SIMILARITIES BETWEEN
GADDAFI AND GAMBIA’S YAHYA JAMMEH:
Compiled by Bamba Mass (Human Rights Activist UK)
In November 1994 Four months after Gambia’s July military coup in the Gambia, full diplomatic relations with Libya were restored after 15 years of hostile relations between ousted President Dawda Jawara and Colonel Muamar Ghaddafi after a visit to tripoli by the Junta vice chairman Sana B Sabally, and the Gambians received an immediate grant of $35 million in total from Libya with $ 15 million first through the Libyan diplomat and $20million when the leader of the Libyan Al Fateh Revolution and current Chairman of the African Union His Excellency Maumar Al Gaddafi will visit The Gambia from today Tuesday 21st July, 2009 to Thursday 23rd July, 2009 as Special Guest of Honour at the 15th Anniversary of the July 22nd Revolution .
Since then The Gambia became a province of Libya see the similarities in Jammeh’s rule to that of his boss Gaddafi!
Both choose GREEN as color of their revolution and Libyan Green Revolution became a copy of the Gambian July 22nd Revolution. Everything is the same as we shall find out!.
COLONEL MOAMAR GADDAFI:
He was a Bedouin tribesman born from the fifth largest tribe from the village of Serte east of the capital tripoli. A womanizing colonel and a self-styled revolutionary who appear to his people as God sent to save them. He is an Arab and an African, a thief nationalist and a socialist, a so called Muslim, a poet and a would-be "philosopher king". Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya – literally, the state of the masses", and organized a system of revolutionary or people's committees in every town, village, factory and farm that became the de facto enforcers of the new regime's diktat.
LT. COLONEL RTD. YAHYA A.J.J JAMMEH:
He is a Jola tribesman from the fourth largest tribe from the village of Kanilai east/north of the capital Banjul. A womanizing Lt. Col (retired), and self styled revolutionary who appears to his people as God sent to save them. A thief nationalist and a so called Muslim, a poet and would be “philosopher king”, a fake African freedom fighter, farmer and like Libya, Jammeh brought his “the power to the people” slogan, created development committees chaired by Libyan trained green Boys and back to land policies setting up farms for the president in all parts of the country where selected chiefs would force people to work on.
LIBYA UNDER GADDAFI:
The Gaddafi regime increasingly betrayed the promises and gains of the 1969 revolution. “Ongoing efforts to restructure and modernize the Central Bank of Libya has drastically failed with corruption on the increase while Gaddafi loyalist plunged the state resources and most became billionaires within a short space of time” The International Monetary Fund said in a February 15 report: “An ambitious program to privatize banks and develop the nascent financial sector failed. Banks have been privatized, interest rates increased, and no encouragement of competition.
The IMF noted positively the “passing in early 2010 of a number of far-reaching laws bodes well for fostering private sector development and attracting foreign direct investment”.
GAMBIA UNDER JAMMEH:
Yahya Jammeh did a similar Green Revolution in the Gambia betraying the promises and gains in the 1994 revolution. Apart from the cessation of aid, however, the international community remained fairly mute. The Gambia's lack of economic resources meant that, internationally, it lacked political influence and importance. By July 3, 1995, the economy had deteriorated to such an extent that, during his budget speech, the Finance Minister expressed fears that the Gambian economy was on the brink of collapse. Such revelations led was made despite a former minister of the same office was found dead in his car in the middle of nowhere with rumors he refused to lie about the deteriorating condition of the economy which led to him to his death.
LIBYA UNDER GADDAFI:
During those 40th anniversary celebrations, you can guarantee you won't hear much about two high profile Libyan prisoners -- albeit from opposite ends of the political spectrum -- who died within a couple of weeks of one another earlier this year. You've got to hand it to The second man was Libya's most prominent political dissident, Fathi al-Jahmi, who died on May 20 in a Jordanian hospital where he was flown in a coma after years of imprisonment and brutal torture in Tripoli for criticizing Qaddafi and for calling for greater freedoms for Libyans.
Gaddafi - he does not discriminate in his repression.
