grounds enough to charge anyone with the high crimes of treason and sedition, is beyond imagination. One thing is clear though, all these harsh measures designed to politically contain Gambians are counterproductive; on the contrary, they will only make an already bad situation even worst. As a result, Gambian call on the regime to unconditionally release Dr. Amadou S. Janneh, hisCCG codefendants and all the political prisoners languishing in that death trap called Mile 2 Prisons. Set them free NOW. The world is watching.

Coming soon:

Innocent Part 2. The second part of a commentary denouncing the charges and trial of Dr. Amadou S Janneh and the 7 CCG members of treason and sedition.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-Dr-Amadou-S-Janneh-Now/136401189768798?sk=wall

You can view and sign petition at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/731/224/590/

Ghaddafi's death. A critic of the former Libyan leader breaks his silence

By Aroun Rashid Deen NY, USA

How history has come to pass, again,ghoulishly! This time, its victim: the self-proclaimed king of Sub-Saharan Africa, the flamboyant narcissist, Muammar Ghaddafi. History – in its chilling form – is not going to end with him because man, in his stubbornness to want to hold on to absolute power at all times at all costs, gets blinded, dumbed and deafened by Power-Absolute.

The video clip of a bloodied and dying Muammar Ghaddafi being bludgeoned is disturbing enough to rattle the very foundation of human conscience. The scene of his captors – Libyan revolutionary fighters – gloating as he faces death, horribly, brings to mind the scene in Homer’s The Iliad, where Achilles kills Hector and drags his body behind his chariot around Troy. It also reminds us of the delight taken by a mob of drunken and drug-induced Liberian rebels, led by a war-lord Prince Johnson, as they were slaying then-Liberian President Samuel Doe while cameras were rolling. The dying Samuel Doe lay naked, crying for mercy as he was stabbed to death and mocked.

What is troubling in this instance about Ghaddafi, as it was with Saddam Hussein, Samuel Doe and, to a lesser degree, Laurent Gbagbo of Cote D’Ivoire and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, is that we are witnessing the deadly blow of Power-Absolute being inflicted on its abuser. It always comes at a time when all that is left of man is the bare state of weakness, emptiness and irrelevance; features that also define us as mortal, but which we almost always brush aside or ignore once we command some level of political authority.As the distinguished French philosopher, Christian-thinker and essayist Simone Weil puts it in The Iliad: in the process of killing someone else we actually are killing ourselves. And as we witness the brutality on Ghaddafi that may have led to his death, we also actually witness ourselves, helplessly doomed, being killed.

I despise Ghaddafi – even in death – because of his role in the wars that brought about the brutal deaths of millions of Sierra Leoneans and Liberians and the devastation that those wars have brought to both countries. And what’s more, he was never held accountable for his actions.By the same token, I find no pleasure in witnessing his brutal death. Those who broadcast it on television or print it on their newspapers, however,should not be criticized as insensitive to its gruesome nature. They are just performing a responsibility they hold to the public.The alleged execution of the Libyan dictator has drawn worldwide concern and criticism not so much because he died but because of the brutal circumstances in the moments leading to his death – and witnessed by millions worldwide. Seeing, they say, is believing. However, seeing in this circumstance goes beyond believing. The savagery of what we witnessed is troubling.

With Ghaddafi abandoned, stripped of everything but his mere mortal self, what we see in that last moment is not a ‘powerful’ ruler but a representative of all of us – human beings – with our own blood spilling. This might account for the reason why some of us, despite our curiosity, turn away the moment we see it. But such brutal killings are

being carried out every day in the secret dungeons that also define the misguided absolute power of the Moammar Ghaddafis, the Hosni Mubaraks, the Samuel Does and the Saddam Husseins. Many have perished in the most gruesome ways at the hands of all these terrible men. Dictators often perceive their citizens as sub-human. In the early days of the protest-turned-revolt in Libya, Ghaddafi referred to the protestors as rats and cockroaches who would be tracked down, house to house, and crushed. The irony, of course, is that in the end is it Ghaddafi himself who, in an attempt to escape the rebels, was reduced to crawling in a drainage pipe, the home of rats and cockroaches.

