ANALYSIS

Coup in Guinea: Implications for The Gambia

By MATHEW K. JALLOW, Associate Editor

It has only been a week since General Lansana Conte, the man who ruled Guinea with an iron-fist for the better part of the past two and half decades, passed away, but his death was completely upstaged by the military coup in that country. The takeover by Guinea’s military was, however, somewhat predictable and somehow inevitable. The writing had been on the wall for the entire duration of Mr. Conte’s imperial reign, yet, not a single African Head of State, ever once denounced that regime’s brutal reign of terror. And today, if no one in and outside Guinea is mourning the death of President Lansana Conte, it is because for twenty-four years, he used the military and the dreaded security services of his country to oppress, suppress, intimidate and murder his countrymen. But, one of Conte’s most enduring legacies is the administration of one of the most corrupt regimes in Africa, and despite deteriorating mentally and physically, he stubbornly refused to even consider relinquishing power to someone else who can govern with due diligence and maturity. In his political posturing, President Lansana Conte truly epitomized the curse of Africa’s leadership; leaderships that are fraught with bureaucratic patronization, an unprecedented corruption, fatal abuses of human rights, arrogance of power, divisive tribalism, disregard for national Constitutions, undermining of the function of judiciaries, and the blatant abuses of the laws of the land. Both in substance and style, President Lansana Conte’s rule perfectly mirrors that of the brutal reign of Yahya Jammeh, and if there is one thing Jammeh can learn from the events of this week in Guinea, it is that like Mr. Conte, he will not be missed when he dies. On the contrary, for the people of our country, it would be a long-in-coming good riddance marked by drumming and dancing throughout the length and breadth of our country in celebration of the death of our own monster. Still, the paradox of Guinea is also the true irony of Africa: for as one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of resources, Guinea also shamefully boasts some of the world’s poorest people. After more than two decades at the helm, all Conte’s stewardship has to show for his tenure is the creation of unprecedented class of wealthy politically connected few, and the sobering descent into abject poverty for the vast majority of the population.

A barrage of condemnations emanating from different segments of the international community, as expected, soon followed the Guinean military coup, but none was more hypocritical than that of the African Union. The Africa Union, from what we have learnt over the decades, appears more interested in protecting the murdering kleptomaniacs who head Africa’s failed regimes than looking out for the interest of the continent’s massive poor population. The difficulty for the people of Guinea now is that the welcome death of Lansana Conte, also heralds a period of uncertainty relative to the true intentions of the new military regime. While the Guinean people generally support the change of regime, judging from the reactions inside the country, not knowing whether the new regime has any hidden agenda presents a dilemma to a people so hungry for change, yet fearful that the country might once again be submerged in another disastrous and protracted period of political repression. Ever since gaining independence in 1958, Guineans have not had a reprieve from their government sanctioned violence and murders, and hopes that briefly flourished after the death of the blood-thirsty Satan, President Ahmed Sekou Toure, more than twenty years ago, were shattered in short order by Lansana Conte’s ascendancy to the throne. And today, the political similarities between Lansana Conte and Yahya Jammeh, should be a lesson to us in The Gambia, however, unlike Guinea, we Gambians must not allow the son-of-a-… Yahya Jammeh to continue dragging our country in the mud any longer. We must be prepared to raise an armed insurgency in our country if that is what it will take to drive Jammeh out in order to restore the lost glory of our beloved Gambia. But, by his recognition of the military government of Guinea late last week, Senegalese President Abdoulie Wade, also sent a clear signal to our countrymen and women tired of being reduced to puppets and slaves by Jammeh’s regime. President Wade’s recognition of the new military government in Guinea in effect paves the way and sets the stage for that regimes’ acceptance by the international community of nations. This is a clear signal to our own military and security forces that a coup in our own country will be recognized, not after a number of days as in the case of Guinea, but rather, in a matter of hours. The military and security forces in our country have a sworn duty and a moral obligation to the Gambian people to help put an end to our country’s misery and Yahya Jammeh’s impunity.

Recently, I was disgusted and horrified by Essa Badjie’s disrespectful and disgraceful threats of our military and security forces when they were coerced into going to Kanilai to illegally slave on one of Yahya Jammeh’s hundred and more farms spread around our country. But, according to our Constitution, our military and security forces do not owe any loyalty, whatsoever, to Yahya Jammeh, and any loyalty owed is to the people of our country. The reality is that it is the duty of our Assembly of elected legislators to impeach and forcibly remove from office any head of government who abuses our Constitution and disregards the laws of our country as Yahya Jammeh has done for the past decade and half. But, because majority of our elected delegates are in cohort with Yahya Jammeh, and are either deliberately or inadvertently engaged in destroying our country, the responsibility of removing Yahya Jammeh must, therefore, rest with our military and security forces or by popular uprising. However, since a popular uprising might invite the bloody massacre of our country men and women by our own military and security forces, the military and security forces must, therefore, shoulder the responsibility of removing this nauseating Jammeh regime. And, because Yahya Jammeh is relying on his hundred or so Casamance Jola mercenaries to prevent an overthrow of his regime, we can respond by putting AK 47s and Russian Kalashnikov Machine Guns in the hands of the thousands of able-bodied young Gambians in the ghettos and Ataya Vous around our cities, towns and villages. Our lesson learnt from Guinea must be that we must resolve to overthrow this regime, because letting Yahya Jammeh steal another election through intimidation and the use of force cannot be an option. Personally, I doubt whether the military and security forces in our country will rather have Yahya Jammeh remain in power than have the hundreds of very highly educated and highly professional Gambians return home to our country to help repair the damage Yahya Jammeh’s murderous regime has inflicted on our country. A cadre of well educated and professional Gambian dissidents living in the Diaspora are ready and willing to return home and this time change our country into the Botswana of West Africa. The time to stop putting semi-literate and illiterate Jolas and non-Jolas in positions they have neither the education or the training to handle is now. These square pegs in round holes will take our country nowhere fast, and unless we resolve to change this illegitimate regime by the use of force, sooner or later our country too will reach the destination countries like Zimbabwe and Guinea find themselves today. And believe me, no one wants that level of abject economic deprivation to consume our country the way it has done to Zimbabwe.

Cpt. Moussa D. Camara, Guinea's New Ruler