by ALAGI YORRO JALLOW
Gambia’s population cannot fight and expose the corruption and other heinous acts that have occurred without fear. In this tiny country, democracy takes one step forward, one step back. What can we do? It’s a damnably difficult question. And what can the international community do to rescue Gambia from chaos? Isn’t Gambia still a sun-drenched holiday favorite for package tourists who don’t read the newspapers? There is something the press in nearly every country should be able to do – it can care, and it can ask questions, and it can advocate for change. But not in Gambia. In Gambia, there are many extrajudicial executions, nocturnal killings and beatings and most recently, nine executions of men and women on death row, many of whom received grossly unfair trials.
The hosting of the African Commission on Human and Peope’s Rights and the African Center for Human Rights Studies in the Gambia is no longer tenable when the Gambian government carries out extrajudicial killings that contradict the country’s supposed position as an advocate for human rights and that international obligations.
When the Gambia was given the opportunity to host the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, it was chosen not only because the African Charter had been adopted in Banjul but because at the time Gambia’s adherence to international political and human rights norms was seen as exemplary and would ensure it as a good place to be headquarters to both the charter and commission. To host the African Commission, the government agreed to guarantee the necessary conditions and environment to allow the norms and values of human rights and democracy to flourish.
Unfortunately, Gambia is no longer a place where democracy and human rights are upheld. Over the years, President Yahya Jammeh has become ever more dictatorial – and, some might even say, crazy. DeWayne Wickham rightly pointed out that ‘Yahya Jammeh could well be Africa’s biggest psychopath’, like the late Idi Amin, the former Ugandan president who generously proclaimed himself ‘Lord of all the beasts of the earth and fishes of the seas.’ Wickham also said, ‘Jammeh has an other worldly sense of self.’
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