*TRRC Update: Towards Never Again*

By Baba Galleh Jallow

Setting up truth commissions are slow and tedious processes. This is true
of both countries – like Canada and Australia for instance - where funds
are readily available for the purpose, and countries like The Gambia where
funds are not readily available for the purpose. In any case, we are happy
to announce that the funds for the selection of TRRC commissioners and the
hiring of the initial staff of the TRRC Secretariat have now been secured.
Because of the Ramadan, the regional nomination and selection of
commissioners is slated to begin during the week of June 18th, immediately
after the eid. Meanwhile, the terms of reference for the initial
secretariat staff are being finalized and will be published in the media
within the next few weeks. These initial hirings are for the Head of the
Outreach, Communication and Media Unit, Head of the Research and
Investigations Unit, Research Officers, Investigation Officers, and
Statement Takers.

Once the nomination and selection of commissioners is complete, hopefully
within two weeks of June 18, the president shall then appoint the 11
members of the commission after consultations with the Ministry of Justice,
regional governors and a number of civil society organizations as provided
for in the TRRC Act. The list of appointed commissioners will then be
publicized and the general public invited to express their views and
opinions on the composition of the commission and on individual members of
the commission. This process will be followed by a short retreat and
training on transitional justice for the commissioners. In the meantime,
statement takers, investigators and researchers will be trained and start
working with victims and others wanting to testify in readiness for their
appearance before the commission. It is anticipated that actual commission
hearings will begin in late July or August. The TRRC is mandated to work
for two years, with the possibility of extension.

The TRRC Act outlines the main objectives of the TRRC as to “create an
impartial historical record of violations and abuses of human rights from
July 1994 to January 2017, in order to . . . promote healing and
reconciliation . . . respond to the needs of victims . . . provide victims
an opportunity to relate their own accounts of the violations and abuses
suffered . . . establish and make known the fate or whereabouts of
disappeared victims . . . grant reparations to victims in appropriate cases
. . . address impunity, and . . .prevent a repetition of the violations and
abuses suffered by making recommendations for the establishment of
appropriate preventive mechanisms including institutional and legal
reforms.”

At the end of its mandate, the TRRC will issue a final report containing
its findings and including recommendations designed to help prevent a
recurrence of dictatorship and gross human rights violations in The Gambia.
Section 14 (4b) of the TRRC Act provides that “after the end of its
mandate, the commission  shall “prepare a comprehensive report which sets
out its activities and findings based on factual and objective information
and evidence collected, received by it or placed at its disposal; and make
recommendations to the President with regard to the creation of
institutions conducive to the development of a stable and democratic
society as well as the institutional, administrative and legislative
measures which should be taken in order to prevent the commission of
violations and abuses of human rights.” In essence then, the overriding
mandate of the TRRC is to ensure justice for victims and promote national
healing but also to prevent a recurrence of dictatorship and gross human
rights violations in The Gambia, #NeverAgain.

The question Gambians and the TRRC must address is how can we make sure
that dictatorship and gross violations of human rights never happen in this
country again? Do we wait for and hope that the recommendations contained
in the TRRC report will prevent dictatorship and human rights violations in
this country? Or do we start that work now? We must address these questions
because while Never Again has been a key mandate of a majority of the 40
truth commissions that have existed around the world since 1974, most truth
commissions have not conclusively helped guarantee non-recurrence of
dictatorship or gross human rights violations in their countries. Most
societies that have had transitional justice and truth commission processes
have not experienced the kind of socio-political and cultural
transformation that can prevent a recurrence of dictatorship or widespread
human rights violations. Some transitional justice experts attribute this
relative lack of truth commission success to a lack of inclusivity in truth
commission processes. In many cases, the general public is more of an
audience than an active participant in truth commission processes.

We have by departed from this tradition of public exclusion and embraced
inclusion by actively reaching out and seeking the participation of all
Gambians in the TRRC process. In 2017, the Ministry of Justice in
collaboration with key stakeholders in this country carried out a
nationwide consultation process at which Gambians were invited and
encouraged to express their opinions on the TRRC process. Opinions and
ideas shared at these national consultations informed the establishment by
the Ministry of Justice of a technical committee of governmental and
non-governmental institutions to actively work together on shaping the
TRRC. This technical committee held regular consultative and brainstorming
sessions at the Ministry of Justice and contributed to the
conceptualization and formulation of the TRRC Act and the guidelines for
the selection of commissioners which were widely publicized in the media.
The committee continues to be actively involved in the production of a
Strategic Plan for the National Transitional Justice Program.

