{"id":32540,"date":"2017-02-14T02:25:45","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T02:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/the-real-and-imagined-crimes-of-gambia-s-yahya\/"},"modified":"2017-02-14T02:25:44","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T02:25:44","slug":"the-real-and-imagined-crimes-of-gambia-s-yahya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/the-real-and-imagined-crimes-of-gambia-s-yahya\/","title":{"rendered":"The real and imagined crimes of Gambia\u2019s Yahya Jammeh"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The Gambia\u2019s former president Yahya Jammeh wielded a potent mix of brute force and mysticism to keep citizens in a permanent state of fear, a legacy that lingers.}<\/p>\n

Whether a poor farmer or government minister, nobody could feel safe during Jammeh\u2019s 22-year rule.<\/p>\n

Now, weeks after the paranoid autocrat was chased from power in the tiny nation almost entirely surrounded by Senegal, voices are being raised to demand justice, but the hurdles are many.<\/p>\n

They include pervasive superstition \u2014 including beliefs that Jammeh had supernatural powers \u2014 which for many citizens has blurred the lines between truth and fiction.<\/p>\n

Jammeh\u2019s aura \u201cmade people scared of him, so people did exactly what he told them to do,\u201d said Fabakary Ceesay, a journalist who went into exile after reporting on forced disappearances and rights abuses.<\/p>\n

Wild stories abounded during Jammeh\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

Back in 2009, AFP spoke to victims of the poisoning of a thousand villagers with a herbal concoction so powerful that several died, after Jammeh alleged they had used witchcraft against his aunt. Some of them reported being raped.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople die in custody or during interrogations, it\u2019s really common,\u201d Jammeh told the magazine Jeune Afrique in May 2016 after the death of an opposition activist, Solo Sandeng, whom some allege was fed to his crocodiles.<\/p>\n

{{Violent supporters }} <\/p>\n

Jammeh faced down several coup attempts after he seized power in 1994. They fuelled his paranoia and by extension that of his people.<\/p>\n

As a result, in the later years of his rule he came to rely ever more on a close circle of fanatically violent supporters.<\/p>\n

His death squad, known as the Junglers, and the secret police of the National Intelligence Agency who reported directly to him, helped sow fear.<\/p>\n

The Junglers carried out \u201carbitrary arrests, detention, torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings,\u201d the UN special rapporteur on torture wrote in a 2015 report.<\/p>\n

{{Unlawful detention }} <\/p>\n

Buba Sanyang, a prominent supporter of Jammeh\u2019s Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction party, was among those arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last time I set my eyes on him was in April 2006 before I left the village,\u201d his son Musa Sanyang said.<\/p>\n

Relatives at Serrekunda in Greater Banjul told Sanyang his father had been picked up by army officers and no reason was given for his detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have searched for him everywhere, but the government continued insisting that he is not in their custody,\u201d he said, calling on the new administration to deliver the answers his family has wanted for so long.<\/p>\n

{{Spiritualist practices }} <\/p>\n

But Jammeh also harnessed centuries-old beliefs, surrounding himself with \u201cmarabouts\u201d \u2014 respected religious figures who combine Islam with spiritualist practices.<\/p>\n

After whipping up rallies into a frenzy, Jammeh would sometimes \u201cheal\u201d a young woman who had fainted nearby.<\/p>\n

In 2007, he declared he could cure HIV with herbal mixtures, later adding infertility and asthma to his list.<\/p>\n

Critics also blamed his alleged powers when terrible things happened.<\/p>\n

{{Guinean witchdoctors }} <\/p>\n

In January, the young son of newly elected president Adama Barrow died of dog bites, shortly after Barrow fled the country for his own safety while Jammeh reversed his acceptance of defeat at the polls.<\/p>\n

The dog was finally put down, but by then the suspicion of involvement by Jammeh or powerful Guinean witchdoctors he frequented had sent Banjul\u2019s rumour mill into a frenzy.<\/p>\n

Before leaving for exile in Equatorial Guinea, Jammeh had a witchdoctor visit the presidential palace, Senegalese media reported.<\/p>\n

Rumours brewed that poisonous gas cylinders were left in vents. Though these have been quashed, Barrow is still running the country from a luxury hotel, his spokesman has confirmed.<\/p>\n

{{Rejoin ICC}}<\/p>\n

Bill Roberts, a US-based professor of anthropology, said that whatever people truly believed, fear led to a credulous public reaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there was a lot of scepticism among educated Gambians about Jammeh\u2019s claims to heal people, but that scepticism could not be voiced publicly,\u201d Roberts told AFP by email.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther people believed him I think in part out of desperation for a ‘cure\u2019 if they were afflicted, or fear of death from a disease they did not understand,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Real or imagined, Jammeh\u2019s abuses have fuelled desire for him to be held accountable.<\/p>\n

Barrow has promised to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but also said The Gambia will rejoin the International Criminal Court after Jammeh pulled the country out last year.<\/p>\n

{{Keep possessions }} <\/p>\n

Some were angry when the UN and African political bodies stated that Jammeh would be treated with respect, allowed to return to The Gambia at any time and to keep \u201clawfully acquired\u201d possessions.<\/p>\n

Since then, General Bora Colley, the head of a Gambian military commando unit, has been arrested in Senegal, and experts believe the government still has plenty of leeway to prosecute crimes such as torture, for which there is no amnesty in international law.<\/p>\n

\u201cJammeh could be prosecuted in Gambia, in another country or before an international court,\u201d Reed Brody, a lawyer instrumental in the prosecution of Chadian dictator Hissene Habre, told AFP.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n

Source:AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The Gambia\u2019s former president Yahya Jammeh wielded a potent mix of brute force and mysticism to keep citizens in a permanent state of fear, a legacy that lingers.} Whether a poor farmer or government minister, nobody could feel safe during Jammeh\u2019s 22-year rule. Now, weeks after the paranoid autocrat was chased from power in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32540"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32540"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}