London Letter: Halifa Sallah – Politician or Human Rights Hero?

“Editor, 

‘IT IS A MATTER OF SOCIAL JUSTICE’, writes Halifa Sallah in his letter to President Jammeh reproduced below. As readers may know from my postings when this “witches” nonsense began, I, like many Gambians and friends of The Gambia, have been at one with Halifa Sallah. I have edited and highlighted parts of his letter because I think the letter contains a clear clarion call, a manifesto no less, for those concerned with Human Rights in The Gambia. I trust this edited and highlighted version will emphasis the key issues in Mr. Sallah’s courageous position for your readership – and indeed for posterity because, like Nelson Mandela’s Rivonia Trial speech, Mr. Sallah’s message contains truisms for all time. 

I believe this whole “witch-hunting” thing was, in Mr. Sallah’s words, a “miscalculated aberration” - but the Human Rights abuse that ensued was an outrage to all right thinking people everywhere. The outrage was compounded by the arrest and detention of Mr. Sallah for a week. I, like most of your readers, remain grateful for his courageous stance on this matter.  

Nevertheless, I must say that Halifa Sallah should follow the great examples of Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. At the risk of being accused of interfering with Halifa Sallah’s right to seek whatever political office he wishes as a citizen of The Gambia, I would advise that Halifa Sallah the Human Rights Conscience of The Gambian Nation should not be seeking political office. I say so because great visionary individuals like him are diminished by participation in political partisanship. Look at what happen to Nelson Mandela? The great man, in pursuit of political office, stooped so low as to order the ANC security to shoot Inkatha Freedom Party demonstrators – even before he became President! Who is to say that a President Halifa Sallah would not do the same if the opposition APRC demonstrators “threaten peace”? Halifa’s position on Human Rights is a position that appeals to every right thinking person - whatever our political, tribal or religious loyalty. As Halifa himself puts it in his letter below: “I can now say with utmost sincerity that this matter went beyond partisan, tribal, gender or other parochial considerations”. Absolutely Mr. Sallah and that is why a long-term APRC-supporter like me supported your courageous stance. But your message, and your Human Rights mission, will be that much stronger if you yourself are not a politician seeking political office – on a necessarily, by definition, partisan ticket. Halifa Sallah the “non-partisan, non-tribal, non-gender and non-parochial” Human Rights Hero is what The Gambia, and indeed Africa, needs.  

HALIFA SALLAH’S LETTER TO PRESIDENT JAMMEH 

(Slightly edited and key sections highlighted by Dida Halake) 

President of the Republic of The Gambia

Ufs: Secretary General

Office of the President

The Quadrangle 

Attorney General and

Secretary Of State for Justice

Marina Parade 

26 March 2009 
 

“Witch Screening” - A Lawful Policy or Miscalculated Aberration 
 

I am compelled to address this memorandum to you so as to seek further clarification regarding the content and ramification of the presumed “Government policy on the screening of witches” (quote from The Gambia’s Director of Public Prosecutions). 

Attached under the copy of this memorandum is a copy of the charges proffered against me for your perusal. The thread which runs through all the counts is the presumption that there is a “Lawful Government policy on the screening of witches”. 

If I had any prior knowledge and reliable evidence that the abduction of elderly men and women in particular and other persons of different age groups from their homes and their transportation and imprisonment in residences away from their homes is a by product of the execution of an official government policy, there would not have been any need for me to waste time, energy and resources in calling state representatives to try to find out the role of the government in the perpetuation of the exercise. My task to identify who was behind the screening exercise and facilitate redress would have been less cumbersome and much lighter. 

I would have enlightened the victims of their Constitutional right to petition the Executive for the redress of grievances and to resort to the Courts for the protection of their rights as engraved in section 25 sub-section 1(f) of the Constitution.  

Suffice it to say, Government policy is a public matter and everyone has the right to comment on its merits or shortcomings and call for its implementation or abrogation. A policy may be consistent with or averse to public decency, public morality, public interest or the public good. This is why freedom of expression should not be hindered to facilitate dialogue to establish what is good and bad policy.  

