In an audience he gave last week to Senegalese Prime Minister, Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré, who was in Banjul to grace the commemoration of the 14th anniversary of the July 22nd coup that brought him into power, President Yahya Jammeh expressed his government’s determination to maintain friendly relationship with the government neighboring Senegal . According to reports monitored on GRTS news in Banjul ,  Mr.  Jammeh told the Senegalese Premier that The Gambia and Senegal enjoy a rare opportunity to serve as an example, as they can form the building block for possible regional, and then continental unification. He also affirmed his position as a “pan-Africanist” who wants Africa to be united and not divided. The Gambian leader also reaffirmed his unreserved commitment to resolve the conflict in the Senegalese province of Casamance .  He added that under his leadership The Gambia, would not harbor any rebel. The president cited his efforts in ensuring that some rebels captured in The Gambia were brought before a court of law as a way of demonstrating that he had nothing to do with the conflict in that region in terms of support; arguing that the captured rebels could have told the court of his support, if he had anything to do with them.

Mr. Jammeh was referring to the recent trial of nine members of the secessionist MFDC rebel movement operating in the Senegalese southern province of Casamance . But the way the Gambian leader misrepresented the facts of the case go to show how false his claims are. The facts are that the nine men are members of a pro-peace faction of the fractious rebel movement. Before the nine men were dragged to court in August of  last year, President Wade of Senegal had sent a special envoy to Banjul asking for the release of the men. The reverse role of the Senegalese President asking for the release of the men and Mr. Jammeh refusing the request and proceeding with case against the men at the time baffled many observers. It was in the course of about eight months trial hat observers began understanding what was going on.

The men who belonged to the pro-peace faction of Ismail Magne Diem and operated on the northern front along the border with The Gambia were engaged in a bitter inter-factional war against the hardliner faction led by the most wanted man in Senegal Salif Sadio. It was in February 2006 that the then newly elected president of Guinea Bissau, Jao Nino Vieira forcefully evicted the Salif Sadio and his men from their bases near Sao Domingo, that hardliners fled north to The Gambia and overran strongholds of Diems men along the border with The Gambia. According to Senegalese media reports, seventeen villages were taken by Sadio’s men. It was when Dieme and his men fled into The Gambia that they were captured by a combined alliance of members of Gambian security forces and Salif Sadio’s men. Before the arrival of the Senegalese envoy, the men had been in secrete detention. Some family members of Diem’s have made allegations that he had been summarily executed by Gambian security forces. Several years earlier similar allegations had been made against the Jammeh regime for being allegedly responsible for the death of pro-peace rebel leader Seedy Badjie.  IN fact in the trial cited by the Gambian leader, the men did not say they had been supported by the Jammeh regime, but of them told the court that once when being interrogated by Gambian security agents, some members of Salif Sadio’s faction were present. The authorities in Dakar have long suspected that Sadio has been assisted in his escape by the Gambian authorities. Some of them even believe that he is in secrete refuge in The Gambia. Others say he had been smuggled out among the Ivorian delegation when they left the AU Banjul summit in July 2006. Whatever, apart from the plenty material evidences, including Gambia Army weapons, apparel and ID cards, the Senegalese authorities have found on the bodies of killed or captured rebels,   Dakar has more evidence of support by President Jammeh for the rebel activity than we know. The extremist wing of the rebel movement do not only want independence, they are ultimately calling for a Greater Kaabu, a federation of the region with The Gambia and Bissau; what they call the three Bs, for Banjul , Bingona in Casamance and Bissau. Such a dream could not have escaped the megalomaniac dreams of President Yahya Jammeh. Being a later president of such a federation could not be that far from his wild dreams. But if that was not enough motive for the Gambian leader, support for his ethnic kinsfolk, as seen in the making of his cabinet, the civil service, para-statals and security institutions, could well be the main motive force. 

And yet in his meeting with the Senegalese Premier, President Jammeh went on to say that The Gambia has nothing against Senegal , adding that, “We will do nothing to destabilize Senegal .”  And interestingly enough, Jammeh warned against what he called the “excesses of freedom of the press.” He laid it out as if it is the press that was responsible for the occasional hitches in the relations between the two countries. But the Senegalese are far from being pleased with the Jammeh regime. Apart from providing the wind to the flames of separatism in Senegal ’s southern province, Jammeh has failed to implement even one of the seven-point agreement reached with Wade in September 2005. Jammeh had been forced to pay a humiliating visit to Dakar , facilitated by then President Obansanjo, where he capitulated after six weeks of border closure. The permanent Senegalo-Gambian secretariat that was to have been re-established by June 2006 is still to be seen. The talk of building a bridge across River Gambia , tunnels under it; allowing Senegalese owned ferries to ply over the river, Senegalese say in the change of tariffs for journeys by Gambian ferries across the river, and all other parts of the agreement remained unimplemented.  The authorities in Dakar had seen all this Gambian “walking away” from official agreement before. It was like in the First Republic , when then President Jawara also twisted and turned around the interpretation of agreements. But Jawara did this with some finesse. Jammeh did it with “bad-boy” style, just acting as if it never happened.  When he told the Senegalese visitor, “We will never destabilize Senegal ” the phrase might have been doubly loaded, meaning both “we are not doing it” and “be careful we are capable of doing it.”  As bot in terms of size and military might, the statement is laughable.