Gambian president scapegoating LGBTI

Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…

“The Gambia does not have a gay problem, it has a leadership problem.”

So says Mr. Momodou Krubally in his latest You Tube video published on December 5th, addressed to fellow Gambians exposing the tyranny of its dictator.

Krubally, a Gambian activist, said this “gay war” is dominating the media. He goes on to explain the reasons for the current campaign by Gabmian President Yahya Jammeh.

He said that Jammeh “has no vision for the country.” Krubally explained that all the plans put forward by Jammeh over the years have failed because none of his plans have been sustainable. First Jammeh tried to provoke religious wars within the country, but the population did not buy into this, he said.

“Being gay has nothing to do with national development. Gay people have done nothing that is affecting our daily lives here in the Gambia. It was never an issue until now. The president is trying to distract citizens,” he said.

Krubally further explained that Gammeh is trying to shift the focus of citizens because he has been unable to create jobs, unable to upgrade the electricity grid and unable to provide clean water for Gambians.

He says that by attacking fellow citizens, Gemmeh is trying to create problems with the European Union just as he has already cut ties with the Commonwalth. “He is trying to isolate us so he can continue to oppress us,” with impunity.

Click here to view the complete video. Starting about four weeks ago, Krubally published a series of video messages directed to Gambians condemning the Jammeh regime on his own You Tube channel.

Gambia, a tiny West African nation with less than 2 million people, recently passed a harsh anti-homosexuality law that resulted in at least 16 arrests and forced many LGBTI Gambians to flee the country.

A 10-page list of executions, disappearances, and other human rights abuses under Jammeh’s rule has been compiled by Gambian human rights activists and published in an article by J. Lester Feder on December 4th in BuzzFeed.

“In all these years of efforts to go to the state department, going to all these different levels in the U.S. government lobbying and lobbying for them to do something about the Gambia, we haven’t been having any traction at all,” said Banka Manneh in BuzzFeed.
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Buzzfeed reported that Manneh, of the Civil Society Associations Gambia, was one of several activists at seminar organised by the RFK Center for Human Rights in Washington, D.C. The activists said America has been turning a blind eye human rights violations for twenty years by dictator Jemmeh’s regime, even with several Americans kidnapped and disappeared without any trace..

Fatou Camara, who was Jammeh’s press secretary and starred in her own popular talk-show is now an opposition activist living in the US, told BuzzFeed that US attention to Gambia was:

“long overdue to bring the attention of the world to the plight of Gambians living under the brutal dictatorship of Jammeh” who has been “killing of people with reckless abandon” for two decades.

Click here for the full story by J. Lester Feder in BuzzFeed.