Removing a despot
W. African troops enforcing Gambian election
A political crisis in the West African state of Gambia, population 2 million, raises again the much larger questions of why Africa continues to lag economically, with correspondingly sad implications in political and human-rights terms, and why the rest of Africa and the world continues to just go along with it.
In Gambia, free and fair elections in December produced a victory by Adama Barrow over Yahya Jammeh, in power for the past 22 years. Mr. Jammeh, whose rule had been characterized by arbitrariness and a bad human-rights record, first accepted his defeat and congratulated Mr. Barrow, then changed his mind.
Mr. Jammeh’s term was due to end at midnight Wednesday. Gambia’s Supreme Court is hobbled by unfilled vacancies. (Sound familiar?) In the meantime, leaders of neighboring states had urged him to accept the Gambian voters’ decision. He didn’t, so they threatened military action. Troops of Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo gathered at Gambia’s borders, and by Thursday afternoon, some had crossed into Gambia to see that democracy prevails in the tiny country.
Why should the rest of the world care about Gambia? It has few if any resources and lives in no small part from tourism — which has predictably collapsed for the moment. It comprises a tiny proportion of Africa’s overall population of 1.2 billion, although Gambians fleeing the chaos there are augmenting cross-Mediterranean migration into Europe.
Gambia is a member of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States, whose countries’ military forces could easily put things right in Gambia and apparently have begun to do so. The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution authorizing the ECOWAS intervention.
Far too many African countries are plagued by the same phenomenon that Mr. Jammeh is trying to perpetuate in Gambia — the holding on to power by aging leaders who have enriched themselves with whatever wealth their countries might possess. They want to stay in power forever, or at least until death. Robert G. Mugabe, 92, who has thoroughly trashed Zimbabwe’s economy, is the worst of this group, but others include Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Biya in Cameroon, Teodoro Obiang in Equatorial Guinea and Omar al-Bashir in Sudan, where the United States has just eased sanctions that were imposed on the basis of the president’s various misdeeds.
ECOWAS troops are correct to go into Gambia now to help install Mr. Barrow to the presidency. Doing so is a small but important step in fixing a major, widespread problem hindering economic development and delaying political maturation across Africa.