This Monday, the United States decided to ban former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, his wife Zineb, and his children, Mariam and Muhammed, from entering the United States. After his two decades in office, Jammeh refused to step down as President to 2016 election winner Adama Barrow, resulting in military threats from the African Union and West African regional body ECOWAS, as well as his exile to Equatorial Guinea. Barrow’s government also claims that Jammeh stole at least $50m from the country while in office. Now, two years later, the State Department has declared Jammeh as banned from the United States under a category of foreign officials believed to have committed “significant corruption or gross violation of human rights”. This will affect Jammeh directly, as he owns $3.5m of real estate in Potomac Maryland and was a graduate of military training in Alabama.
I found this article interesting for many reasons. First, I thought it was interesting that the United States is only banning Jammeh now, as opposed to two years ago. What caused this change? This article also made me wonder what other world leaders fall under the same “banned” category as Jammeh, since I have never heard of this ban before. Does it mean that more leaders around the world whom we have tensions with will join the list? I wonder how greatly this will affect Jammeh, since he does have some (costly) ties with the United States, and lastly, I wonder if this will send a message to other world leaders to either “clean up their acts” or be slapped down by the United States.