Kukoi Samba Sanyang

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Kukoi Samba Sanyang (born December 1952 in Wassadu ; † June 18, 2013 in Bamako ) was the leader of an attempted coup in the West African state of Gambia in 1981 .

Early years

Eastern Foni constituency
General election be right Voting share
1977 000000000000708.0000000000708 13.51%

Sanyang (aka "Dr. Manning" or "Dr. Manneh") was born in the village of Wassadu (other spelling Wassadung) in the West Coast region of Foni Jarrol District . He became chairman of the later banned Gambian Socialist Revolutionary Party (GSRP), which was in opposition to President Jawara . In the parliamentary elections in 1972 his brother Momodou L. Sanyang ran for the constituency of Eastern Foni, and he himself in the parliamentary elections in 1977 , without success.

The 1981 coup

In 1980 Jawara accused Libya , which at the time was trying to destabilize governments in many African countries, of having recruited 200 Gambians for a future guerrilla war . Diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken off on October 30, 1980. In order to prevent an overthrow by Sanyang's GSRP in advance, troops from neighboring Senegal were sent to Banjul at the same time . On July 30, 1981, Sanyang's coup took place: with the support of part of the Gambian paramilitary field force , he took power as chairman of the National Revolutionary Council and declared President Jawara to be deposed. Jawara was in London because of Prince Charles' wedding , Sanyang accused him of corruption and poverty in the country. Jawara again asked for support from Senegal, whose 2,000 quickly deployed soldiers put down the coup by August 5, 1981. The death toll was estimated at over 500.

A direct consequence of the coup was an even closer cooperation between Gambia and Senegal, which led to the formation of the Senegambia Confederation on February 1, 1982 .

35 of the coup plotters were sentenced to death by July 1982, while Sanyang himself was suspected to be in Cuba or Libya.

Further career

Sanyang and other Libyan-trained fighters later took part in the Liberian civil war alongside Charles Taylor . In November 1996, some of these fighters were caught in the east of the Gambia when they tried to fight against Jawara's successor Yahya Jammeh . Sanyang left Taylor when he realized that Taylor's "revolution" had little to do with his ideas. He then opened a bar in a suburb of Ouagadougou , the capital of Burkina Faso .

In 2003 he returned to the Gambia for a visit. As Secretary General of the African Democratic Congress , he called in a message in January 2006 for the overthrow of the authoritarian President Yahya Jammeh, who has ruled since 1994.

swell

  • Fischer World Almanac , 1982 and 1983

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary for Kukoi Samba Sanyang ( Memento from June 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. [1]
predecessor Office successor
Sir David Dawda Kairaba Jawara Heads of State of Gambia
July 30 - August 5, 1981 (coup)
Sir David Dawda Kairaba Jawara