Gambians remember 22 years of dictatorship

By Mustapha K Darboe

BANJUL, Gambia (AA)- Victims of former Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh and activists converged at a local hotel on Friday night to remember the regime, which cost the small West African nation hundreds of lives, ahead of the 23rd anniversary of the autocrat’s rise to power.

Saturday will be the 23rd anniversary of the military coup that brought Jammeh to his decades of rule, before he was finally pressured to step down this January and go into exile.

Sheriff Kijera, a senior member of the Gambia Centre for Victims of Human Rights Violations, an institution that was recently established to ensure justice for Jammeh’s victims, said July 22 marks a “dark page in the history of Gambia”.

“The Centre for Victims has begun the campaign for justice, and it is in our resolve to see to it that the government provides justice for the victims of Jammeh,” Kijera told the gathering.

The evening symposium was chaired by a former minister under Jammeh, Dr. Scatter Janneh, who was convicted of treason and jailed for 15 months for distributing T-shirts saying, “Coalition for change, Gambia end dictatorship now”.

In previous years Jammeh celebrated July 22 as a national day, but Gambian authorities this year denied his party a permit to celebrate the day.