Yahya Jammeh's Drugs & Arms Trade: How The Gambia has become a drug transit state By Abdoukarim Sanneh, London, UK Yahya Jammeh's pursuit of wealth and power has a geo-political implication for the peace and stability of the whole of West Africa. Under the brutal dictatorial rule of Jammeh and his APRC Government, the Gambia has fuelled conflict in the Senegalese region of Casamance, Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In 2002, when the former President of Guinea Bissau, Kumba Yalla, threatened to invade the Gambia, many did not make a contextual analysis of the rationality of such a statement, but it was Yahya Jammeh's growing involvement in the Guinea Bissau cocaine trade, by colluding with senior officials in that country's armed forces, which was seen as a threat to the process of the democratization of Guinea Bissau. It was for this reason that Kumba Yalla threatened to invade the Gambia and, even after being removed from power by the military junta, Mr. Yalla continued to be a vocal critic of the army's collaboration with South American drugs barons for using Guinea Bissau as a hub for trafficking cocaine into Europe.  The West African cocaine trade has a long chain of networking in the trafficking of illicit substances, as well as financial transfers. The link goes from the drugs barons, to the security/government officials, then to middlemen and, finally, to carriers. The South American drugs syndicates use Bissau and its remote inaccessible islands as a hub for transiting cocaine to Europe by infiltrating the country's security forces. A high placed senior manager working in a commercial bank in the Gambia lamented to me about the loose banking regulations and the involvement of our leader through a front cover business venture, the premier function of some new banks in capital flight. Financial transactions are used to launder drugs money to various parts of the world. According to my source, in the hard economic conditions, the monthly wages of the majority of the Gambian working class are only just putting food on the table, so that people have no surplus to save. This defies the logic of registering dozens of commercial bank s. According to statistics from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, based on an analysis of seizures in Europe, 27% (40 tons) of the cocaine consumed annually in Europe is transiting West Africa, and is worth US $1.8 billion at wholesale level. Out of the large individual seizures from each West African country, 2, 200kg is found to have come from the Gambia. Yahya Jammeh’s greed for wealth for his children and grandchildren is what is influencing him to use his grip of absolute power for self-enrichment, using all means necessary. Our so-called leader has a close resemblance to General Manuel Noriega, the former leader of Panama. His rule was also a recorded history of drug trafficking, money laundering, murder, and human rights abuses. In 2001 when Baba Jobe, Former APRC Majority leader of Parliament and Director of the Gambia’s New Millennium Air Company, was listed among individuals who had contravened the United Nation’s Security Council Resolution 1348 for involvement in blood diamonds and arms trafficking in both the Liberian and Sierra Leone conflict, this vindicated Jammeh's Mafioso links. The trend and pattern of Yahya Jammeh's criminalization of our nation-state is only negligible to our myopic, pseudo-intellectuals and politicians. Yahya Jammeh used Baba Jobe as a front cover business venture to support the regime of Charles Taylor, who is currently facing the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, in an effort to destabilize Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds. This makes a much wider link of our so-called leader’s past and present involvement in the arms and drug trafficking networks of West Africa. Who is Baba Jobe and where did he acquire such wealth to purchase a Millennium Air Company, which becomes President Yahya Jammeh's official travel airline? Why should the Millennium Airline be registered as a limited liability company of the State House of The Gambia at No.1 Marina Parade, Banjul? For background information, Baba Jobe was a poor young Libyan trained agricultural graduate and, in 1991, he was arrested by the PPP Government, along with Buba Senghore (APRC Former Deputy Major of Kanifing Municipal Council), Salifu Puye (Former Deputy Commissioner LRD), Momodou Pika Jallow (Green Boys and NIA Operative) and others for MOJAG activities. They were charged with subversion, and the court proceedings were widely covered by the FOROYAA newspaper. After some court appearances the charges were dropped, after which the ban on MOJAG was lifted. Even though he was trained in Arabic, with the help of Alhagie Yahya Ceesay, the Former Minister of Local Government and Lands, Baba Jobe, was appointed by the Department of Agricultural Service in 1992 as a Senior Agricultural Assistant within the Gambia Government civil service integrated pay scale of grade 6 in the Soil and Water Management Unit in Yundum. On the first day of the coup, on the 22nd of July 1994, Baba