Senior al-Qaeda militant Ali Mohammed Abdel-Aziz al-Fakheri, better known by his nom de guerre Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, had been rendered to Egypt where he was tortured, after which the U.S. handed him over to Libya, which sentenced him to life in the desert prison of Abu Salim, where he reportedly hanged himself in May.
Remember those two men you think of Gaddafi’s brutality to his people.
GAMBIA UNDER JAMMEH:
Jammeh too never discriminate in his repression. Gambia’s most senior official Osman Koro Ceesay who died in a mysterious circumstance on the 23 June 1995 while when he when to see off President Yahya Jammeh who left for Ethiopia to attend the African Union Meeting.
President Yaya Jammeh in trying to set up a media commission with the power to shut down newspapers and imprison reporters who refused to register, and after pressure from journalists, led by Hydara, managing editor and co-owner of the independent newspaper The Point, as well as a correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reporters without Borders (RSF), the law was dropped on December 13. With fury about not getting his way, he threatened to bury journalists "six-feet deep".
When asked about journalists criticising his attempts to force them to register, he told the state radio that he believed in "giving each fool a long rope to hang themselves". Journalists, he went on should "either register or stop writing or go to hell". After prolonged tension between authorities and the Gambia's independent press, Mr. Hydara was gunned down by unidentified men shot in the head and chest by assailants while he drove home from his office and killed while two of his female staff with him sustained serious injuries.
Remember those two men as you think of Yahya Jammeh’s brutality to his people.
LIBYA UNDER GADDAFI:
The Gaddafi regime said it provided its citizens with free education and health, though quality and access was uneven. Tellingly, Libyans who could afford it preferred to go to neighboring Tunisia or Europe.
GAMBIA UNDER JAMMEH:
The Jammeh regime said it provide its citizens with free education for girls and has built hospitals across the country. But in reality, there are in fact not quality educations though quantity in number of school but a sixth form student cannot write a simple letter while compared to secondary forth pre 1994 revolution. Health services is worst with traditional clinic of president Yahya Jammeh at his home village in Kanilai more equipped with electricity than the main Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital.
LIBYA UNDER GADDAFI:
His intelligence service was the most feared with its head quarters built with inside underground prisons where opponents of the regime were tortured and killed. Some Gaddafi opponents who disappeared from the face of the earth are thought to have disappeared here. On countless occasions, Col Gaddafi’s men are forcing their way into private dwellings onto unsuspecting families wreaking havoc onto their lives with insane shootings and indiscriminate rape.
GAMBIA UNDER JAMMEH:
His National Intelligent Agency the most feared and notorious for disappearances of opponents of Jammeh are common. In most cases people taken inside and lucky to come out are too scared to speak even to family members of their ordeal. Probably only a few dared speak out about what they went through and one of those was the former Inspector General of Police Ensa Badgie who begged the Judge not to allow the tortures to continue crying in a crowded court
UDP opposition supporter Ousman Ceesay who was slaughtered by security forces in broad daylight at the Tallinding Market on the eve of the 2001 Presidential elections. Was belief to have been shot by a rebel from Cassamance who now work in Jammeh’s inner circle. They are members of his Jola tribe.
Kebutay Jafuneh, Sedia Sanyang and Lamin Sanneh both UDP opposition Supporters both died of trauma following brutal pummeling and torture behind the harrowing walls of Mile II Prisons and the NIA head Quarters.
Gambia and Libya under the two identical Tyrants: Twinning!
In their efforts to twin the Gambia and Libya, first phase towns to be twinned was the town of Shabbah in Libya and the community Village of Saaba in the Lower Badibou District in North Bank Region. At the launching, both the commissioner of North bank Alhaji Edwarn Seckan and the Libyan Ambassador to the Gambia Dukaly, both underscored the importance their government attaches to the promotion of the welfare of their citizens by complementing their government’s socio-economic development and enhancements their leaders attached to attainment of food security. Libyan ambassador used the opportunity to inform the governor of his Embassy’s plans and noted that the twining of the two communities would create an avenue to share cultural, economic and religious ties in order to contribute to the improvement of livelihood of both the communities. Commenting on the technical cooperation between the two countries, Ambassador Dukaly said the Embassy plans to invest in agriculture of 10, 000 hectares of both irrigation and upland cultivation, out of which North Bank Region would benefit from the 5,000 hectares. He assured that his office would support the Arabic school in the community of Saaba, in a drive to promote the teaching of Islam, and inculcating good morale in the children. The Libyan ambassador also visited the Saaba Arabic School and held talks with teachers and the community.
