The Ground is shifting under Yahya Jammeh, Finally











President Yahya Jammeh, the must brutal dictator in modern Africa




By Mathew K Jallow

The didactic demonstrations by the GPU-U.K against the Jammeh regime in London, the swanky meeting of the Gambia Moral Congress in Dakar, Senegal, the nonchalant but surprise rejection of job offers from Jammeh’s regime by Gambians, the panel of nifty jurists led by lawyer Antouman Gaye as defendants of the GPU 7, the attendance of the GPU 7 hearing by the needlessly timid opposition leader Ousainou Darboe, and Barry Wells, U.S. Ambassador, lack the smugness of a coordinated effort, but the totality of these activities are clearly a game changer that cannot be under-estimated.







Throughout the history of an oppressed people, there comes a time when they sink into the dark depths of despair and despondence, which leaves them no alternative but to shed their fears and apprehensions in the effort to regain the freedoms they have been denied, and Gambia is no different. From the echoes of the online media reverberating all around the world, to the celebrated defiant posturing of The Gambia Press Union, and the efforts of Amnesty International and Media Foundation of West Africa, we are creating a critical mass and slowly edging towards the promise of a final solution to Yahya Jammeh’s painful reign of terror, and nothing that Jammeh or anyone else can ever do will change this course of action.








The fecklessness of the Jammeh regime appears to have run its course, and our challenge now is to sustain a level of pressure and defiance in order to gradually crack open the jittery regime. As it stands, the frivolous case of the GPU 7, presents new opportunities for a collaborative effort between the opposition and the independent media. The opposition, represented by U.D.P’s Ousainou Darboe, P.P.P’s Omar Jallow, PDOIS’s Halifa Sallah and NRP’s Hamat Bah, as leaders of their parties, should work together in a united front to condemn the pending trial of the GPU 7 for what it is; a Kangaroo trial designed to intimidate journalists and put an end to free expression. In addition, G.P.U, Foroya and The Point Newspaper, having shattered the myth of Jammeh’s untouchable posturing, ought to, work in tandem with the opposition leaders and continue to openly condemn Jammeh’s nefarious activities. The time has come for us to move our disgruntlement from behind-the-door to the open. The time has come to stop hiding behind closed doors to read Gambia’s overseas online newspapers or any newspaper for that matter. When the regime arrests any politician from now on, it is in the interest of every Gambian that other politicians offer themselves for arrest as well. Similarly, whenever a journalist is arrested, the remaining journalists and the entire political leadership should offer themselves to be arrested in a show of support.

The entire decaying civil service must begin to orga
nize in order to take matters into their own hands and end the highhandedness of an idiotic megalomania, Yahya Jammeh. The vast majority of Gambians will participate in a passive resistance, especially the youth, in a show of defiance and civil disobedience. It is now clear that Jammeh is increasingly becoming a prisoner of fear, and more, today, he cannot travel to some countries in parts of Africa for fear of being humiliated in the presence of his traveling entourage to whom he projects a false image of bravery once he comes home.

In recent years, at ECOWAS and African Union meetings, Jammeh has become the rejected village idiot, the outcast if you will, that other African leaders look down on with contempt and disdain. And today, four years after he ordered the slaughter of nearly fifty Ghanaians as a way to intimidate his Gambian countrymen; Jammeh can no longer set foot in Ghana for fear of being killed there by relatives of those he mercilessly butchered and perhaps even angry Ghanaian nationalists will want him killed just as he killed so many innocent immigrating Ghanaians. We must continue to work to make Jammeh a persona non grata throughout Europe and in the U.S, just as he has begun to avoid going to some Africa countries. The ground appears to be shifting under Yahya Jammeh’s feet, and we ought to continue the pressure of tearing him down and apart until the earth consumes him. Because the idea that Jammeh holds power is as illusionary as the desert mirage, and it is time20to take back the power we abdicated to him over all these years.

Yahya Jammeh’s recent offer to compensate the families of nearly fifty Ghanaians whose massacre he had ordered back in 2005 is the closest he has come to confirming his guilt in this horrific incident. Jammeh’s sleek attempt to exonerate himself from blame in the Ghanaians’ slaughter, over the past several years; will never be accepted by Gambians who know he was the mastermind behind this senseless carnage on the beaches of Brufut and Tanje. Jammeh has finally realized the futility of denying the self evident, and now that he has all but confessed his complicity as the architect of the barbarous slaughter-fest of nearly fifty innocent Ghanaians, the wheel of justice must begin to grind.

President Atta Mills does not have the authority to sweep this genocidal massacre under the rug for the sake of political expediency. Moreover, despite the fact the victims were all foreign nationals, these crimes were committed on Gambian territory, and the state, The Gambia, that is, representing every Gambian citizen, has a case to prosecute, and Jammeh and his band of executioners are the offenders that must be brought to justice.

The person who ordered the horrendous massacre, Yahya Jammeh himself, is as guilty as those whom he ordered to carried it out. As we have seen in the past weeks, Jammeh has started blaming members of the military and security forces for the 2005 mass execution of the Ghanaian nationals, because it i
s his habit to transfer blame for all his crimes to others. This time we refuse to allow his lies and deception to take on a ring of truth to them. What is clear is that some members of his regime are traveling to Nigeria to propagate lies on behalf of Yahya Jammeh, by giving false information surrounding the massacre with the intent to conceal the truth about why and how the Ghanaians were massacred. It is clear also that the report produced by the investigators has many holes in it, rendering it totally lacking in credibility.

This brings us to the question of the existence of the notorious Lamine Tunkara and Captain Taylor, the offending culprits mentioned in the massacre report. Just who are these people that no one seems to know in The Gambia, and what country are they from; certainly not The Gambia. Yahya Jammeh and his collaborators, who made up their names and the whole story about rebel attacks on The Gambia, will produce these to the courts as only witnesses, but the real deal is the actual executioners who killed the Ghanaians. Ghanaians must understand that no Gambian in his or her right mind believes in the made up story about the Ghanaian massacre incident, because there are witnesses alive who will eventually come forward to tell the world what really happened on the fateful dark night when fifty innocent West Africans, all nationals of ECOWAS member states, were mercilessly mowed down by the crackle of machine gun fire in The Gambia.




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