Jobe, Buba Senghore and Salifu Puye, who were known for their clandestine and anti-PPP activities by the soldiers, were arrested with some PPP politicians. Their release on the second day of the coup by pledging loyalty began their full embracement of Yahya Jammeh's imperfect offerings and, thus, they were transformed into the new petty bourgeoisie of the post PPP era. The 22nd July 1994 coup was followed by a travel ban imposed by her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom, and the withdrawal of the United States Department of International Development, along with foreign aid from many Western Government s. Yahya Jammeh banked on Baba Jobe’s political immaturity and inexperience when, through his Libyan connection, he became Colonel Ghaddifi's new found friend. The July 22nd youth movement became his brainchild, and the voluntary mobilization of idle youth across the length and breadth of the Gambia became the new order. The green book authored by Ghaddafi became the official doctrine/ideology of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, and aid began to flow from Libya to Banjul. Baba Jobe and cohorts were immediately transformed from rags to riches, and this is the continuum of the rise and fall of one of Jammeh's one-time powerful strategists of the torture and political bullying which has become a record of the history of our beloved country. In October 1994, idle youths from all over the country gathered in Armitage High School for weeks to indoctrinate them with the 22nd July Movement, and the hard core elements, who are now the “green boys” were sent to Mataba Terrorist Training Camp in Libya, where Charles Taylor and the RUF Rebel leader, Foday Sankoh, were schooled in Guerrilla warfare. Ousman Manjang of GAMSEN was the first target of the green boys when he refused the premises of GAMSEN to be used for the 22nd July meeting. Manjang's house was burnt down, and the authorities didn’t give a damn about investigating the matter. The next target of the green boys’ arson attack was BBC Banjul Reporter, Ebrima Sillah, of Radio 1 FM and the Independent Newspaper. Yahya Jammeh and his cohorts began to embrace the concept of Ghaddifi's green revolution for replication to their so-called revolution pathway. Diplomatic relations were established between Banjul and Tripoli, and funds began to flow. The Gambia joined the league of Libya 's recognised nations, like Charles Taylor's Liberia, and Gambia's two year term as a non permanent member of the Security Council in the mid 1990S was reduced to barking for lifting sanctions on Libya and recognizing Taiwan as a member of th e United Nations. The Gambian people are dying under Jammeh's leadership with the connivance of Lang Tombong Tamba and other cohorts. With their share of the criminal empire that sustains the policy of the divisive politics of tribalism, the new culture of material Gambia, people feel pride in Yahya Jammeh's continual humiliation. In conclusion, my message to our so-called president is that you cannot fool most of us who have learned to read and think for ourselves.  Yahya Jammeh’s annual salary is less than a million dalasis but today, one wonders where he got all of the money he is so generously throwing around. A few weeks ago, each under 17 Football player was given a share of 1 million dalasis out of a generous sum of 29 million dalasis, which was a fraction of his personal fortune. Where is the money coming from? Is it Allah's World Bank? Is it from the wider theorem of Mobutu's gold? Before July 1994 Yahya Jammeh and many of his cohorts and hangers on were lining up for bank overdrafts to make ends meet. Since seizing power, Yahya Jammeh has used our state for Mafioso type robbery, all done in secret. Whenever the matter comes to the surface, spinning, obfuscation, half-truths and downright lies have become a huge part of the character of the administration. From the scandal of Babanding Foutanka Susoho with a Gambian diplomat, the Mauritanian drugs container, the Nigerian Crude oil saga, Taiwan’s loan of Gambia's missing millions, Baba Jobe and the blood diamonds, are hidden just below the surface of the scum of secrecy and obfuscation. Today, according to sources, there is growing number of mysterious flights of private jets in and out of the Gambia, and what Gambians want to know is who owned the private jet that crashed in Yundum (Banjul) International Airport last month? Why was no independent investigation conducted regarding the rules of aviation safety and security to determine the cause of the accident? What was the mission of the private jet in the Gambia at that time? A wall of secrecy and confidentiality surrounds Yahya Jammeh’s criminalization of our state. With such a huge propensity for deception and secrecy surrounding the link of the owner to our so-called president’s Mafioso activities, the accident or crash of the private jet has become an entirely forgotten incident. Authoritative information gathered from sources in Banjul confirms that the jet belonged to Massry Ian Hassib, a business partner of Mouhktata Sayed of Gainesville, Florida. Both