In my view, the cornerstone of our rights to self determination and Independence is the sovereignty of the people. Each Gambian, African and Human being is conscious of what it means to be a sovereign person. It is incontrovertible that the sovereignty of the individual person is inviolable. Once this sovereignty is negated one becomes a beast of burden or slave without any rights.  

A person whose sovereignty has been negated cannot safeguard the privacy of his or her home from interference. Such a person may be abducted, transported and detained against his/her will without the protection of law.  

A person whose sovereignty has been abrogated would be at the mercy of his/her abductors and could be forced to eat, drink and sleep as the abductors wish and may be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment after being deprived of family, community and legal protection. Such a person may be branded, stigmatized and maimed with impunity.  

Hence, it has become abundantly clear to me that the sovereignty of the person is indefensible without safeguarding the equality of all persons before the law and ensuring equal protection of all persons under the law. 

When it came to my notice that Jonyi Sonko of Essau had been abducted against her will and transported from Essau to Kololi and was detained in a place commonly referred to as Baba Jobe’s compound, I had to call the Vice President to convey the reports regarding the abduction of men and women from Essau and requested for the information to be transmitted to the President.  

I had expected that the executive will investigate the matter and put all violation of rights to a stop. When the problem persisted I decided to see many religious leaders of all faiths to inform them of the violations of the rights of very vulnerable victims. As the report persisted I saw the need to come into direct contact with the victims so that I could be doubly sure that the information I intended to transmit to the authorities was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

I had to validate the reports because of my disbelief that the life of a sovereign Gambian in the 21st century could be more insecure than the life of a ruminant. In short, when a person enters a compound and tries to take a cock or goat, the owner could easily call on the support of the neighbours and police to effect arrest. According to the information I received, abductors could majestically walk into any compound, enter any bed room, abduct any body’s grandfather or grandmother, mother or father, wife or husband, sister or brother and uncle or aunt and take him or her away without the power to appeal for the protection of family members, community and the law enforcement agents. Even a slave or animal has more rights than the person who is deprived of any protection of the privacy of his/her home or his/her freedom of movement and liberty.  

I placed myself in the position of the abductees and my conscience could not be free until I did something to end their plight. This anguish of an elderly man and woman in captivity, being forced to drink hallucinogenic concoctions and is asked to undress to be washed by young people who could be his or her children or grand children and finally forced to sleep on the bare floor after suffering from a state of delirium, tormented my very being. To ignore the traumatic experiences would have made me a prisoner of my own conscience.  

My primary task was to find out whether the actions were state sponsored since the acts were perpetrated under the gaze of security personnel. This is precisely why I deemed it necessary to gather concrete evidence for onward transmission to the highest office of the land as proof that the fundamental rights of our sovereign people are being negated.  

It goes without saying that governance in a sovereign Republic is a contract between the public trustees and the public; that the terms of the contract are clearly stipulated in the supreme law of our land, the Constitution of the Republic. I would have reminded you that section 61 of the Constitution states without any ambiguity or equivocation that “the President shall uphold and defend this Constitution as the supreme law of the Gambia”. It was my intention before my arrest to forward a memorandum to you to alert your mind to section 17(d) of the Constitution which states that: 

“The fundamental human rights and freedom enshrined in this chapter shall be respected and upheld by all organs of the Executive and its agencies, the Legislature and, where applicable to them, by all natural and legal persons in The Gambia and shall be enforceable by the courts in accordance with this Constitution”. 

I intended to convey to you that the people have the right to protection of their person liberty and security under section 19 of the Constitution. I would have conveyed that even though section 19 states that no one should be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention, elderly men and women; wives and husbands; brothers and sisters; sons and daughters; friends and loved ones were being abducted from their homes by strangers and taken to destinations unknown to them and detained for days against their will. 