Learning from the lessons of history and in fulfilment of our functions
under Section 23 (1c & e) of the TRRC Act, the TRRC Secretariat has
initiated a “Never Again Campaign” aimed at engaging Gambian civil society
and Gambian communities across the country on an ongoing national
conversation on the structural and cultural causes of dictatorship, with a
view to helping transform Gambia’s political culture and making it hard for
gross human rights violations and impossible for dictatorship to prevail in
The Gambia again. We have reached out and will continue reaching out to
civil society organizations, religious communities, women’s groups, school
children, and other communities across the country to sensitize them on the
nature and work of the TRRC and to encourage their active participation in
the Never Again campaign against dictatorship and human rights violations.

As we have seen in recent social media postings, school children are set to
be important participants in our national conversation on Never Again. As
custodians of our country’s future, children are fundamentally crucial to
the prevention of future dictatorship and human rights violations in this
country. A Children’s Network on Transitional Justice has been created in
schools across the country and there is a high level of interest and
enthusiasm for the TRRC process and the Never Again campaign among the
students we have encountered so far. We will continue sensitizing students
across the country and encouraging their active participation in the TRRC
and wider transitional justice process.

We are extending our outreach and engagement with students to the Gambia
College and the University of The Gambia. We have already expressed to the
Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences our interest in meeting and having
a conversation with their student community. We will be reaching out to the
deans of other UTG schools as well as GTTI, MDI and others in the near
future. Meanwhile on Wednesday May 2, we had a meeting with student members
of the Law Clinic at the UTG Law School. Again, the idea was to explain the
TRRC process and see how best they could become active participants in the
Never Again campaign. We are in the process of finalizing a memorandum of
understanding between the TRRC and the Law Clinic that will outline our
strategies for engagement, most notably, how law students can visit schools
and communities to enlighten students and the wider community on their
constitutional rights and responsibilities. In this regard, we will be
reaching out to the National Council on Civic Education to seek their
collaboration and support in this process and ongoing partnership with the
TRRC.

We are also reaching out to religious leaders and communities of all
denominations across the country. So far with the support of Pastor Forbes
of Abiding Word Ministries, we had a very fruitful interface with the
Evangelical Fellowship of The Gambia on April 29, 2018. The idea was to
explain the TRRC process and see how best the Evangelical community can
support our work, especially national healing and the Never Again campaign.
We are happy to report that the EFG has declared its wholehearted support
and willingness to partner with the TRRC in our engagement with the Gambian
public. We will be following up with other engagements with the EFG.
Meanwhile, we are reaching out and will engage other Christian
denominations as well as Muslim communities to see how best justice,
reconciliation, national healing and Never Again can be promoted through
the use of religious teachings and arguments.

We continue to work very closely with The Association of Nongovernmental
Organizations (TANGO) with a view to collaborating with their network of
civil society organizations on promoting the Never Again campaign. On May
15, 2018 we had a fruitful dialogue with some member organizations of TANGO
at which we explained the TRRC process, familiarized them with the
rationale for the Never Again campaign and jointly came out with
resolutions that will ensure our engagement with them in moving this
process forward. One of the key objectives is to continue working closely
with TANGO in their “The Gambia We Want” campaign throughout the mandate
period of the TRRC.

As part of this update, we are happy to point out that the international
community both inside and outside The Gambia is expressing a rich fund of
goodwill for The Gambia and our transitional justice process. Over the past
few months, we have been invited to meet the ambassadors of France, Britain
and the EU Delegation to The Gambia. The US ambassador has said her doors
are always open to us. We also met with the visiting Deputy Prime Minister
of Belgium and most recently, two officials of the U.S. State Department.
All these members of the international community have expressed genuine
admiration for the manner in which Gambians managed the impasse and a
willingness to support the TRRC and wider transitional justice process. We
are receiving technical support and working very closely with the
International Center for Transitional Justice who have a resident
representative in the country, the Institute for Integrated Transitions who
facilitated a workshop on truth commissions for us in Barcelona back in
March and continues to support our work through their Brain Trust in The
Gambia, and International IDEA with whom we are set to collaborate on our
outreach activities with civil society.  Human Rights Watch is working
closely with the Victims’ Center and many other international organizations
including Justice Rapid Response, the International Committee of the Red
Cross and TRIAL International have reached out to express their willingness
to support The Gambia’s transitional justice process and the work of the
TRRC in particular. The UN Peace Building Support Office, the UNDP and
UNICEF are all rendering significant support to the TRRC and The Gambia’s
transitional justice program.

Finally for this update, we want to call upon the Gambia Government to
consider increasing its budgetary allocation for the TRRC in the next
budget. The ideal scenario would have been for the government to take over
total funding for the TRRC. Where this proves difficult, the government
should consider significantly increasing its financial investment in the
process so that the TRRC can fulfill its mandate with distinction. Suffice
it to say that the success of the TRRC will be a defining legacy of the
Barrow administration. And we ARE going to succeed.


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