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Gambia News: As Pressure on Mass Killing of Ghanaians Mounts, President Jammeh Runs from the African Union Meeting
Courtesty of The Gambia Journal,
As has been expected in many quarters Gambian President Jammeh has failed to attend the all-important African Union Summit being held in Accra, Ghana. He is in stead passing time at his home village of Kanilia hosting hundreds of musicians, wrestlers, magicians, dancers and merrymakers in a two week cultural jamboree that has attracted hundreds of participants from the sub-region. Sources close to State House say the Gambian leader is being represented by Vice President Isatou Njie Saidy.
Some reports from the Ghanaian press state that President Jammeh has “written to the government of Ghana asking to be excused from the meeting to enable him deal with other equally important domestic matters.” The reports suggest that Jammeh is being awaited by a number of demonstrators ready to protest the killings of scores of Ghanaians in The Gambia two years ago. Recently both the Gambian leader and the Ghanaian Foreign Minister have been harshly criticized for failing to fully investigate and report on the killings. Last week the spokesman on foreign affairs of the main opposition political party, NDC, Hon. John Mahama, told reporters that President Jammeh was not welcome in Accra. Many civil society and rights groups in Ghana have been holding vigils and other forms of protests against the killings.
In April 2006 a delegation of Ghanaian investigators arrived in Banjul to join their Gambian counterparts in the investigations but later said they found the authorities in Banjul “too uncooperative for the investigations to get anywhere.” Some Ghanaian sources say Ghana’s President Kuffour was hoping to raise matter with President Jammeh if he came for the meeting.
In May 2005 state-owned GRTS reported the finding of eight badly beaten and mutilated bodies at a beach site near the Tanji fishing center. Since then nothing has been heard about the incident from official sources. It was only hear-say and from foreign media sources that Gambians came to learn that the number of dead in the incident was far more than the eight mentioned by the official news. Most versions now put the number at 49 with 44 of them Ghanaians. It was from the start almost clear to many that the authorities were trying some kind of a cover-up. It was reported that armed members of the Police Intervention Unit tried to stop curious onlookers who stormed the scene where the bodies were found from the nearby fishing center, gardens and villages. Mouth to mouth news spread fast and the people could not be stopped. Within hours the news had spread over the whole country. Suspicions that the authorities in Banjul know something about the matter grew when the public media failed to update the public with developments on the case. There were no public announcements asking the public to help the police with any information! But as the Gambia saying goes, if the referee has his foot on the whistle but pretends he is searching for it, then it would never be found.
Not far from the site were some of the bodies were found is a village settled in by Ghanaian fisher-folk called Ghana Town. Reports suggest that some of the men had fled from their murderers and sought relief with their compatriots in the village. Unfortunately they were convinced by a local religious leader of the village to turn themselves to the police. It was after they were handed over by the unsuspecting leader they were later also found murdered. There has not been any known inquest, commission of enquiry or investigation by the Gambian authorities since the heinous crime two years ago. Because of the heavy secrecy the killings are being shrouded, there has been a lot of speculation and little certainty on motives. The most reliable version yet has spoken of President Jammeh’s monumental paranoia and the brutal and trigger-happy nature of his corrupt security men. The foreigners, the version says, who were aspiring to be smuggled into Spain, were mistakenly taken for as mercenaries by Jammeh’s hyperactive intelligence. Upon their arrest they were stripped and it was then that the unit of police discovered the huge amounts of dollars and euros the travelers had with them. The men were in this way murdered for money. It is not known if the policemen shared the booty among themselves or with the Gambian leader. What is known is that President Jammeh does not seem to be bothered enough to call for independent investigations in to the matter in order to establish the necessary facts surrounding one of the most horrible crimes in Gambian history. Dodging the AU Summit, for a man who relishes basking in the aura of such gatherings so much, is indeed a sign that President Jammeh may now be grasping the realization that there are limits to impunity for even a man like him. The time for reckoning may come slow, but it sure will come. The relatives of the murdered Ghanaians, of the almost a hundred Gambians, murdered under the reign of the Jammeh regime are waiting for justice, knowing that time is longer than rope.
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