Gambia slammed over UN official
2010-02-21 18:59
Dakar - Days after Gambia expelled a UN official without explanation, critics of the President Yaha Jammeh accuse him of ruling through fear and repression.
Min-Whee Kang an envoy with the UN children's agency Unicef became the second UN official to be kicked out of the country in the last three years when on February 12 she was given 24 hours to leave the country.
The local head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) was forced to leave in February 2007 after voicing doubt over President Jammeh's claim to be able to cure Aids, using a combination of mystical powers and herbs.
And last week, human rights groups accused Jammeh's regime of ongoing human rights abuses including a crackdown on journalists, unlawful arrests and secret imprisonment.
European tourists are lured to the sliver of a country nestled within Senegal, famed for palm-fringed beaches and nicknamed the Smiling Coast.
But exiles from what is the smallest state on mainland Africa, speak of a climate of fear that has prevented many people from speaking out against the abuses.
The most recent criticism came in the run-up to last week's UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Gambia.
'An atmosphere of fear'
Amnesty International said it had "documented cases of unlawful arrest and detention of perceived and real opponents to the government".
Amnesty's Gambia campaigner Ayodele Ameen told AFP from Geneva: "When you have a country where there is an atmosphere of fear, among journalists or politicians, there is nothing to celebrate in that situation".
The Amnesty report to the UN review said a government crackdown on media freedom had seen about 29 journalists flee the country since 1994, more than half of them in the last two years.
In December 2004 Deyda Hydara, the editor of independent newspaper The Point and an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent was gunned down by unidentified gunmen in his car. Six other journalists had simply disappeared.
A Gambian journalist exiled in Dakar told AFP: "People are terrorised, they are afraid... very few will stick out their necks and say something."
Nevertheless, since seizing power in a bloodless coup 16 years ago, Jammeh, 44, has been praised for building roads, schools and hospitals and overseeing growth that according to the World Bank reached 5.9% in 2008.
Mysticism
According to the World Bank the country is on track to reach its Millennium Development Goals. But poverty is widespread, with 67% of the population living on less than $1.25 a day.
Jammeh himself was defiant in a speech on Thursday marking the 45th anniversary of Gambia's independence from Britain.
"Today we are accused of bad governance. Let nobody fool you. We are seeing the difference between the Gambia 400 years under British rule... and 15 years after the July 22 Revolution (coup)," he said.
He offered no explanation however of his decision to expel the Unicef envoy.
Jammeh, an outspoken military officer and former wrestler, has woven a shroud of mysticism around himself using religion and rumours of secret powers.
In March 2009, Amnesty documented the cases of up to 1 000 people taken from their villages in a "witch hunt" during which they were forced to drink hallucinogenics which killed six people.
With the opposition divided and unable to agree on a leader for an alliance that many had hoped would unseat Jammeh, he is the favourite to win a fourth term in office in elections next year.
But Madi Ceesay, director of Media Agenda in Gambia, a non-governmental organisation told AFP: "Good governance is not about building structures, but to provide the conducive environment for political opponents to criticise you and also allow the media to operate freely."