have alleged connections to South America narcotic barons, such as Charbel Maria and Jean Doumite Maria of Brazil and Arturo Massud and Hassib Salmen Torres of Mexico. Yahya Jammeh's thoroughly undemocratic instinct is to keep dissembling and obfuscating, taking all possible steps to cover his tracks and patterns of the criminalization of our nation in his pursuit of wealth and power all, of which intensifies a corrosive mistrust of his administration since seizing power in July 1994. Earlier episodes include Ebou Jallow and Gambia’s missing millions, Baba Jobe’s Millennium Air Company and blood diamonds, Babanding Foutanka Sussoho’s money laundering and the Gambian diplomatic passport saga, the Gambia Government’s lifting of Nigeria’s crude oil, and the Abacha connection, Mauritanian Drugs saga etc. All of these cases described are indeed scandals of corruption and instances of outrageous injustice to the people of the Gambia, perpetrated in the name of the state and then denied by an apparently unaccountable regime using all of its power to suppress our citizen’s right to information. Since seizing power, Jammeh has instituted a policy of tribal hegemony in our country's security forces. Jammeh’s ethnic minority tribe heads all Gambia’s National Army, Police, Prison, Immigration and National Drug Squad. Under Jammeh’s leadership, the army created a position for General-Lang Tombong Tamba, and Police Force, under Junior Secondary School Leaver, Essa Badjie, has turned into a repressive arm of the regime. The hellish Gambia Prison service with its well-documented account of the deaths of inmates is under the administration of the corrupt David Kolley, while the National Drugs Squad has recently been involved in allegations of inefficiency, favoritism and maladministration, under the leadership of Muslim High School drop out, Bun Sanneh. All of these epitomize the hegemonic policies of our so-called leader, purposefully made for corruption and to rule our nation with an iron fist. Gambia's Army and the Police are the most undisciplined institutions in our country. Under the prevailing dictatorship, their role is to muffle the voices of activists, politicking on the APRC party platform, and violating human rights. The Army under General Lang Tombong Tamba, was implicit in giving order to Lt Solo Bojang to lead and conduct Janjaweed militia styles of raids on innocent and defenseless citizens in the name of a witchcraft crusade in the villages of Essau, Jambur, Sintet, just to satisfy the paranoid mentally sick so-called president. I was disheartening to note recently, during a speech made by the British High Commissioner, His Excellency Phil Sinkinson, in marking the 83rd Birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the Gambia, that he was allocating three places at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst for senior level training courses for the Gambian National Army. Her Majesty's Government should critically assess the issues of bilateral security assistance to the Gambian Government under the regime of Yahya Jammeh. An undisciplined and unprofessional army of the Gambia, driven by a policy of Jammeh's divisive tribal hegemony with well documented accounts of partial political involvement, torture, murder and extra-judicial killing, has no place in one of world's most famous and prestigious institution were ethics and professionalism is the norms and freedom and championing the rights of citizens is a core value. It was the Gambia army that killed Alieu Ceesay in the UDP rally in 2001. Former Army Commander, Baboucarr Jatta, is alleged to have been involved in the disappearance of Kanyiba Kanyi, and the April 2000 shooting of the students. It was the army that shot and killed Pa Manneh, the son of Kebba Mariama Manneh and Aminata Cham of Brufut in 2000, while he was riding a motor bike, for no crime other than failing to stop when they instructed him to do so while they were on patrol in Foni. Every moment of Jammeh's absolute control of the road and traffic when moving around the country, the presidential motorcade of the Army with its carefree attitude and berecklessness kills an unaccountable number of children. It seems as if the lives of people are not what matters to them, only Jammeh's personal security. Jammeh's absolute control of the army has turned these men and women in uniform into arrogant beasts, which show no value for the lives of ordinary citizens. They are aloof over the laws of our land and their crimes are without impunity. Extending assistance to such an institution means giving them assurance to inflict more harm on the people they should be protecting. In conclusion, my message to our so-called president is that you cannot uneducated those of us who have learned to read. You may have driven us from our homeland, but you cannot oppress us because we are not afraid, and will continue to document the trend of your criminality in your pursuit for power and wealth. Everything we are documenting will be your legacy in history and will be used as material evidence in your trial for both economic and human rights crimes.