The night-sky was blaze with irradiant fireworks, but the ephemeral pump and pageantry only masked the drudgery of life on the mean streets of Serekunda. Just two mile east of the center of Gambia’s largest metropolis, Kairaba Avenue teemed with charming Gambian girls whose angelic innocence encapsulate their preordained drift to the social and economic periphery of Gambian society. But the lavish birthday bash, which Imperial King Yahya Jammeh threw, at Coco Beach Hotel, to solemnize his egocentrism and to ironically commemorate life in slow drift toward the edge of insanity, heightened the unforgiving excoriation of Gambia’s military regime and showcased Yahya Jammeh’s irrational detachment from Gambia’s unyielding burden on daily life. But in the midst of so much mindless ecstasy and bursts of the colorful fireworks that chronicled Imperial King Yahya Jammeh’s birthday escapade, an incredible story was unfolding hundred and sixty five miles north of Banjul. And it was rightly characterized a blatant disregard for Senegal’s sovereignty; an act of criminality so daring; it had a chilling effect on the Gambian dissident community throughout Senegal. It was the week that shifted Gambia’s deadly political center from the narrow blood-drenched alleyways of Kanilai to bustling streets of Dakar and tested Senegal’s President Macky Sall and the Senegalese resolve. The kaleidoscopic city of Dakar was, as always, iridescent with vibrant rainbow fireworks of its own, but not in wasteful celebrations and merrymaking, but in displaying Senegal’s proud culture. Only a little over a year ago, the Gambia was shrouded in boundless optimism and giddy with the hope for a future painted in vivid imagery and remarkable illustrations represented in murals festooned on the walls of the Gambian imagination.
And that was only the beginning. Around the world, Gambians lavishly eulogized newly elected President Macky Sall in essays and on radio airwaves hyperbolizing Senegambia’s enduring legacy of common identity and cultural homogeneity. Even the invisible forces of nostalgia and a compelling desire for political change in Gambia did much to cast Senegal’s President Macky Sall as a new paragon of political virtue. But it did not stop there. Without equivocation, many Gambians elevated President Macky Sall to a messianic pedestal reserved for the exclusive few political illuminati. But not every Gambian was generous with rhetorical flattery without the advantage of knowing Macky Sall’s mysterious mindset. The reticence of the vocal few, one year later, has been consistently borne out by the evidence, and created an utter revulsion for President Sall’s shocking indifference to Gambia’s deadly tyranny. More specifically, President Macky Sall’s gratuitous use of Imperial King Yahya Jammeh to resolve the Casamance crisis is a crushing blow to Gambians who expected retribution for arming the Casamance rebels and their use of Gambian territory as military base and to access recuperative medical facilities. Clearly, Gambians’ distaste for the nauseating political connection between Macky Sall and Yahya Jammeh is aggravated by President Macky Sall’s Ad Hominem trivialization of Gambia’s political quagmire. Not since President Leopold S Senghore’s deadly attack on Dakar University students was met with violent rioting and devastating destruction in Banjul in the 1970s, had such antipathy towards Senegalese’s leaders been so intense among Gambians. And not unlike the 1970s bloody Banjul riots in support of Dakar University students, Gambians again question Senegal’s disregard; only this time, of Gambian refugees in Senegal.
Last week, the unsettling kidnapping and disappearance of Mahawa Cham and Saul Ndow, both Gambian refugees, and the muteness of Senegal over this extremely serious international crisis, caused alarm, and violates the 1951 United Nations Convention for the protection of refugees. Since the abduction of the two dissident in Dakar, the uncharacteristic nervousness of Gambian refugees in Senegal speaks to Macky Sall’s dismissiveness of Imperial King, Yahya Jammeh’s misanthropic regime and President Macky Sall’s unwillingness to protect Gambian refugees from harm. The vulnerability of the Gambian refugee community in Dakar, in the face of the prevailing insecurity, threatens to unravel our common identity and cultural cohesiveness, which has outlived generations of Gambians and Senegalese. The reckless kidnapping and disappearance of Mahawa Cham and Saul Ndow has the handiwork of political vengeance, but it also challenges not only Senegal’s sovereignty, but Senegal’s obligation to protect Gambian refugees as enshrined in the 1951 UN Convention. The audacity with which Imperial King, Yahya Jammeh’s undercover agents snatched Gambian refugees from the streets of Dakar is a callous move designed to instill fear among the Gambian refugee community in Senegal. The common identity Gambia and Senegal share cannot be underestimated, but the lingering effect of Macky Sall chilling disregard of Imperial King, Yahya Jammeh’s vexing malfeasant in the abduction of Gambian refugees, is an unforgivable abdication of responsibility. The blistering criticisms of Macky Sall on the Gambian blogosphere, is not mere bluster, and his failure to support the return of the rule of law in Gambia, may cause his forfeiture of the right to rule Senegal. Until then, Macky Sall must seek the safe return from Gambia and Yahya Jammeh’s custody of both Mahawa Cham and Saul Ndow. Gambians expect nothing less.
CC.
President, ECOWAS, Abuja, Nigeria
European Union, Dakar, Senegal
European Union, Banjul, The Gambia
US Embassy, Dakar Senegal
US Embassy, Banjul, The Gambia
President, ECOWAS, Abuja, Nigeria
European Union, Dakar, Senegal
European Union, Banjul, The Gambia
US Embassy, Dakar Senegal
US Embassy, Banjul, The Gambia