A White Paper: The Republic of The Gambia.
By Mathew K. Jallow
The Gambia’s Struggle against a de facto Dictatorship.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki- Moon
As the world focuses attention on issues the United Nations perceives as more important to global stability, The Gambia, a country without resources, is seemingly outside the radar of the international community. But, what is occurring in the former British colony does, by any standard of measure, amount to human-rights abuses on a grand scale. Since the military take-over, which brought Yahya Jammeh to power in 1994, the Gambian population has been under constant and relentless assault by their own government; living in a nightmare of fear, intimidation, arrests and detention without cause, torture, frequent disappearances of citizens, and murders of its citizens on a regular basis. In an effort to prolong his regime’s rule, Yahya Jammeh has bolstered the role of his National Security Agency (NIA), giving it extraordinary and unconstitutional powers to arrest, detain and murder citizen suspects without the benefit of due process or other legal remedy. The Jammeh regime has also created a deadly civilian paramilitary known as The Green Boys, drawn from a large pool of gullible, desperate and unemployed young men, who function outside the realm of the bureaucracy, and like the much feared National Intelligence Agency whose tactics they mimic, are known to spread death, fear and terror around the countryside.
The existence of the mass graves around the country is no longer a matter of empty speculation, because citizens and non-citizens who escaped death, have come forward to volunteer valuable and privileged information relating to the cruel ordeals they endured at the hands of the regime’s military and security agents. As more and more Gambians shed their fear of the regime, some who have firsthand knowledge, have begun corroborating evidences and confirming new information regarding the existence of mass graves in different locations around the country. The extra judicial killings are bad enough, but they are by no means the only human-rights abuses attributable to the Jammeh regime. It is apparent that in his effort to hold on to power, Yahya Jammeh has shown that he will stop at nothing to force his will on the people. To ensure his political survival he has employed methods that are considered cruel and unusual by the international community of civilized nations. By his actions, Yahya Jammeh has demonstrated that he does not care about the opinions of the international community, often calling press conferences simply to chastise governments in the west. These actions are increasingly marginalizing The Gambia, and gradually turning the country into a regional and international pariah.
In 1994, just before the military coup, a number of robust and very agile independent media houses existed in The Gambia. Less than three years later, dozens of those idealist media practitioners have fled the country, others have been murdered before they had an opportunity to flee, and the rest are even now languishing in notorious prisons being operated by the regime. In addition, scores of civilian political prisoners are wasting away in the prison system, and some have apparently already died from disease, torture, malnutrition and lack of medical care. It is an open secret that the prisons in the country are notoriously filthy, overcrowded, and unsanitary, which makes living conditions in them unbearable and deadly even for animals. The right of the people to freely assemble and express their views is no longer permitted by the regime on the convoluted idea that it could lead to incitement to rebel against the regime. The regime is unpopular, and its fear of the people is palpable to the point of bordering on paranoia, causing an intolerably hostile environment in the country, particularly for the educated class. It is understood that western governments are typically reluctant to interfere in political situations where their economic and political interests are not in jeopardy. This is an unfair, self-serving and retrogressive policy, which exposes the lives of innocent citizens to the brutality of our own governments. Any regime that summarily executes and brutally murders its citizens as Yahya Jammeh’s does deserves to be tried by an international court of justice. After more than thirteen years of cruelty, corruption, mismanagement and misrule, many Gambians are beginning to accept their fates under Yahya Jammeh as ordained and evitable; blunting their determination to stand up in defense of the civil and human rights of the citizenry. To give up the struggle for justice at this crucial juncture is not an option, and besides, anecdotal evidence suggests that the regime may be gradually losing its control over the population.
In the parliamentary and presidential elections held in 2006, only a third of the eligible voters bothered to cast their votes. This very poor voter turnout was primarily a protest of the regime and its policies, which everyone agrees are divisive and undermine the future stability of the country. Yahya Jammeh has invested his regime in the dangerous game of tribal politics, appointing his fellow Jola tribesmen, who are a mere eight percent of the population, to every major position in the machinery of government. Except for two members in his cabinet of fifteen ministers, everyone is from the capital city and its suburbs or members of Jammeh’s tribesmen from the Fonis region. The two largest tribes, who together comprise sixty percent of the population, have only one single cabinet minister between them, while Jammeh’s Jola tribesmen boast six cabinet minister positions. Before the coup in 1994, Gambians were fully integrated tribally, but now the policies of the regime have created a wedge of distrust and suspicion among the tribes. Judging from the experiences of the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda, ethnic and tribal relationships once broken, take a very long time to repair and rebuild. By deliberately ignoring and marginalizing nearly ninety percent of the Gambian population, Yahya Jammeh is putting the future of The Gambia at a great risk. Moreover, for the past several years, Gambians have repeatedly endured the humiliation of viewing and listening to Yahya Jammeh’s condescendingly tirades berating them on radio and national television. But, if that was enough, he has hijacked the power and authority of both the Judiciary and the National Assembly, and the military and security forces have been reduced to mere puppets of his regime. To make matters worst, the bureaucracy has effectively collapsed, and Yahya Jammeh makes important national decisions on an ad hoc, informal, impulsive and arbitrary basis without the benefit of expert and informed advice.
