Rwandan newspaper asks Mandinkas be protected

Jammeh with guards 

As the world starts to come to grips with Yaya Jammeh's recent speech at a political rally that he vowed to kill Mandinkas "one by one" who oppose his regime and put them away where "even a fly cannot find them", more voices are being added to a chorus of condemnations of what is being described as "irresponsible and extremely dangerous" rhetoric.

Rwanda, where one of the worst genocide took place, has added its voice to Adama Dieng, United Nations Secretary General's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide who denounced Jammeh's callous and incendiary remarks againts the Mandinka ethic group.

In an editorial entitled "Rwanda: The Mandinka of The Gambia must be protected", the The New Times said that after what happened in Rwanda, one would have thought the world and more specifically the Gambian leader had drawn lessons from it.   In lamenting about the fact that "the ghost of ethnic hatred" still lingers on the African continent, the paper said the most worrying in the Gambian case is that "the head of state making threatening remarks against a section of his population."

Incitement of violence against an ethnic group, especially coming from a head of state must be taken serious and according to the editorial, "Adama Dieng, United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide was quick to sound the alarm" which he must be commended.  Unlike some of Yaya Jammeh's apologists and sycophants who continue to burry their collective heads in the sand, he editorial "Dieng knows what he is talking about when it comes to matter of ethnic cleansing and incitement of genocide by people in authority and who wield enormous powers of persuasion."

For those who continue to be in denial that Jammeh is dangerous and a threat to regional peace and stability by continually degrading those who criticize their Great Leader Jammeh like Adama Dieng did recently, the Special Adviser is anything but "a puppet on the service of Gambia's enemies" as he was recently described by a renegade Gambian diplomat.

Adama Dieng spent over ten years as head of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and "saw first-hand the effects of genocide and the role of leaders in fanning it."  To question Mr. Dieng's motives - as Jammeh's sycophants have attempted - for condemning an irresponsible behavior of incitement of violence by one section of the population against another by the Gambian dictator is a mark of desperation od supporters of a dying regime.

We join The New Times of Rwanda in demanding that the world not just stop at "mere condemnations" but to "flex its muscles and take decisive measures" against a tyrant who is threatening not only The Gambia but the sub-region as well.