(Thursday 24th October 2019 Issue)
The
TRRC’s ongoing public hearings have generated a number of interesting
narratives in Gambian society. From the testimonies and statements of victims,
perpetrators and alleged perpetrators emerge a narrative of brutal
dictatorship, gross human rights violations, and the victimization of hundreds
of innocent Gambians.
This
narrative reveals that under the previous regime, the rule of law was little
more than just some words in the books. Many people were arrested, often for
frivolous reasons, arbitrarily detained, tortured, and sometimes killed or
disappeared without any due process. The existence of such a regime of impunity
may no longer be denied because of the confessions of perpetrators who were
directly involved in the violations and the testimony of victims who suffered
all manner of violations.
The
TRRC public hearings have also generated a counter narrative that the
Commission is a mere witch-hunt against Yahya Jammeh. A portion of this
witch-hunting narrative has it that some witnesses appearing before the
Commission are bribed or threatened to lie against the former president.
This
narrative is clearly mistaken because by definition, to witch hunt is to go after
someone in a hostile manner out of mere suspicion, blatant impunity and just
because you can. That is certainly not what the TRRC is doing.
The
TRRC is actively investigating twenty two years of real Gambian history,
documenting the human rights violations that occurred during that period,
identifying the various institutional, administrative, legislative and policy
failures that made them possible, actively offering tangible, life changing
service to victims, and generating within the Gambian public space a robust
conversation on what happened here and how we must never allow its recurrence.
These TRRC activities are clearly not reducible to mere
witch-
hunting.
It
is a verifiable record of public interest that so far the TRRC has generated a
wealth of historical material on several important events including the July
1994 coup, the November 11, 1994 incident, the January 1995 arrests of former
AFPRC junta members Sanna Sabally and Sadibou Hydara, the June 1995 murder of
former finance Minister Ousman Koro Ceesay, the 1996 Denton Bridge incident
involving UDP supporters and security forces, the April 10/11 2000 student
demonstrations in which at least 12 children and one Red Cross volunteer were
killed, violations against the media and the persecution of journalists
including the December 2014 murder of Deyda Hydara, the activities of the
Junglers, and circumstances surrounding the deaths and disappearances of many
individual victims, among other things.
As
we speak (October 2019), the Commission is hearing testimonies on sexual and
gender-based violations as part of its ninth three-week session since hearings
began on January 7, 2019. It is evident that the historical record emerging
from the TRRC proceedings is an invaluable resource for both present and future
generations of Gambians. The primary material generated in the form of witness
statements and testimonies, and the documents generated through the work of our
Research and Investigations Unit also represent invaluable resources for future
research on Gambian history or transitional justice processes.
The
narratives coming out of the TRRC’s public hearings have clearly captured the
imagination of both the Gambian public and the international community. The
hearings have generated a national and international conversation about what
happened in this country over 22 years of dictatorship, about the human
capacity for cruelty and about the resilience of the human spirit in the face
of unspeakable odds.
These
narratives contain lessons that inspire ideas and raise important questions on
the nature of the human mind and the often absolutely incomprehensible banality
of atrocity.
As
these narratives unfold, it has become shockingly obvious that in most cases of
victimisation, the victims are totally innocent of any crime. Innocent people
are arbitrarily arrested, detained, tortured under interrogation, and often
killed without committing any crime whatsoever.
Entire
communities are traumatized and whole families destroyed in the process, often
reduced to abject poverty, permanent physical damage and unspeakable challenges
of day-to-day survival. While these narratives may reopen old wounds,
re-traumatize victims, traumatize the entire nation, they are also facilitating
the conversations that need to happen for justice, national healing,
reconciliation and the payment of reparations to happen.
But
alongside these narratives is another narrative that adamantly refuses to see
the relevance of the TRRC at all for Gambian society. This narrative has held,
from the very inception of the TRRC, that this Commission is a joke, a circus,
an exercise in futility, and a waste of scarce public resources. Parts of this
narrative even claim that the TRRC commissioners and staff are in it only for
the money. It is further alleged that not only are they in it only for the
money, they also engage in “dugalanteh” activities like bribery, corruption,
and other shady deals in order to make even more money at the TRRC, deny
victims justice, and facilitate freedom for perpetrators. This cannot be
farther from the truth.
