Today, 23 December 2016, the BBC quotes Out-Going President Jammeh of The Gambia as follows:
“I will defend myself, my country, courageously and patriotically and I will win”.
This is the day, as the BBC reports, the Economic Community of West Africa’s President announced that a military force led by Senegal is on standby to dislodge Jammeh from the presidency. Jammeh refuses to vacate the presidency having lost the recent election.
Jammeh knows perfectly well that Jammeh will not win this selfish fight for one person to remain in power against the will of The Gambian people. Senegal is not fighting Jammeh alone. Senegal is backed 100% by ECOWAS, USA, UK, EU and much more importantly France who have a military force in Senegal.
Jammeh advised his friend Charles Taylor to the same effect – Jammeh even offered Taylor sanctuary in The Gambia. Jammeh also similarly advised Ghagbo not to fight: Ghagbo did fight and both Ghagbo and Taylor are serving long jail terms at the ICC today. Jammeh advised Saddam Hussein to the same effect – as Jammeh later advised his pal Gadaffy. Both Gadaffy and Saddam fought and were found trying to hide in ditches like rats – and are both now dead.
If President Jammeh chooses to fight, as he says he will, his options will be exactly the same – the ICC or death in a ditch.
So, let us come back to Jammeh’s words:
“I will defend myself, my country, courageously and patriotically and I will win”.
Answer to that are as follows:-
Yes, Jammeh, is defending himself – because he is selfish and wants to hold onto the Presidency unlawfully;
No, Jammeh is not defending Gambia because Gambians have voted him out! They have a President-Elect to whom all Gambians have pledged loyalty – except Jammeh’s soldiers and police.
No, Jammeh is not being courageous. Courage is accepting defeat like a man and asking your fellow countrymen and women to forgive you all your sins. Or like the famous Japanese warriors, picking up a sword for a personal dignified death.
Finally, NO, NO, NO, there is absolutely nothing “patriotic” about plunging the region into a war and risking the lives of fellow Gambians for purely selfish reasons. Look what Gadaffy did to Libya by refusing to heed Jammeh’s advice to GO!
Jammeh must leave the presidency to President-Elect Barrow by 19th January 2017 or Jammeh will, in Halifa Sallah’s words, be “a rebel” – and if Jammeh fights ECOWAS, Jammeh becomes a “Rebel War-Lord” like Charles Taylor. In those circumstances Jammeh’s options will be exactly the same as Charles Taylor’s or Gadaffy’s – the ICC or death in a ditch.
Dida Halake
Notting Hill,
London, UK.
Ends
The option is Yaya Jammeh must die or be handover to the ICC for long time imprisonment. Good luck Dictator Yaya Jammeh.
The military intervention is not going to be a Senegalese led intervention but an Ecowas’s who may invade from Senegalese territories with Senegalese forces among, and as part and parcel of the Ecowas community’s intervention forces. Letters in the script of the plan of this imminent military intervention in the Gambia should be bold as citizen claim to have already learned lessons from the 1981 Senegalse military intervention in the coup staged by Kukoi Samba Sanyang.
Dida, do you like Senegalese based French military personel and hardware in the Gambia? Hope this crisis will not get to all that because even if it gets that worse, you should be rest assured that men and hardware are at the disposal of the Ecowas in abondance.
Long live Gambia and long live Senegal.
With Yaya jammeh you never know what he is going to do . Though he committed treason when he annulled the results but he still want to go to court just to satisfy his ego . Therefore , My focus is on January 10th , 2017 which is the next so called hearing of their unconstitutional petition. That is the day we might know whether jammeh will likely leave power in peace or there will be military intervention. The Nigerian judges have an opportunity to strike out the petition and declare Yaya the sole loser . All eyes on the Nigerian chief justice and the court . The Chief Justice are aware of the ramifications of their decision, I suspect they might not favor jammeh this time because of the world attention and interest in jammeh’s despicable behavior. Yaya jammeh can use that ruling to peacefully handover power in order to claim that nobody disrespect his rights just to satisfy his ego . Yaya jammeh and his thugs knows that the world is mad at him . So he can use the rejection of petition as justification to finally step down . This is another possibility .