We Honor the Survivors of the Bogus AIDS ‘Cure’ Who Took on Their Dictator

As Gambian Truth and Reconciliation Hearings Conclude, Remember that the World Watched While Yahya Jammeh Dealt Death

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MAY 27, 2021— Testimony is scheduled to conclude this week before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), which has exposed human rights violations committed by the dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh, who ruled The Gambia from 1994 to 2017.

The occasion must not pass without a word in honor of the ten survivors of Jammeh’s HIV and AIDS “cure” program who appeared before the TRRC to expose the dictator’s destructive delusions. For a decade, from 2007 to 2017, Jammeh forced hundreds of HIV-positive Gambians to cease taking antiretroviral therapy and submit to his deadly sham of a human experiment. Armed guards ensured that no one refused his “treatment.”

None of it was a secret. Jammeh boasted to the world that he had developed a “cure” for AIDS. He was eager to tell international journalists about his “miraculous” abilities.

Fatou M. Jatta, a Gambian woman living with HIV, braved stigma and discrimination to testify against Jammeh before the TRRC.

“When I went for the ‘treatment’ and began to drink the ‘medicine,’ that’s when I realized I was getting weaker,” she said last July during televised hearings. “Many people thought I would die there.”

It is vital to recognize that the international community maintained near silence in the face of Jammeh’s murderous claims during the years of the “cure” program.

After UN resident coordinator Fadzai Gwaradzimba challenged the efficacy of the “cure” in 2007, Jammeh had her ejected from the country. She was replaced by Adama Guindo. We can find no evidence that Mr. Guindo ever uttered a word in public about the “cure.” The World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva welcomed representatives from The Gambia in 2008. In 2011, the Gambia sat on the WHA General Committee. Jammeh addressed the UN General Assembly in 2009, 2013, and 2014. Jammeh was not ostracized by the countries and institutions of the world.

In the full view of the international community, the leader of a country pretended to have a “cure” for a pernicious virus, and no one in a position of responsibility said or did anything about it. Such callous indifference to the suffering of others should chill the hearts of all of us. We must do all we can to ensure that another Jammeh isn’t allowed to peddle “cures” that kill. In a November 9, 2020, statement opening the 17th session of public hearings, the TRRC named 31 individuals who died “either during the treatment programme or shortly after leaving it,” according to a TRRC statement. The number is likely much higher.

AIDS-Free World—with partners such as the Gambian-based Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA)—is determined to make an example of Jammeh.

In May 2018, we assisted three survivors—Ms. Jatta, Ousman Sowe, and Lamin Ceesay—in filing a legal action against the former Gambian president in the High Court of The Gambia. The three seek financial damages for harm suffered and a declaration from the High Court that their human rights were violated.

While the civil suit is an important means to achieve justice for some victims on a personal level, Jammeh needs to be criminally charged for the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of the “cure” program.

We have also sought to strip Jammeh’s medical accomplices of their professional credentials. In September 2019, Jatta and Ceesay asked authorities in The Gambia to revoke the licenses of two medical doctors who worked with Jammeh to administer the “cure,” as both are still practicing medicine.

Astonishingly, one of the doctors, Dr. Tamsir Mbowe, testified before the TRRC and claimed that Jammeh’s “cure” worked. “The programme is true,” he said. “The treatment is true.”

But the testimony of the ten survivors before the TRRC is irrefutable. The “cure” was a deadly sham.

They described how Jammeh forced them to drink concoctions that often made them violently ill. “Every time I drank the ‘medicine’ I used to vomit—almost filling a bucket,” testified Fatou Jatta. “Every time I vomited, he [Jammeh] would bring another Evian-size bottle and make me drink again. I suffered there.”

Jammeh slathered the concoctions on his victims’ partially nude bodies while chanting prayers. A protected witness said that Jammeh rubbed the “medicine” over his whole body “including my private parts.” Select sessions were broadcast on Gambian television without the consent of the victims, some of whom hadn’t yet told friends or family of their HIV status. Patient autonomy and informed consent were ignored, with patients feeling they could not decline or question treatment procedures.

We are determined to see that the victims achieve justice via the courts and other juridical bodies. Jammeh must be criminally charged for the various acts he committed against people living with HIV. The international community must not stand idly by while a deluded dictator puts lives in danger in service to his phony medical “miracles.” We must all ensure that such an atrocity is never allowed to occur again.

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Media Contact
Peter Duffy
media@aidsfreeworld.org
Tel: +1-646-924-1710