But
while the money-making part of this narrative may easily be ignored, the notion
that the TRRC is a joke, a circus, and an exercise in futility should not be
entirely ignored. This notion got a temporary boost when the Junglers were
released but somewhat dissipated when it became increasingly clear that it was
the Ministry of Justice, not the TRRC that released the Junglers. The TRRC was
neither consulted nor asked for its opinion before the decision was made to
release the Junglers. The Commission understands that the Ministry of Justice
used its own discretion to release the Junglers.
The
narrative of the TRRC as a joke, a circus, and a money-wasting exercise in
futility has gained surprising currency in recent days during and after Edward
Singhateh’s appearance before the Commission. Public outrage at Edward
Singhateh seems to morph into outrage against the TRRC for not having him
immediately arrested and charged with the murder of Ousman Koro Ceesay. Gambian
social media circles are not replete with strongly worded calls for the TRRC to
have Edward Singhateh arrested or risk losing credibility. Some of these calls
are clearly made by people who do not fully understand the mandate of the TRRC.
Some
of the calls, surprisingly, are made by Gambians familiar with the TRRC Act and
the general workings of truth commissions. This public outrage is
understandable. But outrage must not be allowed to trump reason, or inspire us
to insist on the TRRC acting outside of its mandate or doing things that, in
the final analysis, will seriously compromise its work.
Some
of those who insist that the TRRC must have Edward Singhateh arrested cite the
case of Yankuba Touray to emphasize their point. If the TRRC could have Yankuba
arrested they argue, why not Edward? The answer is that the TRRC had Yankuba
Touray arrested because he was subpoenaed, reluctantly appeared before the
Commission, but refused to testify, earning himself the charge of contempt.
He
was not arrested because he lied to the Commission. And the TRRC did not
recommend or participate in the subsequent charges of murder brought against
Yankuba Touray. The Ministry of Justice exercising its prerogative again, did
that. If Edward Singhateh was subpoenaed, appeared and refused to testify, the
TRRC would have certainly ordered him arrested and charged with contempt for
the Commission. Whether he would then subsequently be charged with murder would
have been at the discretion of the Ministry of Justice.
While
the TRRC by its very nature cannot have Edward or any witness arrested for
lying before the Commission, it does not mean that lying before the Commission
constitutes any less of a crime, or that witnesses who lie will get away with
it. The Commission is in the middle of its evidence-gathering phase and
investigations on all human rights violations, including investigations into
the murder of Ousman Koro Ceesay and others are open and ongoing. At the end of
the Commission’s work, recommendations to prosecute those most responsible for
human rights violations will certainly be made, and any lies told by any
witness would be cited among the reasons for their prosecution.
It
must be admitted that people skeptical of the eventual prosecution of
perpetrators by the Gambia Government have a rich fund of historical precedents
to cite. It is true that truth commission recommendations in general are not
famous for being implemented by governments. Even in widely cited cases of
truth commission success stories like the South African TRC, many of the
commission’s recommendations especially on reparations are yet to be
implemented two decades later.
A
recent report indicate that over 300 cases of Apartheid era deaths,
disappearances and other violations remain unsolved in South Africa two decades
after the TRC. In Sierra Leone, an estimated $300 million or more was spent on
setting up a special court to try perpetrators as part of that country’s
transitional justice process. The court ended up convicting only nine
perpetrators, including former Liberian president Charles Taylor and others
from parties to civil war atrocities like the Armed Forces Revolutionary
Council (AFRC), the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), and the Civil
Defense Forces (CDF).
Certainly,
the number of perpetrators and the scale of human rights violations in South
Africa and Sierra Leone cannot be compared to that of The Gambia, however bad
our own situation.
Ultimately,
it would be for the citizens of every country to hold their governments
accountable and insist on the implementation of truth commission
recommendations.
And
with the mushrooming culture of the Gambian public’s tendency to hold their
government accountable, that eventuality may well be anticipated in this
country after the submission of the TRRC recommendations. But for now, TRRC
investigations into the murder of Ousman Koro Ceesay and other human rights
violations are open and ongoing. And so it would be premature for the
Commission to order the arrest of any witnesses on suspicion of lying under
oath or before the Commission.
