Jammeh surrogates deny he incited violence against Mandinkas despite audio evidence

Yaya Jammeh as a Futampaf 'ceremony' 

Surprised by the intensity of the reactions of not only the international community but Gambians generally, Jammeh dispatched surrogates and apologists to quietly fan the country with assurances that his Tallinding political rally speech was misinterpreted, and that he didn't say what he's being accused of saying.

He hopes that by denying that he said Mandinkas are foreigners in their own country and that he will kill them one by one should they continue to oppose his rule, some of his Mandinka supporters who reportedly are abandoning his ruling APRC party in droves will return to the fold.

In the capital city of Banjul where there Jammeh enjoys a significant support, he has been distributing rice - a bag per compound - across the city with an accompanying megaphone-wielding propagandist in a pick-up truck assuring residents that Jammeh was being deliberately misquoted by his enemies.

Jammeh and some of his supporters are denying his June 6th speech that was recorded and played numerous times on the online radios operated by Gambian dissidents living abroad.  Others who cannot deny that Jammeh indeed uttered those words have decided to remain moot than to lie in the presence of audio evidence.  

The speech was characterized as "vitriolic, extremely dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric" unbecoming from a head of state by Mr. Adama Dieng who is the United Nations Secretary General's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide.  The speech was considered to be incitement of violence against an entire ethnic group and as a result, Jammeh was condemned publicly by the U.N. adviser for stigmatizing and dehumanizing the Mandinka ethnic group.

Jammeh's tirade against the Mandinkas was vile and vitriolic enough to have attracted a Rwandan newspaper to editorialize on the subject of the dangers of such hate speeches pose that could lead to the genocide experienced by Rwanda.