By: Landing Colley
Assan Martin, a Gambian human rights lawyer has warned the ECOWAS military intervention in the Gambia (ECOMIG) especially the Senegalese troop to respect the Gambia sovereignty and the laws of the land.
“The mission in The Gambia, ECOMIG, was mandated to “facilitate the exit of former president Yahya Jammeh, restore the popular will of the Gambian people as expressed in the December 2, 2016 elections and create conditions for normalising the political and humanitarian situation in Gambia,” He told The Voice in an interview on Friday.
He added: “Gambia is a sovereign country, is a nation and also have laws and as we Gambians respect our laws even our Commander –in–Chief of the Gambia Armed Forces respect our laws, so definitely no foreign troops should be here to disrespect our laws.”
He recalled that there were timbers that were bought by Gambian businessmen in Senegal and while transporting the goods to The Gambia it was seize at a checkpoint under the Senegalese ECOMIG forces.
He said after a push and pull for the release of the timbers, the matter went to court and the final ruling was that the truck involved in carrying the timbers should return to their owners and the timbers be taken back to Senegal.
“As far we have seen and the video watched in the social media, we saw Senegalese soldiers trying to defy the court order. It is important for us to know that Senegalese soldier are coming here and they are buying our product like bicycle and other things here in Serrekunda and Banjul and transporting them to Senegal without no constraint or restraint, so why do Gambian businessmen have to go to Senegal buy the timber bringing them here and they have to stop and the goods are confiscated. We are very concern about that and it is important for people to know this issue,” he pointed out.
Lawyer Martin, emphasized that ECOMIG mandate in The Gambia need to be manage, stressing that sooner or later the Peace Mission will end and Gambia Armed Forces have to take responsibility, while the president Adama Barrow have to build confident within security forces.
“The longer they stay here the more our security apparatus is all weaken and when confident is gone they will be demoralize so in that sense there is a need to have a plan to make sure that in the near future they shall hand over their responsibility and the Gambian people take the responsibility and they can do it,” he said.
According to him, another issue which is very much concern to most Gambian is that the presence especially the Senegalese as they are dominating fishery and security at State House is control by Senegalese soldiers.
“We have the experience from confederation between the Gambia and Senegal, we have seen the Senegalese soldiers acting in their own interest and the Senegalese government withdraws its soldiers without noticing Gambia. They left the country within 48 hours, so it tells you that they are always there for their interest,” he lamented.
He went on that their presence within this Gambia sensitive institution is a very concerning thing. This is because, he pointed out, “what is happening here is that any information from their offices out there can be very detrimental to us because we have to be careful with our own security as a nation.”
Further to this he said “We the Gambians would have prefer even the British Army training team coming back and bring back confident in our institution. But unfortunately we have Senegal and it is something that Gambia opinion is against. With too much of Senegalese presence here their rudeness and behavior maybe the problem is of culture, security forces, our culture are not the same.”
