Here comes the dictator!

President-no, dictator Yahya Jammeh comes to the UN as a representative of a
people and state; but if representation were Jammeh's forte, then his
arrival in the US would have occasioned more cheers than jeers. Instead,
Jammeh, a leader with a proclivity towards erratic violent outbursts, and
flippant towards the sensibilities of his constituents, stands on the cusp
of condemnation from a section of his own people, domiciled away from the
treachery of of his autocratic leadership, yet troubled and rightly so, by
the vagaries of realities - there.

Gambians converging on New York Friday will lay siege to Jammeh and his
lackeys. Upon sight, Jammeh could come under a swelter of jeers;he will be
darn lucky not to have rotten eggs pelted at him. The good thing about it
all is that the US-based Gambians will exercise, without any undue hindrance
or repression, the fundamental right - a right that does not come with
liberty these days for those in The Gambia -  of all citizens, to vent anger
and even lash out at their leaders. Jammeh could only look hopeless. And
sulky.

Sulkier still, when by a quirk of fate, he lifts his head up and read amidst
the cacophonous noise, pejorative inscriptions on placards such as, "The
butcher of Kanillai";"Jammeh is a brutal dictator!";"Justice for Koro and
the rest";"Jammeh is worse than Jawara!" These sentiments speak to the truth
about Jammeh's six-year presidential stint, chock-a-block with excesses any
adjective will devalue description of. He comes to the UN with a scorecard,
unimpressive and hollow. Consider:

Under his watch, democracy has been supplanted with authoritarianism that is
leaving our body politic irremediably malignant. Talk of return to democracy
with elections in 1996 and installation of a civilian administration, is
sheer hyperbole. Jammeh has wrecked a lot of havoc on democratic gains,
however scanty, The Gambia had sustained in the past. The Gambia is still
being saddled between leaders who are corrupt, unenlightened, unaccountable
and a citizenry, left to remain ignorant and gullible. Part effect of the
transition from military dictatorship to civilian rule was supposed to
translate into a mother lode of civic consciousness for the Gambian people.
But the civic education plank of Jammeh's timetable for the return to
civilian rule has been in tatters.

Jammeh puffs on the public consciousness an aura of despotism, which
directly handicaps the functioning of a vibrant democracy. Things work when
human beings belief in them. Jammeh, ever a soldier, never a democrat,does
not,willingly cynically, galvanize national efforts at proper governance.
Instead, he remains an impediment to it. He displays arrogance of power
befitting only tyrants. He sacks judges at will; openly threatens to bury
his opponents six-feet deep; thinks of hammering the opposition out of
existence. His human rights record stinks of impunity!

The political terrain is far from enlivening. Because kidnappings and
killings are rampant these days, fear hangs on the public imagination.
Politics of irresponsible leadership has let loose goons on the population.
Security agents eavesdrop on dissent. Militant youths acting upon the whims
of presidential incitements, unleash government-sanctioned thuggery. Worse
still, they get away with it!

In just six years, Jammeh has wrought irreparable damage to Gambian
conscience for which there is no comparable equivalence in Jawara's 30
years. Scores of schoolchildren were massacred with impunity;no justice yet.
A finance minister was scorched to death inside his own car; no justice,
too. Many soldiers perished in extra-judicial killings; no trace, and no
justice, again. Jammeh comes to the UN with blood on his hands. He is a
dictator luxuriating in scant legitimacy bestowed on him by a largely unfair
elections and enfeebled electoral process.

Unrestrained in his presidential indignities and hell-bent on aggravating
rather than lessening, the poisoning of the matters of governance, Jammeh
will continue to push towards a political implosion. The Gambia will be
lucky to survive him. In the long-run.

Cherno Baba Jallow
Detroit, MI
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