The Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations has expressed deep sadness by the recent alliance concluded between the NPP/APRC. In a press release issued Monday, the victims of the atrocities and human rights violations committed by Yahya Jammeh’s regime smell foul play with the omerta surrounding the full content of the purported signed memorandum of understanding between the two political camps.
“As purportedly claimed by the Interim Leader of the APRC Fabakary Tombong Jatta and the Deputy Spokesperson of the National People’s Party (NPP) to have signed an MOU on 2 September 2021, the parties failed to disclose their obnoxious MOU publicly because it represents the worst betrayal of public trust“.
The victims’ community finds it utterly shocking and deplorable that President Adama Barrow’s NPP goes into an alliance with “the former APRC regime led by a tinpot dictator Yaya Jammeh who orchestrated the crimes of mass killings and raped innocent mothers and daughters, and fathers and sons for 22 years of APRC tyrannical regime.”
The press release further reads that “The victims find it quite disheartening and treacherous for Adama Barrow to abandon the Gambia’s Transitional Justice Process and her crying citizens to run back to that killer and rapist tyrant and his terrorist party for an Alliance to consolidate a desire for the self-perpetuating rule.“
The shocking and bewildering nature of the move comes as, according to the victims, “The Alliance came at a time when the Truth, Reparations, and Reconciliation Commission (TRRC) is at the tail end of its mandate and subsequent submission of its final report and recommendations to the President. Therefore, the Alliance is perceived as a threat that may affect the implementation of TRRC recommendations by the government as well as the healing process of victims of the former ruling government“.
The Victim Center and the community of victims of the former regime of the APRC see this Alliance as outrageous and unpatriotic. Therefore, Jammeh victims say they expect all Gambians to express their disappointment regardless of party affiliation.
The Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations says it will continue to work with relevant partners to facilitate justice to victims through national, regional, and international mechanisms to ensure that the recommendations of the TRRC are fully implemented to safeguard the rights of victims in the country.
Finally, victims of Human Rights abuses under Yahya Jammeh’s dictatorship “strongly advise the President to respect the promotion and protection of fundamental human rights as enshrined and entrenched in the 1997 Constitution of The Gambia”.