Banjul (The Gambia) (AFP)
The portrait of former president Yahya Jammeh, which appeared on all banknotes in The Gambia, disappeared from the new cuts released this week, two and a half years after his departure from the country and while the testimony on the crimes of his regime multiply.
The central bank of this small English-speaking country in Senegal, with the exception of a narrow Atlantic coastline, has begun to distribute new notes of 50, 100 and 200 dalasis, the local currency, on Tuesday. AFP journalists.
A bird is on one side while on the other there is a circle of megaliths, typical of this region of West Africa, a fisherman or a rice farmer. But no more the portrait of Mr. Jammeh.
"A currency is not a personal property and should not wear the face of a president in office," said a Gambian human rights defender, Madi Jobarteh, who believes however that the heroes of independence of this ancient British colony would have deserved to be included.
The Central Bank "is right" to remove the portrait of the former president, "responsible for the death of many people in this country," told AFP a trader, Alagie Kanteh.
Arrived in power by a bloodless putsch in 1994, Yahya Jammeh was elected in 1996 and re-elected without interruption until his defeat in December 2016 against the opponent Adama Barrow. He left the country and found refuge in Equatorial Guinea in January 2017, following a regional military and diplomatic intervention.
Human rights defenders, who demand his extradition, have accused his regime of systematic torture of opponents and journalists, extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances and rapes.
Since January, a truth and reconciliation commission has witnessed victims and the confessions of former henchmen of Yahya Jammeh, who admitted to having committed dozens of murders under his command.
By Wednesday, not all commercial banks had received new notes. A few days before the big Muslim "Tabaski" holiday, as Eid el-Kebir is called in West Africa, the Central Bank is banking on the strong demand for cash to speed up the process of exchanging banknotes. according to its governor, Bakary Jammeh.
© 2019 AFP