He later attended the inauguration of a mosque in Jokadu Karantaba. Speaking at the occasion, the governor Seckan commended the Libyan ambassador and their Embassy on behalf of the people and government of The Gambia for their steadfastness in complementing government’s development aspirations. Governor Seckan assured him of his office's fullest support towards the implementation of the Embassy’s development efforts in improving the livelihood of people at grassroot level.
NOW! WHAT YAHYA JAMMEH HAD TURNED GAMBIA INTO!
May 27, 2009 (The Daily Observer/All Africa Global Media) -- The scourge of HIV/Aids, which has remained a nightmare for the rest of humanity, has become a thing of the past in The Gambia.
This would not have been so without the great efforts of the admirable figure in the person of His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, who continues to strive hard in his own capacity to provide cure for this deadly disease. It is over two years now since Professor Jammeh took the bull by the horn and proved to the rest of the world that wonderful things can come out from The Gambia, one of the smallest countries on the continent of Africa. This is supposed to be a pride for Africans as it is Africa which bears the brunt of the epidemic, not only in terms of the number of people living with the disease, but also the number of people who have to take care of infected relatives, orphaned children and so on.
Dr Tamsir Mbowe, the chief medical director of the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital (RVTH), is the director general of the president`s treatment programme. He recalled that there was extreme joy surrounding the Breakthrough when the first CD4 counts results were announced on 17 June 2007. This, he said, served as the first proof of Professor Jammeh`s treatment success. “I was filled with joy and happiness when the results came out, showing and proving the effectiveness of the president`s treatment. With those results, he said, it was a proof to the whole world that finally, a cure has been discovered. It also meant that President Jammeh had picked up a huge global fight on behalf of the Gambian people and humanity at large in the form of treating HIV/Aids.
For Dr Mbowe, this development is a gift to President Jammeh by Almighty Allah. “Allah gave him the knowledge and talent to cure people living with the disease,” he said, adding that knowledge is a natural gift from God to man and that once given to any individual; they should be respected and commended.
Lamenting on the president`s sympathy for humanity, he said: “I could see the love and sympathy that he has for his patients. He is very passionate with his patients. He cares for them a lot. All patients that have undergone his treatment really appreciate the help and love he showed them. Thousands of people, he said, has benefited from the treatment. Many are now aware and convinced about the treatment. They know that there is a cure, and there are more patients now than before.”
Dr Mbowe urged Gambians and all good thinking people to continue praying for the president, calling on individuals, institutions, and parastatals to support the treatment program considering the cost involved “It is not only Gambians who benefit from this treatment. People are coming from all over the world,” he said, while commending Gambians and the entire medical team for their hard work and determination towards the treatment programme.
WHAT GADDAFI HAD TURNED LIBYA INTO!
4 March, two weeks after Misrata rose up to defy Gaddafi, signed by the general he put in charge of the operation to quell the protest: Yousef Ahmed Basheer Abu Hajar. Addressed to the "fighting formations", which had by then cut all roads into the city, it issues a blunt instruction: "It is absolutely forbidden for supply cars, fuel and other services to enter the city of Misrata from all gates and checkpoints."
Or, to put it more bluntly, he ordered his army to inflict starvation on every man, woman and child in Misrata.
Another document, bearing the stamp of Gaddafi's Anti-Terrorism Committee – his inner circle of commanders – instructs forces to hunt down two wounded rebels who had fled to the neighbouring town of Zlitan, a clear violation of the guarantees of the Geneva conventions that demand protection for wounded combatants.
There are other documents, not to be revealed to the press – at least, not until a trial is in open court – that reveal Gaddafi's generals giving orders to smash rebel centers, regardless of causing civilian casualties.
