The death of an African American, George Floyd, at the hands of a white policeman in Minneapolis, has sparked several days of violent demonstrations across the United States.
It has also elicited global outrage, including a planned protest in Banjul by the so-called Coalition of Human Rights Defenders.
However, in one of those conversations on social media, an older adult wondered why most of our people are ever quick to jump into matters happening in the United States while ignoring worse situations within their own country. He cited the growing number of extrajudicial killings by our police, which are largely ignored by the same people obsessed about the death of Floyd in America.
For sure, we have had our own ‘Minneapolis moments’ in The Gambia. On 7 June 2017, in Foni Kanilai, a suburb of Banjul, a 52-year old was killed by ECOMIG forces, leading to a protest in Kanilai in Foni that was quickly brought under control. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) never issued a report or called for a state investigation.
However, there is a difference between police killings in the United States and what has been happening in The Gambia. In the former, the brutality takes a racial coloration primarily against blacks. At the same time, in the latter, it is more a matter of human rights abuse resulting from contempt, bestiality, and fundamental orientation deficiencies.
Besides, the real issue in the United States is not just the killings but the inequality and injustice that breed such tragedies in the first place. Most of the people currently protesting the Minneapolis killing may find Floyd a symbol of their collective anger.
When you have a divided society along with race, ethnicity, class, color, or religious lines, and the leadership is deemed to be complicit, the tragedy is what you now see on the streets of America. That is also where a lesson can be drawn by President Adama Barrow, who marked the anniversary of his government and seeking a second term in office.
Police killings, impunity, and health inequities are now new, and neither is the struggle against them in the new Gambia. However, this newfound visibility was brought about by swelling political and social movements in which to press for constructive change in our security and governance initiative. The time for action is now to end political impunity and render Justice to Haruna Jatta.
Haruna Jatta died of police bestiality; he died of police brutality; he was a victim of police killings of an unarmed civilian protesting. Haruna Jatta’s killings mark the first verdict for fatal police killings under the watch of President Adama Barrow.
In the case of Haruna Jatta, the abject failures of the Gambia government to call for criminal prosecution for his death starkly revealing the profound link between ethnic chauvinism and the people’s health illuminate the flip side of this pain: the fundamental links between political, social justice and public health is the view that everyone deserves equal human rights: Haruna Jatta’s uninterrupted sleep, living into eternity the true meaning of “sleep” as a euphemism of political death. It is unbelievable and incomprehensible that law enforcement has not been able to bring Haruna’s killer to justice.
It was a symbolic rite of passage. Haruna Jatta, we believe, spent nine months in his mother’s womb before he was born. Moreover, he spent two years in a state of sleep in the “womb of time” without justice to his killer! What does it mean to act with impunity? Esoteric numerology? You may so think.
Feeling hurt and betrayed, the family of Haruna Jatta may seek redress through the Court, by filing a lawsuit with the Gambian High Court, by sending a petition to Court of Justice of the African Union, by using the Human Rights Commission Act, or by complaining to the Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice. The police should never have resorted to self-help. Our past of civilian-military despotism evokes a sad memory about it. Democracy does not support it. Due process of law forbids it.
Moreover, the rule of law abhors it. What was the offense of Haruna Jatta? Moreover, what was the’ sin Haruna committed that earned him instant death.
Where is the National Human Rights Commission?
Where is the Gambian Police?
Where is the Gambian State?
Will Haruna Jatta get justice?
Did Haruna get justice?
If Haruna did not get justice, are we to expect Haruna to get justice? Maybe, maybe not. Some have argued that Haruna did not get justice because a man of means, influence, and the connection was fingered in his brutal murder. Thus, nothing happened to that man of means. If this was true of Haruna’s case, is there a possibility that Haruna will get justice?
However, we claim to live in a country where law rules and reigns. What is the position of the law on this? What is the relationship between sin, crime, and law in the Gambia? Will the Gambia State allow Haruna to die in vain? Will the Gambian people allow this murder to go unpunished? God Almighty, give us a country! We certainly do not have one.
Moreover, yes, we need one, and we deserve to have one. Where the law and nothing else reign. God, give us a country.
This then brings us back to the United States. The killing of a black man by a white police officer did not start with President Trump’s election.
In August 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, an African American teenager, Michael Brown, was shot dead by a white police officer under President Barack Obama. That killing gave rise to the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement and protests that swept across the United States at the time.
“What is true about this moment that was also true in 2014 is that these are the symptoms of a centuries-old virus of white supremacy in America,” said Brittany Packnett Cunningham, co-founder of the ‘Campaign Zero’ movement against police violence, last weekend.
Although the late civil rights leader, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., is being quoted profusely, especially by those who deride the looting and arson that accompany some of the current protests, Heather Gray, a former director at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, puts the issue in a clearer perspective.
Borrowing extensively from King’s book, ‘Stride Toward Freedom,’ Gray discusses the difference between the nonviolence that he (King) preached and the pacifism that some now advocate in the face of injustice. She then quoted what King wrote, which is also a warning for a society like ours where moderates are increasingly being ‘radicalized’ by the choices of those who believe temporary power gives them the latitude to misbehave: “It must be emphasized that nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist.
If one uses this method because he is afraid or merely because he lacks instruments of violence, he is not truly nonviolent. This is why Gandhi often said that if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight.”
For a society to thrive and all citizens are at peace with one another, the leader should be seen as fair to all, regardless of real or manufactured differences. While Trump may, therefore, not be directly held accountable for the death of Floyd or the contradictions within the American society that lead to such killings, his rhetoric and body language before and after coming to power have emboldened white supremacists who see his government as theirs. When a leader promotes one ethnic group, race, or religion above another, he/she unwittingly encourages divisions that make progress difficult for any society.
As it is in America, so it is for the Gambia where perception is now strong that the current administration is less than even-handed in the allocation of national offices and privileges.
Given my experience as a former media chief, I know how emotional our people can be about the distribution of appointments, even when the benefits go to individuals rather than to their ethnic or religious groups. However, one thing is sure: The country cannot pull together when some parts feel alienated or unwanted. This is where honesty is essential if we must tackle this problem.
While President Barrow may be compiling its list of appointments by numbers, some other people are also looking at what they consider more prominent and more strategic positions being concentrated in a specific section of the country. The circumstances surrounding the death of Haruna Jatta require an independent investigation.
If I were the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice, I would authorize a coroner inquest, including a first-class autopsy to determine the cause of death. Not because of any desire to Indict the Police, but to conduct our law enforcement processes in line with the rule of law and international best practices.
The State and the Police may learn some lessons from such an inquiry. May the Good Lord have mercy on the soul of Haruna Jatta. May he continue to sleep in peace.
