The Pharaoh’s New Emissary  

Lt. Colonel’s Sam Sarr’s Inconsistencies Exposed

By Musa Camara

I just finished reading former Lt. Colonel Samsudeen Sarr’s “sabarry” articles about the recent unconscionable conviction of the six journalists in Banjul. The articles are the most disturbing pieces of writing I’ve ever read about the future of The Gambia. I was tormented, not because I enlisted any prior special regard for his opinions, but because he so imponderably employed the lowest denominator of mischaracterization, innuendoes, and hyperboles that, despite my best efforts to maintain emotional equilibrium, I couldn’t help giving in to the pulling force of gravity into the deep valley of disappointment. Statements like “the defense team merely gave them a false hope,” or some now-fired top government officials “perhaps clandestinely lobbied for the judges to be lenient on the [The Point] editor” without advancing any evidence to support his claims must suffice creative demonstration of a boundless liberalism with facts.

          Lt. Col. Sarr must be confused by what goes on in international politics as manifested by his mischaracterization of President Clinton’s involvement in North Korea to secure the release of two American television journalists and President Obasanjo’s 2006 intervention in the political crisis in The Gambia as “mercy” missions. In the face of glaring facts of the record, he claimed that both former presidents went on seeking “mercy” from the absolute rulers in Pyongyang and Banjul respectively. If Obasanjo secured the release of Halifa Sallah and his fellow political detainees on the strength of pleading to the good offices of Jammeh’s “merciful” heart, why then did the Nigerian head of state subsequently dispatched his predecessor Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar as his special envoy to mediate between Jammeh’s government and the opposition to bridge divides over the then pending elections, which culminated in the signing of Memorandum of Understanding between the two sides?

          Even more importantly, what wrong or crime had the political opposition committed to warrant any plea for “mercy”? Please, spare us the grab bag of fictitious sedition and treason charges Jammeh never fails to unveil anytime he commands his minions of autocracy to arrest patriots fighting for civil liberties, human rights and political freedoms. As for President Clinton’s mission to North Korea, the full details are too indelible to erase, much less gloss over, and the candid world is surely standing by to bear witness to the history. Kim Jong il made a universal noise about the arrest of the two American journalists as a diplomatic bounty and staged globally-orchestrated attempts, including missile tests, to pull the US government out of the Six-Party talks and into direct negotiations with his regime over the nuclear standoff. After his theatrics failed to impress the targeted audience — the Obama administration — the Dear Leader needed to extricate himself from the ripped parachute in mid-air to avoid a crash landing in the rugged terrain of embarrassing fiasco. In other words, he needed a face-saving recourse to resolve the imprisonment of the journalists. Thus, through his mission at the UN, he requested President Clinton’s involvement in the on-going quiet efforts to secure the release of the two journalists.  As anyone with a scant understanding of diplomacy could read into the developments taking place behind the scene, the background arrangements had been worked out with the inviolable guarantee that all President Clinton had to do was travel to the peninsula, stage a photo-op mediation meeting and fly home with the two reporters. Just as events exactly unfolded, these are the facts. Any attempt to counter-cast the incident as “mercy-seeking” mission is an elaborate exercise in misnomer and fictionalization.

          The fundamental premise of Lt. Col. Sarr’s argument is an apology delegation to pay a courtesy call on Jammeh to “sabarry.” Sabarry for what? Anyone with even an elementary understanding of the application of this term and has a modicum of knowledge of the political realities in The Gambia would easily conclude that Jammeh is on no moral grounds to be asked for a pardon on behalf of any political prisoner he holds. He should be called on in no uncertain terms to release conscientious objectors to his repressive regime. Under this regime, as the Lt. Colonel documented in his autobiography: Coup d’état by the Gambia National Army, a number of innocent citizens suffered extra-judicial executions, politically-motivated murders, political assassinations, false imprisonments, torture, extortions, abuse, verbal assaults, and intimidations. Sabarry should be asked from victims of this injustice, and not from the perpetrators (read Jammeh and his hirelings and henchmen). This is mentioned in Surat Al-Baqarah verse 155 thus:

Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods, lives and the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.