I would have pointed out that even though section 23 of the Constitution forbids anyone from interfering with the privacy of a person’s home, strangers have gone into the bed rooms of sovereign citizens who have not violated any law and have forced them to go along with them into waiting buses.  

Abduction of the person constitutes a negation of his or her free will and equates the person to someone held in slavery or servitude.  

This negates section 33 (1) of the Constitution which states that, “all persons shall be equal before the law.” I would have questioned why one person in a home who has children and relatives is subjected to restrictions and castigations which others are not subjected to in a country whose Constitution says in section 33 that “No law shall make any provision which is discriminatory either of itself or in its effect” and that “no person shall be treated in a discriminatory manner by any person acting by virtue of any law or in performance of the functions of any public office or any public authority”. 

I would have pointed out that the physical and psychological torment the abductees went through after being put in a state of delirium and further subjected to detention without adequate food, the refusal for them to go to a toilet to urinate or defecate and their banishment to sleep on bare tiles on the floor of their detention centre amount to torture or inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment, which is forbidden by section 21 of the Constitution. 

I can now say with utmost sincerity that this matter went beyond partisan, tribal, gender or other parochial considerations. It was a matter of social justice period.  

My objective for gathering concrete information was to draw the attention of the executive to what I considered to be an aberration which needed to be halted before it was too late. I had to play my role as a public figure who has the conviction that injustice anywhere should be the concern of the public everywhere.  

This is why I said after my arrest that I prefer to be the prisoner of a state instead of becoming the prisoner of my own conscience. If my suffering could lead to an end to the suffering of others I was fully prepared to be the sacrificial lamb. 

At no time prior to my arrest did I harbour any intention to do what was not in line with truth, good faith, justice and the public interest. This is precisely the reason why I met many civic, religious and opinion leaders to explain all the actions which constituted an affront to public morality, public decency and justice and leave them to act in accordance with the dictates of their convictions and consciences.  

To conclude I must reiterate again that I am not aware of any law on policy on the screening of witches in The Gambia.  

I was informed of actions which constituted gross violation of the rights of some of our sovereign people and I had to play my part to the best of my ability in accordance with the dictates of time and circumstances, to seek redress.  

Section 220 makes it obligatory for each sovereign Gambian to foster national unity and live harmoniously with others. The actions were tearing our communities apart. Section 220 requires each sovereign Gambian to promote the prestige and good reputation of the country. The reports of people becoming internally displaced persons and refugees in peace time could only undermine the prestige and reputation of the country. Section 220 makes it a duty for each citizen to defend and uphold the Constitution.  

We are not duty bound to uphold and defend a political party. It is the duty of each party whether in government or not, to build its own prestige and good reputation by defending the rights and promoting the prosperity and general welfare of the people.  

If any party in government fails to do so the people reserve the right to vote it out of office. This is why section 100 of the Constitution makes it an entrenched provision that “The National Assembly shall not pass a bill to establish a one party state”. A multi party system calls for a country where many policies contend for approval. No single voice will be allowed to dominate. 

The Constitution buttresses our duty to defend the constitution:

• Section 2 states that “All citizens of the Gambia have the right and the duty at all times to defend this Constitution and in particular, to resist, to the extent reasonably justifiable in the circumstances, any person or group of persons seeking or attempting by any violent or unlawful means to suspend, overthrow or abrogate this Constitution or any part of it”.

• Section (3) of the same section adds, “a person who resists the suspension, overthrow or abrogation of this constitution as provided in subsection (2) commits no offence”.

My mission was that of promoting social justice. It was designed to alert the minds of those who have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution to govern by the dictates of their oath of office and save the sovereign citizens of the country from abduction, arbitrary detention and subjection to degrading treatment.  

I hope the abduction has come to an end I am still monitoring the situation. 

Yours in the Service of Humanity 

……………………

Halifa Sallah  

Cc: The Chief Justice

The Director of Public Prosecution

The Secretary Of State for Interior