Gambia leader’s hold on power ends with surprising speed

by robbie | December 3, 2016 3:45 pm

DAKAR, Sene­gal — In July 1994, three days after Gam­bi­a’s first pres­i­dent was top­pled by mil­i­tary offi­cers, the local Dai­ly Observ­er news­pa­per fea­tured a front-page pho­to of coup leader Yahya Jam­meh under the head­line: “We Will Nev­er Intro­duce Dic­ta­tor­ship In This Country.”

In what the news­pa­per billed as the offi­cers’ first post-coup inter­view, the men dis­cussed the chal­lenge of form­ing a gov­ern­ment com­posed of “hon­est intel­lec­tu­als.” Jam­meh, then a 29-year-old lieu­tenant, said his plan was to step aside after three months so Gam­bia could hold demo­c­ra­t­ic elections.

Instead, Jam­meh con­test­ed and won the vote in 1996 and engi­neered the removal of term lim­its so he could stay in pow­er indef­i­nite­ly. After cast­ing his bal­lot in 2011, Jam­meh said that, God will­ing, he could rule for a bil­lion years.

But on Fri­day night, almost as quick­ly as he came to pow­er, Jam­meh announced he was leav­ing. Hours after the elec­tion com­mis­sion declared he had lost Thurs­day’s vote, state tele­vi­sion showed footage of Jam­meh plac­ing a con­ces­sion call to the win­ner, oppo­si­tion coali­tion can­di­date Adama Bar­row. Bat­tling a spot­ty con­nec­tion as he sat behind a desk in his trade­mark white robes, Jam­meh said he would not chal­lenge the result and smiled broad­ly when he mused about becom­ing a farmer in his home village.

“You are the elect­ed pres­i­dent of The Gam­bia, and I wish you all the best,” Jam­meh told Bar­row. “I have no ill will.”

A tiny coun­try of 1.9 mil­lion peo­ple sur­round­ed almost entire­ly by Sene­gal, Gam­bia under Jam­meh became noto­ri­ous for its abysmal human rights record as well as the pres­i­den­t’s errat­ic behavior.

In 2007, Jam­meh claimed to have devel­oped a cure for AIDS that involved an herbal body rub and bananas. Alarm­ing pub­lic health experts, he insist­ed patients stop tak­ing anti­retro­vi­ral med­ica­tions so his rem­e­dy could have an effect.

Two years lat­er, his gov­ern­ment round­ed up near­ly 1,000 peo­ple in a lit­er­al witch hunt, forc­ing the sup­posed witch­es to drink a hal­lu­cino­gen that caused diar­rhea and vom­it­ing. The uniden­ti­fied liq­uid led to seri­ous kid­ney prob­lems, and two peo­ple died, accord­ing to Amnesty International.

More recent­ly, Jam­meh seemed bent on exac­er­bat­ing Gam­bi­a’s iso­la­tion on the world stage. In 2013 he exit­ed the Com­mon­wealth, a group made up most­ly of for­mer British colonies, brand­ing it a “neo-colo­nial insti­tu­tion.” He issued increas­ing­ly vir­u­lent state­ments against sex­u­al minori­ties, vow­ing to slit the throats of gay men and say­ing the LGBT acronym should stand for “lep­rosy, gon­or­rhea, bac­te­ria and tuber­cu­lo­sis.” And in Octo­ber, Jam­meh said Gam­bia would leave the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, which he dis­missed as the “Inter­na­tion­al Cau­casian Court.”

All the while, Gam­bi­a’s econ­o­my stag­nat­ed, prompt­ing thou­sands to try to migrate to Europe on dan­ger­ous water routes.

Jam­me­h’s exit was brought about in no small part by a fed-up pop­u­la­tion, said Jeg­gan Grey-John­son, a Gam­bian advo­ca­cy and com­mu­ni­ca­tions coor­di­na­tor for the Open Soci­ety Foundations.

Begin­ning in April, oppo­si­tion activists staged rare protests demand­ing elec­toral reforms. Though police arrest­ed and alleged­ly beat the orga­niz­ers, the protests embold­ened Gam­bians in the run-up to this week’s vote, Grey-John­son said.

“The fear fac­tor had been lift­ed,” he said. “The Gam­bian pop­u­la­tion was already inoc­u­lat­ed mov­ing for­ward in the sense that they could face down a dictator.”

Once vot­ing was under­way, on-the-spot count­ing at polling sta­tions — a new fea­ture for this cycle — made the process more trans­par­ent and would have com­pli­cat­ed any attempt by Jam­meh to con­test his defeat, Grey-John­son said.

“The on-the-spot count­ing was fun­da­men­tal. I believe if there was no on-the-spot count­ing, that would have made a dif­fer­ence in the sense that there would have been an avenue for maneu­ver­ing for mis­chief mov­ing for­ward,” he said.

The secu­ri­ty forces who had helped Jam­meh sur­vive at least four coup attempts — most recent­ly in Decem­ber 2014 — seemed unmoved by his defeat on Fri­day, stand­ing idly by as cel­e­brat­ing Gam­bians ripped down posters bear­ing the pres­i­den­t’s face. It was a fur­ther sign that Jam­meh had no choice but to con­cede, Grey-John­son said.

“At the end of the day, he was a sit­ting duck and there was noth­ing he could do,” he said.

Reflect­ing on the trans­fer of pow­er, Gam­bians said much of Jam­me­h’s lega­cy would be dif­fi­cult to undo overnight. “We are con­scious of the dif­fi­cult task of rebuild­ing our coun­try and heal­ing our nation after 22 years of bru­tal tyran­ny,” said Pasam­ba Jow, a Wash­ing­ton-based activist.

As Gam­bia charts a new path, Jam­meh made clear he expects this process to play out with­out him.

“You Gam­bians have decid­ed that I should take the back seat,” he said in his tele­vised remarks Fri­day night. “You have vot­ed for some­body to lead our coun­try. This is our coun­try, and I wish you all the best.”

The orig­i­nal ver­sion of this arti­cle, report­ed with Abdoulie John, can be found here.

Source URL: http://robbiecoreyboulet.com/2016/12/gambia-leaders-hold-on-power-ends-with-surprising-speed/

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