The Jammeh -Jawara Partnership: A Reward Or Curse
By Lt. Colonel Samsudeen Sarr
Presidents Jammeh & Sir Dawda Jawara (courtesy Daily Observer)
Mr. Editor: I have this week decided to shift my focus away from my favorite subject, the trial of the MFDC rebels in The Gambia, to another interesting topic that really caught my attention. I saw the above photo-op for President Jammeh in The Gambia Daily Observer with former President Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara celebrating the 2007 legal year in The Gambia. As important as the event may be, I believe the picture of the odd couple together again brought host of memories and thoughts about what they figuratively represent or mean in Gambian politics yesterday, today and tomorrow. People have argued that history would never be kind to Sir Dawda for going back and endorsing the government of Jammeh who thirteen years ago illegally overthrew his elected government. It is even said that since his arrival in The Gambia Jawara has accepted a discreet advisory role in the Jammeh government although I have my doubts over that assertion. Jammeh, I am afraid has stopped taking advice from anyone; but even if he still has them their sincerity towards him would be questionable. However, there are those who still have some sympathy for the veteran politician whose once wonderful life after the fall of his government took a pitiful freefall until a team of “Jammehnites” was dispatched to London to rescue him. In exchange for his rehabilitation from a predicament that by many indications was possibly going to render him homeless or destitute, Jawara I understand had pledged to return to The Gambia to help Jammeh bolster his battered image. Some extreme family and monetary problems that to a great extent compelled him to accept Jammeh’s conditional incentive besieged Jawara according to those who were close to him during his last days in exile. He was in essence to take the reward and abjure all his political dreams. Apart from being given back the assets seized by the government after the 1994 coup, he took a lump sum of money he desperately needed at the time. Anyway most of the negotiations, the terms and conditions plus the final agreement were done in camera leading to a lot of conflicting hypotheses by local observers.
Whatever the real facts behind the compromise were, I don’t think anyone is blamable for dogmatically holding on to one’s conclusions over the reticent deal regardless of how absurd one’s opinion sounds. Only Jawara and Jammeh could have helped us with the true details and for posterity set the records straight. But I am afraid it is going to end up being chronicled in Gambia’s history like several other significant incidents distorted in myth and legendary tales. It shouldn’t surprise many people years from now for the story to metamorphose into one like thus: Jammeh overthrew the elected government of Jawara but after several years into his presidency, a voice spoke to him from the Quran warning him to go and get Jawara back from exile. Jawara didn’t want to go but an angel appeared in his dream and convinced him by telling him that it was God who wanted him to go back. Sounds familiar? Yes! Is it Possible? In the Gambia, hell yes!
I don’t’ know whether asking the question who the winner is in Jammeh’s partnership with Jawara could be of sufficient help in my reflection to make sense out of it but at this juncture starting with that is what I think I should do.
Avoiding being overly influenced by any form of prejudice over the whole covenant as many often are when discussing it, I believe the lives of Jawara and Jammeh as the first and second Presidents respectively of post-colonial Gambia provide us with a vast pool of learning opportunity in the country’s political evolution. And if studied with an open mind, I also think that lessons drawn could help tremendously in improving the ability of future leaders to govern The Gambia when both of them are gone.
One must however acknowledge the fact that at the time President Jawara was approached by Jammeh’s arbitrators, life must have been too miserable for him in England. Jawara for the best part of his days in exile had devoted himself, his family and a good number of some dedicated loyalists to an exhaustive campaign to win international support for the reversal of his fortunes in The Gambia. He had from reliable sources crisscrossed the world explaining to leaders and influential organizations that he simply needed one more chance of ruling Gambia again and solving its political dilemma once and for all. Apparently that would have first required removing Jammeh from power in perhaps a military operation. I guess his failure to convince the world to come to his aid may have emanated from the major mistake he had made in 1992 when he publicly announced his decision to leave office but changed his mind after the world thought he seriously had meant to go. Excuses given for his change of heart, followed by the immediate drastic actions taken against those who honestly took him by his first words, merely helped in making his position more precarious. For him to fearlessly come back then and told the world that he couldn’t leave because God who had given him the leadership didn’t yet endorse his departure was as laughable as President Jammeh today telling the world that there is a voice talking to him straight from the Quran.
