The Gambia:
Bringing Jammeh to Account
UN Photo / Amanda Voisard
In 2007, then-Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh embarked on a destructive delusion.
He declared that he could cure AIDS with a secret herbal concoction and conscripted Gambians living with HIV and AIDS into his bogus Presidential Alternative Treatment Programme (PATP), where they were ordered to cease taking antiretroviral drugs. The concoctions often made them violently ill. He also slathered his concoctions on the patients’ partially nude bodies while chanting prayers. 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. Armed guards were ever present.
The Gambia's Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) has identified 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.
In the months following the end of Yahya Jammeh’s brutal regime, victims of his PATP program in began speaking out about the violations they endured at the hands of the former dictator.
AIDS-Free World traveled to the Gambia, where we met the victims face-to-face. Many of them were sharing their experiences with the outside world for the first time. We learned more of the harrowing details of Jammeh's sham treatment during our visit: how he administered his untested herbal concoctions on hundreds of HIV-positive individuals; how he prohibited victims from taking their anti-retroviral drugs; how many the health of so many victims deteriorated and how some died. The psychological scars of their time in Jammeh’s “treatment programme” still remain with many of the victims.
In May 2018, AIDS-Free World assisted three survivors in filing a legal action against the former Gambian president—now living in exile in Equatorial Guinea—in the High Court of The Gambia. Fatou Jatta, Ousman Sowe, and Lamin "Moko" Ceesay seek financial damages for harm suffered and a declaration from the High Court that their human rights were violated.
The civil action, which marks the first time Jammeh is being sued in the Gambian courts for abuses he committed while he led the country, is supported by our organization in partnership with the Gambian-based Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA). Combeh Gaye of the Gambian law firm Antouman A.B. Gaye & Co. is representing the three claimants.
The case is ongoing.
In September 2019, the same three survivors asked authorities in the Gambia to revoke the licenses of two medical doctors who directed PATP, as both still practicing medicine. The survivors were supported again by AIDS-Free World, IHRDA, and lawyer Combeh Gaye.
Fraudulent AIDS cures have been a feature of the HIV story since the 1980s. Most notoriously, South Africa’s health minister during Thabo Mbeki’s administration dismissed antiretroviral therapies as “poison” and promoted garlic, lemon, and beetroot as an alternative treatment, leading to appalling suffering. It remains a scandal that Jammeh’s experiments on people living with HIV were met with silence by African governments.
The testimony of the survivors of Jammeh's AIDS cure offers a powerful lesson to the world: follow the science.
AIDS-Free World continues to support the survivors as they seek a measure of justice from Jammeh and his medical accomplices. We remain awed and humbled by their bravery.
The TRRC report
On December 24, 2021, the final report of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission was made public. The report includes a volume excoriating Jammeh’s fake HIV “cure.” The Commission recommends that Yahya Jammeh and a medical doctor involved in PATP, Tamsir Mbowe, "be charged with murder and prosecuted for intentionally and knowingly causing the death of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLHIV)." The TRRC also recommends that Jammeh and Mbowe be “prosecuted for negligence causing deaths of PLHIV who took part in the programme who were deprived from lifesaving treatment" and "for the inhumane and degrading treatment meted out on PLHIV that took part in the treatment programme."
Read the TRRC’s chapter on the bogus Presidential Alternative Treatment Programme here.
PATP survivor and HIV activist Ms. Fatou Jatta testifies at the Gambian Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) in July 2020.
Mr. Ousman Sowe, a survivor of Jammeh’s bogus HIV “cure.”
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