DK Jawara: The peacemaker
A democrat and defender of human rights
If The Gambia had any political doctrine, it is summed up in the following words of Jawara’s: “With the attainment of self-determination and independence, it would be ironic indeed if the freedom gained from the defeat of colonialism should…be denied to our people by our own leaders. After centuries of a deliberate policy of dehumanisation, subjugation, and oppression, the minimum our people expect and must have is the full enjoyment of their political, economic, social, and cultural rights…It should be the duty of all of us to… ensure that…the people enjoy…their civil and political rights.”
The doctrine found concrete expression in The Gambia’s multi-party tradition, and was also given prominence in both the 1970 Republican Constitution.
Within Africa, attempts to institutionalise the respect of human rights could be traced back to the 1960s, when independent African states became members of the United Nations, and acceded to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Several other meetings on human rights, rule of law, and political pluralism took place in various African countries between 1961 and 1979. However, it was not until 1979 that the question of human rights began to be given greater attention at the continental level, and The Gambia’s role in this needs to be emphasised. It was the brutality of Amin’s regime in Uganda and the Tanzanian-Ugandan War that compelled the OAU to address itself more seriously to the problem of human rights in Africa. For the first time, an African Declaration of Human Rights was adopted during an OAU Summit Conference in Monrovia in September 1979.
As Colin Legum and Zdenek Cervenka note, though the proposal for the Declaration had several other sponsors (notably, Senegal and Mauritius):
“much of the credit for making it a priority issue belongs to The Gambia’s President Jawara, who runs a model small republic and has placed himself at the forefront of the human rights campaign in the continent.”
The Monrovia Summit was followed by a seminar in September 1979 that proposed the establishment of an African Commission for Human and People’s Rights. This was put before the 1979 OAU General Assembly. From 25th November to 2nd December, African legal experts met in Dakar to elaborate a draft human rights charter. When the time came for the political organs of the OAU to examine the draft charter closely, Banjul was unanimously chosen as the venue. In June 1980, the First Conference of African Ministers of Justice and legal experts was convened in Banjul to work on the Charter. As befitted such an occasion, the conference was marred by political divisions so that only 11 articles were completed. To minimise the failure of the conference to finalise the draft charter, President Jawara referred on several occasions to the limited time that the conference had and the intricacy of the task: “Indeed, we will recall that while the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly more than thirty years ago, …the subsidiary covenants on civil, political, economic, and cultural rights were adopted some twenty years later. It took another ten years before the instruments came into force.”
However, The Gambia’s impatience with the slow pace of the work on the draft charter could be felt even though official statements were couched in the most diplomatic manner. For example, Jawara told the Freetown summit that: “Our initial success should not, however, inhibit the expeditious adoption of an African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. That is why the Gambian government, in its unflinching determination to contribute effectively to the establishment of an African machinery that will promote the respect for and protection of human and people’s rights, has requested to host the Second Ministerial Meeting on the Draft Charter.
The Second Ministerial Meeting on the Draft Charter was convened in Banjul in January 1981. The twelve-day deliberations resulted in the conclusion of the 68-article Draft Charter. In recognition of The Gambia’s contribution to this effort, the Ministers proposed to the Heads of State and Government the adoption of the charter as the “Banjul Charter”.
The charter was unanimously adopted during the summit of the OAU Heads of State in Nairobi in 1981. It came into force in October 1986 after ratification by a simple majority of the OAU member-states. The Gambia ratified it in June 1983, and proposed to host the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. The country’s candidature met little challenge. Thus when the decision to have the Commission outside the Headquarters of the OAU was taken, Banjul was unanimously chosen as the most favourable site. The decision, conveyed in resolution AH Co/Dec.1 (xxiv), recalled the “vital contribution of The Gambia to the conception and elaboration of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, …and the commitment of The Gambia to the respect and upholding of the rule of law and human and people’s right….” The naming of the African human rights charter after Banjul (the Banjul Charter), and the establishment of both the African Human Rights Commission and the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies in The Gambia indicate the amount of prestige that the country’s human rights activism won her. As President Kenneth Kaunda recognised, “Addis Ababa is synonymous with the OAU; Banjul is synonymous with the promotion and protection of human rights in Africa.”
Principled and independent: The Gambia’s policy towards independence movements
The Jawara administration’s policy with regards to the recognition of several liberation movements indicates the extent to which the country was eager to assert her independence and sovereignty.
For example, with the exception of Namibia and South Africa, where the Jawara administration gave outright recognition to both the South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo) and the African National Congress (ANC) before the electoral victory of these movements, The Gambia refused to recognise any Zimbabwean or Angolan liberation movements as the sole representative of their people before they could constitute a government and have effective control over their territories. The Gambia maintained this position despite the fact that the majority of African states had recognised the MPLA of Angola and the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe by May 1975. The Gambia recognised the MPLA and the Zanu when these movements fulfilled these conditions. The admission of the SADR to the OAU without that body’s fulfilment of these conditions led to The Gambia’s decision to boycott the works of the organisation in 1982.
Conclusion
The above presentation covers foreign policy events, episodes and processes that have brought out several qualities of President Jawara. These qualities enabled him to use The Gambia’s foreign policy to promote security and economic development of the country. We have also seen that Jawara did not limit the Gambia’s foreign policy to economic and security questions alone. Foreign policy was used to promote various values and norms such as respect for Human Rights and democracy and this won Sir Dawda and The Gambia a lot of prestige.
Where does this leave us with the widely held contention in the literature that small states like The Gambia are permanent spectators in international affairs?
Our findings imply, on a more theoretical level, that all states pursue the same three foreign policy objectives: security (including regime security), socio-economic development and norms and value entrepreneurship. States differ only in the detail ingredients of their objectives and the manner in which they pursue their goals. Generally these claims are only stated in the theoretical literature. The Gambia’s diplomacy under Sir Dawda fully demonstrates the claims.
Ends
