Yahya Abdul-Aziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh (born 25 May 1965) is the president of the Gambia. As a young army officer, he took power in a 1994 military coup.
He was elected as President in 1996; he was re-elected in 2001, 2006, and 2011. President Jammeh joined the Gambian National Army in 1984, was commissioned a General in 1989, and in 1992 became Chief commander of the Gambian Military Police. He received extensive military training in neighboring Senegal, and military-police training at Fort McClellan, Alabama.
On July 22, 1994, a group of young officers in the Gambian National Army seized power from President Sir Dawda Jawara in a military coup by taking control of key facilities in the capital city, Banjul. The coup took place without bloodshed and met with very little resistance.The group identified itself as the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC), with the 29-year-old Jammeh as its chairman.
The AFPRC then suspended the constitution, sealed the borders, and implemented a curfew. While Jammeh’s new government justified the coup by decrying corruption and lack of democracy under the Jawara regime, army personnel had also been dissatisfied with their salaries, living conditions, and prospects for promotion.
Jammeh founded the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction as his political party. He was elected as president in September 1996.Foreign observers did not deem these elections free and fair. He was re-elected in October 2001 with about 53% of the vote; this election was generally deemed free and fair by observers, despite some very serious shortcomings ranging from overt government intimidation of voters to technical innovations (such as raising the required deposit to stand for election by a factor of 25) to distort the process in favor of the incumbent regime.
A coup attempt against Jammeh was reported to have been thwarted on 21 March 2006; Jammeh, who was in Mauritania at the time, quickly returned home. Army chief of staff Col. Ndure Cham, the alleged leader of the plot, reportedly fled to neighboring Senegal, while other alleged conspirators were arrested and were put on trial for treason. In April 2007, ten former officers accused of involvement were convicted and given prison sentences; four of them were sentenced to life in prison.
Jammeh ran for a third term in the presidential election held in September 2006; the election was initially planned for October but was moved forward because of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He was re-elected with 67.3% of the vote and was declared the winner of the election; the opposition candidate Ousainou Darboe finished second, as in 2001.
In November 2011, Jammeh was again re-elected as president for a fourth term in office, reportedly having received 72% of the popular vote.According to The Daily Observer, on 10 December 2012, Jammeh secured the release of Senegalese soldiers who had been held as hostages by rebels in Senegal. He sent a delegation to meet with Senegalese President Macky Sall in early December 2012. The delegation’s goal was to discuss a resolution to the ongoing civil unrest in Senegal’s southern region of Cassamance.[18] Members of the delegation included the Minister of Presidential Affairs, the U.S. Ambassador to the Gambia, and members from the Red Cross and Red Crescent.
In May 2008, Jammeh announced that his government would introduce legislation that would set laws against homosexuals that would be “stricter than those in Iran”, and that he would “cut off the head” of any gay or lesbian person discovered in the country. News reports indicated his government intended to execute all homosexuals in the country. In the speech given in Tallinding, Jammeh gave a “final ultimatum” to any gays or lesbians in the Gambia to leave the country.
In a speech to the United Nations on 27 September 2013, Jammeh said that “[h]omosexuality in all its forms and manifestations which, though very evil, anti-human as well as anti-Allah, is being promoted as a human right by some powers,” and that those who do so “want to put an end to human existence.”
On February 18, 2014, Jammeh called homosexuals “vermins” by saying that “We will fight these vermins called homosexuals or gays the same way we are fighting malaria-causing mosquitoes, if not more aggressively,”. He also went on to disparage the LGBT by saying that “As far as I am concerned, LGBT can only stand for Leprosy, Gonorrhoea, Bacteria and Tuberculosis, all of which are detrimental to human existence”.
In January 2007, Jammeh claimed he could cure HIV/AIDS and asthma with natural herbs. His claimed treatment program includes instructing patients to cease taking their anti-retroviral drugs. His claims have been criticized for promoting unscientific treatment that could have dangerous results, due to the belief that those discharged from his program can infect others. In December 2011, he restated during an interview that the alleged cure for HIV/AIDS was “going very well”.
