Echo Editorial
Yahya Jammeh- A President, liar or terrorist?
By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-In-Chief
Barely a week after the high profile sacking of Mr. Abdoulie Sallah as Secretary General and Head of the Gambian Civil Service, the tantalizing details are now unfolding and if any persons were in doubt as to the veracity of that incident, it should now be crystal that Mr. Sallah was axed following a very poisoned atmosphere at The Gambia’s oval office. The bellicose statement from Gambian leader, Yahya Jammeh published verbatim in Tuesday’s Daily Observer newspaper has irksome echoes of the characteristically unfriendly atmosphere that allegedly portended Mr. Sallah’s administrative career.
Gambia's ugliest man and terrorist leader, Yahya Jammeh(a.k.a Afang Ibilis)
Beneath the façade of Jammeh’s infantile bellicosity however, is the stark reality of a sick, stupid, idiotic megalomaniac and an utterly ignorant character masquerading as President of a sovereign Republic.
Yahya Jammeh is a president-yes, no! Yahya Jammeh is a fool-yes, no, may be! Yahya Jammeh is a terrorist-yes, no, almost certainly yes! These and similar questions continue to exercise the minds of men and women as we examine the paradoxical character in the Gambian leader; a hitherto unknown political quantity that catapulted itself to the pinnacle of political power through coup d’e tat promising to fix corruption and transform The Gambia into an oasis of democracy and political pluralism.
Paradoxically, fifteen years since his forceful political ascendency, the Gambian nation has been tethering towards the precipice of political chaos and economic disaster. What began as the brutal suppression of a counter coup on November, 11, 1994 has now methestasized into a full bloom dictatorship that knows no bounds.
On April 11, 2000 for example, the Jammeh regime acting on orders given by Jammeh himself slew a dozen school children who were exercising their constitutional right to free speech and protest. Following that incident, several students were maimed and others are still hospitalised at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Banjul. A young, dynamic journalist and Red Cross volunteer, Omar Barrow was gunned down at the vestibule of the main Red Cross building at Kanifing by members of Jammeh’s presidential guards and to date, nothing has been done about it.
My own colleague, Deyda Hydra was murdered on December 16th, 2004 while behind the wheel of his Mercedes Benz returning from work on the eve of his newspaper, The Point’s 13th anniversary. Earlier that afternoon, US Ambassador, Joseph Stafford was with Hydara to grace the 13-year anniversary of the launching of The Point newspaper. Many Gambians remember Ambassador Stafford as a man of high integrity and unflinching candour. He has a tenacious reputation of challenging dictatorships, promoting democracy and the rule of law, not only in words but in deeds. Lest we forget, it was a year before Deyda’s macabre murder that veteran lawyer Ousman Sillah was shot at and left to rot in a pool of blood. As if by divine intervention, Sillah survived the assassins’ bullets and today, like many Gambians, he too lives in the US with tales of a missing kidney, career and good life.
Paradoxically and by a concommitant twist of diplomatic irony, the current US Ambassador, Barry Wells has allegedly become so close to the Gambian dictator that many readers of The Gambia Echo are now raising eyebrows as to his effectiveness in enforcing US policy in The Gambia. For instance, there is the looming question why Ambassador Barry Wells continues to receive presidential awards from a tyrant who has blood all over his body and mind. To most Gambians, Ambassador Wells’s acceptance of a prize or award from their butcher in-chief is analogous to Winston Churchill’s receiving a prize from Hitler the genocidal racist who liquidated millions of Jews in German gas chambers. May be, like the proverbial teaching of one’s grandmother of how to suckle eggs, Ambassador Wells needs to be reminded that Yahya Jammeh is the Gambian metaphor of Hitler, the Gambian metaphor of Charles Taylor, the Gambian metaphor of Samuel Doe, the Gambian metaphor of Idi Amin, the Gambian metaphor of Emperor Bokassa; all of them constituting a clique of tyrants who will continue to occupy the darkest chapter of human history. In sum therefore, The Gambia Echo urges Ambassador Barry Wells to reject the National Award he is scheduled to receive from the Gambian murderer because in our view, and in the view of several Gambians, for an American envoy of his standing to receive such an award from Jammeh, is a tacit approval of all those atrocities that Yahya Jammeh has committed over the past fifteen years. In a sense therefore, the award symbolizes blood and for a representative of the freest people on earth- the United States of America, to accept such an award from a butcher like Jammeh is not only worrisome but potentially, scandalous.
