Former
Chief of Defence Staff Baboucarr Jatta has alleged that a Yahya
Jammeh killed more soldiers than civilians. He added that promotion in the army
during the time of Yahya Jammeh, as the commander-in-chief of Gambia Armed Forces
was entirely based on ‘nepotism.’
Col.
Jatta was speaking recently during his rare interview on popular ‘Coffee Time’
aired on West Coast Radio.
“I
believe if Jammeh had gone through certain process, he would have understood
the command and control better. I can tell you that Jammeh killed more soldiers
than civilians, but you never heard soldiers talking about it. This is because
there’s discipline in the army,” he said.
Col.
Jatta was reacting to allegations levelled against him by Lt. Landing Sanneh,
former State Guard Commander. He added: “If Essa Faal, TRRC’s lead counsel was
talking to me on matters of policies during my testimonies at the Truth
Commission, he (Essa Faal) would have enjoyed me, but Essa Faal was not briefed
properly.”
“How
can you give a rank to a general who can’t read and write? How can you give a
major rank to someone because somebody was able to do 50 push-ups? In fact, in
the army it was even said; it’s scratch and win. The army was like ‘just do
something that pleased Jammeh and the next day you are given a captain, or
major rank or whatever rank he (Jammeh) may think of because Jammeh didn’t know
the set-up in the army.”
The
former savvy army commander admitted that it was very difficult to work with
Yahya Jammeh, saying “every day you had a new chapter. While you are building
Jammeh, others are destroying Jammeh, hence it’s what cost him his political
career.”
TRRC
Essa Faal, he explained, is a mouthpiece and whatever the investigation team
presents to him is what he presented to the people. “So, you will not hold him
responsible. However, he (Essa Faal) sometimes needs to be given credits. So,
the TRRC is like people living in a ‘symbiotic environment’ because ‘you will
benefit and they will benefit’ too.
Francisco,
he explained, the Italian man who came into the country under the then National
Intelligence Agency’s (NIA) payroll shot his in-law in Brufut. “I went up to
him to a level that he (Francisco) knew that he had to leave the country. He
was not a soldier and he can’t take my soldiers and started running an
operations. He was a bodyguard under Jammeh but not under the military.”
The
multi-award winning ex-CDS said what he regretted most during his time as the
army commander was about soldiers being involved into politics up to the extent
of even “killing people.” Col. Jatta the 79th TRRC witness admitted that he
didn’t tell Essa Faal everything during his testimonies.