Major shake up hits Gambian army

  1. Posted on Sunday 11 October 2009 - 15:21
    Kemo
    Image of Kemo
    Kemo Cham, AfricaNews reporter in Dakar, Senegal
    The top echelon of the Gambian Armed Forces has been axed by President Yahya Jammeh. The Chief of Defense Staff, General Lang Tombong Tamba, was sacked on Friday while on official assignment outside the country. His deputy Brigadier General Massaneh Kinteh, who is schooling in the UK, replaced him.
    yahya jammeh
    The then third in command in the army, Lt. Col. Yankuba Drammeh, is now the deputy CDS. The state-run broadcaster, the Gambia Radio and Television Services aired a release said to have come from the office of the president, stating that the Gambian leader was acting on powers vested on him by section 190 sub-sections 1 and 3 of the country’s 1997 Constitution. It empowers the Head of State to remove or appoint military chiefs "after consulting the National Security Council".

    AfricaNews reporter said the development came as a shock to many given the trust and confidence the president had expressed in his former army chief a day after visiting the army base.

    Four other senior officers in the military, including the commanders of the Republican National Guards, the National Army and the Military Training Institute, were fired alongside the head of the army.

    President Jammeh, also a retired army colonel, who came to power through a bloodless coup in July 1994, promised to fire more senior officers in due course after interacting with junior officers. The officers according to the media reports expressed concern about their living conditions. The president promised to look into their plight.

    In a related development, the president also effected changes at the country’s most notorious intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), removing from office its deputy director general together with the Director of Operations.

    President Jammeh has survived numerous alleged coup attempts, which have been followed by arrests, alleged torture, disappearances and extrajudicial killings of both civilians and security personnel.

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