Lamentably, after murdering his own colleagues on November 11, 1994 and burying them enmass, followed by the killing of finance Minister Ousman K. Ceesay in a grizzly murder in June, 1995, liquidating a dozen school children on 11 April, 2000, attempting the life of lawyer Ousman Sillah in December, 2003, coupled with the brutal murder of Lt. Almamo Manneh and Dumbuya two years earlier, Jammeh went on to even kill more of his fellow citizens.
The disappearance of Daba Marenah, erstwhile Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) along side Lt. Alieu Badara Ceesay, Lt. Ebou Lowe, Regimental Sgt. Major Alpha Bah and Sgt. Manlafi Corr in the wake of the alleged foiled coup of March, 2006 marks a powerful punctuation in Yahya Jammeh’s harrowing authoritarianism and barbaric brutality. Even as Gambians were painfully debating the veracity of the five officers’ alleged fleeing by Jammeh the chief liar, several others were continuously tortured behind the granite walls of Mile II Prisons. Civilians, soldiers, journalists, politicians and even members of Jammeh’s own government among them women, have been and continue to be targeted and routinely tortured by his brutal killers. The Gambia Echo has evidence aplenty of women from the opposition and Jammeh's own party being routinely tortured, stripped naked and gang-raped by members of Jammeh’s notorious presidential guards or Green Boys always dressed in his party regalia. In early 2009, the madness reached a crescendo when Jammeh brought in Malian witch doctors who wreaked havoc on Gambian society as they forcibly entered into homes chasing alleged witches bent on destroying the autocratic regime. Before sanity prevailed if it ever does in a dictatorship; several innocent Gambians were forced to drink poisons and some died from the traumatic experience and damn right indignation in a society where pride prevails over all else.
Juxtaposed against the chilling liquidation of some 55 West African immigrants mostly Ghanaians in 2005, one sees an unprecedented trail of terror and destruction of human life under the leadership of Yahya Jammeh and begin to wonder if Jammeh is not the very terrorist within. Only this Monday, as he presided over the swearing-in ceremony of the new Secretary General and Head of the Civil Service, Mr. Njogou Bah, Jammeh went on the rampage, admonishing civil servants to desist from terrorizing and intimidating their colleagues; that he would never tolerate such behavior in his government which begs the poignant question: so who is the terrorist- Jammeh or his employees?
As you contemplate over that question, remember the number of Gambians and non-Gambians who died under mysterious circumstances ever since Jammeh’s fateful seizing of power on July 22, 1994. Remember the numerous soldiers that Jammeh summarily executed; remember the journalists that he tortured and murdered; remember the newspaper he burnt down and the journalists he sent to Mile II Prisons and those he still tortured; remember the dozen school children he murdered, remember the security detainees whom he murdered and claimed they fled; remember Finance Minister, Ousman K. Ceesay that they butchered at Yankuba Touray’s house and set his car ablaze to bury the evidence; remember the 55 West African immigrants that he hacked to death and buried in the woods of Siffoe village; remember Ousman Sillah who was shot and left to rot in a pool of blood; remember Captain Saidibou Haidara who was tortured to death at Mile II; remember Lang Tombong Tamba as he languishes in jail who, hitherto to his arrest was awarded all sorts of accolades as the most disciplined and patriotic officer; remember Kawsu Bombardier Camara, the most obedient terror boy as he too faces his victims at the death chambers of Mile II’s harrowing walls where all too often, male prisoners are routinely castrated and female detainees raped and robbed of their dignity.
If you think critically and remember all these brutal cases, then you may know why we continue to question Yaya Jammeh’s legitimacy as a leader and not a president, why we think he is a liar and a terrorist. If any person reads Yahya Jammeh’s arrogant speech during Secretary General Bah’s swearing and fails to see evidence of the monster’s unredeemable hypocrisy and shameful arrogance, then we suggest that you contact a psychologist, because you too, may be inflicted with some kind of malady.