Gambia and the continuum of illegal detention without trial: - What is wrong with the rule of law?
Gambians are living under the time of the butcher bird. The corrupt, brutal and totalitarian rule of Yaya Jammeh is second to known in our continent. Every Gambian knows that the regime of Yaya Jammeh has blood in its hands. But yet the dictator, with his self style arrogance keep confessing that Gambia is his personal property, pounding his chest that he did not believe in killings but can detain our fellow citizens till when they become useless to the society then he can release them as destitute. This was the remark of Yaya Jammeh in an interview with Reuters News Agency which was featured in the online edition of National Newspaper of Scotland-The Scotsman. For many like me and many more critics, it an illusion and it is the same madness that he keeps manifesting, but we all know about skeletons in the cupboards and it recorded in the history of our country.
Today, there is massive erosion of human rights in our country. Not even the media and human rights organisations knows, the numbers people in political detention in Mile two prison or those missing as their families cannot account where they are been held in that small country. Since November 1994 up till today, many families are traumatized and others are in un-endless mourning of the disappearance and extra judicial killing of their love ones. As days pass-by, the families of Ndongo Mboob, Buba Sanyang and Momodou Lamin Nyassi wanted to know whether their love ones are alive or death. Equally questions remain unanswered as to the whereabouts of his own family members and trusted friends and this include Haruna Jammeh, Jalamang Jammeh and Gishacha Kujabi. All these hail from Foni Kansalla district. Who were his strong supporters, picked from their homes since on the 11th April 2006 around late midnight by men believed to be members of National Intelligence Agent.
The continuum of detention of our citizens because of their political belief and Association at the moment in time is neither report in the Gambian press or challenge in court by our legal luminaries. The terror inflicted on members of the Gambia Bar Association such the attempted murder of Lawyer Ousman Sillah and the illegal detention of Lawyer Mariam Denton blown the members of the bar into the wavelength of state of fear with the Gambian populace. The criminal takes that that as a grant and will continue intrude on their civil liberty and human rights when defence turn defenceless. It is essential for our legal luminaries to understand the central role of human rights in law and politics in today’s Gambia, in order to make a formidable challenge for its enforcement.
The writ of habeas corpus is an essential fundamental of the rule of law and it protects citizens against unlawful invasion of personal liberty. The coming of Yaya Jammeh has nullified the regard for the civil liberties of our people. The appearance of ‘rights’ as a set of popular prepositions limiting the sovereign dated back since 1215 in Magna Carta in the English statutory history. Even with the fact that the document has nothing to do with civil liberty but the feudal king at that time was forced to accede to the demand of liberty of individuals. Article 40 of Magna Carta, the feudal king promised that ‘to no man will sell, to no man will we deny or delay justice or right’. I cannot wander why still no Gambian lawyer is enabling to challenge the illegal detention happening in Mile Two. Are they not ashamed that the basic fundamental of their profession stipulate that ‘everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time.
It is only in today’s Gambia, which this noble profession only stands to defend only the people with fat pocket while God given rights of the poor and marginalise continue to be violated because of lack of moral and ethical challenges for legal enforcement. As Yaya Jammeh continue to depend on the ill fated advice of one Secretary of State for Justice to another, most of which are driven with no moral or ethical principle or background, he should be aware that international justice system in contemporary global politic have change and the concept of crimes against humanity gave universal recognition to the need to hold political leaders accountable for the following: wars, genocide and torture which disfigure our world. Today our president think that all the crimes he is committing in the name of our freedom is with impunity but he should be aware of the arrest of heads of state like Pinochet, Former leader of Chad, Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone and also what is
looming over the head of Paul Kagame of Rwanda and many more. Our president should know that any time he step his foot into the soil of United Kingdom many of us are going to pursue a legal suit against him for the crimes he have committed. United Kingdom Government is a signatory convention against torture, illegal detention and crimes against humanity and we have going legal base to arrest the dehumanisation he is inflicting on our citizens.
The evolution of parliamentary government and the rule of law becomes none functional under Yaya Jammeh’s rule. The APRC Government continue to have no regard for court orders. I cannot imagine how good academic teachings on constitutional and administrative laws have evaporated in the cranium of one Secretary of state et al, many of whom claims that there is a rule of law in the Gambia, at a time when of un-account citizens are languishing in jail without charge or trial for days unending. The Secretary of States for Justice Claims about rule of law in our country is nothing orders than intellectual dishonesty and a mockery to the legal definition of the term RULE OF LAW. The writ of habeas corpus is an essential fundamental of the rule of law and it protects citizens against unlawful invasion of personal liberty.
There are well documented evidences that the regime of Yaya Jammeh have blood in their hands. All the crimes which the regime committed under the name of so-called national security will one day be clear to the Gambian people like sunrise and sunset on the sky. The regime has yet to explain the circumstances in the mysterious death of, Ousman Koro Ceesay, Deyda Hydara, Lt Saye, Lt Sadibou Hadara, Foday Makalo, Daba Marena, Lt Ebrima Ceesay, Lt Faal, LtAlmamo Manneh, and Corporal Dubumya etc. Many who know Yaya Jammeh postulate of his very brutal, arrogant, paranoid and stressful characteristics, one wanders whether he is mentally stable. According to my source who is a member of Jammeh’s family, it is that paranoia that he murdered many decent Gambians and has now resorted to his close relatives and members of his own family.
The extra judiciary execution of Lt Basiru Barrow and many soldiers of Gambian National Army on November 11, and the investigative report of BBC Focus on Africa drew a logical conclusion of the event as a coup that never happened: and the cross fires that the regime peddled on Radio Gambia, to justify their actions between the sections of the so-called coup plotters and so-called loyal soldiers was untrue because there was no structural damage to the buildings and other facilities in Fajara and Yundum barracks. The event was nothing order than a plan murder of some senior army officials and personnel who were a threat to the regime because of their tribal and other social backgrounds. It was those revelations that the treason trials of Lt Lamin Jarju, Lt Lamin Jammeh and Bah were held in camera to deny the public consumption of the facts about the events of November 11, all in the name of National security.
The brutal killings of Gambian students in April 2000 and indemnity given to the killers further justify the involvement of the regime to such inhuman acts. The lies peddled by the propaganda mercenaries of the regime including Former Secretaries of State Sarjo Jallow, Therese Jatta etc which most Gambian did not buy was that some elements of the students were armed with guns that were used to gun down others. The blame factor was also extended to the element of the opposition parties by dishonest elites who collaborated with the criminal regime in the act, many of whom today left public office in disgrace and they will remain isolated on issues of our national politics for their unethical stand to defend the devil for such crimes. To foster their selfish interest in the name classical case of intellectual prostitution they began to frame decent Gambians who are not even a party to the killings. What Gambians people want to know is who ordered the killings of innocent
students? Why did the regime indemnify those elements of the security forces who were involved in the crimes? In writing this piece I learnt about the sacking of Baboucarr Jatta the former Army Chief of staff and Secretary of State for Interior, who was a party to the illegal killing of the 14 students in April 10 and 11.
Finally to my follow Gambian living in the United Kingdom, Yaya Jammeh have stolen the election and is prepared to steal by any which way for the next 40 years but, let us also be prepared to documented cases of crimes against humanity which he has implicated on our people, let us put a legal suits against him at anytime he set his foot in the soil of United Kingdom- a country which have signed all the international convention to bring justice on the basic of international law the like of Yaya Jammeh et al. With the help of global justice system our efforts will take it cause and for centuries to come, our efforts will be a serous intention for mankind to stop this torture, senseless killings and abuse of power folding in Africa and beyond.
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