"We have lots of evidence that Gaddafi wanted all of Misrata gone," said Misratan war crimes investigator Khalid Alwab, 35. "We have him [Gaddafi] saying he wanted the people of Taruga [the town to the west] and Zlitan [the town to the east] to each take half. He says that he wanted to turn the blue sea red."
Lt. Col. John Bryan of the US Air Force said Wednesday that Khamis Gadhafi, son of Col. Gaddafi, got a standard VIP tour of the school on Feb. 7 – eight days before the Libyan uprising began.
YAHYA JAMMEH INTENDS TO CERCRIFISE AS MANY GAMBIAN AS POSSIBLE
JAMBUR, Gambia -- This tiny West African nation`s citizens have grown familiar with the unpredictable exploits of its absolute ruler, who insists on being called His Excellency President Professor Dr. Al-Haji Yahya Jammeh: his herbs-and-banana cure for AIDS, his threat to behead gays, his mandate that only he can drive through the giant arch commemorating his coup in the moldering capital, Banjul, and his ubiquitous grinning portrait posted along roadsides.
Not to mention the documented disappearances, torture and imprisonment of dozens of journalists and political opponents.
But then came a campaign so confounding and strange that the citizens are still reeling and sickened from it, literally, weeks after it apparently ended.
The president, it seems, had become concerned about witches in this country of mango trees, tropical scrub, dirt roads, innumerable police checkpoints and Atlantic coastline frequented by sun-seeking European tourists mostly unaware of the activities at nearby Mile 2 State Central Prison, where many opponents of the regime are taken.
To the accompaniment of drums, and directed by men in red tunics bedecked with mirrors and cowries shells, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Gambians were taken from their villages and driven by bus to secret locations. There they were forced to drink a foul-smelling concoction that made them hallucinate, gave them severe stomach pains, induced some to try digging a hole in a tiled floor, made others try climbing up a wall and in some cases killed them, according to the villagers themselves.
The objective was to root out witches, evil sorcerers who were harming the country, the villagers were told. Terrified, dozens of other people fled into the bush or across the border into Senegal to escape the dragnet, villagers said, leaving whole regions deserted. Amnesty estimates that at least six people died after being forced to drink the potion, whose composition is unknown.
The roundups occurred from late January through March, according to people here. But even in recent weeks, the same witch doctors in red, accompanied by others identified as government agents, have circulated in the dirt-poor countryside
Yet the testimonies are numerous, and experts on this former British colony have little doubt that the witch hunts occurred, and on the scale described.
On the teeming streets of Serrekunda, a suburb of Banjul, people expressed fear. “All of them are opposition, but they are not talking, because if you are talking, you are going to the police,” said Lalo Jaiteh, a building contractor, gesturing nervously at a bustling row of vendors.
“This stigma will follow us into our grave,” said Dembo Jariatou Bojang, the village development committee chairman in Jambur, a dusty town 15 miles from the capital. “We will never forget this.”
He said he was taken, along with about 60 others, after being assembled in the village square, attracted by the beating of the drums. Driven by bus to a place they did not recognize, Mr. Jariatou Bojang was made to drink and bathe in the foul liquid.
“My head is still paining sometimes,” Mr. Jariatou Bojang said.
As he spoke, an elderly man sitting on the floor of the village imam`s house shook his head uncontrollably from side to side. The men in the room said the symptom developed after drinking that connotation smelling liquid.
Omar Bojang, the son of the imam, Karamo Bojang, recalled being told to undress, and ordered to drink “filthy water from a tin.”
“Once you drink that, you become unconscious, you can`t think,” he said.
Forty miles away in the village of Bintang, Mamadou Kanteh, a fisherman, recounted the visit of the men in red several weeks ago. “It`s the president who sent us,`” Mr. Kanteh recalled their saying. “`There are witches in the country who are hurting people, and killing people`” they said. They demanded the sacrifice of a red goat and a rooster.
The imam of Bintang recalled drawing about $40 from the village treasury to pay for the animals, which were slaughtered at the graveyard beyond the town`s unlighted dirt streets.
In Serrekunda the largest city near the capital Banjul, pedestrians hastened away when asked about the president.
“Human right is not here right now said Yaya Gassama, said in halting English.”
