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Gambia's First Post-Independence President Jawara Dies at 95

Reuters

   BANJUL - Dawda Kairaba Jawara, Gambia's first post-independence
   president who led the tiny West African country for 24 years before
   being deposed in a 1994 coup, has died at the age of 95, the presidency
   said on Tuesday.

   The office of President Adama Barrow, whose election in 2016 brought an
   end to the rule of the army officer who toppled Jawara, Yahya Jammeh,
   hailed the late president as "an elder statesman" and Gambia's
   "founding father."

   A veterinarian by training, Jawara in 1959 founded the Protectorate
   People's Party, later rechristened the People's Progressive Party,
   which emerged as the dominant political force following independence
   from Britain in 1965.

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