Gambia’s President, Yahya Jammeh has threatened to “kill anyone who wants to destabilize the country”.

By Sheriff Bojang Jnr.

In a nation-wide television address on the occasion of the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the hard-spoken president warned that “if you think that you can collaborate with so-called human rights defenders, and get away with it, you must be living in a dream world. I will kill you, and nothing will come out of it.  We are not going to condone people posing as human rights defenders to the detriment of the country.”

He further threatened that anybody who is “affiliated with any human rights group, rest assured that your security, and personal safety would not be guaranteed by my Government. We are ready to kill saboteurs.”

President Jammeh’s recent threats are received with mixed reactions in Gambia. While some people considered them to be blank threats he normally use to scare opponents, many others are worried that the president meant what he said.

Halifa Sallah, leader of the opposition National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD), described President Jammeh’s antics as a bad taste and said they need to be demystified. He pointed out that “President Jammeh’s threats undermine the confidence of the Gambian people”, and called on the opposition to discredit the death threats.

This is not the first time that President Jammeh used death threats on people he considered to be enemies of his regime. In 2005, he threatened to kill people he referred to as ‘opposition journalists’. In May 2008, he threatened to ‘cut off the heads’ of homosexuals.

President Jammeh’s latest antics would further tarnish Gambia’s image especially in the international scene.