The Gambia is at a critical juncture as the opposition to Jammeh’s dictatorship is growing by leaps and bounds. The demands for him to step down have reached fever pitch, and
Alliances are being forged among Gambians across the globe. There is a new sense of urgency to do something, as renewed attention is focused on Jammeh’s divisive, inept and brutal regime. A newfound vigor is bolstering the determination of some patriotic citizens to stand up to the regime and reclaim the rights of our fellow citizens. As new evidence is being gathered to prepare cases against the regime for the International Court of Justice at The Hague, several areas of concern relating to the murders, disappearances and tortures of citizens and non-citizens alike have been identified for further scrutiny. These include, but are not limited to the following areas:
- Massacre of 12 Students
- The Mass Graves
- Massacre of 55 West Africans, mostly Ghanaians
- Tribalism
- Corruption
- Cassamance Rebel Support
- Gambian Refugee Exodus
- Civilian Murders
- Taiwan’s Dollar Diplomacy
Massacre of 12 Students:
In April 2000, students from schools in Serrekunda and its suburbs held a demonstration to protest the murder of one of their own at the hands of the security forces. The response from the regime was swift and brutal. When it was over, twelve students lay sprawling on the ground, dead from machine gun fire. The unarmed students, some as young as eleven years, were spread bullets on orders from the regime of Yahya Jammeh. More than seven years later, the trauma of that fateful day still haunts Gambians, and the young students who witnessed that moment will remain scarred for life by that experience. This was one of the first major incidences of mass murder to be perpetrated by the regime. To this day, no one has yet been brought to justice for this cowardly and barbarous massacre.
The Military Mass Graves:
Throughout the thirteen years of Jammeh’s rule, many members of the military and the security forces have faced the brunt of the regime’s madness. Individual military officers have over time been summarily executed, at other times; groups of them who refused to participate in mass murders, have been arrested and intermittently executed and dumped in mass graves. On many occasions, others who were accused of plotting to overthrow the regime have also been summarily executed without the benefit of due process. To date it can be confirmed with absolute certainty that the mass graves exist in the forest of the Kombo coastal village of Siffoe, and in the bushes on the outskirts of Kanilai village, Yahya Jammeh’s hometown. It is alleged that half a dozen mass graves are attributable to Yahya Jammeh and his henchmen, and so far, the existence and location of three of these graves have been confirmed with certainty by eyewitnesses, mostly former military officers in exile. As recently as late 2006, six former members of the military and security forces, which include the former head of the National Intelligence Agency, Daba Marena, were arrested for alleged conspiracy to overthrow the regime. Members of the security forces confirmed their summary execution, but the regime insists that they escaped while being transported to a rural prison. More recently, several former and current military officers, some of who were implicated in the mass murders, have been dying under very mysterious circumstances. The last to die this week (no connection with the murders but a potential witness to numerous atrocities) was the beloved and much respected former Army Chief of Staff who decided to return home from exile in Dakar, Senegal.
Massacre of 55 Ghanaians:
Sometime in July 2005, a boat fully loaded with fifty-five Ghanaians, Senegalese and Togolese immigrants was captured at sea by Gambian navy forces. The West African nationals who were on transit en-route to the Canary Islands and Spain were brought to shore. Military witnesses have narrated stories of horror and animalistic brutality that bordered on sadism when describing the way the fifty-seven West African nationals were murdered at night on the outskirts of Siffoe village. As in the other cases, there are still witnesses to the gruesome massacre on that fateful day. The reaction of the Ghanaian government to this incident initially left a lot to be desired, and although an investigation has been conducted, the results are still to be made public. The Gambian regime accused the migrants of rebel activity with intent to overthrow the regime, yet the victims could not be tied to any dissident group in or outside The Gambia. This massacre was meant to intimidate Gambians and instill fear in their hearts; unfortunately poor innocent human beings had to be senselessly sacrificed in order to try to achieve that objective.