This great virtue to forgive is entirely the prerogative of injured parties, who for the sake of Allah, would endure and persevere. Even before the Holy Qur’an calls for “sabri” in this context, it emphasizes “measure for measure” if punishment for the perpetrators is the route the victims would prefer to take to restore justice. They can forgive the crime if they so choose to out of their own prerogative. This is mentioned in Surat Al-Israa verse 126:

And if you punish, let your punishment be proportionate to the wrong that has been done to you: but if ye show patience, that is indeed the best (course) for those who are patient.

After Lt. Col. Sarr’s admission of Jammeh’s crimes against Gambians, it is clear that Jammeh is the one to face punishment. Therefore it beats my imagination that the Lt. Colonel would libel against the six journalists as criminals whose imprisonment he had seen written on the wall before they even faced a judge to plead innocent. There is no political prisoner in The Gambia who needs forgiveness from Jammeh. In fact it should be the other way round.

Since Lt. Col. Sarr has elected Lamin Waa Juwara his hero to team up with others to call on Jammeh to show “mercy” on the seven journalists, I would also elect Hon. Sidia Jatta my hero. “Sabarry” must be explained to Jammeh and his Imam Fatty according to the teachings of the Holy Qur’an which instructs believers to do only good deeds, abstain from evil actions, and persevere during calamity, contrary to the Lt. Colonel’s distorted usage, which “pities the plumage and forgets the dying bird,” as in Thomas Paine’s rebuke to Edmund Burke.

The Lt. Colonel’s inconsistencies are so numerous that I was left wondering what to make of his overall argument. In his first article, he made much of Jammeh’s “exponential popularity,” but in the second article he dismissed Lumumba’s comparable following in Congo with the cynical broadside that “the people merely adapted to his departure and continued with the government they had.” This statement advertises his ignorance of The Congo politics and Laurent Kabila’s rebellion ─ whose son is now president of that country ─ that sent Mobutu into exile. I wonder if he won’t then agree with in the context of his own logic of this history that Jammeh’s expansive support will evaporate at the very moment his regime comes to an end. Wasn’t that what happened to President Jawara’s electorally-indomitable support in 1994?

By the Lt. Colonel’s own acknowledgement, he is a refugee in the United States. As such, he and his family are beneficiaries of this country’s democratic blessings, including security from arbitrary infringements of personal rights and civil liberties by capricious and paranoiac rulers like those he escaped from in his country of birth. In spite of the freedoms he basks in his adopted home he observed that “not all that glitters in the international political spectrum is gold.” Sure enough, this statement is true as it applies to the West. However, in Lt. Col. Sarr’s native country, where he was privileged to have risen through the military ranks to serve as commander of the national army, and thus helped entrench this oppressive status quo, not even a mountain of gold would make a faint glow, much more glitter there. He must have also forgotten to remember that the Founding Fathers of his adopted country confronted the evils of the British Empire not by genuflecting before King George III or pleading for the monarch’s “sabarry,” but with fortitude to end oppression for liberty. They persevered until they succeeded. Their noble fight produced this enduring beacon of freedom. What do we hope to achieve in The Gambia by taking the surrender route of “sabarry”? 

The Lt. Colonel, like his former boss and now newfound idol Jammeh, who went on a barrage of attacks against the martyr Deyda Hydara, did not spare our slain heroes Cabral and Lumumba who he said had “died for the course seemed to have wasted their lives for nothing.” One thing is certain, not even Lt. Col. Sarr would accuse these immortal heroes of failing to fight for their beliefs. Lumumba and Cabral successfully fought for the liberation of their peoples from colonial subjugation and they died defending these inalienable, sacred rights even when they too had opportunities to seek asylum in the West. They believed, as many other heroes of African liberation struggle unequivocally did, that a comfortable life in exile for them and their families, while their people suffered in the continent would not only diminish the humanity of the people, but it would also devalue their own as well. I’m sure the Lt. Colonel vehemently disagrees with that viewpoint too.

Finally, since he called on us to read his article with open mind, I wish to inform him that I did just that. I consider his quest for “sabarry” from Jammeh a political expediency: to win back the favor of the pharaoh of Banjul.