By Omar Bah
Molly Phee, the United States Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, has affirmed the United States’ commitment to supporting Gambia’s accountability process. The initiative is part of a broader US strategy to enhance democratic governance and human rights across Africa.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) recently approved the establishment of a special tribunal to prosecute Yahya Jammeh and his associates for gross human rights violations committed during his regime.
Jammeh has been living in exile in Equatorial Guinea since his ousting in December 2016. He is expected to be extradited to The Gambia or another African country to face trial on charges including murder, kidnapping, torture, and sexual violence.
The crimes include extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, fake HIV/AIDS treatments leading to deaths, and the 2005 massacre of over 50 West African migrants, including nine Nigerians.
Responding to a standard question during an online press conference on President Joseph R Biden Jr’s December 2024 travel to Angola, the first visit of a US president to Sub-Saharan Africa since 2015, Assistant Secretary Molly Phee said:”We will do our best to be supportive, to help the Gambian people achieve the accountability that you seek.”
She added: “And I just want to say how excited we are that Ecowas supported the establishment of the hybrid court. You may be aware that the State Department has an office that specialises in global criminal justice, and that office provided some technical assistance in the effort to set up the court. And we believe it’s important for accountability and progress for The Gambia. And the contact you spoke to is correct: It is often a challenge with these courts to make sure there is continued funding and continued attention.”
Turning to President Biden’s visit, Assistant Secretary Phee provided an overview of the President’s Angola travel, including his visit to the Lobito Corridor infrastructure project, the pledge to provide $1 billion in humanitarian assistance to 31 African countries, and US efforts to deepen the US-Africa partnership.
Commenting on the US approach to the challenge of failed democratic governance in West Africa, Phee said it is distressing for “us that the people of Guinea-Conakry, as well as many in the Sahel, are losing the opportunity to dictate their own future—which is really the point of democracy, to unlock prosperity and opportunity for individuals and communities, and to make sure that government resources are used for the benefit of the population.”.
She said both outgoing President Biden and Secretary Blinken believe “very strongly” that Africa is strategic and that the United States should treat Africa as a strategic region of the world.
“That has been their approach over the lifetime of the Biden-Harris administration,” she said.
“President Biden issued a strategy to address our relations with Africa in 2022, and he also hosted, as you’ll recall, the Africa Leaders’ Summit in December of 2022. And the theme of the strategy is really to have a genuine partnership with our African friends and partners and to lift up African voices in the global conversation. So that’s why you’ve seen the administration work very hard to advance African equities in global channels.”
