Eugenio's Blog!

Today at work, I was researching the political situation in The Gambia for an asylum client. I learned a lot about Mr. Yahya Jammeh, the current President of The Gambia. President Jammeh gained power in the country after he staged a July 1994 military coup. Since the coup under President Jammeh’s dictatorship, the constitution of The Gambia has been “suspended,” freedom of speech rights have been severely limited, and major violations to basic human rights have been documented.

You may be asking yourself the same question I asked myself this afternoon: how does one go about staging a military coup? I was devastated when I found the answer.

From September 1993 to January 1994, just six months before the coup in The Gambia, Mr. Jammeh attended military courses at Port McClellan, Alabama. He obtained a diploma in Military Science. He must have done pretty well during his studies, too, because in November 1993, he was appointed an honorary citizen by the State of the Georgia, United States (citation). The field of Military Science claims to be a scientific system that if properly employed, will "greatly enhance the practitioner’s ability to prevail in an armed conflict with any adversary" (citation).

Why the United States uses Port McClellan as a training cell to teach foreign leaders how to violate international law and basic notions of human rights is beyond my comprehension.