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Three events occurred last week in Banjul that served as sober reminders to what we've now come to refer to as the national security deficit is the single biggest threat facing the Barrow-led transition government.
First, the long anticipated reaction of the European Union towards the seemingly open-ended mandate of the ECOMIG forces that have been in the country since December, 2016 to guarantee the safety and security of Gambians and members of the Transition Government of Adama Barrow.
While expressing reluctance to prematurely recommend the withdrawal of the forces from The Gambia, the EU Ambassador to The Gambia, Mr. Attila Lajos, was quoted as saying "the EU does not want to keep external forces in a democratically transforming country for too long." The optics of retaining a foreign force in the country is not reassuring and thus poses a challenge for ECOWAS to device an exit strategy so as not to "give the impression of how fragile the government could be." Given these facts and according to reports, the EU Ambassador cannot therefore give the assurance to the Barrow government that his organization will support further extension of the ECOMIG mandate beyond the expiry date of August, 2019.
First, the long anticipated reaction of the European Union towards the seemingly open-ended mandate of the ECOMIG forces that have been in the country since December, 2016 to guarantee the safety and security of Gambians and members of the Transition Government of Adama Barrow.
While expressing reluctance to prematurely recommend the withdrawal of the forces from The Gambia, the EU Ambassador to The Gambia, Mr. Attila Lajos, was quoted as saying "the EU does not want to keep external forces in a democratically transforming country for too long." The optics of retaining a foreign force in the country is not reassuring and thus poses a challenge for ECOWAS to device an exit strategy so as not to "give the impression of how fragile the government could be." Given these facts and according to reports, the EU Ambassador cannot therefore give the assurance to the Barrow government that his organization will support further extension of the ECOMIG mandate beyond the expiry date of August, 2019.
Second, there were the arrivals of Gambian deportees from Germany that resulted in some altercations involving a returnee and at least one television journalist who ended up being assaulted and her camera destroyed by an angry returnee. Subsequent flights during the week resulted in verbal protests from relatives of deportees when they were given only D200 (equivalent to approx. US$4) as subsistence and transport fare to their respective homes around the country. The planeloads of deportees that arrived last week are a minute part of the over 5,000 actual and likely migrants scheduled for repatriation from Germany alone to Banjul in the coming months. Accurate figures for Italy, Spain and other European countries are not available but it is expected to by in the thousands of young Gambians.
The third and final event of the past week occurred at the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission's (TRRC) session when an army training officer named Alagie Kanyi implicated several prominent members of the military junta, among others, in the murder of the junta's Finance Minister as well as witness tampering for which Mr. Touray - an influential member of the defunct Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) - has been initially charged.
Yankuba Touray played a key role in transforming the military junta into the formidable civilian political machine the APRC party became as its chief propagandist and youth mobilizer. Based on the last presidential elections' results that it narrowly lost to a coalition of seven political parties, the APRC is Gambia's second biggest political party. Despite the absence of Yaya Jammeh, the APRC is very well funded with a national structure that remains largely intact with the former dictator as its titular head and therefore a formidable political force to reckoned with.
These events have national security implications that will be explored in our second installment of this blog post.
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Yankuba Touray played a key role in transforming the military junta into the formidable civilian political machine the APRC party became as its chief propagandist and youth mobilizer. Based on the last presidential elections' results that it narrowly lost to a coalition of seven political parties, the APRC is Gambia's second biggest political party. Despite the absence of Yaya Jammeh, the APRC is very well funded with a national structure that remains largely intact with the former dictator as its titular head and therefore a formidable political force to reckoned with.
These events have national security implications that will be explored in our second installment of this blog post.
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