The Gambia: Ramadan challenge for Imam Touray, Bishop Ellison, Imam Kah and Imam Fatty

By Mathew K Jallow

The seriousness and the enormity of the horrors of Mile 2 Central Prison will never fully be known until after the demise of Yahya Jammeh, but the cruelty he will leave behind the tall, forbidden walls of that unholy citadel of misery, agony and death, is all too real. If anything, Mile 2 Prison personifies the aggregation of the mean-spiritedness of a regime that has barbarized the Gambian spirit into a state of total confusion and in the process unleashed a crisis of identity reminisce of the ghosts of Rwanda and Bosnia. The two competing visions for Gambia; one pushing towards a country devoid of the concept of humanity and remade into the image of Yahya Jammeh, and the other, the pull back towards a Gambia founded on the enduring spirits of empathy and dignity that Sir. Dawda Jawara banqueted to us, could not be more starkly different. Today the terrible conditions under which Mile 2 prisoners live and die plays out much like a Sophocles' tragedy whose characters, as in Oedipus Rex and Antigone, are as bizarre as the theatrical imageries of Mile 2 Prisons are ruthless.

But, unlike the Greek tragedies, which are products of the geniuses of imagination, Mile 2 Prison is a living theatre, foreboding and cruel in all its manifestations. Mile 2 Prison is also an uncharacteristic departure from the heroism so emblematic of ancient Greek theatre; instead, it is a drama that reads like the mesmerizing fantasies of a J.R.R. Tolkien novel; fantasies that capture the cruel antediluvian persona of Yahya Jammeh in all his demonic splendor. Today, with the rest of the African continent moving with religious fervor and matrimonial commitment towards the ideals of democracy and the rule of law, the Gambian regime careens regressively down towards the path of political chaos and civil disorder. The prison systems like the ones that have totally stained Gambia's international image, had their time long ago and their brutal stories were eloquently documented and memorialized in The Gulag Archipelago, a novel by the intrepid Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a victim of the now defunct Stalinist prisons in the now defunct Soviet Union. That era came and went so long ago.

But just as the Soviet Union died and broke up into its different component nationalities, Yahya Jammeh's desensitized regime will collapse under the weight of its own brutality, but unlike the Soviet Union, Gambia will remain a country united and intact; to bring back the nostalgia of the glorious era of Africa's inarguably greatest leader after Nelson Mandela and Léopold Sedar Senghore; the venerable Alhagie, Sir Dawda K Jawara. Mile 2 Prison today could never exist under Sir Dawda Jawara, who despite his shortcomings, made Gambians totally enamored with the concept of freedom at a time three decades ago when much of Africa was like what the Gambia has become today; tyrannies. I vividly remember the utter fear of our tour guide when I pointed to soldiers guarding Cotonue, Benin's presidential palace; the terror and confusion at Lagos airport terminal the day in 1989 when Sanni Abacha took power, and of course, the much publicized elections bloodshed in Cameroon as we landed in Douala, Cameroon. Africa then was a continent that was steeped in political violence and the bruising toll this left in its wake, was mind-blowing.

When I landed back at Yundum Airport after a harrowing ordeal around West Africa, I was overwhelmed with emotions of pride, joy and appreciation for home, sweet home. But this was Gambia then. Today Gambia has become what much of Sub-Saharan Africa was like back in the bloody 70s and 80s; a terrible place live and even to die. But after this eye-opening background information, this article is also a challenge to the Gambia's religious leaders; the President of Gambia Supreme Islamic Council, Imam Momodou Lamin Touray; Right Rev. Robert Patrick Ellison CSSp, Bishop of Banjul; Imam Ratib of Banjul, Imam Cherno Mass Kah and State House Imam, Abdoulie Fatty. It is a challenge for the heads of our religious organizations to remember the innocent incarcerated in their prayers during this Ramadan month, but above all, to form a prison visiting committee and go to the various prisons and detention centers around the country to see the extraordinarily deplorable conditions under which prisoners live and die. Gambians have followed the activities of religious leaders over the years and are stunned at the way politics have marred their proper practice of their faiths.

The cozy relationship these religious leaders has developed with Yahya Jammeh over the years and their utter and inexcusable silence in the face of the gruesome murders, extrajudicial executions, forced disappearance, the tortures, the intimidations and the ceaseless arrests, detentions and incarcerations of citizens, is an indictment of their religiosity. For the past many years since Yahya Jammeh manipulated himself to the head of that ungodly cabal that took over power from Sir Dawda Jawara, there has been a mass exodus of citizens to where they can find shelter and safety away from the perpetual threats to their lives. They are in Senegal en masse, but they are also in Mali, in Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Europe and America. And for the many Gambian families whose loved ones have been murder, executed, incarcerated or disappeared from the face of the earth, there is never peace; there is never closure. Then there are children whose fathers are never coming home after they left for work one day two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, seven years ago, ten years ago and seventeen years ago, because they have been murdered.

Today, there are mothers who now shoulder the heavy burden of bringing up kids with very little at their disposal; kids who will never grow up knowing their fathers. And a little over five years ago, Sheriff Mustapha Dibba was released from Mile 2 prison and died barely a week after his release. Shortly after that, a former Permanent Secretary, Lamin Sanneh, was also released from Mile 2 Prison, but died soon thereafter. And last year, Tombong Camara died a few days after he too was released from Mile 2 Prison. But these deaths are different from all the deaths that have occurred there since Yahya Jammeh came to power. Just this afternoon as I was writing this, another phone call and another death at Mile 2 Prison; deaths that never seem to end. Nigerian citizen, Michael Ucheh Thomas, falsely accused of being a member of the banned Coalition for Change-Gambia (CCG), died today Sunday July 29, 2012, bringing the total Mile 2 Prison deaths to well over a hundred fifty in the past decade and half. The religious leaders' visits to Mile 2 Prison will be greatly appreciated. It is what religious leaders ought to do, not merely luxuriating in the presence of power at the expense of the weak, the poor and the vulnerable. A visit to Mile 2 Prison will bring hope to prisoners, shower them with blessings, and uplifted their spirits with prayers in this Holy Month of Ramadan.

Next week, from eight university graduates to the kiringting houses of Banjul, the absence of institutions and to the mango groves of Kanifing and Bakau, we will revisit and reminiscence the true legacy of Sir Dawda K Jawara and the sanitized accomplishment of Gambia's 19.2 billion debt and counting under Yahya Jammeh.

Mathew K Jallow, a Gambian journalist, writer, human rights advocate and political activits is a vociferous critic of the military dictatorship in Gambia under Yahya Jammeh.

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