Karamo Bojang, left, shown with his wife, is an imam in the village of Jambur, where about 60 people were rounded up and forced to drink a noxious liquid.;. Residents of Jambur say they were accused of sorcery. Billboards depicting President Yahya Jammeh are ubiquitous in every part of Gambia, where his unpredictable dictatorship inspires fear.
GADDAFI INTENDS TO KILL AS MANY LIBYANS AS POSSIBLE
The number of people who have been killed so far has spiralled to over 15,000. Another 45,000 people are estimated to have been injured. This is genocide pure and simple.
The terror is unbelievable. People are holed up in their houses or, worse, in uninhabitable crowded hideouts wherever they manage to seek shelter. If they leave their house, even in the capital Tripoli, they risk being shot on suspicion of being friendly to the rebels.
This obscene criminal offence is being used as a weapon by the regime. Many women are being systematically raped by Col Gaddafi’s men and, at times, entire families are raped, including men and children. Women who are raped often end up victims of so-called “honour killings” at the hands of their own families who would rather kill them than live with the dishonour. So either way, you are dead.
The regime still relies heavily on “imported” mercenaries. They are typically combatants from other African countries and include members of the Republican Guard of Chad. Mercenaries were also brought in from as far as Colombia in Latin America.
Col Gaddafi was banking on retaking Misurata, the closest city to Malta, geographically speaking. He hoped that, with this city under his control, he would hold on to the western part of the country and, at worse, only have to give up the eastern side that is dominated by Benghazi. His plan was foiled by the proud inhabitants of Misurata who fought him off managing to hang on against all odds, not least thanks to humanitarian supplies shipped from Malta.
A number of ministers have long defected, whether to lead the struggle to depose Col Gaddafi or simply to flee the country, typically via Djerba in Tunisia. But a number of ministers are still held up in government quarters and blackmailed to hang on with the regime on pain of retribution against their families. Nevertheless, they do not exercise any effective power. The real power lies with the Gaddafi family. The Colonel’s sons are deemed to be omnipotent demigods who can do whatever they like regardless of whether it is lawful or not. Before the popular uprising started many of us had hoped that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi would turn out to be the “moderate” successor of his father. We were all proved wrong as he has since dropped his mask and revealed his true colours.
These have been banned by the regime since the Colonel took power in a coup d’état in 1969. Forget about freedom to protest. It does not exist.
In a country where petrol was virtually free, its price has now skyrocketed from 20c a litre to some $5. People queue for several days to be able to fill up and, when they do, the provisions are rationed. Obviously, people want to fill their cars to flee to the borders.
After Col Gaddafi. The National Transitional Council wants to set up a transitional government leading to national democratic elections.
They insist that the country belongs to everyone and a national reconciliation process will be undertaken in order to heal the wounds. Sympathisers of the regime who did not commit any criminal offences have nothing to fear. Of course, these claims will need to be examined by the international community in due course.
So far, 15 countries have recognised the National Transitional Council as the “sole interlocutor” in Libya. Malta is among them.
Many countries around the world, including Malta, have blocked funds and assets belonging to the Gaddafi regime. Lest we forget, the Gaddafi family used to consider Libya’s immense wealth as its own personal assets. But these funds have still not been channelled to the National Transitional Council, which is in desperate need of money to finance its operations. Nor can the Council use funds from the sale of oil because refineries are blocked or held by the regime.
Humanitarian aid. There is an urgent need of humanitarian aid in Benghazi and in refugee camps on the borders with Egypt and Tunisia.
The European Union has already earmarked some €100 million in humanitarian aid. But it is not clear how much of this is actually translating into supplies, especially for hospitals in places like Benghazi where the situation is desperate.
Conclusion!
Now, an Africa that not many even knew about, with decades of tyranny and misrule, from Libya in the Sahara Desert to Gambia in the tropical Savanna, the citizens of these regions are rising up and saying enough is enough.
The truth is would the world now look back and wait till things get out of hand in the Gambia before they turn against the tyrant there.
Please don’t make the oppressed world belief what a 19th Century British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston famously observed: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual…”
God save the people of the Gambia as HE did to Libyans!
By Bamba Mass.