Obsessed by the hunger for absolute power, dictators continuously mistake their authority for power. While they are only temporarily entrusted with the custody of authority, power is in the hands of the people, always. Authority is the legitimate consent that the governed entrust to the governor to rein as a leader, regardless of how that leader comes into the position. The people are the power. And when leaders try to wrest that power from the people at all costs, they end up hurting the very people who are the true custodians of absolute power. There is a limit to how much a leader can impose his will on the people, because only the governed have the ability to impose their will on the leader – as we have seen with all of the fallen men mentioned above.When a once great leader disgracefully succumbs, alas, people tend to wonder, with a troubled feeling of disbelief, why that is. History, as always, is merely at work.

The fall of Muammar Ghaddafi must serve as a warning to all leaders, be they autocratic, totalitarian or so-called democratic. History cannot be more clear: When leaders resort to devilish acts to cling to their authority, they end up making of their subjects the very devils who would eventually deliver them to their graves. Leaders of all nations great and small: You have been warned!

Aroun Rashid Deen is a freelance journalist. He lives in New York, USA

ard228@nyu.edu

Gambia ALERT: Court detains newspaper journalist

Seikou Ceesay, a reporter of privately-owned the Daily News newspaper, is being held at the headquarters of The Gambian Police Force allegedly on the orders of the Banjul Magistrate Court for standing surety for Nanama Keita, who recently jumped bail and fled the country.

Ceesay, a co-opted member of the Gambian Press Union (GPU), on July 2011 stood surety for Keita, a former sports editor of pro-government the Daily Observer newspaper, detained at the time for giving “false information” to the office of President Yahya Jammeh. This was after Keita had petitioned President Jammeh over his alleged wrongful dismissal from the Daily Observer newspaper.

Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) sources said earlier on October 19, 2011 Ceesay’s wife was also arrested and detained for about four hours after the court allegedly issued the warrant for his (Ceesay)’s arrest. At the time of her arrest, Ceesay was in his home village at the outskirts of Banjul.

As part of the condition for Keita’s bail, the sources said his passport was confiscated and he signed a bail bond of Hundred Thousand Dalasis (D100,000) about Three Thousand Five Hundred and Seventy One Dollars.(US$3571). The GPU also provided legal services for Keita.

In an e-mail to MFWA on September 16, Keita claimed that he had to flee the country after persistent threats on his life by unknown assailants believed to be government’s agents.

"September 7, 2011, was when I received a tip-off from a sympathizer within the security ranks that attempts are being made to have me arrested immediately on a reason the informant would not let me know… Upon getting this tip-off, on a rather pretty serious tone, I then decided to gather a few things before fleeing to neighbouring Dakar and finally, New York, to take refuge," said Keita.

For more information, Please contact :

Kwame Karikari (Prof), Executive Director, MFWA, Accra. Tel: 233-30-22 4 24 70, Fax: 233-302-22 10 84

Email:mfwa@africaonline.com.gh,alerts@mediafound.org

Website: www.mediafound.org

Gambia: Elections or no elections Hell No to five more years of Yahya Jammeh’s terrorism

By Mathew K Jallow

A standout refrain in rock goddess Janis Joplin’s most famous 60s ballad titled “Me and Bobby McGee” reads; “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” The song was a tribute to the freedom marchers of an era that turned ordinary people into extraordinary human-beings. And equally important still, it was a decade that defined a generation who looked at their circumstances, decried the naked injustices that permeated every aspect of their lives, and had an epiphany to change America. But by the strength of their voices, which resonated across cultural boundaries, they inadvertently set in motion the social and political paradigms that changed societies around the globe; one neighborhood and one country at a time. And the world has never been the same. Dirt poor China, once beset by deadly famines and bloody civil unrests then, has now become the leading economy in the world. And they are not alone. In much of East Asia and South America, where shanty towns, dilapidated homesteads, corn fields, and lush open countryside once spread as far as the eye could see, skyscrapers, marble edifices and high-rise glass towers of tantalizing architectural beauty now reach for the blue skies; standing as monuments to the sacrifices of generations long gone. As a tribute to those who fought those wars of mental and physical liberation, a lot has also changed in many of the other parts of the world. From the pristine rolling flatlands of once fierce-some Mongolia, to the awe-filled impossible ancient stone architectures of Peru’s pantheon of the gods; Machu Picchu, nothing has ever been the same again.