Fadzai Gwaradzimba, the country representative of the United Nations Development Programme in the Gambia, was told to leave the country after she expressed doubts about the claims and said the remedy might encourage risky behaviour. In August 2007, Jammeh claimed to have developed a single dose herbal infusion that could treat high blood pressure. Jammeh has also claimed to develop a treatment for infertility in women as part of what is called the President’s Alternative Treatment Program (PATP).
President Jammeh, like the majority of Gambians, practices Islam. In July 2010, Jammeh stressed that people should believe in God: “If you don’t believe in God, you can never be grateful to humanity and you are even below a pig.”
In December 2015, Jammeh declared the Muslim-majority country to be an Islamic republic, saying the move marked a break with the Gambia’s colonial past. Jammeh told state TV that the proclamation was in line with Gambia’s “religious identity and values.” He added that no dress code would be imposed and citizens of other faiths would be allowed to practise freely.
Jammeh has been accused of restricting freedom of the press. Harsh new press laws were followed by the unsolved killing of Deyda Hydara, editor of The Point tabloid. Hydara, who had been mildly critical of the Jammeh regime, was brutally gunned down in December 2004.[42]
Alhagie Martin, one of Jammeh’s closest military aides, has been named in connection with Hydara’s killing. It has, however, not been possible to verify the allegation linking Martin with Hydara’s slaying. It is widely believed that Jammeh is responsible for Hydara’s murder.[42] Jammeh has denied that security agents were involved in the killing.[43]
In April 2004 he called on journalists to obey his government “or go to hell”. In June 2005 he stated on radio and television that he has allowed “too much expression” in the country.
In July 2006, journalist Ebrima Manneh of The Daily Observer was reportedly arrested by state security after attempting to republish a BBC report criticizing Jammeh shortly before an African Union meeting in Banjul; his arrest was witnessed by coworkers. Though ordered to release Manneh by an Economic Community of West African States court, the Gambian government denied that Manneh was imprisoned.
According to AFP, an unnamed police source confirmed Manneh’s arrest in April 2009, but added he believed Manneh “is no longer alive”. Amnesty International named Manneh a prisoner of conscience and a 2011 “priority case”. The Committee to Protect Journalists has also called for his release.
In April 2000, the government was accused of the killing of 12 students and a journalist during a student demonstration to protest the death of a student in the Gambia. Jammeh was accused of ordering the shooting of the students, but the government denied the allegations. A government commission of inquiry reportedly concluded that the Police Intervention Unit (PIU) officers were “largely responsible” for many of the deaths and other injuries. The commission also said that five soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Battalion were responsible for the deaths of two students at Brikama. The government stated that the report implicated several PIU officers in the students’ deaths and injuries, but those responsible were not prosecuted.
Newspaper reports list dozens of individuals who have disappeared after being picked up by men in plain-clothes, and others who have languished under indefinite detention for months or years without charge or trial. The regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court ordered the Gambia government to produce one journalist who was disappeared.
In March 2009 Amnesty International reported that up to 1,000 Gambians had been abducted by government-sponsored “witch doctors” on charges of witchcraft, and taken to detention centers where they were forced to drink poisonous concoctions. On May 21, 2009, The New York Times reported that the alleged witch-hunting campaign had been sparked by the President Yahya Jammeh, who believed that the death of his aunt earlier that year could be attributed to witchcraft.
Jammeh has also been linked with the 2004 massacre of 44 Ghanaian migrants and 10 other ECOWAS nationals.
Though previously regarded by Amnesty International as “abolitionist in practice”, having had no executions since 1985, on August 27, 2012, the Gambian government confirmed that nine prisoners were executed by firing squad. This followed President Jammeh’s stated intention to carry out all death penalties before mid-September amid protests from the European Union countries and others.
In May 2015, in defiance of western criticism Jammeh intensified his anti-gay rhetoric, telling a crowd during an agricultural tour: “If you do it [in the Gambia] I will slit your throat — if you are a man and want to marry another man in this country and we catch you, no one will ever set eyes on you again, and no white person can do anything about it.” This prompted a fresh round of condemnation from international human rights leaders.
US National Security Advisor Susan Rice released a statement of condemnation on May 16, 2015:
“We condemn his comments, and note these threats come amid an alarming deterioration of the broader human rights situation in The Gambia,” We are deeply concerned about credible reports of torture, suspicious disappearances – including of two American citizens – and arbitrary detention at the government’s hands.”