That incident I think hurt President Jawara’s character and integrity in the international community more than anything else. Potential helpers could not just trust him or believe in anything he had to tell them about a better Gambia under his watch again. Even Nigeria that supplied him with all the commanders who had run his army, the GNA, up to the day he was overthrown wouldn’t come to his rescue when he asked. Everybody would agree that if Jawara had stuck to his words and abandoned the throne instead of waiting for the throne to abandon him, he would have gone down in history with a legacy similar to that of Senegal’s Senghore, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere and lately of Ghana’s Jerry john Rawlings. That was in 1992, but in retrospect I think President Jawara should have started working on an honorable exit strategy after the 1981 abortive coup attempt led by Kukoi. By then he had passed the logical time limit I believe a President should stay in power to avoid being transformed into an authoritarian leader. After ten years in power without term limit, Presidents loose sight of all possibilities of leaving office. And please spare me the garbage of “he always wins free and fair elections”. To make elections look free and fair when they are not is the easiest political trick in today’s tyrannical world. Jawara knew how to do it, and Jammeh perfected the method with mainly the help of former PPP stalwarts.
However, his decision to go back to The Gambia to compromise with Jammeh seemed to have validated two or more fundamental realities. It has clearly given approval to the military takeover led by Jammeh in a very expensive manner. He just didn’t go and accept whatever condition Jammeh had laid for him but he also had to sever his relationship with most of his friends and followers including a lovely wife and some of his dearest children who couldn’t understand his unilateral decision. Secondly, Jawara in going back to Jammeh had also proven to the international community and world leaders that their reluctance to come to his assistance was hinged to a reasonable fear. It had clearly showed him to be the deceitful person they had feared he was. And last but not the least it is also hurting all those Gambians abroad applying for political asylum. Immigration prosecutors or agents to deny asylum applicants a chance to legally stay in most Western countries are now frequently citing the Jammeh/ Jawara collaboration. They believe the return of Jawara is a testimony of everything being well and fine in The Gambia a misconception too difficult or impossible to change.
Anyhow, if President Jawara had gone back and kept a low profile with his political life ended in silence, then history might perhaps judge him with some element of lenience considering his age and the difficulties he had encountered living in exile.
But Jammeh dragging him out in the public for photo-ops only adds more bad marks to his faulty profile especially, at this time when the APRC’s global image seem to be falling apart.
I am sure Jawara is aware of what has been going on around him but since his life is now totally surrendered to Jammeh, his conscience must be getting the best of him. I don’t think he had missed stories about the murder of veteran journalist Deyda Hydara or the suspicious disappearance of Daba Marena and the other four coup suspects in 2005 or the killing of the 50 or so West Africans mostly, Ghanaians. I know for certain that the Kairaba Jawara we used to know had always disapproved killings for any reason or cause, for even those legally convicted of capital crimes in proper courts of law. I also believe he probably would have declined the reconciliatory offer if the recent events of deaths and killings had happened before he was approached. As a result, I must conclude by saying that Jawara is the loser and Jammeh the winner in their partnership that will continue to teach us more lessons for our future history as long as the APRC reigns.
Jammeh however could have avoided being another shortsighted African leader by planning a reasonable way of abandoning the throne before it abandons him. He could invite Jawara to help him with the process in which he should first take sincere lessons from the old man who was there long enough and had seen and done all. Jawara was there when Senghore, Nkrumah, Stevens, Cabral, Touray, Keita, Salasi, Amin, Bokassa, Gowan, Doe and others were ruling Africa with powers that were absolute. Yet they all ended in manners attributed to what they had done wrongly or rightly. But they all had to go anyway.
It would therefore be to their best interest to look into a quick and smooth transition that would allow them and members of their kinsmen continuity, free of every possible retaliation or persecution. Together, they could initiate a project that could keep their lives occupied and meaningful as ex-Presidents of postcolonial Gambia. Term limit of two-five years each in the Constitution will be the best starter.
The coup attempt Jammeh that said was led by Col. Ndure Cham in 2005 might have been a failure but it is as clear a warning signal to him as the 1981 coup attempt was to the PPP government. Refusing to recognize the signs on the wall and acting while there is still time might one day cause him his greatest regret. I would on that day want Jammeh to remember me as his former colleague who was everything but a sycophant to him.
On a last note, I saw the picture of Sir Jackal on your paper last week and said to myself, what a lucky person he is. I think he is one of the most wanted former Gambia National Army (GNA) soldiers in The Gambia. He narrowly escaped capture in 1997.