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| Sidi Sanneh |
Yaya Jammeh poses a greater
threat to Gambia’s sovereignty than Senegal ever could. The Gambia has coexisted with its neighbor
since Independence, and at no time during the 50-odd years of coexistence was
its sovereignty threatened, including the 1981 Kukoi Samba Sanyang’s coup that
saw Senegalese troops marched into the country under legal cover of a common
defense pack to restore Sir Dawda Jawara to the presidency.
Senegal’s 1981 intervention,
grounded in international law and backed by a bilateral Agreement, resulted in
a short-lived Senegambia Confederation from which Senegal withdrew from
voluntarily, peacefully and without fanfare.
If the handling of the dissolution of the Confederation is not enough evidence
that Senegal is not a threat to Gambia’s sovereignty, we do not know what is.
We must appreciate a
truism is Senegambian relations that the two countries are captives of their
own geography and history – two factors that are inextricably linked to and
also greatly influence the respective foreign and economic policies of The
Gambia and Senegal. These two countries
are unique in that sense compared to a few countries in the world.
Fortunately, Sir Dawda
Jawara and successive Senegalese presidents from Senghore to Sall understood
the need to maintain the delicate relationship through regular diplomatic consultations,
a diplomatic necessity that has been absent to a large degree during Jammeh’s
22 years of dictatorship. This, in our
view, is the cause of the deterioration in relations – both diplomatic and
economic – between Gambia and Senegal.
