Shortly after his victory in the last presidential election in Gambia last December, President Adama Barrow will have to deal with many former pundits of the deposed regime of Yahya Jammeh. In the absence of a majority in Parliament, many Gambians fear that all their efforts to seek justice for the various abuses and crimes committed during Yahya Jammeh's 22-year dictatorship will be literally wiped out overnight.
Many Gambians are now wondering whether President Adama Barrow, who has just been re-elected with 53% of the vote, will or will not follow the recommendations of the commission that investigated the dictatorship of former President Yahya Jammeh. The latter has in fact requested that the perpetrators of crimes committed at that time be brought before the courts to answer for the acts of which they are accused.
Among them is Fabakary Tombong Jatta, a former close collaborator of dictator Yahya Jammeh who was appointed on April 14 by MPs as Speaker of Parliament. To the point of immediately arousing many apprehensions and concerns across the country, and even abroad.
We remember that the fallen regime of Yahya Jammeh had particularly distinguished itself during its 22 years as one of the most dictatorial, brutal and bloodthirsty in Africa. Among the most sinister atrocities for which he is accused, there are kidnappings and torture, rape and castration, enforced disappearances, assassinations...
To help elucidate all these abuses and crimes, a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) was set up and carried out its mission. It has thus made it possible to compile a file on the faith of several testimonies from Gambians across the country. With the key to television audiences to put all Gambians in the same tune of information. Result: a voluminous report in 17 volumes that the TRRC put in the hands of President Adama Barrow like a hot potato. With an express recommendation: “the prosecution of Yahya Jammeh and his accomplices before an international tribunal, in a West African country other than The Gambia”. On the grounds in particular of “murders, arbitrary detentions, disappearances”.
Ayesha Jammeh, the niece of dictator Yahya Jammeh who attributes the disappearance of her father and one of her aunts to her uncle, there is little more to expect from the recommendations of the TRRC with the return of the allies of Yahya Jammeh alongside President Adama Barrow. Except to hope that foreign countries take up these cases by asserting the "recourse to the principle of universal jurisdiction" as Germany is accustomed to do now. Otherwise, it is hard to see how the regime of President Adama Barrow could go through with the recommendations of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) without being voluntarily or involuntarily prevented from doing so by its new allies. Now that his hands are more tied, for lack of an absolute majority in Parliament.
By Ousman Mbaye
