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A source in the Ministry of Affairs in Banjul informed us the Obama Administration is making four specific demands on the Jammeh regime, one of which is specifically related to the recent refusal of the regime of Yaya Jammeh to accept the the US nominee to fill the post in Banjul.
Our source said refusal of the proposed US candidate for the Ambassadorial post appears to have been a diplomatic tit-for-tat because previously the Gambian candidate as Ambassador to Washington was refused by the Obama Administration. The reason for the refusal was unknown then and still remains a mystery today, according to the same source.
Another demand of the Obama Administration on the recalcitrant and increasingly isolated regime of Yaya Jammeh is related to the recently passed draconian law known as "aggravated homosexuality" law that was secretly signed into law on 9 October 2014 by Jammeh. The US wants to see the law repealed.
The other demands are less clear, but all appear to be related to human rights abuses that the regime has been accused of in the past which led to the European Union's 17-point demand and the subsequent United Nations Rapporteurs Inspection Mission to the Gambia that was frustrated by the lack of cooperation of the local authorities. The Mission was denied access to the security wing of the notorious Mile II Prisons which led to its shortening. The Final Report is due in February which will add to the list of demands on the regime plate to improve on its human rights record.
The Obama Administration must expect the Jammeh regime to expect to try every trick in the book in an attempt to muddy the waters by trying to implicate the United State in the 30 December incident that is being described as a coup in some quarters and an extra-constitutional means in other quarters that led to the deaths of several Gambians.
Jammeh has already concluded in a national television appearance that it was not a coup but it was rather a 'terror attack'. He has displayed light arms that he claims were captured and that these arms were mostly U.S made and most of the victims were Gambian-Americans. We know where this is headed.
After all is said and done, the Obama Administration is insisting that either all or some of these demands are met (date uncertain), Gambia will be asked to close its Washington DC Embassy.
We will, as always, follow the story to new information.
