(JollofNews) – While we celebrate the victory and the fall of a dictator, we should remember our comrades, brothers, sons, friends, love ones and fellow compatriots who had fallen as unfortunate victims of a dictatorial repression. I am personally granting this victory to their families and love ones in their memories.
Today, they are not here with us to witness this victory but their spirits will surely be with us. Their spirits will continue to haunt their tormentors and those who brutally murdered them in cold blood.
They are: 2nd Lt Momodou Lamin Darboe (Susso), 2nd Lt Buba Jammeh, 2nd Lt Bakary Manneh, Lt Abdoulie Dot Faal, Lt Gibril Saye, Lt Basiru Barrow, Sergeant Fafa Nyang and many others. These people were killed extra-judicially in connection with their alleged involment in the 11 November 1994 purported failed coup
Lt Almamo Manneh and Corporal Momodou Dumbuya who were killed for their alleged involvement in a purported coup attempt of 15 January 2000. Corporal Momodou Dumbuya was gunned down at the Albert Market in Banjul in broad daylight.
Lt Ebou Lowe, 2nd Lt Alieu Ceesay, WO2 Alpha Bah, Staff Sergeant Manlafi Corr and Daba Marenah who were clandestinely killed for their alleged involment in a purported coup attempt of 21st March 2006.
Lamin Sanneh and his fallen comrades who were heartlessly murdered in gruesome ways for their alleged involvement in a purported coup plot of 30th December 2014.
This victory will also be given to the families of Deyda Hydara and Koro Ceesay who were killed in gruesome ways respectively.
To the families of all those who were secretly killed or unnoticeably disappeared without any trace. These people are victims of a dictatorial repressive methods through the use of a killing squad or assassins whose only task was to kill and eliminate all potential opponents of the dictator Yahya Jammeh.
No one can forgive Yahya Jammeh today except the families, the sons, daughters, widows, fathers and mothers of those who were brutally killed by Yahya Jammeh by the use of his black scorpion assassins or junglers. Without the families of those victims, no one can unilaterally forgive Yahya Jammeh and his senseless state agents and his cold-blooded murderers.
Let us not forget that over the years, Yahya Jammeh and his killers have made so many widows and orphans who were left to struggle on their own after the cold-blooded murder of their breadwinner. Many had been sent to prison without trial. Not to talk about the tortures that had been meted out to so many Gambians at the NIA Headquarters. Many are still living with the scars and injuries sustained from such horrible tortures.
Even if people have to forgive, the trauma, the scars and the injuries will stay with them for the rest of their lives. As Nelson Mandela said, “we may forgive but we can never forget”.
The new government should close down the NIA headquarters and turn it into a museum in memory of the countless victims of Yaya Jammeh’s regime. The NIA should be revamped. The continuous existence of that name will serve as persistent reminders by the victims of torture as the NIA headquarters was used as the torture chamber of the agents Yaya Jammeh. Many Gambians had been tortured or detained there unlawfully.
Captain Bunja Darboe is a former officer of the Gambian army who was arrested and sentenced to life for plotting to topple the regime of President Yahya Jammeh in 1996. He was released in 2015 as part of a mass presidential amnesty.