Tribalism:
The Gambia has always prided itself as the most tribally homogenized and tolerant society in West Africa. Inter-tribal marriages were on the rise and discrimination on the basis of tribal affiliation was so rare as to be negligible for the most part. Today, due to the regime’s policies, The Gambia has the only government-sanctioned discrimination based on tribe. The Jola tribe, to whom Yahya Jammeh belongs, is assigned the most senior executive positions within the government bureaucracy, despite the fact they constitute a mere eight percent of the total population. From the military, to national security, the Central Bank, the Police, to government ministries and quasi government corporations, Jammeh has appointed his fellow Jolas tribesmen to positions designed specifically to create a security buffer around him. The other tribes constituting nearly ninety percent of the population are being treated as second-class citizen, are denied employment or passed over in promotion opportunities. This is understandably causing widespread resentment towards the regime in the Civil Service and among the general public.
Corruption:
Corruption in The Gambia today is as bad as it could ever get. Yahya Jammeh has replaced Moboto Sese Sekou as the most corrupt regime leader in Africa. He walks around with his pockets literally filled with bank notes, which he uses to reward civil servants in his good books. Decisions to purchase office equipment, stationery and major equipment like vehicles are made on the spur of the moment regardless of whether the purchases and their maintenance are budgeted for. Jammeh also frequently invents excuses to hold lavish and wasteful public feasts which often last for several days, and he uses The Central Bank and other revenue generating government agencies as his piggy bank. He frequently announces the formation bogus philanthropic causes, and then asks the public and businesses to donate to these causes in order to satisfy his insatiable lust for money. In ten short years, Jammeh has amassed untold wealth, effectively turning himself from a poor military recruit with no account in any bank to his name, to one of the richest political figures in Africa. His properties allegedly extend from a hotel overseas in Europe, to stores and mansions in Morocco and Guinea for his Moroccan born Guinean wife. Over the past few years, Jammeh has acquired more than a dozen properties across the country, and has pressured civil servants and poor farmers to cultivate farm properties he appropriated from poor villagers. He owns a ranch and has built a palace in his native Kanilai town in honor of himself. Still the international financial institutions continue to prolong the life of his regime by providing funding most of which never ever reaches the target populations. Besides, the facts contained in the government’s financial and progress reports to donor governments and international financial institutions are always forged and do not reflect the reality of economic conditions on the ground. There is no progress, whatsoever, being made in the eradication of poverty in The Gambia, and this is reflected in the exodus of jobless young men for the shores of Europe, in addition to the eighty percent unemployment rate, the new and growing phenomenon of child prostitution, and children foraging for food in garbage dumpsters in the plush tourism reserve areas.
Cassamance Rebel Support:
Since 1995, Cassamance rebels have been offered refuge in The Gambia by the Jammeh regime, and each time they commit acts of terror in Senegal, they are offered safe passage and protection in The Gambia. The rebels use Gambian territory to stage incursions into Senegal, and retreat there when the Senegalese forces pursue them. Jammeh is believed to be supplying arms to the rebels, and finances a lot of their activities. Due to Jammeh’s meddling in Senegalese affairs, he is not only contributing to prolonging the conflict there, he has also drawn neutral Gambia into that mess. In The Gambia, some of the rebels leaders are housed in hotels that most Gambians have never seen the inside of, and Gambia’s meager resources are being used to foment and worsening the Cassamance conflict. This is a cause for concern for Gambians across the globe. Due to Jammeh’s involvement in the activities of the rebel movement in the Cassamance, The Gambia and Senegal have not enjoyed a cordial and fraternal relationship since 1995. The two sister countries seem to be drifting farther apart, the longer Yahya Jammeh remains in power, rather than mend the battered relationship between the two sister nations. Most Gambians disapprove of the provocative policy of the Jammeh regime towards Senegal, advocating for dialogue and reconciliation and a peaceful resolution of the Cassamance conflict.
Gambian Refugee Exodus:
Since the early sixties, refuges have come to The Gambia from the sub-region, but today Gambians are the ones fleeing their country in droves for the safety and security of Senegal, Guinea, West Europe and the U.S. Gambians are finding refuge and sanctuary in Senegal, Guinea, Western Europe and the United States after fleeing Yahya Jammeh’s bloodthirsty regime. There are, today, more educated Gambians living as refugees than there are in the country. Most of those seeking refugee are highly educated professionals in their fields, and include doctors, attorneys, teachers, journalists, college professors, career diplomats and bureaucrats to name just a few. As hundreds of Gambia’s most educated class uses their talents and knowledge elsewhere, Yahya Jammeh’s regime has resorted to hiring his fellow semi-literate Jola tribesmen for positions that require educated, competent and knowledgeable professionals. The brain drain from the country is so severe that Jammeh is forced to recycle individuals he had hired and fired as many as two, three and even four times. A case in point is Tamsir Jallow, The Gambia’s new Ambassador to the United States, a former member and co-founder of the notorious and murderous, but now defunct “July 22nd Movement,” the precursor of the brutal paramilitary Green Boys. His recent appointment as Ambassador to the United States, his fourth such dismissal and reappointment so far, follows his dismissal as The Gambia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom less than six months ago.
