Myjoyonline
Editorial: Stop Jammeh in his tracks

“I will kill anyone who wants to destabilise this country. If you
think that you can collaborate with so-called human rights defenders
and get away with it, you must be living in a dream world. I will kill
you, and nothing will come out of it.

“We are not going to condone people posing as human rights defenders
to the detriment of the country. If you are affiliated with any human
rights group, be rest assured that your security and personal safety
would not be guaranteed by my government. We are ready to kill
saboteurs.”

These are the words of The Gambian President, Yahya Jammeh, whose
government supervised the killing of 40 Ghanaians and other nationals
some few years ago. Obviously, this human rights abusers calling
himself President, is not happy with the activities of human rights
groups who have brought pressure to bear on his government, because of
his poor human rights records.

President Jammeh’s threats should be taken seriously, because he is
capable of matching his words with action. In 2004, the Gambian
government, led by the same Yahya Jammeh, engineered the assassination
of a Gambian journalist, Deyda Hydara, in cold blood.

President Jammeh has over the years resorted to arbitrary arrests,
detention and torture of citizens, including journalists, which is a
gross violation of the right to free expression and access to
information, as enshrined in the Gambian Constitution. Meanwhile, this
is a man who is supposed to have been democratically elected, after he
overthrew Dauda Jawara in a military coup in the early 90s.

To us at The Chronicle, President Yahya Jammeh, who has held power in
Gambia for 15 years, is simply getting out of control, and the earlier
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African
Union (AU) step in, the better it would be. This is a man who was
treated with kid’s gloves when the Gambian killings occurred during
his regime.

If ECOWAS had mercilessly meted out the necessary punishment to him
when the tragedy happened, instead of treating him with diplomatic
niceties, he would not have the guts to be issuing threats to
humanitarian and pressure groups who are trying to bring some sanity
into The Gambia. Democracy that does not allow constructive criticism,
or permit pressure groups such as human rights groups to operate, can
never be said to be a proper democracy.

The Gambia does not belong to Yahya Jammeh and his cohorts - it
belongs to all Gambians, so the former should stop behaving as if the
country was his personal property. President Jammeh must know that
every government would be strictly judged according to its
performance, and we think he is leaving a very bad governance legacy
in Africa.

President Jammeh should not think that he can resort to the illegal
killing of his fellow human beings and go scot free. He must learn
from the experience of the Sudanese President, Omar Al Bashir, who was
charged by the International Criminal Court of Justice for atrocities
meted out to the civilian population by his government.

We do not know the educational background of President Yahya Jammeh,
but we find it strange when he threatens that anyone who collaborates
with the so-called human rights groups in his country would be killed,
and that nobody can ask him any questions. He seems to have a limited
grasp of the various United Nations conventions. This is a President
who caused a comic uproar when he claimed to have found the cure to
the dreadful HIV/AIDS disease, and on another occasion set out a
witch-hunting team to arrest witches in state institutions, who he
claimed were undermining his rule.

The danger of a President running his country, based on superstitious
beliefs, ought to concern us all, before he begins to equate himself
with God.

It is our hope that the ECOWAS, Africa Union, and the United Nations
would treat the threat coming from President Jammeh as a serious one.

Democracy goes with freedom of the press, and respect for human rights
among others, but if President Jammeh is not prepared to tolerate any
of this, then he is not fit to be called the President of a democratic
country like The Gambia.


Credit: Chronicle
Story from Myjoyonline.Com News:
http://news.myjoyonline.com/features/200910/35877.asp

Published: 10/1/2009

© Myjoyonline.com

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