GAMBIA'S CASE, AN ORDINARY AFRICAN STORY









In a continent like Africa, the fact that Gambia’s President refuses to relinquish power after 22 years despite losing elections; that he is protected by the military; that he decides to leave the country only when Senegal’s troops begin to invade; that he finally chooses to escape to another country as a last resort, is no news.



Unfortunately, Africa is plagued with dictatorships, poverty, aggrieved human rights and corruption. Yahya Jammeh, the former President of Gambia, is the rule, not the exception. In Africa, it is easier to remember the few existing democracies than the long list of corrupt regimes.



Almost all African leaders take power through force or through elections that are more or less manipulated; more or less “democratic”. Inevitably, when their mandate expires, they refuse to relinquish the helm. Sometimes, when it is necessary to find a legitimate form to their claim to power, constitutions are changed.



If the people disagree, the army and/or security services are ready to imprison or kill the opposition, and the insurrection is inevitably drowned in blood.



But Gambia’s case is even more emblematic, well beyond fervid imagination.



Jammeh’s ousting



Jammeh lost the December 1st elections last year and immediately refused to step down. After all, he’d only been in power for 22 years. He soon began enacting the usual repression. The country risked being plunged amid a civil war? It wasn’t an ethical problem for Jammeh. In fact, his power was in the force of weapons, so if he couldn’t have consensus, he’d gladly have war. The army and his ‘Praetorians’ would legitimate his claim to power.



Jammeh also had a clear design for the country’s future: he wanted to create an Islamic republic (he probably thought that giving religious connotations to the debate could create consensus); and he wanted to drop out of the Commonwealth (the UK was not in good terms with him).



But Gambia is a small and poor country, completely encircled by its neighbor, Senegal. So the authorities in Dakar, who supported the winner of the elections, Adama Barrow (who fled to Senegal in order to save his life), told Jammeh that he had to step down. Adama Barrow had already been assigned as President in Dakar, seen that he could not go to Banjul for fear of being killed by Jammeh.



Convincing Jammeh was no easy task. He tried to resist with the military at his side, but was forced to bow when faced with Senegal’s army. Jammeh’s 1000 men, plus a few African mercenaries, were no match for the 19000 men of the cumbersome neighbor.





Yahya Jammeh



The mediation



But in Africa, even when faced with blatant abuses of power on the part of autocratic and corrupt individuals – although Jammah was just a small fish compared to other dictators – people try to mediate. The corrupt dictator doesn’t get the boot, instead, there are negotiations, attempts to find a painless solution, especially with regards to the ousted satrap.



The mediator in this case was Guinea-Conakry’s Alpha Condè, who is one of the few legitimate presidents in Africa. He won the elections in 2010 after a long dictatorship, he underwent an attempt on his life during a failed coup and came back to win the elections again in 2015. He was accused of manipulating the electoral results, but in Africa it is a venial sin. Actually, it is not even a sin but a mere habit. Condè was the mediator because Guinea is one of the most important countries (after Senegal) in Western Africa. Did he do it for humanitarian reasons? Or maybe to avoid the latest social catastrophe? Maybe for both. Either way, he mediated.



Another mediator was Mauritania’s President/General Ould Abdel Aziz. Aziz is somewhat of an expert in coup d’etats. He participated in his first coup in 2015 when he supported Sidi Mohammed Ould Cheych Adballahi against a preceding dictator. Then the relationship between the two turned sour. But in August 2008, Aziz had his very own coup. After all, in Mauritania, power is historically passed on from one coup to the next. Shortly after the coup, Abdel Aziz received the dissent of the African Union, which didn’t seem to appreciate turbulent changes in power, but he soon found a powerful ally in Gheddafi, who was rotating president of the AU at the time. With the blessing and complacency of the Libyan dictator, the Mauritanian dictator was rehabilitated. Perhaps that’s why he wanted to spend his efforts in the mediation for his Gambian colleague Jammeh.



But these were not the only mediators. Everyone in Western Africa seemed to feel the need to find a peaceful solution to the Gambian problem, even ECOWAS (the Economic Comminity of Western Africa, whose members are the 15 countries in that region). But even they didn’t ask Jammeh to just get up and leave. Instead, they proposed bargains to convince him; they offered to find an ‘honorable’ exit strategy for him without harming the country.



He had to leave, of course, but he could come back to the country without any restriction if he wished. He could, if only he wanted to, run as a candidate in the next presidential election. ECOWAS guaranteed, as did the African Union, and in a way the UN, which supports the ECOWAS’ political initiatives with a resolution.



Jammeh’s guarantees



At that point, Jammeh was appeased by such guarantees, but still skeptical. His real guarantee was the money that he would take with him. He began by cleaning out the country’s safes of about 11 million dollars in local currency, gold and foreign currency. It’s a small sum of money, but Gambia is a very poor country and there was nothing left to steal. It was enough, however, to create the basis for the country’s bankruptcy, but that didn’t bother Jammah. What really bothered him was the volume of the stuff that he wanted to take with him. He would be needing a special transport for it.



So there came along the President of Chad, Idriss Deby, who sent a special cargo plane so that Jammeh could load his personal provisions on it.



Deby reached power in Chad in 1990 by toppling another dictator, Hissene Habré. Habré was a tough cookie; he was even condemned for crimes against humanity. So is Deby a dictator? No, because he wins the presidential elections every 5 years. Granted, in his country corruption is rampant and there is a system of political patronage to find work in the public sector that fuels further corruption. Every now and then Deby launches campaigns against corruption (which strike at the opposition, not at his friends). His human rights record is not the cleanest around, but Deby is supported by the French and the US; he has a gift for snuggling himself into other African crises (Chad fights alongside the French in Mali against Islamic terrorists, they help the Central African Republic against the rebels, they fight Boko Haram by providing troops to the African Union). After all, Idriss Deby is useful and his abuses are easily forgiven.



So Deby sent the cargo plane and Jammeh jumped at the opportunity. He didn’t just carry money, jewels, gold and all that is needed for a golden exile on the airplane; he also loaded luxury cars (the limited room on the airplane did not allow him to carry all of them) and the presidential palace’s furniture, including the statues. All of the things that could remind him of the splendor of the days past.



As Chad provided the airplane to carry the loot, Alpha Condè sent another airplane to escort the exiled dictator out of Gambia.



