The
next sitting of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC)
will focus on Gambia’s former President Yahya Jammeh’s 2009 witch-hunting
exercise, the Commission secretariat announced on Monday.
It
said it was wrapping up its ninth session on Sexual and Gender Based Violence
and now gearing up to the tenth session of hearings.
The
exercise primarily targeted Gambian communities, particularly those in the
region of Foni, where Mr Jammeh himself hailed from, forcing several people to
drink a concoction that would render them to be unconscious and admit to being
witches and wizards.
The
TRRC says it intends for the first time, to conduct these hearings outside its
Dunes Headquarters, saying its 2017 Act, under Section 16(1) grants the
chairperson the authority to determine at what times and where the Commission
shall sit to conduct its hearings.
In
March 2009, Amnesty International reported that up to 1,000 Gambians had been
abducted by the government-sponsored “witch doctors” on charges of witchcraft,
and taken to government detention centres where they were forced to drink
poisonous hallucinogenic substances.
“Section
15(1)(c) of the Act also empowers the Commission to gather information not only
through individual hearings but to also conduct group hearings in pursuit of
its truth seeking mandate. As such, the
Commission will hold hearings in identified communities in the Gambia,” the
Commission said.
It
said the hearings might include both individual and group hearings from members
of the affected communities.
On
21 May 2009, The New York Times reported that the alleged witch-hunting
campaign had been sparked by Mr Jammeh, who believed that the death of his aunt
earlier that year could be attributed to witchcraft.
The
Commission says the identified locations for the planned community hearings on
the witch-hunt exercise are Jambur, Sibanor and Essau. Hearings on the
witch-hunt exercise will begin on the 11th to 14th November at Dunes Resort,
18th to 21st November at Jambur, 25th to 28th November at Sibanor and 2nd to
5th December at Essau.
The
Commission’s final witness in its ninth session was Fatou Toufah Jallow, a 2014
beauty queen of Mr Jammeh’s organised beauty pageant and one of the three women
who accused him of rape and sexually abusing them while still in office.
Ms
Jallow’s testimony reveals that women were pressured by presidential aides
regularly to visit and work for Jammeh. One of the women is a Gambian pageant
winner who has accused the ex-president of raping her. The victim, Fatou
“Toufah” Jallow said she met Jammeh when she was 18 years old after winning a
beauty pageant in 2014.
Immediately
after Mr Jammeh’s going into exile in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in January
2017, President Adama Barrow announced that a Truth, Reconciliation and
Reparations Commission would be appointed to investigate any possible crimes
committed by Jammeh, saying the Commission wouldn’t prosecute Jammeh but only
investigate the alleged crimes.
