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| Sidi M. Sanneh |
In July 1994 when the Gambian dictator seized power, the current
Chair of ECOWAS, President Mahama of
Ghana had not even entered politics. He
was working, at the time, as a Research Officer at the Embassy of Japan in
Accra. It was not until 1996 when he
entered politics as member of parliament, and has risen since to become Ghana’s
president in July 2012. He became
Chairman of ECOWAS two years into his presidency.
By contrast, Jammeh has been at the helm of
Gambian affairs for 20 years and has yet to lead the regional body which speaks
for itself. Sir Dawda had chaired the
regional body twice and chaired CILLS once during his 30-year stint as
president of The Gambia
It takes extraordinary effort and a deft piece of fancy
political footwork to prevent a Head of State from assuming the ECOWAS leadership
role for 20 years - a chairmanship that
is supposed to be rotational, in an organization where seniority is sacrosanct. Despite these odds, 15 of the 16 Member States
have managed to keep Jammeh off the Chair – the latest maneuver was in Yamoussoukro,
last year, when he was denied, once again, from claiming the chairmanship.
Even at the friendlier African Union, Jammeh’s hosting of
the AU Summit in 2006 was almost scuttled by Presidents Obasanjo and Wade of Nigeria
and Senegal respectively only to be saved by President Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa who stopped the momentum building on rule changes for AU Summit which
was sprung on the Summit by none other than the Summit Chair Obasanjo with Wade
sponsoring the motion.
The duo, representing a formidable opposition to any sub-Saharan
president, wanted to change the rules governing hosting of future AU Summits starting
with the Banjul Summit of ’06 which, if passed, would have doomed it or, at
least, delayed it for several years down the line.
The political leadership in the West African region has not
been very friendly towards the regime in Banjul because of the potential
regional security uncertainty Yaya Jammeh poses. He has the well-earned reputation as an
unreliable partner with a fiery temper.
Jammeh is also being prevented from chairing ECOWAS because
it will mean Washington, Paris, London, Brussels and other Western capitals
closing their doors to Jammeh which spells disaster for the regional body with adverse
financial implications for the organization’s programs, including security-related
and peace-keeping operations.
ECOWAS refused to send election monitors to the 2011
elections because it felt that the playing field wasn’t level enough to allow
them to be conducted freely and fairly.
Instead of holding on to the lifeline ECOWAS had thrown at them, the
Gambian opposition elected to ignore it and chose instead to swim against the
cold Atlantic currents. The rest, as
they say, is history - they were trounced at the polls like never before,
further legitimizing the regime of Yaya Jammeh.
The Gambian opposition parties on the ground may have been
late in discerning the emerging and evolving perception of the regime in Banjul
that has been increasingly less friendly but the Diaspora dissident groups were
not oblivious of the shifting currents.
The advent of the online media only provided the necessary tools that
facilitated the dissemination of information to educate the public, further isolating
the regime from its former supporters thus swelling the ranks of the opposition
both at home and abroad.
The formation of the various civic groups and organizations did
not occur in a vacuum. They rose from
the sweats of dedicated individuals who wrote position papers, draft
constitutions, set up bank accounts, fundraised, organized meetings, demonstrations
and conference calls.
The activism of DUGA, CORDEG, GGC, CCG, GDAG and numerous
other groups has spurred the imagination and enthusiasm of many that led to the
current level of awareness of the plight of Gambians in the homeland. The 30 December events at the State House in
Banjul made front page news across the globe, and with it Jammeh’s tyranny.
The world’s biggest newspapers from the Washington Post, New
York Time, Financial Times and television organizations like CBS, ABC, NBC and
Fox have focused attention on the “African dictator who claims to have the cure
for HIV/AIDS.” Most importantly, small town
newspapers and local television affiliates were not far behind in the coverage
of not only the events of 30 December but the heinous acts of extra-judicial
killings, torture, forced disappearances and mass arrests of innocent citizens.
Keen observers of the Gambian political scene who live
outside of the Banjul bubble and thus are not blinded by the propaganda of the
regime have noticed the shift in international awareness which is a necessary first
step to ‘internationalize’ the plight of the Gambian people. Let me quickly add that the word “internationalize’
is not synonymous with ‘outsourcing’ Gambia’s problems.
Moving forward, we must lead by taking full charge of the strategy
of effectively isolating the regime in Banjul – a process that was started by
an external organization called the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) which underscores the value of collaborating with. By denying Jammeh the Chairmanship for 20
years running, the regional body has denied the dictator a propaganda platform
from which he can try to cement a degree of legitimacy and international
respect. Can you imagine Jammeh
chairing ECOWAS not once but twice or thrice with all the frills and prestige
that come with the position?
The LGBT community in the United States has lent its full
weight and support to the efforts of Diaspora Gambians by demanding further
punitive actions from the Obama administration following Jammeh’s crack-down of
gays and lesbians in the Greater Banjul area.
Senior members of the Jammeh regime may soon find themselves subjected
to travel bans and visa restrictions as a result of direct action of American
citizens.
These achievements, however modest in the eyes of some, did
not come about by waving a strategy document (with action plan and budget) in
the face of ordinary Gambians and non-Gambians alike. It came out of sheer persistence and belief in
the Mission to get rid of Jammeh, one way or the other; no reconciliation, no
constructive engagement. After all, a
strategy is nothing more than “a pattern in a stream of decisions” and some of
those decisions do not have to come from us but from the “competition” as in
the case of a competing firm or in our case from Jammeh himself. In fact, he has inadvertently helped us a great
deal in the recent past as a result of some stupid decisions he took.
Strategy can occur in two forms – unwritten and written, intended
or emerging from a pattern of activities, as we’ve tried
to catalogue above with everyone contributing - from Obasanjo to Wade to Thabi Mbeki
and from ECOWAS to LGBT community in the United States, not to mention our own
efforts, individually and collectively, then we need not be bugged down with
fancy words and trying to reinvent the wheel. The
wind is at our back. To paraphrase what
a great American icon, musician and entrepreneur once said : we cannot change the direction of the wind but
we can always adjust our sails to reach our final destination. We must never allow anyone to take the wind
off our sails.