By the same token, elsewhere around the globe, where minds continue to be restricted from freely wandering into the serene realms of imagination and creativity, a lot still remains unchanged by history, and even worst. And Africa, south of the Sahara, more than any other place on the face of the earth, represents the foreboding and reprehensible culture of social and political stagnation that is eating into the soul of a weary people; a people tasked by the burdensomeness of a disastrous culture of greed and covetousness. To its people, Africa is the quintessential definition of a bad dream; a never-land representing a catastrophic disincentive to a people left with no other options than to fend for themselves under circumstances that overwhelmingly court war-making and political unrest as the last resort. From the foot of the mysterious Atlas Mountains, to the rugged coastline of Southern Africa, the African continent has become the metaphor of the cruel underbelly of Machiavellian mean-spiritedness, and there is no better example of this than The Gambia, a country, which for sixteen long miserable years, has remained encumbered by the menace of a murderous political tyrant; Yahya Jammeh. In this day and age, long after the flames of civil unrest in many of the world’s hotbeds of political discontent have been extinguished, long after the demands of social justice had become the hallmarks in governance systems around the world, and long after smoke from the embers of the fires from popular revolts have drifted up towards the receptive clouds, The Gambia continues down a path that is politically destructive and economically unsustainable. In short, after sixteen years of cruel totalitarianism, The Gambia continues to remain captive to one of Africa’s most malignant reigns of terror. The scourges of political ineptitude and greed that have visited other unbending dictators, now also have Yahya Jammeh in their sights as a perfect candidate for obliteration from the face of this earth.

The last sixteen years of Yahya Jammeh’s Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council rule have left The Gambia severely torn apart by politically motivated death and dying, incarceration and disappearances, corruption of unimaginable proportions, naked and unforgiving tribalism, the complete collapse of the system of governance and the disintegration of our social and cultural values. The soul that once clued our people together into a single unitary body of hope and aspiration is no more. We as a nation are victims of a regime that has perfected the art of divisiveness and political manipulation, and turned it into the centerpiece of Yahya Jammeh art of gaining and retaining political power. Under Yahya Jammeh reign, The Gambia has turned into a land of despair, a place consumed by fear of incarceration and death; a place where dreams go to die, and where Yahya Jammeh’s footprints have left behind them a trail of terror in which hardly any family remains untouched. The greed, narcissism and corruption of the man who singlehandedly runs The Gambia as if it were his personal possession, has left many Gambians disposed of their properties, their hopes and their dreams. Everywhere one looks, Yahya Jammeh has a property to his name, in every sector of the economy, Yahya Jammeh’s Kanilai family farm is a leader competitor, often muscling his way into and taking over Gambians’ properties to add to the massive wealth he has already amassed for himself.And as each day passes, Yahya Jammeh has become an even more of a threat to the livelihoods of Gambian workers and retirees; intermittently raiding the Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation accounts to lavish our wealth on people who have no right to the pensions funds of working and retired Gambians. But more than that, no other income generating governmental institutions in Gambia has been safe from Yahya Jammeh’s marauding in an effort to fulfill his insatiable greed; a testament to his selfish craving for material wealth; not Gamtel/Gamcel; not Gambia Port Authority; not Livestock Marketing Board; and not even The Central Bank of The Gambia among other agencies and institutions.

But, perhaps the most visible aspect of Yahya Jammeh’s reign is the tribalism he has introduced and fostered in the body politics of our country. In today’s Gambia, the Fulas, Mandingoes, Wollofs and the other tribes have become virtually invisible. It is as if they have vanished into thin air; gone forever, and the daily news casts, even by Yahya Jammeh’s mouthpiece, The Daily Observer Newspaper, confirms this anomaly. The names that have consistently featured in the news over the years have been and continue to be exclusively those of Yahya Jammeh’s tribe of preference, the Jolas. The names that top the list include the Jammehs, Sonkos, Colleys, Sanyangs, Sannehs and Badjies; names of people favored by Yahya Jammeh; names that now occupy most senior positions in the regime; names Yahya Jammeh can rely on to protect his nefarious activities from becoming public knowledge, and names that have become synonymous with every crime attributed to Yahya Jammeh and his regime. Yet, if Gambians think they know the extent of Yahya Jammeh’s massive corruption and what he will do avoid accountability to the Gambian people, they need to think again. Recently, Freedom Newspaper and Radio revealed for the first time, what every Gambian suspected all along; Yahya Jammeh’s contracting of Cassamance rebels for protection in the event of a revolt to oust him from power. But Gambians hardly care about a paltry three thousand mercenaries when in the city of Brikama alone, dissidents can easily muster a ten-thousand-man army of young able-bodied men who will fight to protect the integrity of our country’s borders from outside intrusion. Besides, in the city of Serekunda alone there are far more willing defenders of our country’s territorial borders than the entirety of all the mercenaries Yahya Jammeh can coral from his Cassamance homeland. And if Yahya Jammeh is delusional to think his three thousand man contracted Cassamance rebels force can scare patriotic Gambians from fighting to save our country from external aggression, he must be out of his damn drunken mind.

