Gambia in chaos: Senegal troops cross the border to support new President Barrow

(To Giampiero Venturi)
19/01/17

For 48 hours, witnesses had been reporting the mass of Senegalese troops in the port of Zinguinchor, not far from the southern border of Gambia; local agencies reported by the British media, confirm in these hours the entry into the small republic of West Africa.

Everything revolves around the presidential elections last December, when Yhahya Jammeh, president-master of the Gambia from the 1994, lost the election against Barrow, representative of the opposition, but contested the outcome of the vote.

The Dakar infantry (the so-called Jambars), representing ECOWAS (the organization of West African countries), as announced in recent days by the Chief of Staff General Ndiaye, took action after Barrow's oath in absentia and Jammeh's umpteenth refusal to leave the presidential palace in Banjul, the capital of the Gambia.

The international community has sided in support of the newly elected president since December, but the fear of a civil war has upset the countries of the area, up to involving the United Nations; the Security Council has taken charge of the matter in these hours.

Jammeh is known for his colorful attitudes (such as considering himself a healer of the HIV virus) and his brutal methods against opposition. A convinced supporter of the Islamization of the Gambia, the folkloristic president would still seem to enjoy the support of the armed forces or at least part of them. Despite rumors at the end of 2016 that spoke of a coup d'etat by the commander of the Republican Guard General Badjie, the men-in-arms of the Gambia (just over 2000 men, including the Navy, the air force and the special forces guarding the president) still seem side of the outgoing president. According to the newspaper Freedom, Badjie himself would have organized the recruitment of hundreds of mercenaries from neighboring countries to fight ECOWAS troops. While Barrow urges the military not to leave the barracks, Jammeh reiterates the renewal of his presidential term for at least another three months, coinciding with the duration of the national state of emergency.

The situation is chaotic. The Gambia is a strip of land surrounded by Senegal that develops horizontally between the Atlantic Ocean and the river that gives it its name. As big as Abruzzo, it is the smallest African country but is part of a politically very unstable region. Besides the soldiers of Senegal (a country already engaged in the war in Yemen alongside Saudi Arabia), Nigeria and Ghana also declared themselves ready to intervene, moving troops to the borders and fueling the already very high tension in the whole area.

(photo: GAF)