Civilian Murders:
In 1994, soon after the military took power, one of Gambia’s most illustrious sons, Koro Ceesay, was murdered and his government car torched with him in it. The gruesomeness of his death was horrifying. It was later revealed that as Finance Minister, he refused to allow Jammeh to dip his hands into the national coffers. Much later, the head of The Gambia Press Union, journalist Deyda Hydara, was assassinated as he left his newspaper offices around midnight. These murders were the beginning of a long list of civilian disappearances and murders over the next decade. It is estimated that as many as hundred civilians have met their untimely deaths in similar fashion at the hands of this regime. For now, the true extend and gravity of the regime-sanctioned executions and murders is still unknown, and any estimate at this juncture is only a conservative guess. Families who are missing loved ones are fearful of confronting the regime to seek answers. The Gambian landscape is littered with fathers who lost sons and daughters, wives without husbands, children who lost their fathers, and fathers who will never be around to love, nurture and see their child grow into adults. But, the media is vigorously continuing to dig for the truth and so far; some refugees and former and current military personnel are filling in the blank pieces that will help build a full and complete picture of these thirteen years of horror under Jammeh’s dictatorship.
Taiwan’s Dollar Diplomacy:
The relationship between Taiwan and The Gambia is that of prostitute and a client. The government of Taiwan is giving unknown millions to Yahya Jammeh in order to secure Gambia’s support at the United Nations and other international organs. The Gambia as a country refuses to be prostituted for the narrow interest of one individual, and finances provided to Jammeh by the Taiwanese government through their Ambassador in The Gambia, Patrick Chang, is not benefiting the Gambian people. Funds provided to Jammeh as bilateral aid from Taiwan can be traced to Yahya Jammeh’s multiple private business interests in and outside the country, and to his overseas bank accounts. The Gambia is committed to establishing diplomatic relations with The People’s Republic of China, because that is where the country’s long-term vital national interests lie. The Gambia supports a peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan, and by extension opposes Taiwanese independence or its efforts to secure a seat at the United Nations Security Council. Along the same reasoning, Yahya Jammeh’s association with some of the political renegades of our time; Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to name a few, is appalling to Gambians, who demand a complete overhaul of the country’s foreign policy. The Gambia’s foreign policy, like every other country on the globe, must be strategically driven based on the principle of national interest that benefits all Gambians, rather than by an individual’s greed and insatiable lust for personal wealth.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, given the intransigence of Yahya Jammeh’s military government, The Gambia is faced with many daunting challenges. Notwithstanding the murders, tortures and many other acts of terror and savagery visited on Gambians, The Gambian people are being increasingly emboldened to reject the brutal rule of Yahya Jammeh’s military regime. In this effort, the international community has a moral obligation and a political responsibility to support The Gambian people at their hour of need. The growing Gambian dissident movement has a commitment to real democracy and a return of the country to the community of civilized nations. Under Yahya Jammeh’s regime, The Gambia has strayed tragically, resulting to the loss of many descent and innocent lives. It is the desire of Gambians everywhere to return to the peaceful days prior to the 1994 coup. Moreover, hundreds of the country’s most educated class who now live in exile around the world would love nothing more than being able to return home to rebuild the battered image of their country by among other things effecting national reconciliation and the reconstruction of the country’s broken spirit and devastated economy.
Mathew K. Jallow has an Associate Degree in Hospitality Management; a Bachelors Degree in Business Management; and a Masters Degree in Public Administration. He is pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Non-Profit Management. Prior to coming to the U.S, he worked as a writer, reporter and newspaper editor for many years. Mr. Jallow is a vocal opponent and vociferous critic of the military regime in his native Gambia, with a lifelong passion for politics. He is a fervent crusader for democracy and human rights in Africa. His Masters Degree thesis entitled “African Bureaucracy and the Barriers to Democracy,” can be viewed free online. Mr. Jallow is a regular contributor to several newspaper publications.
To.
The Secretary General, United Nations, U.S.
C.C.
Secretary of State, United States of America
United States Ambassador, Banjul, The Gambia
The British Foreign Minister, United Kingdom
British High Commissioner, Banjul, The Gambia.
Senegalese Foreign Minister, Dakar, Senegal
Senegalese Ambassador, Washington, D.C
Chinese Foreign Minister, Beijing, China
Chinese Ambassador, Washington, D.C
Chinese Ambassador, Dakar, Senegal
Foreign Minister of Guinea Bissau, Bissau
Secretary General, ECOWAS, Abuja, Nigeria
Secretary General, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, U.K
Secretary General, African Union, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Foreign Minister of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria
President, The World Bank, Washington, D.C
Managing Director, The International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C