But what has captured the imagination of Gambians today is November 24, 2011. Will Yahya Jammeh stay or leave; leave either through a humiliating electoral defeat or be sent packing by the combined outrage of Gambia’s civilian population and the military and security forces? Gambians at home and abroad echo similar sentiments of rejection of another five-year term of Yahya Jammeh’s murderous tyranny and are unwilling under any circumstance to contemplate such an eventuality. But one of the stumbling blocks to this aspiration, many believe, is the collapse of the party unity talks. As inconceivable as it sounds, the minuscule and ridiculous issue of national convention as demanded by PDOIS has turned out as the bottleneck to a united opposition. Considering how insignificant this issue is within the larger context of the life and death issues surrounding The Gambia under Yahya Jammeh, the inability of the political parties to embrace UDP’s Ousainou Darboe is almost a sacrilege of near religious proportions. For the moment at least it seems PDOIS’s equivocation has swayed the other political party players towards a direction that undermines the need and the sanity of a united political front. And to think NRP’s Hamat Bah will endorse the unreasonable issue of national convention to influence his decision to abandon Ousainou Darboe cold turkey is beyond imagination. As it is, a vote for either NRP or PDOIS will tantamount to a deliberate sabotage of the elections against UDP; essentially diminishing of the opportunity for Ousainou Darboe’s electoral success. And considering that UDP is the only opposition party with a truly broad national reach and appeal, it would appear a foregone conclusion for PDOIS with presence in only Serekunda East and Wuli districts and NRP with a viable presence only in Saloum, to unequivocally embrace the candidature of UDP’s Ousainou Darboe. If Hamat Bah and Halifa Sallah cast themselves as pariahs in this political process, it will be an understatement to say that Gambians will judge their credibility harshly for years to come. As it is, a vote for either an NRP or PDOIS candidature will translate to a vote for Yahya Jammeh. Gambians cannot fathom nor wrap their minds around this inconceivably moronic failure of imagination. But as we pursue the elections prong, the possibility of a popular revolt to oust Yahya Jammeh is an option Gambians must keep handy in our quiver. Hell NO to five more years of Yahya Jammeh.

Gambia News: Chief Ebrima Manneh’s Father Speaks

By Lamin Sanyang
The father of  Chief Ebrima Manneh, a Gambian journalist whose whereabouts remain unknown ever since his mysterious disappearance five years ago spoke to this paper about the recent comments of the Justice Minister about his son that has been published by the Newspapers in the country and  captured in the Online Newspapers.
The family of Chief Ebrima Manneh was met and the comments made by the Justice Minister were related to them. They were surprised by the comments. They were asked whether they are in touch with the Justice Minister.
“I don’t even know the Justice Minister and have never seen a delegation from him,’ said Chief Manneh’s father, Sarjo Manneh.
The old man has lamented the hardship and pain he underwent in search of his son for the past five years. He questioned the possibility of a person disappearing in a small country like ours and cannot be traced for five years. He said he had gone the length and breadth of the country looking for his son.
“If the government said they have no hand in my son’s disappearance then why can’t they send a delegation to clear their name to us?” asked the old man.
He told this reporter that since the disappearance of Ebrima Chief Manneh in 2006, nobody came to meet them about his son except the press union and the international bodies. He said he has made several attempts to meet the President and the Vice President about his son but all the attempts had failed. He said he heard the President’s comment about his son when the Media chiefs met him at the State House and is still wondering how his son could have left the country without his knowledge.
Meanwhile, he was asked what he would want to tell the Justice Minister about his recent remarks on his son. He said he would want to meet the Justice Minister in person.
“How did he know my son is alive? Where is he kept? Why does it have to take all these long years to find my son? Why is it that his statement and the president are not the same?” asked  Sarjo Manneh.

SOURCE :foroyaa.gm