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Momodou
Denmark
11512 Posts |
 Posted - 07 Jan 2019 : 22:23:35
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TRRC hearings begins today
The Point: Monday, January 07, 2019
http://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/article/trrc-hearings-begins-today
The Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) will today 7 January 2019 start its first public hearing at its Secretariat, Dunes Resorts.
This decision was finalized at a meeting of the commissioners and senior staff of the Commission on 5 December 2018.
The TRRC was set up last October, comprising eleven commissioners with the mandate of investigating the alleged killing, torture, disappearances and other human rights abuses that occurred during the former regime.
The first hearings today will focus on the 22 July, 1994 coup and circumstances surrounding it before moving to 1995 and look at among other events, the case of former Finance Minister Ousman Koro Ceesay.
The commission has no mandate to grant amnesty but could make recommendations of such person and persons to be granted upon application after certain conditions.
The committee set up include the Human Rights Violations Committee, Amnesty Committee, Reparations Committee, Child Protection and Sexual and Gender-based Violence Committee, and Reconciliation Committee. All but one of these committees has five commissioners on it; one has six members.
Meanwhile, the TRRC is calling on all victims of Human Rights Violations during 1994 to come to the TRRC Headquarters at Dunes Resort, Kololi and record their statements. If they are unable to come to the TRRC Headquarters, they may call 9348929 or 2949170 and arrangements will be made to take their statements.
Author: Arfang M.S. Camara
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Momodou
Denmark
11512 Posts |
Posted - 08 Jan 2019 : 09:17:28
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Its disgusting that GRTS the public broadcaster decided to make the FIFA president's visit the head line news and did not mention the commencement of this very important event in our history. I watched both the 8PM and 10 PM news and not a single sentence about this event. Shame on GRTS!!!
They are behaving like children just because of this: How and why TRRC contracted QTV
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Momodou
Denmark
11512 Posts |
Posted - 08 Jan 2019 : 14:33:59
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Gambia reconciliation process to look into former leader's abuses
The Gambia's truth and reconciliation commission for Yaya Jammeh-era crimes opened Monday. Will it work?
by Amandla Thomas-Johnson
Aljazeera: Tuesday January 8th, 2019
Serrekunda, The Gambia - When Ebrima Chongan was confronted by a cadre of mutinying soldiers near Banjul on July 22, 1994, it was a matter of shoot or die.
A former commander of the Gendarmerie, he knew some of the men coming towards him and what they were capable of - hours before they were his subordinates.
But now they had torn off their berets and joined a mutiny led by another one of his trainees, a young colonel called Yahya Jammeh.
"I opened fire," he said. "They scattered."
Chongan recounted on Monday his experiences of the coup that brought Jammeh to power at the first hearing of a commission set up to discover the truth of his brutal rule.
For 22 years, between 1994 and 2016, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, torture, and wholesale massacres became state policy. They were most often carried out with impunity.
Chongan would later endure arbitrary detention, solitary confinement in a mosquito-ridden cell, beatings with rifle butts and a crude mock execution.
Other victims, witnesses and even perpetrators are expected to come forward to testify at the Truth Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), which has broad powers to administer compensation to victims and, crucially, suggest alleged perpetrators for prosecution.
The 11-member commission drawn from all the major regions, and which includes a bishop and an imam will begin at the causes before taking up Jammeh's oppression, which included the hunting of alleged witches and wizards, his bogus HIV-cure programme, the persecution of sexual minorities, and the silencing of the media.
A session will be devoted to the "Jugglers" - the shadowy paramilitary group said to be behind many of the atrocities.
With Jammeh now gone and with him the excuses and cover-ups that had left victims and their families in the dark, they now feel it is time for truth and justice.
"We demand that light be shed, that they really have to give us facts and do their homework," said Baba Hydara, whose father, journalist Deyda Hydara and cofounder of The Point newspaper, was killed in December 2004.
Deyda Hydara was pursued by two taxis after a late night at work while he was dropping off two colleagues. As he drove down a quiet back street, one of the taxis drew close. Shots rang out. Hydara slumped over on his steering wheel as his car veered off into a nearby ditch.
Baba blames the regime's Junglers for the killing of her father, whose vociferous newspaper columns denouncing regime excesses earned him the ire of state authorities.
Hydara, who now copublishes The Point, said he wants the full chain of Jammeh's command to be held accountable.
"Everyone, even the drivers that drove the taxis, must face justice," he said.
Read more here
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TRRC hearings begins today
