Gambia’s gamble

Yesterday, Gambia became the first country to withdraw from the British Commonwealth since Zimbabwe in 2003.  Though the Foreign Office is alleged to have been taken by surprise and has issued ‘regret’, they must be privately relieved to not have to associate with the possibly mad despot of the west African state, President Yahya Jammeh.  Though not quite stooping to the genocidal policies of the late Macias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, he is just as capricious, rounding up 1,000 people accused of being witches who killed his aunt and, like Nguema, is severing ties with Europe under the pretence of opposing colonialism (though the very fact of the country is a result of colonilaism).

Jammeh also claims to have invented a herbal cure for AIDS and persuaded many of his compatriots suffering from the affliction to stop taking anti-retroviral drugs in favour of his concoction.  No-one has heard from these people again.  How Gambia avoided being suspended from the Commonwealth after Jammeh’s 1994 military coup (though he didn’t really lead it, being rather the first to reach the presidential palace) while Pakistan was for its constitutional transgressions is anyone’s guess (though the first official suspension – of Nigeria – took place in 1995).

The Man Booker prize people will be glad they don’t have to add another caveat to those that qualify for it – all writers holding UK, Commonwealth, Irish, Zimbabwean or Gambian passports – since they opened it up to the whole English-speaking weather.  Gambia isn’t even a real country, just a sliver of land bisected by a mighty river and shaped by duelling by far-off imperial powers, as evinced by its ill-starred attempt at union with Senegal in the 1980s (and even this had 18^th century colonial echoes).  Like Djibouti, it has a diplomatic power out of all proportion to its size e.g. membership of the UN, WHO, etc. but by cutting itself off from the Commonwealth, an organisation increasingly dominated by former colonies rather than the metropolis, it has deliberately taken away a vast networking opportunity for itself, where it can foster trade links with diverse parts of the world.  Maybe Jammeh was repeatedly given the cold shoulder by other Commonwealth leaders for the multiple humans rights abuses and his risible AIDS-cure (though he could have compared notes with Jacob Zuma)..  Whatever the real reasons, Jammeh has hurt Gambia just as the Commonwealth is becoming less a talking shop and more a hub for concluding commercial deals with each other (India’s rise has played a big part in this).  While it is never nice for anyone leaving such an august institution, Gambia will miss the Commonwealth more than the Commonwealth will miss it.  Sadly, Jammeh is only 48 years old.