Defeated leader departs Gambia in exile
Facing mounting pressure, Jammeh cedes power after a 22-year reign
BANJUL, Gambia — Gambia’s defeated leader Yahya Jammeh and his family headed into political exile Saturday night, ending a 22-year reign of fear and a post-election political standoff that threatened to provoke a regional military intervention when he clung to power.
As he mounted the stairs to the plane, he turned to the crowd, kissed his Quran and waved one last time to supporters, including soldiers who cried at his departure.
The flight came almost 24 hours after Jammeh announced on state television he was ceding power to the newly inaugurated Adama Barrow, in response to mounting international pressure for his ouster.
Though tens of thousands of Gambians had fled the country during his rule, Jammeh supporters flocked to the airport to see him walk the red carpet to his plane. Women shouted: “Don’t go! Don’t go!”
Jammeh landed in Guinea an hour later. He and his family then took off for Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, according to an airport official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak to the press. Equatorial Guinea, unlike Guinea, is not a state party to the International Criminal Court.
“What is fundamental here is he will live in a foreign country as of now,” Barrow said earlier Saturday.
Barrow won the December elections, but Jammeh contested the results as calls grew for him to be prosecuted for alleged abuses during his time in power.
A regional force had been poised to force out Jammeh if last-ditch diplo- matic efforts failed to persuade him to leave.
The situation became so tense that Barrow had to be inaugurated in neighboring Senegal at the Gambian Embassy on Thursday, after Jammeh’s mandate expired at midnight.
Barrow said he would return to Gambia once it is “clear” and a security sweep is completed.
Shortly after Jammeh’s departure, the United Nations, African Union and the West African regional bloc, ECOWAS, issued a declaration saying that any country offering him and his family “African hospitality” should not be punished and that he should be free to return to Gambia in the future. It said Jammeh was leaving “temporarily.”
The joint statement did not include promises of amnesty but said the world and regional bodies “commit to work with the government of the Gambia to prevent the seizure of assets and properties lawfully belonging to former President Jammeh or his family and those of his Cabinet members, government officials and party supporters.”