Jammeh’s regime; a damning profile of Gambia’s tyranny
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By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor
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The first three months of 2000 were filled with trepidation, as anxiety gripped the nation and froze the population into a heightened sense of vulnerability. The initial shock of the military coup had long ago waned, and the country’s social rhythm had returned to some semblance of normalcy. But politically, the embers were still burning furiously beneath the surface. Koro Ceesay’s murder and the execution of the Noverber 11th. coupists, had failed to agitate the Gambian population into mounting a necessary resistance to the increasingly maniacal Jammeh regime. Behind the scenes and out of the limelight, Gambians had begun to disappear at the dead of night; some never to be seen again. In the military, soldiers were singled-out and black-listed as potential threats to Jammeh’s regime. Yahya Jammeh had grown increasingly comfortable and callous with the misuse of his power, and his fervent daring was exemplified by the broad day-light shooting death of a young military officer, Sergeant Dumbuya, at the Albert Market. Meanwhile, in Kanilai far to the south of Banjul, the village's transformation into the de-facto seat of Gambia’s government was taking shape gradually. Not long after the military coup, Jammeh had appropriated large swats of Kanilai villagers land to build a new palace for himself, complete with a zoo and every amenity money could buy. To complete his mad transformation, he redefined himself by retiring his military fatigue in exchange for civilian robes and styled himself after one of African worst murderers; late President of Guinea, Ahmed Sekou Toure. Luck was still on Jammeh’s side, for he had managed to get away with the bloody murder of Gambians; not once, not twice; but multiple times, without suffering any adverse consequence for his onerous actions. The collective failure of Gambians to respond adequately to the challenges our country was faced with at such crucial period, provided Jammeh and his regime the excuses they needed to test the limits of our tolerance. With the nation confronted with a stark and unbridled violation of its human rights, our passivity and political amnesia provided the impetus for Jammeh to usurp the authority of our system of government; the National Assembly, the judiciary and the civil service. True to form, he was emboldened by a sense of invincibility, brought on by our failure to put his power in check and his impetuousness under control. The more power Jammeh acquired, the more he rubbed Gambians the wrong way. In confirming a physics law that “every action produces a reaction”, he began to manifest signs of paranoia and inclinations toward sadistic sycophancy. His evolution from a small-time folk hero, to a desensitized misanthropist was complete. He was the true embodiment of perversity, and his so-called revolution exemplified contradictions of character; a cruel demonic joke, which by dint of his Machiavellian calculations, had digressed from humane empathy and the eloquence of spiritual candor. As his hold on power grew and became more ossified, he no longer felt obliged by moral imperatives or human decency to honor his commitment to Gambians. Having tasted the corrupting influence of absolute power, he embarked on a journey of emasculation and dehumanization. His manipulative disposition and predilection for moral infidelity, succeeded in reducing Gambians into pawns of his mercurial personality. Jammeh harbored an unparalleled determination to subsume the larger national interests to his selfish ends. His reinvention into a tone-deaf political pugilist mired our country in a quandary we are still struggling to escape from. As the paragon of moral insensitivity, he objectified an entire population, subjected our people to his whim and caprices, and transformed us into his puppets and puppeteers. The insidiousness of Jammeh’s regime came to a head on April 11th 2000; a day that will forever remain indelibly etched in our memories. The brutal massacre that summer day, of sixteen pre-teen and adolescents, all junior and high students, was the national tragedy heard around the world. The story of the episode read likeThe Gambia’s answer to the poetic narrative of the epic battle of Gilgamesh. Yahya Jammeh’s “revolution” had come full circle; its rabid cruelty unparallelled, and its bloodiness unfathomable in a country of people who wanted only to be left alone. Until then, nowhere on the African continent had such demonic beastliness and nauseating disregard for human life ever generated such mountainous despair and rambunctious helplessness. Even by Africa's low standards of concern for human rights, the depth and breadth of the cruel massacre of innocent students that day, was desperately frightening; the result of our irrational and fearful deference to Jammeh’s maniacal propensity and intimidation. The Gambia lost more that its precious young lives on that day; we lost what made us human, and we lost the values, which distinguished us as a people. On that day, we became the personifications of savagery; show-casing moral deficit, having acquiesced to Jammeh’s despotic vicissitude and dithering incompetence. Our fate as a country was wrapped up with the ebb and flow of Yahya Jammeh’s moodiness and repulsive behavior. Mid-morning of April 11th, marked the opening salvos of The Gambia’s longest day. It was the day our cultural norms shifted unrecognizably; overtaken by Jammeh’s need for greed, for power, for money and for adoration. It was a radical departure from our customary civility to a calamitous suspension of reality. The pervasion of our country's infant democratic system took center stage around which every-thing else revolved. It was a recipe and a metaphor for disaster in our country; a pathetic embodiment of the theatre of the absurd. But Yahya Jammeh stopped at nothing to get his way. A new day had dawned. Any scintilla of hope of restoring sanity and reconfigurating our political system, would remain just a fantasy; an empty dream. The Jammeh machine that would disfigure the character and image of our country was just getting started.......THE END
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Author's Note.
The three published parts are excerpts from a book by the same title. Inspiration for the book came a while ago when Yahya Jammeh offered a million dalasis to anyone who would write what is clearly believed would be a sanitized story of his regime. The book, designed either to be a preemptive narrative or a counter-punch to any book written to stroke Jammeh's ego, will shed light on the real history of his regime. It will present another side of the same story. Coming to a bookstore near you hopefully not too far into the future. MKJ.